Salvation Through Surrender: Chapter 2 – Studying Truth for Different Reasons

Chapter 2 – Studying Truth for Different Reasons

The library I need to get to is in sight, but I have to keep my distance from it for the moment, as an army of ratmen is assaulting the border. I am resting next to a tiger and a leopard who are also watching the battle with me. Thanks to my special eyes, I can clearly see the army using their defensive magic against the verminous invaders. They are lined up in a formation similar to that of a chess board with icy armor symbolizing their role in battle. The pawns and knights are front in line and fight using conjured weapons and create large icicles to impale the enemy with. As for the bishops, they pray for the army and strengthen their spells, armor, and strength through these prayers. The rooks, like the bishops, play a supporting role in that they use their magic to reinforce the walls, but like the rooks and knights, are actively fighting in the battle by shifting the land to open chasms that the ratmen fall into, raising the land to block their advance, or conjure large pillars of ice to break apart the army and impale the mutated ratmen that are range from building-sized multiheaded hydra-like abominations to monsters with abnormally large muscles that are the size of elephants and have various pieces of metal in their body.

Finally, the kings and queens in the army telepathically give orders while also using their own magic to create conjured animals and soldiers completely made of ice that aid in the battle. The battle seems to be all but won as the tide of black on the horizon is pretty much gone and the rest of the ratmen are retreating. I’m about to get up and continue on to the library until I hear something cracking the ice from below near me. As I watch more places in the ground form cracks, I ready my magic anticipating the ratmen to come out of it since they’re known to dig tunnels to get under cities and defenses, and sure enough, the ratmen do but the first ratman that emerges has their face bitten off by a tiger as the animals of Polypus have come to help defend it. The elephants stomp the ratmen into mush while the lions, leopards, and tigers tear at them with their claws and mouths. Meanwhile, the cobras go down into the tunnels and drive back whatever reinforcements that make it on land.

Soon after, the animals of the land walk away as no more ratmen emerge though some of the animals stay to fill the holes that were created while the cobras slither out of them. The events of the past couple of hours are why the ratmen have never had a foothold in Polypus, unlike the other kingdoms. Even more militant kingdoms like Canis and Bernhard have ratmen somewhere in their borders, and the undead lands of Corvus also have their own issue with the ratmen despite having similar wildlife to ours. I pray that their problems are solved one day, but for now, I have my own responsibilities to attend to, so without further delay, I continue to the library. Before I can even enter the building, I approach the walls that surround it. An eye appears on the gates, looks at me, and shines a light blue light on me.

“Jigna, a citizen of Polypus,” a voice in the gate says. “You are allowed to enter. Please enjoy your time here and may you find the truth you are looking for.”

The eye on the gates disappear as they automatically open for me. Now that I’m closer to the library, I see that the buildings around it are mostly military and guard bases, tailors, blacksmiths, food vendors, and some houses that are apartments for workers, merchants, and soldiers. This settlement’s citizens are mostly comprised of those from Polypus, which isn’t surprising since we take guarding knowledge more seriously than other kingdoms. There are few people from Draco and even fewer from Phasianus who act as common workers and helpers. Phasianus has always been reluctantly subservient to Draco and it’s obvious with their behavior as I see them working with their masters.

Turning my attention to my own priorities, I look to the library and I see the tall spiraling building that seems to reach beyond the clouds. There are walls around the library that are guarded by the chess-like soldiers that I saw guarding the border and these gates have a similar security eye that shines a light on me to identify me again before letting me in.

It again says, “You are allowed to enter. Please enjoy your time here and may you find the truth you are looking for.”

I go through the gates and finally enter into the library. From the entrance, I can see most of the floors of the library with the top and bottom floors being blurry even for my vision because of how high and below they respectively are. The librarians all have tentacles for limbs, have the heads of octopuses, and have books levitating around them.

As I approach one of them to ask a question, the librarian immediately turns to me and says, “Hello! It’s so good to see another visitor who’s here to learn. What is your name, young lady?”

The man’s voice is that of a jovial old man which reminds me of my grandfather’s voice and demeanor who was always happy about something.

“My name is Jigna,” I say.

“That’s a wonderful name. Do you know that it means curiously intellectual?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Of course, of course. You appear to be a very smart young lady growing into a fine woman. My name is Ishank. What can I help you with? Can I help you find something you are looking for or are you just browsing and allowing God to guide your curiosity? There’s nothing wrong with either.”

“Now that I really think about it, I guess I’m just allowing God to guide my curiosity. I’m simply trying to learn what role He has for me to play.”

“A noble goal and one that everyone should seek if they haven’t already. May I suggest the lower levels of the library? The lower you go down the more you’ll find books on self-discovery and don’t go up unless you want to learn more about sciences, politics, history, and metaphysics.”

“Okay. Thank you for your help, Ishank.”

“Anytime. Oh, and if you talk to any of the other librarians, they’ll be happy to help you as well, tell them that I said hi and that we really need to share what we’ve learned from the floors we’ve been assigned to again.”

“I will.”

As I go down the floors, I find the sections on self-discovery I was looking for. Some of the books are written by saints, priests, psychologists, and laymen who write from their personal and professional experiences. Other books on self-discovery give their lessons through fictional stories in various different genres such as romance, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and so on. None of these hundreds of thousands of books feel as if they are calling out to me. Maybe it’s not self-discovery that I’m looking for or maybe it’s a different kind of self-discovery.

Further down, I find books on discernment. For example, there are books on how to know that you’re meant to be a parent or priest if you should be a writer, the signs that you’re meant to be a soldier, and more all of which range from nonfiction to fiction just like the other books above. I have thought about becoming a mother though I don’t have a man in mind that I’d like to marry. While reading one of the books, I see that it says men will see themselves as the priest on the altar and both men and women will see themselves in the roles of the families they come across. Maybe I am meant to be a mother because I have seen myself in the role of the mothers I come across.

Another book that I find on consecrated virgins does make me question becoming a mother since it mentions that this role is for those who know that they should neither become a mother nor a nun but should still dedicate themselves to God in a special way. Hmm. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions because I don’t know for sure what’s right for me. Didn’t I just think I could be a mother because I saw myself in the role of the mothers I saw? My mind is starting to scramble because of all the reading I’m doing so I take a seat on a nearby bench. While resting, I smell food further down the library and go down to find a cafeteria of sorts with people eating and reading inside of it.

Food sounds like a good idea so I buy a meal that consists of chicken and tomatoes. It also comes with a glass of wine and ice-cold water that complement it well. While eating, I look around at what everyone is reading. One of the books that catches my eye is a book on magical spells. Perhaps I’m meant to be a soldier, guard, or one of the people who keep the kingdom in one piece. I’ve always been interested in expanding my repertoire of spells but then again, who doesn’t? Besides, the more powerful spells a person knows, the more they are tempted to use them for their own selfish gain.

Still, my interest in knowing more spells makes me head for the section of the library containing them, which is the most crowded place in the entire library and doesn’t surprise me in the least bit. The magic section of every library I’ve visited has been the most crowded because both natives of Polypus and foreigners are interested in the arcane to learn how to cast spells or just read about them. Since it’s too crowded for me here, I head deeper down the expansive section on magic until I reach a practically empty area. While browsing through the books I find several on how the children of interracial unions can use magical spells unique to certain races. For example, if someone from Polypus were to be with someone from Canis, then that child would be able to use fire and ice spells.

This is interesting to me even though the books don’t give a definitive answer as to why interracial children are capable of this beyond a variety of convincing theories. In fact, most of the books go back to the question of why is humanity capable of using magic in the first place when we weren’t able to use it for hundreds of millions of years. Wait, does my sudden interest in it mean that God wants me to marry someone who is outside of my kingdom? I was previously interested in books about being a mother and knowing if I should marry after all. Putting that thought aside for now, I keep reading through and skimming certain books until I come across a well-dressed man from Draco who appears as if he is royalty because of the golden jewelry that adorns him, his armor, and his weapons.

“What are you doing here? This section was locked off for today,” the noble says.

“I wasn’t told,” I say.

“Then you should leave at once. I am conducting private and important research for the kingdom of Draco.”

Both the noble and I turn our heads when we hear someone walking behind me and see a man from Phasianus who appears to be a servant because of his basic coat and leather armor.

“That goes for you too unless you have an important message for me,” the noble says.

“I’m not a messenger nor am I your servant. None of the men, women, and children of Phasianus are servants of the tyrants of Draco and they will no longer serve you!” the man says before transforming his arms into blades and charging at the noble.

I freeze the man’s legs with an ice spell and then say. This, however, isn’t enough to stop him as he spits out a crossbow bolt that almost lands in the noble’s head, instead, it just cuts his face as he dodges the bolt.

“Kill him already!” the noble says just as I encase the assailant in ice. “Why didn’t you kill him to begin with?!”

“We in Polypus try not to kill in libraries, which are just as sacred to us as churches. You wouldn’t kill someone in a church, would you?” I say.

“I’m sure God would be fine with it in this situation.”

As we are talking, we notice the sounds of conflict echo throughout the library and run to the source of the noise to find people from Draco and Phasianus fighting each other. The librarians and citizens of Polypus freeze those fighting against each other while those who can’t fight are seeking shelter or running away from the fighting. Even as most of the fighters are frozen, the fighting soon escalates as those from Draco transform into animals such as wyverns, bears, monkeys, and tigers all of which have their armor morph with their bodies so that it stays on. The noble that I’m with does the same, transforms into a dragon, and flies up to help his allies.

“Attention, all loyal servants of God and Polypus,” a voice says in my head, “Pour your magic into the orbs coming up and down to your respective levels so we may quell the violence that taints the sanctity of our library.”

A blue orb floats down to my level and I do as the voice says along with the librarians and others who use ice magic. The orb convulses after absorbing so much magic and turns into a large octopus with a singular eye in the center of its big forehead. My vision blurs as I begin to see out of the eye of the octopus which gives me a sight of everyone on every floor around me as if I have multiple eyes. In addition, the power within me feels as if it’s been multiplied and shared, and it has since I can cast spells through the octopus along with those who have poured their magic into it. We can freeze both parties with our magic and attack with the tentacles of the octopus to knock out the people from Draco who have become dragons and wyverns who transform back into their human form once knocked out leading to a mostly easy victory for us and peace being restored to the library.

As the people from Draco and Phasianus are being taken out of the library by the guards, I wonder why this happened. I know tensions between the two kingdoms are shaky, but I didn’t think it would result in open hostility, especially with what’s already going on in the world with the ratmen, beastmen, and other conflicts. Those from Draco do remind me of the high elves from Oron since they are the defacto leading kingdom of the Holy Land over the other elven kingdoms of Abaddon and Matias despite them being a singular land and kingdom.

“The reason for both Draco and Phasianus fighting each other today was the same. For the love of their kingdom,” a nearby librarian says to me. “I read your mind because the connection we shared while we were connected to the octopus is still somewhat here despite its fading.”

“How did you know why both peoples fought each other then?” I ask.

“The ice that I’ve encased them in allows me to.”

“I see. I’m only able to sense their feelings, but not so much their thoughts.”

“You’ll eventually develop that skill if you have to. Those from Draco were looking at ways to gain more magical powers to push back the ratmen from within and outside of their borders while those from Phasianus were doing the same but wanted to push out those from Draco who abused their power. Both had good motives but took out their outrage on the wrong parties. The Draco wanted to kill those who dishonored them and could undermine their plans and the Phasianus wanted freedom but targeted those who weren’t the tyrants that ruled over them and even if they killed their tyrants, their situation would’ve worsened or stayed the same because Draco has no tolerance for rebels and traitors.”

“What will happen to them now?”

“They’ll simply be kicked out of the country for breaking one of our most important laws and handed over to the law enforcement of their respective countries.”

“I see, and I assume those from Phasianus will be dealt with severely for instigating the conflict while those from Draco will get a slap on the wrist if anything.”

“Correct. Still, I hope both sides will be punished for their own sake to learn from the errors of their ways. It’s also tragic for both sides since the search for power and knowledge to be used for a good purpose is a narrow road that could lead to the kind of senseless violence that you have seen today. Regardless of that, I and the other librarians are thankful for your help, Jigna. The librarians below will know of your help and you’ll be allowed to access our most treasured collections.”

“Thank you.”

With that bit of excitement out of the way, I head down into the deepest depths of the library and hopefully closer to the truth that I seek.