The Arkanist

Chapter Twelve: Findings

Chapter Twelve: Findings

I stumbled upon it, really. I would like to say that I spotted several clues along the way, plotting my knowledge in a web, and at one point connecting them with a certain achieved realization befitting that of an accomplished detective. I would like to say I knew what I was doing, that I was smart and clever and witty, but such is not true. Looking back, it was undoubtedly luck, plain and simple, the truest form of it. I got lucky.

Spring had taken hold of the city, and with it, came the rain. All day long it would fall in varying shades of grey sheet, smacking across the cobbled walks, racing down the tiled roofs, and pooling in the ruts and pockmarks. Winter was behind us, its cold, harsh snows forgotten, the trees beginning to blossom in a flourish of garish color.

I splashed my way through the streets, my hood drawn, as the rain pelted my back, and stood before the library gates. I'd just finished lessons with Aryl, and set out with Amoir Vientos Eleywn tucked comfortably in my cloak pocket. All in all, it was a good day. Our lesson had covered history, chiefly the evolution of the peoples and tribes that would someday make up much of Lent and Leir. I found it fascinating to say the least, but in those days, I found almost everything fascinating. It was all so new, so untouched, so undisturbed, and I was so ignorant.

When I entered, I signed myself in quietly. Alace was not at the desk today; instead a clerk by the name of Lucian occupied the seat. I didn't know him well, but I knew that his father was a nobleman, occupying a small holdfast just outside Raenish. The family was not powerful, but the name was recognized, especially in Lent. He had dark black hair, cut short, and a long nose, straight as an arrow.

Once inside, I sat in relative quiet and privacy, the kind that came all to sparse in a city. While human companionship is essential to life and to our knowledge of life itself, solitude is always appreciated. I relished in it for a brief moment, the uninterrupted silence, then brought out the book, for that was what I referred to it as back then, simply, a page of paper and charcoal that I had purchased near two days back, and set to noting and chronicling what I was reading and what I was attempting to translate.

That was when I stumbled upon it. I had just finished noting and connecting various fragments of words on one page to form a single choppy sentence, its meaning muddled and obscure, and decided I try the next page. I flipped the vellum, and as I did, I noticed the next page was missing. It wasn't there, ripped, it seemed, from the binding. I could still see the fractured split, irregular and jagged. Tucked underneath the half-page, was a folded folio, and I carefully unfolded it, noticing that it was the ripped page. Age and time and worn it, like much of the book, but separated from its gathering, the vellum itself had begun to warp and contort, to bend and arc.

I quickly grabbed a random assortment of books from the shelves around me, and stretched out the page as best I could, so it could lay flat, placed the books overtop the edges and looked at what I'd found, quite by the chance, in the end.

It was an illustration, of a kind. I say that because, well, it wasn't a complete illumination. I suppose it could have possibly been finished at some point, but now I could see only half, and that was being generous. What little I could in fact see was smeared. There was a tree, I noticed, surrounded by two faeries, and enclosed with a metal fence. There were symbols too, strange looking markings, and ancient by the looks, especially in the appearance of the tree. I knew the tree, or at least had read about it before. Long ago, when the world was far younger, great arbors grew from the earth, and it was rumored they could move, and even talk. This appeared to be one of those trees. It held a face in the bark, hidden, but to the careful observer, it could be spotted.