Night fell, as it is wont to do once per day.
A man moved through the streets, not quite walking; his feet shuffled the cobblestones, and at each step he seemed ready to fall, before a seemingly invisible force jerked him back up. The visual effect was that of a puppet being controlled by a puppeteer who doesn't care much about making a good show. Or maybe a drunk zombie.
His eyes stared at absolutely nothing, lifeless.
After a particularly severe jerk, a small bronze badge fell from his lapel.
Minato arrived at the Watch house, mostly so they wouldn't sic Angua after him if he failed to show his face for the night before doing a beeline for the tower. As soon as he opened the door, every face turned to him, then looked away, with every sign having hoped it were someone else. Angua strut to him and barked softly.
The teen didn't speak dog, so he stared awkwardly at her before crouching and patting her head, causing her to snap away, annoyed, and bark worriedly again.
"Have you seen Carrot?"
Still crouching, Minato turned his head, finding himself on the same eye level as Cheery.
"No."
"Oh." The dwarf seemed crestfallen. "He didn't report for yet."
Minato got up, patting his pants.
"He must be late."
The watchmen working stopped on their tracks and stared at the teen, considering this novel idea. Cheery shook her head
"But he's never late!" she stroke her beard, worried "He once got a broken leg, and Igor said he had to stay on bed for a week, and Commander Vimes had to eventually order him to stay in bed because he kept sneaking out, and then the next morning we found him in a bed in his office!"
The dwarf put her hands down.
"And he's not home, and he doesn't have any hang outs (1), and with this Koom Valley business around we think he may…"
Minato didn't know what Koom Valley was, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one.
"I can go look for him."
He felt kind of bad for lying, but he figured using this time to end an eldritch abomination would even out the karma.
The Librarian couldn't sleep after what happened, so he didn't try to, instead choosing to walk back and forth in the library ooking worriedly, while cataloguing the books. They were already catalogued, as far as you can catalogue a quickly expanding infinite, making it not exactly the most productive experience, but it calmed him down. Usually.
It is bad enough when a book gets stolen, and now the book got stolen.
The Library was eerily still. More so than usual. The books that were near the book were usually skittish and aggressive, but now they seemed... calm.
At first glance, anyways. The Librarian knew the better word was 'sedated'. The books moved because of magic, but most of them did not generate magic themselves, instead feeding off the energy of the truly magical ones, in the same way a lesser book may survive by merit of mimicking the style of truly talented work (2).
And now a great source of magic had been removed from the immediate vicinity. The end result was akin to taking the candy supply away from a kindergarten and slowly see the sugar rush fade. They would still move, yes; with or without the Octavo, the Library was still by far the most magically charged spot in the universe. Certainly the books wouldn't starve themselves into being mere paper and hardcover anytime soon, but you could still feel it.
Well, not really, you needed to be a librarian to really notice any of this. But take his word for it, even if his word is 'ook'.
It was in this eerie silence that the Librarian heard some erratic footsteps.
Because he was a librarian, his immediate reaction was to put his finger in his mouth and shush loudly.
The footsteps continued.
He frowned. The Library did all sort of noises by itself at night – footsteps, chains, wails, honking cars, a lion's roar, jazz solo, a sort of rasping 'vwoorp vwroorp' thing that reminds one of a constipated elephant, etc. – but they always stopped after a good shushing.
This meant someone was here.
But it was night.
The Library didn't have a closing time, but barely anyone ever visited it, even during daytime. (3) It was not abandoned, because a good source of information is always appreciated, but it was part of the job, not something you do on your free time, and especially not at night.
The Librarian used his long arms to quickly fling himself on top of the shelves.
The Library didn't have any properly installed light source. Truly magical places seldom do.
During daytime, the sun somehow curved its light and barged in through the front door, sometimes knocking politely before turning the handle.
During nighttime, the glow of the books was enough to guide one by.
This glow, however, did not reach the top of the shelves. With surprising skill, the orangutan blended in with the background, until every last bit of his form disappeared, with the exception of his eyes, clearly visible in the shadows.
And from this safe spot, he saw the intruder.
It was Carrot.
The Librarian did not immediately get down in relief before saying 'oh, it is just you Carrot, you gave me a scare, for a second there I thought it would be someone dangerous', because you don't last long as the librarian of a magical library if you are the sort of person that acts as the first victim in a b-movie. (4)
Instead, he hid further into the shadows and watched. The Captain was not acting normally, and that was without taking in consideration his barging into the University during the night. He barely acted as a human.
Or rather, he acted as someone who was trying to act as a human. From the way he walked – as a newborn trying his first steps – to the way he would sometimes stop moving then blink furiously, or gasp loudly for air, as if he had just remembered he had to do such things.
The scene was terrifying in its ridiculousness. One thing was for certain; whatever this was, 'Carrot' was not a factor.
The ape watched as the creature slowly made its way to the insides of the Library. He didn't know what was going on. He also was blessedly devoid of intrinsically human self-destructive tendencies such as curiosity, meaning he had no reason not to turn tail (5) and run. Keeping himself in the shadows, and making as little noise as he could, he slowly circled the stumbling creature, moving to the exit.
Slowly, but surely.
And his stepped on a particularly old shelf, which creaked loudly.
He froze, and turned his head to see 'Carrot' had frozen as well. The ape was, by this poing, directly behind the watchman.
The creature visibly tensed, trying to figure out what was a 'noise', and how did it alert him of things he could not 'see', and remember how to breath, and remember to breath after that. But right now, it was putting all that on hold while trying to remember how to turn its head around to 'see' what it had 'heard'.
It managed to, but only partially. The head turned, but not the rest of the body. It's eyes fell in the exact spot the Librarian's hidden features was.
It opened his mouth to roar, but it forgot to let enough air out, so it came as a faint hiss. The Librarian did not notice it, however, because he had already dropped all the pretense of hiding, had jumped to the floor and was currently sprinting towards the door.
The creature ran. Its movements were broken, and it obviously did not know how a human body was supposed to move, but it made up for it by also not knowing the limitations of a human body. It fell, it stumbled, it crawled, it rolled, it clawed, it slithered, but it didn't slow down.
If it had been a marathon instead of a short dash, the ape would have had no chance. As it was, he was already close enough to the Library doors to desperately jump through them.
Right into the face of Minato, who had his hand outstretched to turn the knob.
1 Not entirely true. He hung out at the Watch House. It was a social quirk many Watchmen had; if you have a job that involves breaking up fights in every pub in town, you won't feel like spending your time in them.
2 Take that, me!
3 The Ankh-Morporkians who are literate are usually smart enough to avoid magic books, preferring to let Wizards deal with it. The Wizards who are literate are smart enough not to deal with i(t.
4 Also, because that sentence is not 'ook'
5 Metaphorically.