Magi'i of Cyador

XXVI

IN THE DIMNESS of his cold quarters, under the flame of a single lamp, Lorn sits on the edge of the narrow bed, holding a green-silvered book, marvelling at the clarity of the angled characters that date back to the founders. The cover remains pristine, unmarked, its silver shifting from one faint shade of green to another as he turns it in his hands. With all he has had to learn, and the tiredness that comes from that and seemingly endless riding, he has read little. He looks at the back cover, but it too is untouched by time.

Yet the slim volume is missing two pages, and Lorn suspects that one would have been a title page and the other would have born the name of the writer, for there are no inscriptions anywhere within it that say when the book was written or for what purpose or by whom. There are no numbers, no strange cursives or codes. There are just the poems, and no one in Cyad writes poems, not publicly, not that Lorn knows. And no one has in generations, at least not poems shared beyond a family or a lover, and not that there is any restriction on writing them. It is just not done.

His lips curl. Just as it is not written that a student mage who is not properly reverential shall not become a full mage.

He fingers the pages of the book again. He can scarcelysee where the cuts had been made to remove the pages, and the material of each page seems stronger than shimmercloth. No knife he knows would cut such tough material so cleanly. But the pages have been removed.

He opens the volume, almost at random. He has promised to read it, every page. He knows Ryalth must have had a reason, a reason well beyond sentiment, for though she has feelings, those emotions will not betray her.

He reads the words on the page before him once. Somehow, unspoken, they are not satisfactory. He murmurs them softly as he reads them again.

Although the old lands are in my heart,

in towers that anchored life with certain art,

in eyes that will not again see bold

the hills of Angloria or surf at Winterhold,

I greet the coming evening, and the night,

proud purple from the strange and setting sun

and the towered ragged course that I have run,

towers yet that hold the chaos of life,

and struggle with order’s unending strife,

for endless may they hold our light

against the long and coming night.

Worlds change, I’m told,

mirror silver to heavy gold,

and the new becomes the old,

with the way the story’s told.

Lorn shakes his head. The words, or most of them, are familiar, but hint at a meaning beyond the obvious. Yet Ryalth had asked a question when she had given him the book. What were the Firstborn like?

Will the volume in his hands tell Lorn that?

The lancer undercaptain slowly closes the ancient yet ageless volume. He will read more. In time. He has years at Isahl. Years.