Three months after he’d had the Tome of Bahgmorrda taken away from him, the librariaur. Apparently, that was because it was written in five different nguages, and the crude cipher worked differently on each of them. Simon had barely noticed that fact, but the person that they’d had w on it since was having great difficulties with transting it.

  ‘We’ll be relying on you to make tinued progress,’ read the hat the Head Librarian gave him with it.

  Simon nodded and made all the gestures that he would do his best on it, but he wasn't really ied in it anymore. Truthfully, transting the whole thing, line by line, would take months, or maybe even a year, and his time would be better spent reading new books to pass on. He didn’t have a choi the matter. So, instead, he got to work.

  Even though he didn’t really get anything out of it, there was something very zen about sitting in a library filled with other men who could not speak, scribbling away in the quiet as he attempted to make his writing as beautiful and readable as possible.

  Simon had terrible penmanship for most of his lives. It was only after reading so many barely legible scrawls or awkwardly crabbed writing and trying hard to puzzle out its meaning over his st few lives that he’d tried to improve that small but important aspect himself. He hadn’t even used cursive since he was a child, but with every page he transcribed, he did his best to improve. The result after a few hours was something close to a tranbsp;

  He could think much faster than his pen could move while he tried to create something and clear that bordered on calligraphy. As a result, he had more than enough time to sider how each line might be reworded. For a time, he used that extra time to think about how he might crify or obscure the meaning of the words. After all, he wao preserve knowledge, but he didn’t necessarily want the white cloaks to have it. It was a drum, but in the eually, he opted to write rgely what was written while he used that extra time to pohe nature of magibsp;

  That was mostly all he did anymore. Even his initial fervor for spending his spare time in the fighting yards slowly faded, and those workouts became less and less frequent. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to be ier shape or anything; it was because the nature of what he reflected on ed him.

  Eaight, after work but before dinner, he would go on walks around the walls to try to clear his mind. He tried to think about Elthena and his son or daughter, who was not yet born. Sometimes he even reflected on other things, like the dragon, and what the point of that strange level was. However, invariably, those were fotten in favor of questions about the nature of magic more and more as time went oually, it bordered on obsession, as strange symbols and words would dan front of his eyes ter that night while he tried to sleep.

  In time, only the occasional words and shouts of the white cloaks intruded on his peace. Mostly, he could tuhese out because people rarely asked him questions about what he was w on directly. He’d succeeded in fading into the background.

  Sometimes, though, that solitude became impossible, such as the day that a patrol came back to the Broken Tower all but annihited by zombies north of Schwarzenbruck. That was enough to pique Simon’s i, and while they built a arty to ter the threat, he listened in to the talk. For a few days after the survivors came back it was all aalked about. Even the library wasn’t pletely silent as anders and other members visited, looking for more information about what it was they faced.

  At times, it bordered on the apocalyptic. Though the leaders tried to downpy the threat, in private, many whispered that it was a sign of the end of the world and a fulfillment of the prophecies. However, through all of the chaos and panic, Simon mostly just smiled to himself. He khat by the time the men they were assembling made it back to Schwarzenbruck, they’d find nothing at all to fight, thanks to him.

  That didn’t stop him from leaping at the ce to dig through the se of the archive that dealt with neand the dead when the Abbott came down and gave them all new orders. “Though all of your work is vital,” he expio them sourly. “Right now, the urgent takes priority over the important. Effective immediately, all other research will cease, and we will focus solely on the dead and the foul neahat raise them until our expeditionary force departs.”

  Simon didn’t mind those instrus at all. He was over a hundred pages into his grimoire, and it had long since bee an exercise in patiend penmanship rather than anything schorly. He was more than happy to see if he could find some bit of lore or information that could help the order irials to e. Unfortunately, all he ever found for them was remarkably unhelpful, though he didn’t share that with anyone.

  For the week, Simon dutifully copied down and delivered signifit amounts of information, even if his experieold him it was nonsense. He recorded ary that expihe proper prayers that would put the dead bato their graves, noting that they tained no words of power. After that, Simon transted a dot that expined how a zombie could be stilled once more by driving a stake through its heart. He even reyed the old wives' tale that he’d heard so many times before about how the bites of a zombie could be sed with salt and ashes.

  It’s too bad they’re uo actually find zombies by the time they get back, he told himself. Because I’d love to see how they fare with all this knowledge.

  In the end, over a hundred people, including sworn brothers, acolytes, and whisperers, set off to save the world, and Simon’s time in the neantic archives came to an end. Still, it wasn’t a total loss for him. In that time, he learhat Gelthic had an association with death, and thanks to one particurly gruesome story about a neahat sought to have an army erupt from the graveyard around him, Simon learhat Uuvellum could also be used as a modifier in the form of anti-.

  In this case, the man had attempted to cast a spell of greater antilife with Gervuul Uuvellum Meiren. He’d succeeded too, but acc to the witch hunter who found his corpse ohe battle had dohe man had been reduced to nothing but a shriveled corpse that was halfway mummified by the dark magics he used.

  Simo several days trying to figure out what might have happeo cause that effect, assuming the dot was entirely accurate. In the end, he decided it wasn’t that the greater word had buroo much vitality or that the caster had botched the spell by mispronoung something. Instead, he was fairly sure that the caster had used the spell over a rge area that he himself had been standing in. So, while all of the dead were infused with the antilife as he’d intended, he was as well.

  It would be like casting a fireball aering it on yourself, he decided, almost certain that was what occurred. He imagined he’d try it at some point, too. He wouldn’t be able to see what it did to him, of course, but it would be a fairly painless suicide if he ever needed one of those.

  Simon enjoyed little riddles like that and looked forward to the day when he’d fihe grimoire that he was w on. As it turned out, though, he never got the ot long after the expeditionary force returned and decred the zombie meo be eradicated after taking suspiciously few losses despite the heroid unlikely stories that circuted, two of his brothers in the library died under mysterious circumstances.

  The first to go had been the archivist in charge of the se on demonology. All they’d found of him was a boot with a foot still in it, which was fairly horrifying, even for someone as jaded as Simon. A few days ter, though, while an inquisitor was iigating, he also vahe sean's disappearance wasn’t quite so subtle. There was a brief explosio happened, but by the time the first people arrived in the reading room, the only sign that anyone had been in there ray of blood on one of the walls and a stack of books on the desk.

  At first, the worries were that one of the men that had e home had gone crazy or been repced with a warlock or worse. The entire pound was locked down for the better part of a week. Simon didn’t mind that; he spent his time sitting in his cell pting what might have happened, but he didn’t have information to say one way or the other.

  After that, they started interviewing everyone who’d been in or he library oher ocoving Simon much closer to the top of the list of suspects. He wasn’t ed. Even if they decided to execute him for some crazy reason, this sort of weirdness was exactly the reason he was here.

  “Do you have any idea what happeo Archivists Malen or Shroud?” the inquisitor asked when he was escorted into the small room where questioning was taking pbsp;

  Instead of pig up the provided quill and ink, Simon simply shook his head. That was obviously the wrong answer because the man’s face reddened slightly at it.

  “Are you taking this seriously, Ennis?” the man asked a little more forcefully. “People have died. Someone is to bme!”

  ‘They were both reading the same book when they died.’ Simon wrote finally. It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t sure, of course, but after thinking about it for days, he realized it was his best ao this locked room mystery. No one had do. Instead, a particurly dangerous book in the colle had, he just didn’t know how.

  The man’s eyes narrowed as he looked at him silently for several seds. Then he said, “How do you know that?”

  ‘I don’t know.’ Simon admitted in a quick flourish. ‘Just a guess.’

  “Pretty damn good guess,” the man grumbled as he reached into a bag by his feet and pulled out a particurly evil tome. The thing was bound in dark leather and had no title. If Simon had been a betting man, he would have said the thing was human skin, but he couldn’t say for sure without a closer expnation. “Have you seen this before?”

  Simon answered with a shake of his head. He’d remember a book like that.

  “So you didn’t see it before, but you know that it killed them?” the inquisitor tried again. “How does that work?”

  ‘I’ve been transting a grimoire for months,’ Simon responded. ‘Ask the Head Librarian.’

  “We already have,” the other man nodded. “But now you’re on this instead.”

  ‘Why me?’ Simon protested in one quick line, frowning that he’d smudged the ink on the y because he was in too much of a hurry.

  “Because you were the only oo guess it had to do with a book,” the man answered smugly. “I’ve been through it myself, and though I ’t read all of it, I’m hoping you have better luck.”

  Simon sighed and then here was no point in fighting this because he knew he wouldn’t win.

  On the plus side, it beats transcribing any more of the Tome of Bahgmorrda, he told himself. That was soft-pedaling this more than a little bit, though, he noted grimly. If he wasn’t careful, this could definitely be one of those deaths that wasn’t just a death.