The hushed depths of the crumbling structure loomed silently around him, the forlorn stones above sending apathetic pebbles and sand to rain on his hooded head as if they might collapse at any moment... and have no second thoughts whether he was under them or not. Some part of him insisted he not look up, as if the weight of his gaze would be enough to break them at last. He shook his head and returned to his task, tying a rope around a pillar that looked to be… reasonably intact. As he pulled the knot tight, he tugged sharply, holding his breath. When nothing moved, he nodded solemnly and threw the sturdy coils over the remnants of a railing and into the gaping darkness below. He stared determinedly into the inky fathoms, gripping the rope tightly. A voice in the back of his mind told him this was foolish.

But he was never one to listen.

With careful movements and steady hands, he began the long decent. Slowly, jagged shelves took form in the shadowy maw, like merciless teeth ready to impale him. He smirked wanly at his mind's dramatic musings. The tops of the shelves were close enough to touch now, at least where they were still clinging to their regal forms against time's steady pull. A faint sound met his ears. The softest sigh of stone on stone, grating slowly. His eyes widened as the rope went slack. The stale air snatched at his hair and robes as his fingers tingled with the sensation of falling. He only found his voice to yell in time to hit the ground. He scrambled away on instinct, heedless of his body's cries. As he turned back, a rain of stone clattered down where he'd lain. He watched with solemn eyes and shook his head against death's escaped claws. With a hollow smirk, he turned away. He wasn't going to die yet.

One final stone fell, shattering the crypt-like silence. He stared at it and the coils of rope snaking through the pile with surprising apathy.

There was no going back, but it wasn't the ruins he yearned to escape.

He pressed onward, drifting between the shelves that seemed to groan under their own weight. The long ruined tomes that had once lined their shelves were no more than heaps of rotted pieces slowly turning to dust. At his passing, the air drew flecks of their dusty pages to flutter down onto the floor.

He heard voices in that moment, a bright laughter. But there was no one beside him. No, these voices, he knew, were remnants of the past. His feet halted unconsciously at a heap of rotted wood before a now jagged archway. That had once been a study room, he knew. In his mind's eye, he saw himself sitting at the former table. Gods he'd been so much younger then. It was almost another life entirely.

Memories filled him: thoughtful conversations in a dining hall, a warm smile on an aged face, sitting beside that same man as the both of them poured over tomes of long forgotten knowledge. Each vision was happy, a wonderful recollection, but he knew this was not the truth of it. No, here he remembered only the best moments, never his frustration, nor the rage at being denied advancement.

...Nor the seething hatred for the smiling man as he refused to share the most alluring knowledge.

He clenched his teeth tightly and moved on down the endless rows of looming shelves. But try as he might, he could not escape the warm smile of his mentor as it haunted him through the room. Step after step slowed, until he stopped before the remains of a dais nestled in the midst of the shelves. None of the benches for lectures still remained. He smiled wanly, seeing himself half asleep on one.

He'd never really listened.

Lingering a moment longer, he could almost hear his mentor's voice among the silence, but he shook the thought away and strode on determinedly. This time, he knew where he would go, even if he never wanted to stand in that place again.

He leapt adroitly over a fallen shelf and continued onward, winding through the cluttered mess until he came to a simple stone washbasin standing solemnly before another archway. His stomach clenched as he approached it.

This.

This very spot had marked the end.

He heard his own voice, hateful, cruel, condemning. Words flew from his lips from decades of sequestered rage. Each sentence condemned his mentor with venomous wrath, seeking to scathe and hurt and tear down all that was good within the man. He kept the best knowledge for himself. Never shared. He hated his apprentice and never trusted him.

The memory tasted of ash now.

But the words were not his only shame. In that moment, striking with words had not been enough, and at the man's patient defense, he had snapped. The feel of his fist striking his once-beloved mentor's face haunted him unto this day.

The man had said nothing as he stood back up, holding his face. But others came in droves, grabbing at his youthful frame and holding him back. He'd screamed and raged then, so many horrid words he'd never meant.

But he could not take them back.

He could not undo what he had done. None of it.

His hands clung to the basin, the force of his grip shattering it to pieces. He stepped back hurriedly.

And then he ran.

His shoulder clipped a shelf, sending up a roar of creaking, clattering, shattering wood as it toppled. But it didn't matter. There was only one thing he needed at this very moment in time. The cacophonous drum of his footsteps rang in his ears as he pushed onward.

And then he found it.

His feet halted their haggard pace as a breath shuddered from his chest.

Beyond a cracked archway, in a solemn, single room, stood a small sarcophagus. The only adornment was a series of cracks along its lid, but he knew. He knew.

His body moved to it without conscious thought, drawing closer. He reached out a hand, flinched, then settled it on the lid.

"Master," was all he could manage.

It was strange. For many decades, he'd dreamed of this moment. And now that he was here, he had no idea what to say. Except…

"You were right."

He sighed to the darkness.

"I thought I desired this path more than anything. I wanted to learn it all. To know more than you, to surpass you," he scoffed. "You knew where it would lead, didn't you? You knew what it would cost me."

There was no answer from the tomb, but he didn't need one. With a heavy heart, he sank down beside his old mentor, leaning his back against the frigid stone.

"I found a new master," he said with a mirthless laugh. "He taught me everything I wanted. But once I had the knowledge… it meant nothing. I always wanted more. More and more," he sighed. "Until only the darkest remained."

He reached back to touch the sarcophagus.

"I suppose it's a fitting fate for me, for the one who's hunger was never satisfied. What do you think, master?"

There was only silence.

But he knew the answer. It was the perfect fate. It was the reason he had left. It was the why his eyes could now see in the pitch dark blackness. He rubbed a hand over his pale face.

"I never listened, did I?"

He turned his solemn, ruby stare to the blank ceiling.

"Master... I know it's been a few centuries... but could I just sit beside you again?" he asked, not the forlorn man, but the boy who had finally come home. "I promise, this time... I'll listen."

The only answer was silence.

And he listened to it until it was broken by a single solemn sound.

A sob of regret.

Another followed, then more, each forming a crack within him until all that remained of the man who knew so much was a shattered shell.