The bells of the Sable Concord tolled at dawn, soft and hollow, as if struck from within a dream. Their echo drifted through the corridors like a prayer for the forgotten, stirring layers of parchment dust that shimmered faintly in the amber glow of gaslight.
Erwin Ruyn paused beneath an archway of black marble, his hand resting on the railing of the descending stair. He watched the lanterns flicker below — countless little suns swaying in the underground dark — and listened to the gentle hum of gears hidden deep within the walls.
It was said the Concord never truly slept. Even when its clerks departed and its priests finished their chants, the machinery beneath continued to breathe, copying, indexing, and whispering to itself.
"Another day for dust," he murmured, his voice nearly swallowed by the quiet.
He adjusted his collar, the ink-stained cuff of his glove brushing the edge of his spectacles. The faint chill of the air made his breath cloud as he descended the spiral stair into the Lower Repositories.
Here, the smell of parchment grew dense — a thousand years of record-keeping compressed into a single breath. Wooden shelves rose like pillars into the dark, laden with scrolls bound in red thread, their seals cracked by time. Candles burned low in glass sconces, their wax pooling like melted bone.
At the lowest step, Erwin found the old custodian waiting: a frail man in a heavy robe, his eyes milked over by age.
"Late again, Copyist," the old man rasped, leaning on a brass cane etched with sigils.
Erwin gave a quiet, polite nod. "The upper gears stalled again. The lift's teeth misaligned."
"They always do," said the custodian, as if time itself conspired against punctuality. He turned and hobbled toward the central aisle, motioning for Erwin to follow. "You know your assignment?"
Erwin lifted the note sealed with the Concord's insignia — an open eye over a quill — and broke it open. The ink within shimmered faintly, written in the thin, meticulous script of the Registrar-General.
Retrieve and reindex the Third Fragment of the Dominion Cycle.
Location: Chamber B-17, Restricted Wing.
Note: Handle with absolute discretion. The record is unstable.
A shiver traced Erwin's spine. The Dominion Cycle — even the name carried a kind of heretical weight.
He tucked the letter away. Understood ,Erwin said.
The custodian gave no reply, only an almost imperceptible smile that seemed to stretch too long across his withered face. Then, without another word, he faded into the side hall, his steps echoing like the turning of a clock.
Erwin walked on alone.
The deeper chambers grew colder. He passed walls lined with mirrors turned backward, their silvered backs marked with inked prayers; sigils flickered faintly on the floor, responding to each of his steps with a low hum. It was a ritual safeguard — one that every scribe performed without truly understanding.
At the end of the corridor waited a black iron door, its surface engraved with a single line of scripture:
All that is written returns.
Erwin hesitated. He had read that phrase in every hall, on every tome — yet standing before it now, he felt something breathe beneath the words.
He unlatched the door.
The hinges groaned open to reveal a narrow chamber lit only by a suspended lantern. Within, an enormous ledger lay chained to a pedestal of bone-white stone.
Dust fluttered in the air like ash.
Erwin stepped forward and brushed a hand across the cover. The sigil of the Dominion Cycle — a crown encircled by six fractal rings — glowed faintly, pulsing once as if it recognized him.
And in that heartbeat of contact, something stirred at the edge of his thoughts — a whisper, faint and terrible, speaking in a language that wasn't sound.
Who writes the one who remembers?
Erwin froze. His pulse stuttered. The whisper echoed again — closer now, clearer — threading between his thoughts.
Then, as suddenly as it came, it vanished.
The lantern flickered.
He stumbled back a step, breath unsteady, the faint shimmer of his reflection caught in the glass cover of the ledger. For a moment, he thought he saw not himself — but something older, faceless, watching through him.
The candlelight dimmed. The gears above the chamber gave a slow metallic sigh.
Erwin exhaled and forced composure back into his face. The Concord had always whispered — that was what the elders said. Knowledge had its own voice. Madness was simply what happened when one listened too long.
He opened his notebook and began to write.
"Fragment retrieved. Containment integrity… unstable."
But as his pen touched paper, a single line appeared beneath his words in unfamiliar handwriting — elegant, exact, impossibly fast.
The record remembers you too, Erwin Ruyn.
The ink bled, spreading like veins beneath his signature.