Gifted - Chapter 11 - Ophanim (Patreon)

The rest of the school day went by quickly.

Melmarc ran into Ark on two uneventful occasions. The first was on his way back to class from the cafeteria. Being a year older than him and a class above, their circles rarely clashed.

They exchanged a few words when they met, and that was it.

Ark asked what he was doing after school and he said he wasn’t sure, which was true. He was torn between waiting behind to use the basketball court after the basketball team was done with it and going to the town library.

The second time was after school when he stopped by to watch Ark in football practice. Ark tried out for a new club activity every semester. It made him quite versatile. There was scarcely a sport offered at their school that he couldn’t play and hadn’t tried.

This semester football was his sport of choice.

Eroms and Delano were with Melmarc for most of it. They were mostly quiet, silenced since they’d learned of the Guardian under Melmarc’s bed.

“So where we headed?” Delano asked as they left the bleachers and, ultimately, the school.

“Town library,” Melmarc answered.

“Why?”

“Trying to figure out what exactly my brother’s keeping in the house.”

Eroms walked alongside them with his thinking face on. “Your mom’s a Delver, right?” he asked.

Melmarc nodded. “Yes.”

“And she’s already seen it.”

“Yep.”

“So why are you still worried about what it is?”

“I’m not worried about it. I just don’t like not knowing.”

Melmarc took a different turn from their normal route outside the school and the others followed.

“Looks like we aren’t going home soon,” Delano commented off-handedly.

“Sorry. We’ll be on our way soon. I just want to stop by the town library and look up some things.” Melmarc could almost see the steam coming out of his own mouth.

Winter was just around the corner, and the temperature was already dropping. Before he knew it, the first snow would fall, and winter would begin proper.

He wondered if Guardians hibernated. Like bears.

“Uh…” Delano scratched an itch under his jaw. “You do know that we’ve got a pretty big library in school, right?”

Melmarc knew, and he’d already read most of the books there over the years. He knew what his school library had.

Delano sighed. “Let me guess. They don’t have what you’re looking for.”

Melmarc nodded.

“And what are you looking for?” Eroms asked.

Today he had no snack to satisfy himself with on the road, nothing to share or chew. He walked beside them in his towering height and paid attention to the road ahead.

Kinda odd seeing him with nothing to eat on the road, Melmarc thought. Their friend was usually always eating something. If it wasn’t a gift from the lunch lady, it was an excess from home.

“Mythical creatures,” Melmarc answered.

His friends nodded as if it made a lot of sense. After that, they walked in relative silence. Delano talked about a few of the things he’d heard in school, which student had asked which student out, what rumors were gaining popularity.

They listened along the way, exchanged their opinions on whatever mundane subject was shared. At some point, the conversation moved to movies and comic books.

Melmarc was more of a novel reader than a movie watcher or comic book enthusiast so he had very little to share in the conversation. So he listened to them talk and thought of different possibilities to Ark’s pet.

When he was done with all the possible options, he realized that while he knew a lot about Western mythical creatures, he knew nothing about any other regions. Maybe he would start with updating his knowledge on mythical creatures from other regions.

They were close to the library when Delano bumped him on the shoulder.

“You don’t have a library card, do you?” he said.

“I don’t.”

Eroms looked between the both of them. “Do we need library cards to use the library?”

Delano looked up at Eroms. “Of course we do. That’s why it’s called a library card. You need library cards to use any library.”

He was smiling. It was a smile Eroms would usually take note of, but for some reason he didn’t today.

“But we use the school library without a library card.”

“That’s because we’re students. Our student ID serves as our library card.”

“But we’re members of the town.” Eroms scratched his head. He wasn’t slow, but sometimes he did act like it. “Doesn’t that mean we don’t need cards.”

Delano shrugged and held out his hand. “Do you have a town ID I don’t know about?”

Eroms reached into his bag and brought out a card. He placed it in Delano’s hand, confused.

Delano looked down at the card, then up at their friend. He repeated the action twice, each time a worried expression grew on his face.

“Uhh… Marc.”

“What’s up?”

Delano held the card up for him to see. “Please tell me I’m not the only one that’s never heard of a town ID.”

In his hand was a green card with Eroms face on it. The picture looked like it had been taken over two years ago, when their friend’s face was more on the chubby side than it was now.

Melmarc stopped walking to look at it. He’d never heard of a town ID before.

He took it from Delano and turned it to Eroms. “How’d you get this?”

“My dad got it for me.”

That was odd. There was no such thing as a town ID.

……………………

The town library was a tall domed building with wide balusters surrounding it. It reminded Melmarc of the large and famous courts he’d seen in the few law movies he’d watched, with what seemed like countless stairs and people strolling in and out.

It was painted white with a yellow domed roofing.

Inside was much unlike the exterior. While the exterior played the reminder of a court house, the interior was a proper library with countless shelves and more books than the eyes could see.

Melmarc had been here once before, brought by his uncle as a reward for getting an eighty-six percent in his math final exam. Most people measured their achievements by the grades, but his uncle had been more specific. An eighty-six percent got him a trip to the town library.

In the years since he’d been here, the library had only grown. The shelves were vastly more and the number of books had all but gone out of hand.

The librarian they met at the counter was an old woman, truly grown to age. She had a weathered face and held her hair up in a grandmotherly bun with the manacles to boot for eye glasses. Despite this, she stood with a straight back.

She had been managing the library for more than twenty years, sometimes single-handedly. Rumor was that she was a Gifted. Most likely, her skills somehow allowed her a great range of management skills that allowed her keep track of every book in the library.

Considering there were classes like Barister that created a nigh perfect Barister, it wasn’t far-fetched to think there would be a class called Librarian that would… you guessed it… give someone nigh perfect library skills.

Magic was weird.

The librarian looked at Melmarc and his friends as if they were drones moving from one task to another, and promptly returned her attention to a book she was reading.

“Uhm… good evening,” Melmarc greeted as they approached her.

“Evening.” She looked with a blank expression from him to Delano, then up at Eroms. For Eroms, she gave an easy smile. “How may I help you fine young man this evening?”

Okaaay…Melmarc looked between the both of them. I do the greeting and he gets the service.

Rather than dwell on it, he pressed forward. “Sorry to intrude, but where can we find the mythical creatures section?”

“Isle 4D, shelve 8.” Her eyes never left Eroms. She reached under her desk and brought out a sandwich wrapped in a transparent cellophane. “Would you like a sandwich, young man?”

Delano looked at the sandwich like it would jump out at him. Regardless, he reached for it. “Thank you, ma’a—Ow!”

The woman smacked his hand with a wooden ruler Melmarc hadn’t noticed she was holding. “Not for you.”

Delano cradled his hand and turned away from them.

“What’s with people and hitting me today.”

Melmarc wasn’t sure what was happening right now, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. So he tugged on Eroms sleeves and motioned for them to go. They had the information they needed so there was no real reason to remain here with an elderly woman who drew rulers out of nowhere and offered people food.

“Thank you, ma’am.” He gave a small bow of gratitude before turning away.

Eroms, took the sandwich from the desk and gave the lady a small wave before following.

The isles and shelves were labeled, and they found isle 4D shelve 8 easily.

It was a tall, brown shelve, like all the ones around it, with a ladder parked at one end of it. Countless books filled it from top to bottom, large and small, thin and thick. The ladder was for those at the top.

They grabbed a few from reachable levels without the help of the ladder and found a table in a corner they could use.

It was against the window and Delano took the seat right next to the window. Melmarc sat on the other side of the desk, and Eroms took his place next to Delano.

“Don’t libraries usually ask people to put their bags away when they come in?” Delano opened the book he’d chosen and was leafing through its pages. “The old lady didn’t even look like she cared what we did.”

Melmarc leafed through his book, an encyclopedia of northern myths. “As long as I’m in the library, I’m not really bothered about much else.”

“And she just gave him a sandwich. Just like that.” Delano looked between them. “No one found that odd? Like she saw him and thought ‘let’s give this young man something to eat’ in the l-i-b-r-a-r-y.”

Melmarc did pause this time. He’d found it odd, too. But he’d been too busy thinking of what type of Guardian he had back home.

“And he’s just eating it like it’s normal.” Delano reached out to snatch the sandwich from their friend and failed. “Stop eating food strangers give you.”

Melmarc raised his head to find Eroms was already half-way through with the sandwich.

“You good?”

Eroms nodded.

“Any idea why people keep giving you food?”

Eroms shrugged and took another bite.

“Aren’t you going to stop him from eating?” Delano complained. “He doesn’t even know the lady. Just the other day he came over to my place and my aunt Lizzy gave him a banana.”

“You’ve been friends since childhood, D.” Melmarc turned a page to a picture of a basilisk. “I don’t think it’s a big deal that your aunt’s giving him food.”

Eroms nodded in agreement, but Delano was far from agreeable.

“You don’t get it. Aunt Liz doesn’t share food. Never. But she just gives him a whole banana? It’s my aunt Lizzy. There’s no way you don’t remember her.”

Melmarc knew aunt Lizzy. She was Delano’s nice aunt that turned psychopathic when it came to sharing food.

Now that he thought of it, maybe it was weird.

Eroms was done with the sandwich and rolled up the cellophane. He slipped it into his bag to be disposed of later on at the nearest trash bin he could find.

Well, I can’t stop him now.

Delano grumbled a bit, but eventually they lulled into an easy library silence. Eroms had taken a small book from the shelve and was going through it. He looked particularly invested in whatever he was reading.

After a while, Delano turned his book, a thick encyclopedia with a green cover, and pushed it towards Melmarc.

He tapped on one of the open pages with a finger. “How about that? You said it looks like a dragon without wings.”

Melmarc looked down at the page. In front of him was a wyrm, wingless and serpentine.

He shook his head. “Too snake-like.”

Eroms turned his small book. “What’s this?”

Delano took one look at it and gagged. “Must be a demon of some kind.”

Melmarc looked at it. It was a picture of what looked like a wheel covered in many eyes with more wheels inside covered with more eyes. It was… not comfortable to look at.

“That’s an Ophanim,” he said, returning his attention to his own encyclopedia. “And it’s not a demon.”

Delano looked at it again and shook his head. “It’s got to be a demon. Can’t be any other explanation.”

“It’s an angel.”

There was a moment of silence as Delano processed the information.

Then he made a face. “You’re joking. Aren’t angels meant to be handsome and beautiful with wings? All heavenly. I heard there are some that look like babies and some with, like six wings. This one looks… wrong. It’s just eyes all over… and round.”

“You’re talking about, cherubims. That’s an Ophanim, also called ‘many-eyed-ones’.”

Delano looked at the image one more time and gave a full body shiver.

“Well, they definitely named it right.”

Melmarc’s next page showed him the picture of a drake.

Eroms turned his book back to himself and continued leafing through it. Delano took his book and did the same, but with far less interest than Eroms.

After a while, Delano looked up from his book and said, “Have you considered that, though?”

“Considered what?”

“Angels.”

Melmarc paused. He hadn’t considered that because it hadn’t been worth considering. His parents were Christians. It was difficult to believe his mom would learn that they’d gotten an angel for a pet and act so nonchalant about it. Also, he didn’t know of any dragon-like angel.

I can’t remember the last time mom and dad followed us to church, though, he mused. It’s only uncle Dorthna that takes us these days…

When last did we even go to church?

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been in a church in forever.

“Just hear me out,” Delano continued. “We know that there are many types of angels. You just showed me one that looks like wheels inside wheels with way too many eyes. If that can be an angel, who says angels can’t be wingless and look like dragons.”

Melmarc shook his head. “It’s not a dragon.”

“But it is.” Delano raised his hands and ticked off his fingers. “It’s got black, leathery skin. It’s got deep black eyes with white dots. It’s got the body of a dragon. It’s ticking all the boxes of Dragon-Knights dragon. Ergo, dragon.”

Melmarc refused. “It doesn’t have wings.”

“Maybe it lost them on its way here.” Delano closed his book and leaned forward. “The Chaos run that happened was what? A week ago? The Delvers had the entire place closed off, and I heard there was a lot of fire involved in the whole mess. Bigbluecroc99 said on his podcast that all the monsters that came out where all scaly and fire based.”

Melmarc still shook his head. Uncle Dorthna had said it wasn’t a dragon. He wouldn’t lie. He never lied. Well, there was that one time… okay, he lied sometimes, but only for jokes.

Delano turned to Eroms. “Help me out here. Everything points to it being a dragon. Dragon-Knight keeps his dragon in an active volcano somewhere because dragons thrive in places that are hot as hell. It’s got to be a dragon.”

It had to be. Yes. But it wasn’t. Melmarc refused to believe his uncle had lied or been wrong.

Delano sighed and leaned back on his chair.

Then he tossed his hands up in defeat. “I’ve got nothing. Doesn’t seem like anything I say will get to you. My personal opinion? It’s a dragon.”

Melmarc nodded.

He didn’t want to be difficult. It wasn’t his intention. And his friends had given up on any plans they might’ve had to follow him to the library just for this. He could feel Delano’s frustration from across the table. His frustration at him.

“I’m sor—”

“Nope.” Delano pointed a finger at him. “I swear to all that is sacred, if you apologize, I’ll rip your leg off and feed it to Eroms over here.”

Eroms made a face. “Gross.”

Delano snorted, then folded his arms over his chest. “Says the guy that bit my leg in elementary school.”

“You had barbeque sauce on your leg. And I was curious.”

Melmarc watched his friends exchange a few words. Delano joked about Eroms cannibalistic tendencies, and Eroms argued that he was the only human he was willing to eat.

It was a weird conversation. But Melmarc guessed that being childhood friends set the standard for what could be considered weird very high.

God knew he and Ark sometimes had the weirdest kinds of conversations without even noticing.

“What of you?” he asked Eroms after a while. “What do you think it is?”

Delano and Eroms stopped arguing, and Eroms looked down at his book. He turned a few pages back, then raised the book.

Delano had to lean forward to get a look at what was on the page.

“A Hydra?”

He looked at Eroms, found he was serious, and started laughing. “That’s a good one. I think I like his guess better.”

Melmarc shook his head. “Can’t be a Hydra, Eroms. It’s only got one head.”

“Just hear me out, yeah?” Delano was still laughing. “A Hydra’s got more than one head, but that’s because each time you cut one, two grow out. So it’s got to start somewhere, right? You can always try it out when you get home. Take its head off and see what happens.”

Eroms turned to him. “That’s gross.”