“And then Saluvarith came, and Fhaveon came, and Rhan came – and the daemon was defeated and he faded from our ken. Perchance it is Vahl Zaxaar himself who holds the alchemical formulae you seek, I know not.” She smiled thinly and brushed the last of the dust from her hands. “Sadly, neither I nor my library retain the learning of Tusien, such things are not held within these books. You are wasting your time.” She stepped back, and the shadows slid over her skin. “Should you need me, call at my gates. The tan commander will grant you escort. Farewell.”
Another step, and she dissolved into the dust.
“What the rhez?” Jayr took two steps after her, saw no one. “Hey!” The word was gone in the shadows – there was no one to hear it. The Lord of Amos may as well have dispersed into the decaying air. “Hey!”
“Hush!” Ress was on his knees. He replaced the pince-nez, carefully sifted through the remnants of the book. “You can’t shout in here – vibrations – you’ll cause all kinds of trouble.” As Jayr watched, he picked up a corner of leather, turned it over to reveal the paper peeling from the inside. “That was crazed – but she’s right. There’s power in knowledge.” He was almost trembling. He picked up fragments of a page, pieced them together in a pattern on the mosaic. “‘Kas’ means daemon, and ‘Vahl Zaxaar’ – I know the name –”
“She’s completely loco.”
“She not, though.” Another piece – and another. “There’s something here – why else would she destroy the book? Our mention of Ramm-Outhe? Maybe there is something there? Maybe it was a warning?”
“If the Lord of Amos wanted to warn you, she’d put a crossbow bolt through your foot. Can we leave now? She’s just told us there’s nothing here.”
“Why give us that name, though? Was she jesting? You’re right, Vahl Zaxaar’s a market tale, a figment –”
“Figments!” Jayr looked at the page, puzzled together on the floor. “She’s loco, and she’s just told us to leave. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“I think she’s hiding something.” He slid a final piece into the page. “The alchemical formula must be –”
“She’s not hiding anything. She said that Roderick’s been through the library –”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t here,” he said. “Shut up and help me.”
“All right. Just one more.” Jayr tore at a nail, muttering, and gave a short, pointed sigh. Dust danced. “Then we get the rhez out of here.” Sulkily she joined him, kneeling on the tiny, cold tiles.
He said, “Last one. Promise.”
For a moment, she eyed the fragmented page, then she glanced at Ress’s expression and groaned.
“You’d better mean that.” She spat out the nail fragment.
The fine writing was outlined with sigils, all now so faded she could barely see them. They hurt her eyes.
“What can you see?” he asked.
“Looks like someone’s used this as a cleaning rag.” She studied it for a moment, trying to piece together letters and sigils into some form of narrative. “‘Time when Substance of the Gods, In grip...’ Then something about flame. There’s mention of a ‘Promise’, and a ‘Master of Light’.” She looked up. “This is crazed.”
“Maybe,” Ress said softly. “But this has been crazed since poor Feren fled those monsters. Let’s get on.”
“For Gods’ sakes,” she told him. “It’s the damned great prophecy that foretells the end of the world. I mean, I can’t even make half of it out. ‘...When the Final Guardian, is broken at the...’ Past?” She blinked, words swimming on the fragmented page. “Huge chunks of this are missing. I can see something about a ‘darker jest...’ blank, ‘...fear manifest’.
Inexplicably, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up.
He looked at her. “Do you understand any more of it?”
She held the rocklight close. “‘Time the Flux begins to...’” She shrugged. “That bit’s gone. Then, ‘Nothing is more powerful, at last than...’ The rest’s too rotted to see.”
Her chill was growing.
“Right at the end,” he told her.
She was almost nose on parchment. “‘When love of life is distant...’ then ‘Time the World becomes...’ The last word of both lines is missing.”
With an odd relief, she pulled her attention away from the mess, rubbed a hand over her hurting forehead, rubbed the prickle from her forearms.
“Okay,” she said, half defiant. “So we’ve got half-eaten verses of poetry.”
But Ress was thinking now, restless and intense.
“‘The Substance of the Gods’ – is Rammouthe, we’ve just learned that. The ‘Final Guardian’ – Roderick is or was a Guardian of the Ryll. The ‘Master of Light’ – at the founding of Fhaveon, Samiel sent a creature of light to defend the city. Nivrotar’s just told us that much.”
Ress was staring at the shadows, unseeing. In his glasses, he looked like a crazed prophet about to disturb the soft air with a rant about the Final War.
“The ‘Flux’ – the Elemental Powerflux that’s supposed to connect their souls, light and darkness, ice and fire. Roderick was right – he was right – this is all somehow connected.”
“You’ll be telling me he’s got a champion from another world next.” Jayr resisted the temptation to scatter the fragments into the dirt. “I don’t know why this even matters!”
Ress began to chew his lip, eyes losing their focus.
“You wouldn’t believe how much it matters! I need to think.”
“You think yourself in circles.” She sat back, crossed her arms and watched him.
“...I think there’s something else here, Jayr. Something more than just the big daemon beastie...”
“What?” Jayr had lost him already. “Why?”
He stood up sharply and began to pace to and fro upon the shattered mosaic.
“The book Nivrotar broke, the loss of the world’s memory. The island’s inhabitants died of emptiness, of apathy. Surely a daemon would be all fire and lightning and torture and hooks?” He turned, his eyes focused and oddly bright. “I think there’s something else.”
Jayr snorted. “Something we’ve forgotten?”
“Yes. Exactly!” He picked up his parchment, leaned on the wall, scribbled frantically for a moment, then held out the paper to her. He was grinning like the birth of the sun. “The daemon’s a normal part of our culture and mythology – every tale’s got one. He’s in our legends and we remember him. Just about. But there’s something we’ve forgotten –”
“What are you – ?”
“It’s a puzzle, Jayr.” He was almost dancing a jig, bursting with eagerness and energy. “Gods, it can’t be this simple – this loco. All this time – and the Bard’s been right. The world had a nightmare – a nightmare that Roderick witnessed. And if the Ilfe, her memory, was on Rammouthe Island and it was lost – then no one can recall what that nightmare was. Your book said, ‘The dead carpet the Island of the Accurséd!’”
He broke into laughter that edged on hysterical and Jayr backed up – his expression was demented, fixated.
“Whatever killed them, whatever destroyed the world’s memory, that’s what the world fears, that’s what the nightmare was about. All this time –” he was alight, afire with understanding “– and I’ve found it. I’ve found what the Bard’s been looking for. He’s right, the world really does have a forgotten fear.”