Songs of the Dying Earth

What was this? What had he stumbled across? As a group, these men — applying the collective in its broadest definition — consisted of the most unsociable, cranky, and iconoclastic denizens of the region. Some had not spoken for decades.

The magicians watched one another with a casual wariness equaling what they lavished on the interloper.

Ildenfonse stepped up to a podium, raised his hands. The approximation of silence gathered shyly. “I do not believe the others will join us. Let us repair to the solarium. I’ve had a light buffet set out, with breakfast vintages and a selection of ales and lagers. We shall then consider young Alfaro’s news.”

The magicians brightened. Elbows flew as they jostled for precedence at the buffet. Ildefonse’s pride did not let him stint.

Alfaro reddened. The loathsomely handsome Rhialto was heads together with the Preceptor. They kept glancing his way.

Alfaro headed for the buffet, only to find it reduced to bones, rinds, pits, and feathers. Some of the 21st Aeon’s finest costumery now featured stains of juice, gravy, grease, and wine.

Clever Ildefonse. Magicians with full bellies and wine in hand soon relaxed. His servants moved among them, keeping their favorite libations topped up.

Ildefonse called for attention. “Young Alfaro, taking the upper airs yester eve, chanced to see something that none of this aeon ought, unless as a time mirage. Amuldar.”

Susurrus, not a syllable of which Alfaro caught.

“He did not recognize what he saw. He did know that it did not belong. A clever lad, he has built himself a library of inexpensive reproductions of masterworks. In one of those, he found an illustration of what he had seen. Suspecting this to be of importance, he contacted me by vovoyeur.” The Preceptor gestured, left-handed, across, up, fingers folded, then open. The Moadel illustration appeared at the western end of the solarium.

A glance at the collective showed the majority to be unimpressed. “Before my time,” grumbled the usually reticent Byzant the Necrope. “And, considering the history, definitely a time mirage.”

Haze of Wheary Water, leaves up like an angry cat’s fur, demanded, “And if it were purest truth, what would it be to us?”

Questions arose.

Likewise names.

Historical events were enumerated.

Accusations flew.

The image did mean something to several magicians.

Arguments commenced, only to be shut down by the host when the spells supporting them threatened damage to his solarium. The magicians were accustomed to making their points briskly, with enthusiasm.

Rhialto approached Alfaro. In Morag’s opinion, he did not deserve his sobriquet. Nor was Rhialto half the supercilious fop of repute. “Alfaro, what moved you to stir all this ferment?”

“I intended nothing of the sort. By chance, I spied an ominous structure where none ought to stand. Amazed, I hurried home, did some research, chanced on the illustration floating yonder. I reported the evil portent to the Preceptor.” Alfaro meant to pursue exact clarity in all aspects, unless interrogated as to why he happened to be where he had been when he had spied this Moadel.

Alfaro posed a question of his own. “Why all the excitement? I didn’t expect to find the entire brotherhood assembled.”

“Assuming you actually saw…that…many magicians’ lives might be impacted.” Rhialto stalked off, having forgotten his usual exaggerated manners. He intervened in a dispute between Byzant the Necrope and Nahouerezzin, both of whom had honored Ildefonse’s vintages with excessive zeal. Nahouerezzin further suffered from senile dementia and thought he was engaged in some quarrel of his youth.

The mood of the gathering changed as the magicians made inroads into Ildefonse’s cellar. The oldest became particularly dour and testy.

Rhialto having demonstrated no interest in further converse, Alfaro slipped off into anonymity. The others preferred to ignore him? He would not fail to enjoy the advantages. He made an especial acquaintance with the buffet once the Preceptor’s staff refurbished the board. The long gray coat he affected boasted numerous capacious pockets, inside and out, as a magician’s coat should. When those pockets threatened to overflow, he strolled down to the lawn. His whirlaway sagged on its springs as weight accumulated in its cubbies and panniers.

During Alfaro’s third taking of the air, he realized that chance had granted him an opportunity he had come near failing to recognize.

He was inside Boumergarth, with a rowdy mob, all of whom would be equally suspect if The Book of Changes went missing.

3

Among Alfaro Morag’s gifts was a near eidetic memory. First time through Ildefonse’s library, he touched nothing. He examined spines, read titles where those were in languages he recognized, and, so, had nothing in hand when Ildefonse caught him staring at a set of slim volumes purportedly written by Phandaal of Grand Motholam.

“Morag?”