Basir drove his fingers through the pile of ash before him until a piece of parchment perched itself into his palms. Lifting it into the light, he thumbed at the dust to reveal the incomplete inscriptions of another age; a piece of his people from when they were young. Even now he could sense the magic within the broken words, despite it being charred from the prejudice of brutish men. All of it...gone, eroded from the sands of history to never be remembered again. His life's purpose burned from fate within a night.
Dropping the fragment into the rest of the debris, he looked around at the remains of this sanctuary of knowledge and wept. Flames still grazed on broken shelves and dying pyres, their jaws set on devouring what was left. Wood moaned and cracked as it sought to keep this sepulcher standing against the laws of nature. The clouds of smoke, though having found their airy refuge, waltzed among the survivors, biting at their lungs. Basir rasped out an end to this languish, "Return me to my ancestors," but instead of a blade, footsteps echoed across the stone toward him.
The first thing he saw was the golden wolf edged into a plate of black armor, its mouth clenching a scroll. Even as he stood he had to lean his head back to see this titan fully. This was no mere man, but an abomination of a dead age. Twice the height than any man and wide as a stone column. With a great obsidian mace in one hand, this...thing sat it to one side as it towered over him.
"Are you the Keeper of Secrets?" Though his words were of Basir's broken dialect, he understood him.
"We are all Keepers of Secrets." Basir said. Immediately, he felt the wind of the mace as the beast swung it over head into the wall, smashing a misshapen door with a single blow. Having tripped, Basir looked into the creatures eyes and saw a malevolent intelligence behind them. "Y-yes...I am he."
At once a great hand grabbed Basir by the neck and dragged him out of the archives and into the middle of the cobbled street. He was thrown at the feet of another beast, though this one not so tall, but wrapped in a priestly cloak and golden jewelry. A scepter sat on Basir's shoulder.
"Where is the grimoire?" He asked fluently in Basir's language. Looking up with a glint of defiance, Basir felt a power burst throughout his shoulder as if a very piece of his soul would separate from his arm. "I will not ask again."
"...you...y-you...destroyed it." Basir said, glancing back at the library. The priest glared at Basir for a moment.
"Stand." Basir complied.
At once the priest placed the tip of the scepter in Basir's forehead, and jade sparks reached into his head. Basir screamed and shook as it poured itself throughout his veins like the venom of a viper, until at last his body began to smoke and his skin turn gray. Still standing, a wave of heat like a mirage shrouded his figure. The priest then walked up to Basir, "Lead me to the book."
Casting his eyes open, they burned green. With a moan, Basir finally swayed to the library to return from whence he was born.