He stopped midstride, eyes pulled, and mind focusing on a table he’d just cleared off. Only to find another book laying on its surface.

Odd, he recalled removing them all, and his memory was good, almost perfect if he were to gloat. Yet there laid a book, the reliquary was closed, the place empty, he’d made sure. No one was around to disturb his cleaning duties, or disburse him as he read through books he wasn’t permitted to gaze into.

Frowning, he approached, adjusting the other tomes to make room for the new one.

‘Do you wish to know the secrets of all?’

Startled, the books falling from his hands, he looked about, fur flaring in fright.

‘Do you wish to understand the perfect imperfection of the realm?’

Spinning he searched for the source, the all-encompassing voice.

He was alone.

‘Do you wish to bring forth the splendor of old, to guide, to train, to return what is right, what is true?’

Guided, no compelled, he gazed at the book on the table, feet moving on their own, he approached.

‘Do you wish, do you wish, do you wish, to gaze within and see all that I hold?’

Pages glowing, he reached out, brushing a hand against the warm leathery surface.

Without words, but feeling, intention pure, he knew he could learn anything within the book, he just had to think of it.

He thought of the words sent into his mind, the mysterious nature of them, he did like knowing things, craved it in fact. To understand, to comprehend, it was why he’d joined the guild of scholars. Even though his family line could have gotten him positioned at more luxurious trades.

There was a childhood dream he had, a foolish one in retrospect, but weren’t they all?

He wanted to be a conjurer, a wizard, a mage, those in the stories, the kind with wonderous adventurers

“I wish all those things,” he said aloud to the book. “And one more.”

He thought of it, him wielding spells, bending the elements to his whims, putting down great beasts and evils.

The book glowed, its pages shining bright, it opened, and he was bathed in light.

It came to him.

It was so obvious, the phrases, the runes, the hymn of his voice, his demand and will towards creation.

How could he have been so blind?

He chuckled, even as more streamed into him, so much more, more, more, more.

His soft laughter began to die, became strained, his jaw clenched tight and head began to throb.

Yet the stream didn’t stop, on it came, an endless tide.

He tried to look away, but he found himself transfixed, his body not his own.

‘You shall know all that I hold, you shall carry forth all that I bestow, you shall aid in my design, you shall be mine.’

He tried to cry out, to retreat, to flee.

He continued to stare into the light instead, mind fraying, awareness fading.

‘You shall be me; I shall be you.’

‘That is the price of your wish, to make them true.’