"But it is by no means unheard of. As a collector and collator of old manuscripts myself, I've found mention of it only once, in the Yellow Book of Harilomne."

"Harilomne?" Brother Wend straightened up, dark eyes growing wide. "Harilomne the Heretic? He was a mage of great power, who sought out and studied all records of the arts of the Times Before, in the days of Otoras Blackcheeks, my Lady," he explained, turning to Minalde. "It was said he knew more about those lost arts than any man living, though no one knows how he found it out. No one has ever found his library..."

"And just as well," said the Bishop Maia. "Just because a thing was wrought by the mages of those times does not mean that it was wholesome, or worthy of being found. The Times Before were years of great evil as well as great knowledge. Some of the knowledge Harilomne uncovered was used to great ill, as anyone will tell you, my Lady."

"But three of his books were supposed to be at Gae," put in Rudy. "That's what that merchant guy last month told Ingold. That he'd seen them in the cellar of a wrecked villa there. That's why Ingold took off the way he did."

"And well he should," said Linok. "All knowledge, all magic, is precious in these times." He made a gesture, then, of stroking his ragged beard, and something in his movement-the way his hand came up, wrist leading like an actor's-snagged at the Icefalcon's mind. An impression, gone immediately, that he knew this man. Had seen him somewhere before.

But the round face, the wide-set eyes, and the snub nose were not familiar. Someone who looked like him? A kinsman?

But he knew as soon as he phrased the question that it wasn't that. Linok went on, "The single reference in the Yellow Book speaks of a girl in the reign of Amir the Lesser who was 'possessed of a spirit of her ancestors,' who apparently spoke languages unknown to any in the world. She could identify and explain an 'apparatus' said to have stood in the vaults beneath the Cathedral of Prandhays since the founding of the city. What this apparatus was the book did not say, and the apparatus itself is now long gone, but it was said that the thing produced a great light, and while the light shone none could enter or leave the Cathedral, nor certain areas of its grounds."