Tillam was consumed by the repetition, the scrape of his horse’s hooves on the road. His journey from Cairo to the kingdom of Lan Paloma had drained him of his usual spirit, though he felt lucky that more hadn’t been taken from him. It had been three weeks since his departure, and the desert spared no one from its trials.

Clip clop. Clip clop. Tillam gazed ahead astride his mount, eyes glassy with the repetition. For a moment he felt part of the landscape, a sand dune himself, a lizard seeking shade, a grain of sand in the sprawling expanse. The sun beat down on his shoulders, unshielded by merciful clouds or wise oaks. The desert spared no one.

The horizon shifted, revealing a dark dot Tillam knew to be the village of Wur. An hour later he could make out the liquid salvation at its center, an oasis framed by lush verdure and yellow farmland. By late afternoon, Tillam saw the mud brick of the houses and noted to himself that the barbarians had not yet reached here.

The ground turned from sand to dirt as Tillam neared the village, accompanied by a ravenous growl from his stomach, which was upset that his rations had run out a day too early. As he skirted the edge of a field of crops, an old, swarthy man looked up from his plowing and stared. He blinked twice as if judging whether he was dreaming, then fled toward a decrepit shack a few hundred feet away.

Tillam nudged his horse to canter further into the village. He had his sights on the only two-story building in the village, the heart of its role as the traveller’s outpost. Before Tillam set out, his father instructed him that a trustworthy woman named Hilla, who cooked decent fare, ran Wur’s inn, although his stomach per usual ignored the promise for food and grumbled unabated.

Villagers gawked as the farm-hand had an hour ago, staring not at Tillam but at the horse that he rode. One man with short black hair and a scar on his nose strode forward and shouted, “Who are you? State your intentions!”

Tillam explained as calmly as his aggrieved appetite allowed that he came as a friend, seeking only a bed and a meal.

“Oh, a traveller.” The man hesitated, then continued, “Now don’t you go bedding your monster of a camel in the stables, but you want Hilla’s inn over yonder. It’s the one to the right of the granary.” He flicked his head up again but paused before speaking. Deciding against it, he turned and resumed his work.

Two days prior, he had arrived in the small traveller’s outpost of Wur. Seeing his horse, the villagers had graciously accommodated him. He had paid the local innkeeper for a stay of one night then gone to sleep. In the wan minutes of daybreak before the sun crested the horizon, the ground shook. This was expected, of course; for a year, now, the ground shook to greet the morning. Some interpreted it as a sign from the heavens, but Tillam had grown accustomed to it, believing the Earth had its own ways. He had remounted his horse an hour after the shaking and set out again for his ultimate destination: the capital city of Lan Paloma, the city called Brumaan. If the estimate of the Wur villagers was to be trusted, he would arrive in five days’ time.

The estimates of the Wur villagers, however, were bound to be imprecise, because it was unlikely they had ever seen a horse before. It had only been six years since the barbarians from the north had docked at shore and laid waste to the countryside of Lan Paloma, driving out the native people and claiming its capital as their own. With them, the barbarians had brought strange beasts they called horses. Tillam's parents had been fortunate to have found a stray herd of horses, trained and fertile. They had brought the horses back to Cairo to breed them for sale and sport. The nobles of Cairo had taken an immediate liking to the alien mounts, but few others outside of the barbarians of Lan Paloma understood them.

While buying their horses, the nobles of Cairo often spoke of the Pharaoh’s efforts to understand the barbarians. The Pharaoh’s scouts who went to Brumaan always returned speaking of a great library in the center of the city, a library built from mud bricks that reflected the sun’s fury in the day but that were icy in the night. The barbarians, they said, also flew great lengths of colored cloth in the air with a strange combination of white and red stripes. Tillam's parents had sent him to Brumaan in search of an education, for the scouts who entered the great library described walls twenty feet high piled with dusty volumes, and they spoke of magic on Earth.

As dawn broke, Tillam lay waiting. It was four days ago that he had departed from the village of Wur. He was eager to begin his day’s riding; the air told him he was near. Indeed, by early noon, the city rounded the horizon. Tillam, used to the architecture of Cairo, didn’t understand how the city’s great spires stood. The scouts, too, were right about the bricks: looking at a building from a bad angle made the sun burn his eyes, as if staring at it through a lake’s reflection.

By dusk, he arrived at the city gates. Nodding to the guards, he entered Brumaan; the guards seemed to take his horse as proof enough that he was one of them. The streets of Brumaan were made of cobbled stone and were lined on either side with smooth stone and storefronts. Above the stores, slightly overhanging the streets, sat the homes of the Brumaan citizens.

Though his desire to see the wonders of the barbarians’ city only strengthened from the sights he had seen, Tillam was weary from the weeks he had spent travelling. Tonight, he would rest; tomorrow, he would explore. He checked into an inn, which was made moderately difficult by the difference of language, then lay down on his bed. Falling to dreamland, he thought of the library and the strange magic that scouts had reported within it.

The morning shaking woke him; it was stronger here than in Cairo. After the ground settled, Tillam noticed a sound he had never heard before. An aroma unlike any he had smelled accompanied the strange, mechanical sound. He rose from his bed, dressed, and entered the main floor of the inn. The morning light revealed what night had hidden.

Cooks and servers worked in a kitchen behind a short counter to make breakfast. They cooked with strange fire that burned blue and strange pans that reflected the flames as Brumaan’s great spires reflected the sun. He now saw that the aroma he had smelled came from a vat filled with a dark fluid that bubbled over the flame.

Handing in some coin, he was seated and served a thick stew of vegetables and meat. He was also given a cup of the bubbling liquid. When it touched his tongue, however, he recoiled; it tasted more like dirt than drink. He soon began to appreciate its flavor, however, deep with variations. As he drank, waves of energy came to him. Upon downing the last drop, Tillam wondered if this drink was the secret to the barbarians’ success, for his usual morning grogginess had left him completely.

While he ate, he became uneasy with the feeling of being watched. His worries manifested when a man about his age sat down at his table and asked to talk with him privately. The man was clearly serious but also didn’t seem intent on harming Tillam. They walked to the back of the inn, and the man spoke: “Is your name Tillam?”

Suspicious but curious, he responded, “Yes, that’s my name. May I ask yours?”

“My name is Gavar,” he said. An odd feeling overcame Tillam: he knew a Gavar… also, how did this man know his native tongue? The man continued, “I thought I recognized you, Tillam. You may not remember me, but we were friends from childhood in Cairo. Now, I’m a royal scout for the Pharaoh. I’ve lived in Brumaan for two years.”

Reality struck Tillam. He told Gavar about his journey and his desire to explore the great library. Gavar explained that he had roamed the labyrinthine halls of the great library of Brumaan on multiple occasions. Excited, Tillam asked if Gavar would give him a tour. Gavar responded, “Of course I will!” They walked back through the inn and began their walk to the great library.

When they arrived at the foot of the library, the sun still stood low in the sky, struggling to warm the breeze. Tillam thought the library was more magnificent here and now than the most fantastic stories the scouts had told of it.

As they entered the great wooden double-doors, Tillam was greeted by a sensation he had never had before: it was colder inside the library than outside. When he asked Gavar how it was possible for a building to stay cool in the face of the shining sun, Gavar said simply, “This is only the first of the magic you will see in the library of Brumaan.”

The deeper in they walked, the less Tillam could believe the building was constructed by humans. Books unbounded lined the walls, though the names of the authors were foreign to him. Great red carpets divided the schools of thought, organizing the human experience into neat rows of bookshelves. Gavar explained how Brumaan was a hub of learning for the world: “Scholars from the corners of the Earth gravitate to this very library to learn and to teach. Although,” Gavar added, “the Quensal people have known that the Earth is round for many hundreds of years.” This surprised Tillam the most of all of the facts he had learned with Gavar.

After walking for a little under half an hour, Tillam realized there was no way they could have walked so far into the building he had seen from the outside. When he asked Gavar how the library continued so far into the streets of Brumaan, Gavar said that the library slanted downwards from the entrance. They were, therefore, underground, now, hundreds of feet below the bustling markets of the streets above.

Tillam had difficulty accepting this explanation, though: there were windows through which bright sun shone into the library. “How could this be so far underground,” he wondered, “when the midday sun shines here so brightly?” Upon asking Gavar, naturally, the next explanation involved what Tillam believed was surely a magician’s work. Gavar said that the scholars of Brumaan had captured artificial light, like a candle, except that it burned for many years inside a glass cage. The lights, he explained, were turned off during the night and dimmed for sunrise and sunset. That way, the residents of the library knew when to sleep and when to wake.

An hour’s walk down the tunnels of the library of Brumaan marked a shift in its architecture. More than a mile deep, now, the vibrance of the entrance gave way to an earthen tone; bare rock chiseled into shelves made most of the walls. Oddly, though, the books here seemed newer, for less dust sat on their spines. A low hum filled Tillam's ears. Gavar explained that few ventured down this far, in part because the active construction of the library involved quarrying stone nearby. This was the cause of the persistent humming. The true reason so few ventured down so far, Gavar continued, serious now, was that, here, the greatest barbarian scholars worked to forge a weapon.

Here, the barbarian scholars labored to create a Metal Sun. “This is, Tillam,” Gavar said gravely, “the closest you will stand to true magic. A Metal Sun is a mechanical bird that flies with fire. When it reaches its target, it becomes the sun, for an instant, scorching the land and cursing it for many years. Here, deep underground, the scholars test their prototypes for the Metal Sun. That is why, every morning, the ground shakes. If a Metal Sun were used on the streets of Brumaan, not contained by the rocky hide of the Earth, buildings as far as Cairo may topple, and any who ventured to the wastes of Brumaan would return sick.”

“Why seek to build such a horror?” Tillam asked.

“Tillam,” Gavar said, “that is the fundamental division among the scholars of the library. Two groups fight this battle. The Existence Party argues against the development of a weapon so cruel to its victims. While the Brumaan public generally supports the Existence Party, a few align with the vision of the Meddlers, the proponents of the Metal Sun. The Meddlers claim that war would die under the might of the Metal Suns. No one would dare rise against it for fear of destruction. Thus, after a short period of violence, the world would know peace.”

The artificial sunlight cast through the windows began to dim when Tillam and Gavar decided to turn back. Earthen walls turned to wood, which eventually reverted to the reflective magnificence of the library’s entrance. “Magic lives here,” Tillam thought to himself. He questioned his stance, however, regarding the barbarian scholars who labored to feed it.

“Ought magic have a limit,” he wondered, “a bound after which its development should be overruled by the preservation of life?” If so, when? Project Metal Sun may trespass over the edge of morality, but what of the captive light? Might light prefer to roam free through the heavens rather than be enslaved in glass under the crust of the Earth?

It was twilight when Tillam and Gavar stepped through the door of the inn. Tillam bade Gavar farewell, thanking him for the tour of the library. As Gavar turned and walked into the distance, Tillam resumed his ponderings. He thought through the night. What purpose would a Metal Sun fulfill? Whose purpose? Should it be used, how would it affect his family and the nobles of Cairo he had gotten to know? He questioned to what length the scholars of the library of Brumaan would go to manipulate magic.