The old man stood before Archie, his pale eyes steady and unreadable.
"Be at peace, boy," he said calmly. "There are many things I know about you that you do not know about yourself."
The weight pressing down on Archie did not feel like magic. It felt older than that. It was like standing at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by something vast, huge and indifferent. He tried to move his fingers but couldn't, he couldn't even move his eyes.
"Who are you?" Archie forced out. Even speaking felt like pushing against stone.
The old man studied him for a long moment before answering.
"I am the Guardian of this Archive. Bound by decree of the Lord of the Vampires. My duty is to preserve what must not be erased and impart knowledge into those who walk into the library."
The title settled in the air between them.
Archie's eyes narrowed slightly. "Bound?"
"Yes," the Guardian replied. "Yes, I am bound to this library and it's immediate surroundings. The Lord understood that knowledge is more dangerous than any blade. So I was tied to this place, to the books and to the land surrounding it to protect it. I may not step beyond its threshold, and none may enter without my consent."
Archie's thoughts raced.
If the Guardian answered only to the Lord of the Vampires, then this library stood above, Emperor, Dukes and Earls alike.
"Then why am I here?" Archie asked.
The pressure around him eased slightly. He could feel his arms again, though they still felt heavy.
"You are here," the Guardian said, "because the Archive allowed you to enter."
The shelves behind him shimmered faintly.
Archie frowned. "I forced my way in."
The old man gave the smallest shake of his head. "You believe that. The guards at the gate were a formality. The halls that stretched endlessly were a filter. The empty books were a measure. This place rejects thousands every century. You were not rejected."
A quiet chill ran through Archie's spine.
"Why?"
The Guardian stepped closer. His presence did not weaken, but it became focused, like a blade being angled.
"Because you carry an echo," he said softly. "An echo of a king who once refused to kneel."
Archie's jaw tightened. "I'm not a king."
"No," the Guardian agreed. "You are not one yet. You are not a Lycan either. You cannot transform. You cannot grow claws. You do not possess the full blood of that line."
Archie's eyes flickered with irritation. "Then stop speaking in riddles."
The Guardian's gaze sharpened.
"You possess the physical inheritance without the full manifestation. Strength. Durability. Instinct. You were chosen by the Werewolf King, yet you are not one of his pure descendants. That contradiction is why the Archive responded to you, your body posses endless knowledge that the Library desires, knowledge I desire."
The air shifted.
At the Guardian's words, the floor beneath them began to ripple like disturbed water. The endless shelves dissolved into mist. The ceiling stretched upward until it vanished into darkness.
Archie's boots now stood on scorched earth.
He turned slowly.
The library was gone.
In its place stretched a battlefield under a crimson sky. Wolves and vampires clashed across a shattered plain. Steel met fang. Fire lit the horizon. The smell of blood hung thick in the air.
"This is a memory," the Guardian's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "A fragment preserved from the war that nearly ended both races, the wolf lord memory."
Archie watched as a towering wolf moved across the battlefield. Larger than any creature he had ever seen. Its fur black as night. Its eyes burned like molten gold. A crown of shadow seemed to rest upon its head, not made of metal, but of presence.
Vampires attacked it in waves.
It did not retreat.
"That," the Guardian said quietly, "is the Werewolf King."
Archie felt something in his chest tighten.
The massive wolf suddenly stopped mid-stride.
Slowly, impossibly, its head turned.
Its burning eyes locked directly onto Archie.
Not past him.
At him.
Archie's breath caught in his throat as the battlefield noise faded into silence.
The wolf took a single step toward him.
And the ground beneath Archie's feet began to crack.
The crack beneath the feet of Archie was enlarged.
The battle field was reanimated.
Sound crashed into him. Steel rang. Wolves howled. Vampires shrieked.
The fire of off-course fires was beating his body. The great wolf in the distance made no other movement, but his golden eyes never ceased watching him.
This is not memory as such, the voice of the Guardian was saying. "It is judgment."
The ground gave way.
Archie plunged down into the fray.
He came down, foot sliding over blood and ash soaked ground. He was at once leaped at by a vampire soldier, and his knife was drawn to the throat.
Archie threw back his head, and palmed his fist. The soldier had burst into smoke and bits of shadow.
They were of flesh and bones, they were constructs.
He was then attacked by three wolves with their teeth open. He turned and hit one of them, dodged under another, and grabbed the third one and hit the neck with it.
More rose.
Each of the enemies that he shattered was reconstituted into black dots that are made a few seconds later. The battlefield was endless. There was no edge. No command structure. No center to break.
He moved faster.
A spear aimed for his spine. He picked it without glimpsing it and broke it. A sword was drawn towards his ribs. It bent against his skin. He punched his elbow back, and broke the chest of the assailant.
But the numbers did not reduce as the amount of enemies kept on increasing.
He sprang into the air clearing a rush of bodies. Something that he saw above caused him to hesitate.
Fighting was not the business of all.
Towards the point of the plain, smaller wolves had huddled around injured ones. Two vampires were keeping off what appeared to be the young ones behind shattered shields. They were not attacking. They were surviving.
The illusion shifted subtly.
The assailants were rushing blindly forward. These defenders had trouble defending their people.
Archie jumped between two rushing men, and ripped them both in a flash. He went to intercept some other wave, but paused.
In case he continued destroying the infinite attackers, nothing will be different.
They would simply rise again.
This can not be fought with the power of arms, said the voice of the Guardian.
Archie clenched his jaw.
The spectral soldiers were rushing a group of them through to the huddled crowd, upon the edge. One wolf cub stumbled. One of the vampire children was with it protecting him from the war damages
Archie could reach them.
"Judgmentless power makes tyrants, one must know when to use the power one has. War is not to be started without preparing for the safety of one's people" said the Guardian.
Archie exhaled slowly.
He left behind the biggest concentration of enemies.
And made his speed to the exposed kids
One of the soldiers struck him in the middle of the stride. He did not slow down to defend himself. His shoulder was scraped and the blade was broken. He plunged his palm into the breast of the assailant and battered it to bits in blackness.
He put himself in front of the smaller figures.
"Get behind me" he said to them knowing fully well they were not real.
The assailants plowed on top of him.
He did not chase.
He did not advance.
He held the line.
Fists were finer in their action. Not wild. Not excessive. Each blow was counted to strike without waste of movement. Shields fell on which he parried. He moved around in order to keep the attackers in check.
One of the wolf-like constructions gazed at him with flaming eyes.
Not the king.
This was another wolf, it was older and wounded.
It did not attack.
It simply watched.
The battlefield trembled.
The perpetrators who had reached endlessness stood still.
Everything was devoured by silence.
Archie was breathing evenly, his shoulders set squarely before those whom he had set to defend
The Guardian was beside him no longer speaking.
"Why?" the old man asked quietly.
Archie did not look at him.
The Guardian studied him.
"Why do warriors attack the harmless and weak? Why exterminate an entire race due to a failure in leadership? The innocent are not to be harmed in war, only those with blood on their hands are to be killed" the old wolf said and the Archie eyes went dark
"What sort of moral code is that, I do not follow such rules" Archie said to himself.
Staring at his body he found himself in a wolf body, the younger version of the wolf King.
"I am not a descendant of the wolf and I'm definitely not a wolf, do not impact me with the morals of wild beasts. I am Archie Ambrosius, I define my fate, I shall not be named my beings beneath me" Archie stood up straight and looked straight into the old wolf eyes as his body transformed back to his real body.
"I do not care about who is innocent or who is at fault, anyone who takes what's mine deserves death and anyone related to such a person shall be erased if I deem it so. I am not a tyrant, I do not kill without reason, I end those going against my will and those who stand in my way. I'm on a path to be forged by blood and war, such pacifist mental irritates my very being to the core" Archie said and an immerse killing intent exploded from his body.
The fighting disintegrated around them and became floating ash which climbed the sky and disappeared.
They were back again in the endless hall of the library.
The shelves returned.
The floor solidified.
But something had changed.
The air felt heavier.
The facial expression of the Guardian changed, slightly.
"It is the first step that you have taken, you now possess the right mindset" he said. " But there is one more thing you have to know."
The old man's gaze darkened.
"The Viscount has already started meddling with a seal which is not to be messed with."
Archie's eyes narrowed. "What seal?"
The Guardian uses the floor only once.
A profound shudder passed over the whole Archive.
And somewhere way off on the other side of the walls of the library something old throbbed to a small answering pulse.