The Archives. The lowest level of the Great Library of the Order. A singular part of a monstrous building that reaches a hundred stories to the sky and digs a hundred more down into the belly of the earth. Six, two acre, wings in total with more stairs than a man could care to count. No one sure as hell didn’t. He shuffled through the archives, his black leather ridding boots scuffing listlessly against the dusty flags and his short-sleeved black silk shirt clinging damply to his back and chest. His black long coat was draped over his arm and his hands itched desperately under his black leather bracers. His raven black hair clung to his face and, much like the rest of him, was in desperate need of a wash. He squinted against the oppressive darkness, trying to see more than two feet ahead of him. Blasted library, what business does it have being so bloody dark?! It’s not as if you could actually read in-
“Gah,” No one gasped as one of the Archivists very alarmingly, and suddenly floated out of one bookcase and into another one no more than a hair’s breadth in front of him. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves before he moved on. The archives were no place for the living and that was a fact. And I have no place being here, not anymore anyhow. No one had been Master Feared’s apprentice and his master had expected him to start and end every day with a run up and down every staircase in the Library. But No one was no longer an apprentice. He was the youngest individual to ever participate in a naming ritual and become a Disciple. And not only that, I mastered top of my class in all four of the Great Disciplines! A virtually unheard of feat! Yet Master Feared still expected him to do his daily run and had been very adamant about it. He had even gone so far as to give No one a lecture about how just because he had become a disciple doesn’t mean that he can let himself go. Stupid fat bastard! If there is a vengeful god out there then I implore him to curse the obese dolt and his progeny for the next hundred years! No one fumed silently as he approached the staircase that led out of the archives. If there is one thing I hate most in the world it must be stairs. He stepped forward and yelped in absolute horror. Something had knocked him brutally into the wall whilst yelling almost incomprehensibly about him having to run. It took him a moment to recover from the shock and realise what was going on. Standing across from him with a big smile on her repulsive face was Kathy Blake. He cursed inwardly. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with his own affairs and so bloody certain that there was nobody down in the archives, then he would probably have sensed her presence and saved himself a world of embarrassment.
“Looks like that grand ol’ name of yours aint so well chosen after all,” she snickered. Perhaps I spoke to soon, stairs aren’t the one thing I hate most in the world; it’s her.
To say that Kathy Blake was even mildly attractive would mean that you were blind, deaf, lived halfway across the world, had never seen a woman in your life, had never met her and that you were lying for all that you were worth and were most likely tortured beforehand. To say that she was absolutely hideous would be to lay the most wonderful of compliments upon her. She certainly isn’t the type of person you want creeping up on you in the dark, that’s for sure. She was short, stocky and almost manly in build. Her face could scare the dead and to add to its charm, she had so many piercings; her face was just a few inches of flesh short of being a giant hole. Her hair was cut into inch long spikes and was dyed a radioactive green. And to add to her comeliness her breath smelt like a dog that had died in a puddle of ammonia and had been baking in the sun for good few days.
“An apprentice should treat her betters, that is, disciples with more respect.”
She snorted, “I’m well on my way to becoming a disciple and you know it!”
“Tell yourself whatever you need to hear,” No one said over his shoulder as he walked away, “But regardless of whether you become a disciple or train for a hundred years, you’ll still never be even half as powerful as I am!”
“You tell yourself whatever you need to hear No one!” she shouted after him, “I may not be as powerful as you, but at least I’ll be more human! But hey, a hundred years will be more than enough time to make your life hell!”
No one growled. Useless wench! If there is a vengeful god out there I implore him to curse her, preferably whilst he’s cursing that fat bastard! He sucked at his teeth sourly. For all her many downsides Kathy had a point. No mater who you were, or where you came from, if you were accepted into the Order it meant that you had the blood in you. Demon blood. In most it was very weak, only enough for a person to be able to master one of the Disciplines, but in No one it was strong; very strong. He was almost three quarter demon and incredibly powerful to boot. He had mastered all four Disciplines: taming, shifting, casting and tongues, in less time than it took most to learn one. He was the youngest apprentice to ever participate in a naming ritual. A smile touched his lips. The naming ritual, a true thing of beauty. An apprentice is placed into the arena and given a line to hold using whichever skills he thought most appropriate, he would then be brutally attacked by first the Disciples, then the masters and if he beat all of them, then the six High masters. If he still stood after that then Grandmaster Ferocious would enter the ring. After that, they would choose a name based on the performance in the ritual as well as in classes. I had held the line for an unprecedented twenty four hours straight and the closest they where able to get was ten feet; and that was the Grandmaster himself! And so he walked out of the library in a better mood than he had entered it; for he was a Named man, he was No one. So named for no one had mastered all four Disciplines before. No one had ever beaten him. No one sneaked up on him. No one was more powerful. No one was more skilled. No one was more talented. No one had ever done the ritual at such a young age. No one had ever held the line for so long. No one had ever held the line so effectively before. No one had come closer than ten feet to the line. No one was as deadly. And, on that hellish night seven years ago; no one had walked away.
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