Abaton

Abaton
Basic Information
Type	Loop
Inhabitants	Librarians (in the past, likely)
Time	Ancient

Abaton is an ancient city that houses the Library of Souls. The city is located inside of a loop and was most likely used as housing for the librarians, since there was no known rooming space in the library. It is unknown how or when the city or the Library was built, or if one was built later than the other.

History

Origins

The city and the Library of Souls was built thousands of years ago and looped by an unnamed ymbryne. It is unknown if the city was the origin of the second soul or if it just acted as a large holding place for them.

Tales of the Peculiar: The Legend of the Lost Loop

The "frugal-minded" peculiars, as Myron Bentham put it, didn't want to waste any peculiar souls by taking them with them when they died. So, when peculiars died, it was said that they would journey to the Library of Souls in Abaton, and replace the soul they had "checked out" when they were born, much like a library book.

The legend says that one day a man found a way to enter the library without being dead and stole some of the most powerful souls he could find. It is unknown how he could have done so, as only librarians could pick up the jars that contained the souls and move them around. Before he could get away, the library's guardians killed him and put the souls back. However, it was too late and eventually peculiars got wind of the incident and the most cruel of them sought for the power of the library. More souls were stolen, and these peculiars battled for control of Abaton and the library.

Each new "self-declared king of Abaton" was killed by another. Finally, the last king fell and the one who slew him went to claim the Library. However, when he made his way to the hills of the ancient city, he instead came across an empty valley. The loop, with the library and all the souls inside it, had disappeared, with a meadow in its place. Before the loop was lost, it was also locked by twelve ymbrynes.

This story was told in the earliest (later banned) editions of Tales of the Peculiar, with the last edition containing it being six hundred years old. People would slowly forget about the city, and few believed it actually existed. The official position of the Ymbryne Council is that Abaton is just a story, but it was known to them that it and the Library did exist, and it was safer for the rest of peculiardom to not believe in its existence.

Caul and the Claywings

A recruiting poster for the Claywings

“	They searched and searched for the lost loop, mounting expedition after expedition, each failure only fueling their zeal. All along, my brother had only cared about ruling it, like the would-be peculiar gods of old. And when I tried to challenge him and regain control of the inter-loop traveling machine I'd built, he smeared me as a traitor, turned the others against me, and locked me in a cell.	”
–Library of Souls, Myron discovering Jack's true motives

Jack "Caul" made it his lifelong mission to find Abaton, with the sole purpose of locating the Library of Souls. He and his brother, Myron Bentham, founded the Claywings, who Caul convinced that Abaton was real and that they could have its power to rule peculiardom if they could find it.

The Claywings' search would be stopped when Myron, who had been imprisoned by Caul after protesting against him, tricked them into performing a loop collapse procedure, which became known as the Experiment of 1908 and turned the Claywings into hollowgasts. A few years after the Experiment, Caul was able to evolve into a wight, and was more obsessed than ever with finding Abaton. Devil's Acre became the headquarters for a small but influential contingent of wights as they continued with their goal, but only Caul's innermost circle knew that it was to find Abaton. It took them decades, however, to get close.

Upon realizing they needed ymbrynes to reopen the city, the wights started kidnapping ymbrynes in Europe, to a total of twelve. Caul also found and kidnapped Perplexus Anomalous, who he tortured for Abaton's location.

Library of Souls (Book)

Sergei Andropov mentions Abaton when Jacob Portman, Emma Bloom, and Addison MacHenry are forced to leave him behind.

Having the city's location through Perplexus, the twelve ymbrynes, and a librarian in Jacob, Caul and Myron bring their prisoners into Abaton. After Caul once again turns on his brother and transforms into a monstrous peculiar-god, Myron gives Miss Peregrine the recipe to collapse the loop before taking in a soul from the library himself. While he fights Caul, the loop is collapsed by the ymbrynes, with everyone but Caul and Myron escaping.

Trivia

• Abaton is Greek, and it means "I go not." In addition, Abaddon is from the Hebrew Bible and means destruction. Its Greek equivalent, Apollyon, is both a place of destruction and an archangel of the abyss. Abaddon references a bottomless pit, often appearing alongside Sheol, which is the realm of the dead.