The transportation left Sethan just slightly shaken. The act itself hadn't been unpleasant, but the idea of it still bothered him. His entire person had been enveloped in Isis' magic, left completely at her mercy. The implied subservience to her whims was what upset him the most. Sethan was a king, and he bowed to neither men nor gods. There was also the matter of her teleportation trick, which to Sethan chagrin, he could not replicate. He would have to make an effort to learn such a feat, once more important matters were attended to. Still, his feeling of shame was short-lived, as he was soon overcome by the sight of the Library of Alexandria. Though he had never before visited this particular location, its construction made for a familiar sight. The dry, cool air of night enveloping him, and the countless stars in the sky were calming and reassuring to the dead king. Without a shadow of a doubt, he was home. Sighing softly and shutting his eyes, he allowed himself a moment of quiet relief, a few stray tears streaking silently down his cheeks.
Alright, that was enough of that. Sethan wiped his face with his handkerchief and cleared his throat. There was work to be done. Striding ahead of the group and into the library, he studied the arrangement of materials on the massive shelves. After only a moment's consideration, he was able to discern the method by which they were organized. Time and space, date and location. Not a terribly complicated system. Isis had noted that their goal was through the large and obvious doorway, so it would be easy enough to link back up with the group once he had obtained what he needed from the library.
Still, he couldn't risk being delayed any further than his task would require. The various
things lurking in the library would have to be kept at bay somehow, and Sethan knew an elegantly simple means of doing so. His shining golden aura was in fact something of a cover produced by his current, a glamour atop a glamour, meant to conceal the true nature of his presence. To give him a bit of breathing room, he let his true aura shine through. The difference was apparent almost immediately. No longer did he appeal to the third eye as a glorious God-King, but as one of the Deathless. Something without death, not wholly divorced from it, merely beyond it. Shadows near him warped and twisted, whispering secrets of eternity in half-forgotten tongues. To look upon him was to know the futility of mortality. All would be dust in the winds of time, but his works would not. Death would come to every thing on this Earth, but not to him.
So as to not infect his party with the Sybaris, the sickness of the mortal, he quickly broke away from them, speaking hurriedly as he delved into the library, "I have personal business to address. I will rejoin you shortly, do not wait for me."
Sethan was very soon out of sight, hidden by the library's darkened depths. He scanned Hieroglyphic labels on the shelves furtively, trying to find the object of his desire. Pacific Isles, Indo-China, ah, here it was, Asia Minor. Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and, yes, good, Eighth Century,
Anno Domini. He let his intuition guide him as he searched through this particular section, before eventually stumbling upon a weary tome with a distinct Arabic title.
Al Azif, the sounds of night. The mating calls of a particular breed of nocturnal desert insect, long believed to be the howls of tormented demons. While his superiors at the corporation did not know, he had quietly been seeking leads to learning the fate of his lost kingdom, and several had referred him to this particular grimoire. Very few copies still existed thanks to the Crusades, and most rested within the hands of either B&H Co. themselves or their close affiliates. This would likely be his sole chance to obtain what could very well be the original printing of the book.
Preferring to leaf through it in privacy, he gave a hard glare to a nearby soft jelly-thing, which then dejectedly slithered away. Sethan flipped through the book's yellowed pages, skimming over the book's contents. This was an antiquated Arabic dialect, and so he wasn't able to comprehend all of it, but he could already tell that this was indeed the book he had been searching for. The recollections of a particular Arab scholar who had managed to sleepwalk into a set of Iremite ruins, and returned to society a year later, well out of his mind after learning much that mortal men were unprepared to know. A particular couplet stood out to Sethan, which after translation amounted to:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die."He would have to study it more carefully at a later date; for now he tucked it away within his suit jacket for safe keeping. His first order of business complete, he reigned in his aura and once again disguised it, before hurrying along to the doorway at the far end of the library. With what he could so far discern from his companions, they were likely to get caught on some contrivance or another (most likely each other) and take up a great deal of time in doing so, and he was thus likely to meet back up with them there.
