XIII - History, Legend, Prophecy

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"From the Lords of Creation who were seemly to descend
into this haven Garden globe wherein they could defend.
From beyond unto the first of these unending days,
this was set down to be the scheme
that serves until the parting of the ways.”

Book of Magres, Aeon IV, Age VI, Chap. V vs. xix

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From “The Song of Gorin” Stanzas 416-420

G orin spent the next day in concentrated study of the ancient volumes, relieved only by a brief visit from Hexard who brought him some food in the early afternoon and promised to return at nightfall.

The books were indeed a mine of information about Zandernatis and the way it had developed, although the actual origins themselves were left cloaked in mystery. As had been suggested, Gorin did not try to read all three volumes in their entirety; instead he selected the parts he felt would be the most revealing, hoping this would allow him to build up a reasonable overview.

He began with the smallest of the three volumes, entitled “The Establishment of the Golden City in Paradise”. When he first opened it, he was at once struck by the book’s great age, for the heavy pages were dark and time-worn. The ancient script was not easy to decipher either, but once he had understood its main idiosyncrasies, he was able to get along well enough. However, he found the style of writing to be very archaic, especially at the beginning - so emphatic and flamboyant it sometimes appeared to be deliberately trying to obscure the meaning behind the words. He could not, for example, make anything of the dedication, if such it was, written on the title page:

Who were these “Lords of Creation” it referred to? And what were “the ways” that had parted? There was no clue in the rest of the book, mostly given over to describing the design of the City, accompanied by detailed plans of its main monuments. He pored over the drawings of the Palace and found, without any difficulty, the rooms beneath the Silver Tower now occupied by Hexard. He also identified the vast gallery they had crossed on their way to the tower and saw how it led to the principal state-rooms where the King now held his audiences. Judging by the plans, they appeared to be very impressive indeed and Gorin wondered if he would ever get the chance of seeing them for himself.

Apart from the plans and architectural descriptions, there was a second part to the book which was even more intriguing. It seemed to be referring to the actual work of construction, but was couched in such vague terms that nothing certain could be made of it. One passage in particular drew his attention. He read it over and over again, trying to work out what it meant before deciding he would have to give up if he wanted to have sufficient time for the other two, considerably larger, volumes. Yet even after laying it aside he found he could not keep it out of his thoughts, and on the night of the first day he fell asleep with its words still running through his mind: