It was not long before a page returned bearing a manuscript tied with a leather thong. The boy placed it on the table and left.

“You see before you,” Zachary said, “the translation of the book of Theanduris Silverwood, his account of the creation of the D’Yer Wall.”

A swell of excited murmuring arose from the king’s advisors. Zachary raised his hands to quiet them.

“It is the only true account we know of that survives,” he said. “Ever since the wall was breached, we have bemoaned the loss of secrets, the loss of craft. Even the D’Yers could find little about the wall’s making in their own archives. Lord Fiori of Selium was unable to find anything useful, either. Much knowledge of the arcane was purged following the Long War, for anything, and anyone, associated with magic was despised and deemed evil. So while written records failed to survive the ages, spoken histories failed as well.”

“How did this one book survive?” Colin asked.

“Here and there oddments of our magical heritage can be found,” Zachary replied. “But the Silverwood book? It is hard to know its history, except that if you were to look at the actual volume, you would find its pages blank, and it would have appeared as nothing more than an unused journal. But despite appearances, the book does contain copious writing, and it speaks not only of magical things, but is itself an object of magic. There is only one place, for instance, where it can be seen for what it truly is and be read.”

He did not mention that the only place the book could be read was in the light of the high king’s tomb. The tomb of the current high king, who was Zachary. Down below, in the halls of the dead, a sarcophagus already awaited him.

“And so in this one place, our translator strove with the words of Theanduris Silverwood to draw the story out of the book. As a thing of magic, the words were often volatile, and our translator found himself in the care of menders more than once.”

Poor Agemon, Laren thought. Agemon was the chief caretaker of the tombs and fluent in many archaic tongues, including Old Sacoridian. Since the tombs were forbidden to all but royalty, Weapons, and caretakers, the duty of translation fell to Agemon.

“I don’t understand,” Lord Spane said. “How could words injure someone?”

“It is not easy to explain,” Zachary said, “except that there are spells woven into combinations of words or letters, or in the ink, or even in the way a letter is written. Just reading a sentence can create an unpleasant reaction. And not all words are read, precisely. They are presented in a very ... visceral manner.

“A great mage of Theanduris Silverwood’s caliber might have read the book without harm, but it still would have taken a while to decode the spells. Our translator did this at great personal risk in service to his king and country. The copy he made for us—” Zachary tapped the manuscript “—retains nothing of the magic from the original, and so is safe to be read. It is ordinary paper and ink.”

It was just as well, Laren thought, that if the original was so dangerous it could not be read anywhere but in a forbidden place like the tombs.

“It is impossible to know what became of the book,” Zachary continued, “after Theanduris Silverwood died, except that it eventually made its way into the private library of a collector of arcane objects, a Professor Berry. He himself is long dead, and his estate obscure, located somewhere in the depths of the Green Cloak Forest. It was from his library that Second Empire found the book and stole it. They brought it here in hopes of translating it themselves.”

“Please, sire,” Colin said, “do not keep us in suspense any longer. Have you read the translation? What does it say?”

Zachary smiled. “Yes, I have read it. More than once. More than twice. I learned much about the construction of the D’Yer Wall.”

Laren felt the excitement building in the chamber, her own hope surging.

“I have learned from my reading,” Zachary said, “that it was perhaps a good thing that all other records of the wall were purged so such a feat could not be duplicated.”

Excitement turned to confusion.

Zachary placed his hand on the manuscript. “Not only were the words written in the book volatile to readers, but as mere language, they describe a bloody time in our history. The book corroborates what Riders Alton D’Yer and Dale Littlepage have been able to find out about the wall’s construction. Thousands upon thousands of magic users were sacrificed to the wall. Each granite block, every mortar mixture, was fed the blood of people, and their souls sealed in the wall to remain guardians of it for as long as it stood.”

This revelation was met with silence, and Laren could tell the others didn’t quite grasp the enormity of it, except maybe Lady Estora, who paled. Laren had been privy to Alton’s and Dale’s reports, but nevertheless shuddered to hear that the book confirmed all those sacrifices took place.

“It required the destruction of so many lives,” Zachary said, “during a time when the realm’s population of magic users was already hit hard by war and plague and persecution. In fact, for those opposed to the existence of magic, the building of the wall served the dual purpose of protecting the lands while ridding the world of even more magic users.

“If we wished to reconstruct the breach using the same methods, we’d have to sacrifice those with magical ability and bind their blood and souls to granite and mortar. We’d also need a great mage of Theanduris Silverwood’s power to do the binding.”