Anno CXCVIII ยท Age of Cyrathis
The
Greater Mirror
Being a compilation of all things known beneath and before the First Light: of the Powers that were sung, of the world that was, of the realms of mortals, and the turning of the ages.
A mirror in a dark room shows nothing.
Gathered out of such fragments as the fires have spared by Sulavia Aulayr, priestess of the First Light, of the Monastery of the Keepers of the Light, in the city of Sobsia.
The Table of the Rubrics
Prologue
Prologue
The little book of apology: of the title, the sources, the order, and what moved the compiler to begin.
I
The First BookOf the First Light
Wherein is treated the coming of knowing into the world, and why this book must begin where it begins.
Read the first book
- Cap. I.Of the proem of the whole work; and wherefore a mirror of all things must begin with light, and not with the things that light reveals.
- Cap. II.Of the darkness that was before the Song; that the world was, but was not known; and wherefore little may be said of it.
- Cap. III.Of the Wellspring: what it is, whence it is thought to come, and that it is the first and deepest of all hidden things.
- Cap. IV.Of the Soul-Stars, and that we no longer know what they were.
- Cap. V.Of the finding of the Shardspire, and of them that found it.
- Cap. VI.Of the Dawnsong, the thousand-day chant; of the voices of men and of dwarves therein; and that its wording is wholly lost.
- Cap. VII.Of Mythrael, the First Light: of his coming forth out of the Song, and that he was sung and not born.
- Cap. VIII.Of the nature of Mythrael; that it is sharp, dazzling, and exhausting; and of his epithets and his sign.
- Cap. IX.Of the doctrine of the First Light: that ignorance is a sin, and cowardice its near kin.
- Cap. X.Of High Sorcery, which was called True Magic; that it was the shaping of the Wellspring; and that it is not to be confounded with the workings of the Gods, which alone remain.
- Cap. XI.Of the world-works of the elder age, and of the Aethercraft that alone survives them.
- Cap. XII.Of the error of those who name Sorcery itself a sin; and of the fall of the Sorcerer-King Virulan.
II
The Second BookOf the Sung Powers
Wherein are treated the deities brought into the world after the First Light, and the one that would not come.
Read the second book
- Cap. I.Of the Crossings of the Gods; that they were made in the manner of the Dawnsong, and anchored ever at the Shardspire.
- Cap. II.Of Cyraeth, the Lady of the White Flower: of her calling in the years of plague, and of the single Wheel of life and death.
- Cap. III.Of the doctrine of Cyraeth: of acceptance, of legacy, and of her hatred of stagnation; and of the wights, that are called her disappointments.
- Cap. IV.Of Aethros the Stormbinder: that he was called to anchor raw power into elements a mortal body might survive.
- Cap. V.Of the doctrine of Aethros; that he honours all who use the elements well, though they never speak his name.
- Cap. VI.Of Eryndar, the World-Heart: whether he was sung, or whether the Song woke something that already slept.
- Cap. VII.Of the doctrine of Eryndar: of oaths recorded in the deep strata, and that deliberate forgetting is near to sin.
- Cap. VIII.Of the ordering of the four Powers among themselves; and wherefore some are called elder and some younger.
- Cap. IX.Of the Endless Night: that it is not counted among the sung Gods, being the one that would not cross.
- Cap. X.Of the names of the Endless Night throughout Eryndor; and of the three opinions concerning what it is.
- Cap. XI.Of the teaching of the First Light concerning the Endless Night: that it is thought to be the Wellspring turned inward.
- Cap. XII.Of what the Endless Night offers, and wherefore mortals have hearkened to it.
III
The Third BookOf the World Below
Wherein is treated the world itself, its substance and its creatures; which is the surface beneath which the Wellspring runs.
Read the third book
- Cap. I.Of the world of Eryndor; that it was not made, but is; and of the little that is truly known of its shape.
- Cap. II.Of the four elements, of their orders, and of the marks of Aethros upon them.
- Cap. III.Of the heavens: of the sun, the two moons, and the crowded stars; and of the reckoning of time.
- Cap. IV.Of the lands of the known world and their forms; and of the seams where the world is not whole.
- Cap. V.Of the Aetheric Ocean, its reaches, and the Crosswaves that guard them.
- Cap. VI.Of the Fields of Angramar, the most paradoxical place in all the world.
- Cap. VII.Of the entropy of magic; that a working left untended does not fade but rots; and of the deadly ruins this has made.
- Cap. VIII.Of growing things; of herbs and trees and the virtues folk ascribe to them; and of the golden flower Cyrathis.
- Cap. IX.Of the beasts of Eryndor, both the common and the marvellous.
- Cap. X.Of the dragons, of the wights and the hidden bloodless ones, and of the Ulthrak whom none have seen in an age.
- Cap. XI.Of the accidents of things: of colour, of savour, and of scent; wherewith this book of substance is closed.
IV
The Fourth BookOf the Realms of Mortals
Wherein are treated the kindreds that dwell in Eryndor, their cities, their governance and their keeping; and wherein they are ordered not by their number nor their strength, but by their standing toward the Song.
Read the fourth book
- Cap. I.Of the ordering of the kindreds, and wherefore they are set by their relation to the Song, and not by their power nor their multitude.
- Cap. II.Of Men, their brevity, their hunger, and the kingdoms they have raised in Rhaedwyn.
- Cap. III.Of Waternaken, and of the error of those who call it a nation of soldiers merely.
- Cap. IV.Of the Dwarvenfolk, of the Wetlands, of the Great Clans and their Keeps, and of the oaths they cast in iron.
- Cap. V.Of the Dragon-Kings of the Taurus, who claim to have seen the world wake; and of the difficulty this makes for the ordering of this book.
- Cap. VI.Of the Orcs of the Great Western Steppe, their Kuhanates and their assemblies; and of the injustice commonly done them in our chronicles.
- Cap. VII.Of the Goblin Kind, their assemblies and their contests.
- Cap. VIII.Of the Gnomes, of the Radiant One whom they revere, and of a dangerous suggestion found in the apocrypha of our Library.
- Cap. IX.Of the Dragonborn, that were made and not born; of their watch upon the passes, and of the question their existence puts to the Lady's doctrine.
- Cap. X.Of the Tieflings, and of the Sleepers with whom their forebears bargained; and wherefore they are treated here and not among the marvels.
- Cap. XI.Of the Elves, that came into Eryndor from beyond the world; of the Shadowfall and the working of the Spirits; and that this is the gravest matter in the whole of this book.
- Cap. XII.Of the four clans of the elves, and of their irreconcilable accounts of the same country.
- Cap. XIII.Of the Tabaxi behind the Great Walls, of the Yuan-ti of the drowned North, and of those kindreds concerning which nothing certain may be said.
V
The Fifth BookOf the Turning of the Ages
Wherein is treated the history of the world, so far as it may be known; which is set last, because it is known least.
Read the fifth book
- Cap. I.Of the reckoning of time, and of the disputes thereof: whether the Gods were sung three thousand years since, or four, or eight.
- Cap. II.Of the Age of Magic, its abundance and its overreach; which was the age of the First Light.
- Cap. III.Of the Twelve Sorcerer-Kings, and of the Dark Oath of Virulan.
- Cap. IV.Of the Last Battle at Lavellor, and the shattering of the Shardspire.
- Cap. V.Of the Age of Shadows: of the War in the Dark, the long fires, and the death of the arts.
- Cap. VI.Of the Orcish Invasion, and the holding of the Taurus passes.
- Cap. VII.Of the disappearance of Virulan, and the three opinions thereof.
- Cap. VIII.Of the Age of Cyrathis, its blossoming and its cautious hope; wherewith the whole work is ended.
Five books, fifty-six chapters, gathered from ash.
Where the sources fail, it is written that they fail.