Archivist's voice trembled.
'I have never read the other books, though I have seen them,' said the philosopher. 'They are locked in a glass box, deep in the heart of the Hall of Lore in the land of my fathers, holy relics revered above all other treasures of our land. Each of them has a picture carved into the leather of its cover: the Fountain, the Vale, the Fire, the Cloud, and the Rock.' As he recited their names he referred to a deeply ingrained visual memory, the covers spread in front of his eyes.
'Why are they valuable?'
'They are over two thousand years old,' Phemanderac said. 'What preserves them is beyond our power to discover; in all that time our scholars have not needed to transcribe them. They were authored in Dona Mihst, they are of the Vale of the First Men, and preserve the history and culture of our common ancestors. My country would be prepared to pay a fortune for them.'
'And your country is—'
'Dhauria. What remains of the Vale of the First Men.'
'But - that country is a country of myth!' The Archivist scratched his balding head. 'I have been happy to entertain you in this library: goodness knows how few people care for the things of the past. But now you tell me you have walked out of myth and into my store of old books. How can I believe you?'
'It doesn't matter whether you do or you don't, for here I am. Dhauria I came from, a land beyond Desicca, the Deep Desert, and in that land the past is prized above the present, to our cost. In that land five books are our chief treasure. Now I discover that five more indeed exist, as Hauthius told us, and are within my grasp. Is this then a time for me to deceive you with needless falsehoods?'
'And these books reveal themselves at the exact time in which you come to Instruere? Is this not a coincidence too great for the imagination?'
'Of course not,' said Phemanderac. 'Far from being coincidental, it was inevitable. You said yourself this afternoon that I appeared determined to read everything in your archive. How could these books have remained hidden?'
The Archivist nodded, obviously recognising the sense of the argument. 'Let us for the moment assume you come from the Vale of the First Men. How were the books lost to your library?'
'We have always assumed they were destroyed by the great wave which drove the First Men from the Vale,' Phemanderac said as he mused it over. 'The other five, so the legend is told, were found floating on the waters by the few members of the Rehtal Clan who chose to remain in the Vale. But now 1 see that it was not so. Someone of those who remained in Dona Mihst must have removed them and brought them here, in violation of the command of the Most High. What harm has been done?'
'What is written in them?' The Archivist loved history, though even his passion met its match with this stranger, and he was eager to read the books. He reached out to take the Wave book.
'Wait a moment,' Phemanderac commanded, and the Archivist withdrew his hand. 'Books like these must be approached slowly, otherwise their contents will be taken too lightly. For two thousand years we have speculated as to the nature and subjects of the missing books. We knew their names, as they are referred to cryptically in the five works in our library, as Hauthius revealed to us, but he - and we - could guess at little of their contents. The Book of the Sun was believed to contain lists of those who passed into the presence of the Most High, translated after a life of devotion to Him. We knew the Book of the Mariswan by another name: the Song of Losian, the record of those who rejected the Fire of Life and left the Vale.
We always supposed the Book of the Clasped Hands was a record of the Domaz Skreud, recording the disobedience of the First Men and the rise of the Destroyer, written by Weid of the House of Wenta. The Book of the Golden Arrow was the symbol of the righteous judgments of the Most High, and most scholars agreed it was a book of law. The
'I have never read the other books, though I have seen them,' said the philosopher. 'They are locked in a glass box, deep in the heart of the Hall of Lore in the land of my fathers, holy relics revered above all other treasures of our land. Each of them has a picture carved into the leather of its cover: the Fountain, the Vale, the Fire, the Cloud, and the Rock.' As he recited their names he referred to a deeply ingrained visual memory, the covers spread in front of his eyes.
'Why are they valuable?'
'They are over two thousand years old,' Phemanderac said. 'What preserves them is beyond our power to discover; in all that time our scholars have not needed to transcribe them. They were authored in Dona Mihst, they are of the Vale of the First Men, and preserve the history and culture of our common ancestors. My country would be prepared to pay a fortune for them.'
'And your country is—'
'Dhauria. What remains of the Vale of the First Men.'
'But - that country is a country of myth!' The Archivist scratched his balding head. 'I have been happy to entertain you in this library: goodness knows how few people care for the things of the past. But now you tell me you have walked out of myth and into my store of old books. How can I believe you?'
'It doesn't matter whether you do or you don't, for here I am. Dhauria I came from, a land beyond Desicca, the Deep Desert, and in that land the past is prized above the present, to our cost. In that land five books are our chief treasure. Now I discover that five more indeed exist, as Hauthius told us, and are within my grasp. Is this then a time for me to deceive you with needless falsehoods?'
'And these books reveal themselves at the exact time in which you come to Instruere? Is this not a coincidence too great for the imagination?'
'Of course not,' said Phemanderac. 'Far from being coincidental, it was inevitable. You said yourself this afternoon that I appeared determined to read everything in your archive. How could these books have remained hidden?'
The Archivist nodded, obviously recognising the sense of the argument. 'Let us for the moment assume you come from the Vale of the First Men. How were the books lost to your library?'
'We have always assumed they were destroyed by the great wave which drove the First Men from the Vale,' Phemanderac said as he mused it over. 'The other five, so the legend is told, were found floating on the waters by the few members of the Rehtal Clan who chose to remain in the Vale. But now 1 see that it was not so. Someone of those who remained in Dona Mihst must have removed them and brought them here, in violation of the command of the Most High. What harm has been done?'
'What is written in them?' The Archivist loved history, though even his passion met its match with this stranger, and he was eager to read the books. He reached out to take the Wave book.
'Wait a moment,' Phemanderac commanded, and the Archivist withdrew his hand. 'Books like these must be approached slowly, otherwise their contents will be taken too lightly. For two thousand years we have speculated as to the nature and subjects of the missing books. We knew their names, as they are referred to cryptically in the five works in our library, as Hauthius revealed to us, but he - and we - could guess at little of their contents. The Book of the Sun was believed to contain lists of those who passed into the presence of the Most High, translated after a life of devotion to Him. We knew the Book of the Mariswan by another name: the Song of Losian, the record of those who rejected the Fire of Life and left the Vale.
We always supposed the Book of the Clasped Hands was a record of the Domaz Skreud, recording the disobedience of the First Men and the rise of the Destroyer, written by Weid of the House of Wenta. The Book of the Golden Arrow was the symbol of the righteous judgments of the Most High, and most scholars agreed it was a book of law. The
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