From Oak To Acorn

[Tobias Moriarty]

[b]50 years ago, on Coruscant …</b

Book after book, a hand slipped them neatly into their places on one of the many great bookcases within the library. Whether or not people realized it each book required careful cataloguing and regular cleaning. This job was performed not by a group of people, but by one. The young man currently restacking the shelves, of the tomes he’d just dusted down, was this unfortunate person. At least, unfortunate in other peoples eyes. He reveled in being able to have such free access to such a vault of information. He’d had the job now for almost a year and was only beginning to sample what was held within.

“Closing time, Tobias.”

A voice called from somewhere. No doubt, Tobias mused, from the front desk. It was the same each day. The head librarian would let him clean-up and then call for him just as the library was about to close – and every day Tobias would call in reply:

“Leave the keys on the desk, sir. I just have a little more to finish up.”

So the librarian would sigh, but he would leave none the less, and Tobias would smile to himself a small little satisfied smile that said he’d gotten away with it again. Sometimes he didn’t even leave the library at all, just sleeping against the shelves until the morning when the lights and sounds echoing through the great hall roused him from his dreams. Quite happily he would have lived within these walls, studying the books and what was within them.

By day a library clerk, he thought to himself, by night an aspiring sorcerer. A sorcerer indeed! He’d read all the lore, studied the orders and the famous names and never yet encountered another person with his interests. Often he would lurk by the occult section of the library and wait to see if a book would be checked out. Once or twice volumes would go missing and he would silently curse that he’d missed the chance to see just who had taken them.

Tonight he was finishing reading the last, and summarizing, chapter of ‘The Subtle Art of Mind Control’, a supposedly comical book from a few decades ago, which in fact held some truth in it. Tobias had enacted some of the rites therein and had found them to actually work – one of the reasons, he wagered, why he was so frequently left to his own devices in the library full of expensive equipment.

Since he had no yet locked up the library doors were open, and the lights at the front of the building were still on. To any passerby, it would appear as though the library was still open…

[Zachariah Darmok]

The great room was silent as a graveyard but alive secretly with stirring spirits unseen. It was past midnight by the time the two great double doors creaked open and a shaow of a siloette slid in, a light spread up and across the ceiling sending sparks of static electricity out and across the room. Books snapped together, book cases shivered slightly as if knowing what was returning. Restless as the room was now, the eerie silence remained.

A book shelf suddenly rised above Tobias tipped over with strengh and spread the ancient context across the floor next to the young man in a mass that looked as if a wave of paper steamed towards him but suddenly stoped in mid air. The bookes that were about to hit the young man stood still in mid air for a moment, turned and then crashed down next to him with a rumble whick shook the room.

Eveidently a presence was there...but where?

' What are you doing in the restricted section boy ? A voice boomed yet its bearer was unseen.

[Tobias Moriarty]

Tobias eyes widened and almost became misty for a split second. He scrambled to his feet and fell again to his knees at the pile of books – scattered, splayed across the floor and no doubt damaged in some places. He picked up one and carefully ran his palm over the hard-bound leather cover, biting down on his lip as he tested the surface for any disfigurations.

“What in blue Hoth are you doing!” he barked out suddenly, snapping his head around as if to shoot an accusing glare, even though no one appeared to be present.

Carefully laying down the book he got to his feet, his knuckles tightening in white anger as his face began to flush red.

“You may well have just ruined centuries worth of arcane literature, you imbecile!” he choked out, whipping a hand into the air to point an accusing finger back at the paper massacre.

Usually Tobias was a calm, collected man. Things did not irk him in the slightest. Books, however, were in a league of their own.

[Zachariah Darmok]

Tobias was suddenly lifted from the ground with the raise of Zhacriahs hand, his legs and arms spread into a star shape and held in position of a unseen force while his fingers and toes were spread painfully away from eathother. The figures finger still invisible to Tobias pointed towards the young man and the book worker was send flying back into a shelf which cracked under the impact and snapped in half sending another few hundred years worth of writing into the floor along with the boy.

' Worthless boy...your words mean nothing to a mind which already holds the text printed on these documents.' The figure spat. ' Now answer my question or i shall burn you along with these scripts....'

[Tobias Moriarty]

Straining and writhing, trying to escape whatever was holding him in place, Tobias grunted.

“I work here! I am the librarian! It is my job to be here!” he wheezed, feeling his throat contracting with dry fear.

The thought of these books burning in a pyre almost brought him to tears. This was the only place he knew to have knowledge of such caliber, the only place where law and reason were unbound for him, allowing limitless study of a limitless world.

[Zachariah Darmok]

' Ah. an educated man how rare that is these days.' A voice said quietly from the right of Tobias. ' What do you search for Tobias?...it is gone midnight your privelges to be here this time are all but gone...the truth please....'

The air stirred and became thick, but no figure was seen in the darkness.

[Tobias Moriarty]

“I am … studying the occult…” he breathed out, then suddenly felt the need to thrash out again.

“Whoever you are will you put me down!!”

[Zachariah Darmok]

' You wish to learn the dark arts?...' The voice simply hissed.

[Tobias Moriarty]

“What I wish is to be put down!” Tobias barked in return, his anger once again swelling up.

[Zachariah Darmok]

' As you wish....' With as much force as the Mancer could muster he flung Tobias backwards towards the southwall smashing painfully into several book cases in mid flight and then coming eventualy to the stone work with a heavy thud and a magnificent crack. The hold was finaly released.

' Such bravery for a mear liberian...what say i just break you right here?...' The figure said haorsly.

[Tobias Moriarty]

Tears stung at the back of Tobias eyes as he dropped down into the wreckage of a bookcase, almost spearing his palm on some broken wood. His back ached – he was sure he’d broken something somewhere, because there was a hot sting all over his body.

“Ach…”

On hands and knees he wilted and fell, rolling onto his back. His eyes became fixed on the ceiling, and for a moment everything began to swim. A moment, that is, before it all went black.

[Zachariah Darmok]

' Tut tut tut such a fool...' Zachariah finally said carelessly after a few moments of darkened silence. At last the weilder of such terrible power walked forward into the light of the moon which shone through a roof window. The Warlock had only simply to find a book but he would be leaving with two things tonight. The bloody book...and a bloody man.

Bending to pick up the book, Zachariah lifted his finger slightly and the limp body of Tobias went ridged as a rock and floated gently into the air. As Darmok strode out, out followed the body after him like a persession, a funeral march without the horse and carriage.

The next thing Moriarty would know next as he woke in a dark chamber...was utter pain!.

[Tobias Moriarty]

His dry throat convulsed as he almost wretched from the sudden flash of pain. Sitting up with a start, he breathed out heavy dry breaths, looking around. His body still ached from the events in the library – yes he remembered those vividly. How could he not when he had such a pain in his body? Whoever had been controlling him then, he guessed, was the one who’d brought him into this pitch-black room.

As his eyes strained to see around him, pupils desperately sucking in any fraction of light they could find, he coughed, choking out another breath of stale air. His hands clenched at his sides as he scraped his nails against the floor, a feeling of helplessness welling in him.

“You bastard!!”

[Zachariah Darmok]

' Quite right!...Quite right indeed sir!' A voiced boomed.

In the darkness of the cell a snapping sound sliced through the stale air and just then 2 or 3 candles lit automatically as if on the command of Darmok' middle finger and thumb making such a sound. The light slowly faded and lit the room to its full capacity that the flames would allow and then Tobias finally saw Darmok. The Warlock was stood in front of the man on the floor draped in extravagant black flowing gossamer robes which was outlined in a thick gold line around the buttons and hood.

The mans face was not as suprising as someone might have thought for such an evil practice. Zachariah had shoulder length greasy black hair, slits for eyes as if squinting and his lips firmly pressed together to the point of them being white. However a twisted smile lay upon them. His pale face looked ammused.

' Tobias Moriarty correct?...' it was not really a question, rather he was assuming without asking. ' I am Zachariah Darmok, 2nd to High Priestess Cherissa Mengalorn...Welcome to the Temple of the Subryn Coven...i believe you have been searching for us for time now Mr.Moriarty.'

[Tobias Moriarty]

Grasping at his throat with one hand, an instinct reaction to the feeling of pain within. Looking up into the grinning face of the robed man. A priest? What madness was this! Priests did not attack people and drag them into dark rooms. Priests did not wield such powers as Tobias had felt exerted over him back in the library. But a member of a Coven … oh how he knew Covens. He had read of those so often, they being the binding ties that held together communities of so called ‘magic’ users. Perhaps this group, if they were truly what this man said they were, simply termed themselves priests, as a ranking system.

“Is that why you’ve brought me here?” Tobias coughed, his face looking a shade paler than before.

“Because you think I’ve been searching for you? You could have just… asked me to come instead of knocking me bloody well out!”

[Zachariah Darmok]

' No, i think this way was much better...' He spat while an evil grin spread across his face. Darkmok had a few plans with this man but they would remain silent for now.

' Have you been searching for us little one?...'

[Tobias Moriarty]

“I haven’t been searching for anything,” Tobias replied, stone-faced, his former scowl now gone.

“Those books that you… destroyed back there; they were all I needed to study.”

[Zachariah Darmok]

' Oh are they?...' Darmok simply asked, amused by the sheer disrespect this man had for Zachariah. But darmok showed little emotion and continued to push the young man.

' And i suppose these...books i destroyed were going to feed you into a world that already exsisted generations before you time did you?' He said queitly yet dangerously.

[Tobias Moriarty]

Tobias’ nostrils flared as he stared down at the ground. For all he was aching he was also angry, and this line of questioning seemed to have no purpose but to further infuriate him.

“I would learn from them. What I would learn and where it would take me, would have been at time’s whim.”