The tight parcel gave off a strong scent of beeswax that had perfumed the little room where Atacherel slept. It had been placed genuinely in the middle of the bed, where he would not fail to see it. Sitting down on the covers he gathered the bundle on his lap and carefully started unwrapping the waxed tarp that composed its outer layer. Under the waterproofed cloth was another layer of felt wool dyed with a deep blue almost as black as the night, the final layer was of neatly folded silk. It had once been brightly colored and finely woven but age and wear had frayed it and faded it and there only remained the memory of the once sharp colors and the design they made. The square box was also ancient and the rough wood had been polished by many years of use into a grey sheen darker about the sides. Atacherel undid the thong that held the lid in place and opened it. With the utmost care he took the first square of text confirming with touch what his eyes had seen, it wasn't written on pressed woven linen but on the crackling white peeling bark of the Timid Tree. The men of the elder realms, of whom the Balà were, had used the fragile almost transparent bark in hallowed antiquity before the technique of bleached pressed linen was developed, but some in the remotest part of the civilized world had gone on using it either through commodity or because pressed linen was too onerous. It seems that the copy now in his possession had been put in text not very long after Obed himself had written them down. Atacherel placed the fragile sheet back in its box and went to the main room to refill with oil two more lamps and he brought them back into the bedroom where he lit them to the flame of the one currently burning and placed them so he could read without straining his eyes. The first square was the forty-fifth that the priest had told him about:

  'Renachel & the Spirit.

  Having fled his home after the murder of his wife and daughters at the hands of the Natabs of the Triple empire, Renachel found himself crying by a river for he felt no trust in his capacity to endure and prosper ever again.

  There rose from the water at the same time as the stars shone bright in the sky, a spirit

  of light immaculate.

  It beheld the tears of Renachel and wept with him on his murdered wife and children. Renachel seeing the bejeweled drops falling from the spirit's eyes exclaimed in awe:

  "Why cry, so wondrous creature of yonder as you are, for I am a wretched man too craven to go and succor my spouse and daughters as they were ravished and murdered by the emperor's soldiers who also burnt down my stead and humble lands. I have nothing left but my life to lose."

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  To this the Spirit replied with gladness in the voice:

  "Your life you will indeed soon lose but to assuage the final moments on our world of your existence, would you die this instant in the river or later at the hands of time itself, know this Renachel of the Balà there will come a day that someone will fall from the clouds above onto the manyfold cursed Rabatea & its coming will make such fracas by fire and stone that the very ground of rock will be upset, rivers will be lost, plains will vanish & all the constructions of Rabateans and all its people will burn and turn into sand. That day, sorry Renachel, will be the first of the era Balà will be given a chance at ruling the world under the light of the One."

  Renachel heard the spirit and felt in his heart the truth of its words and he conceived such a thirst for such a time when Balà could show the world their worth and values that he ejaculated loudly to the spirit in elation:

  "Tell me, oh joyous spirit, when will such a time be upon us ?"

  Beaming more than ever before the Spirit leant towards Renachel's moist face and whispered to his ear:

  "Here is the reason why, Renachel, you should endure as shall all the suffering Balà of these sorry days in our world. Go thee find a woman of the Balà who will agree to take you as her husband and together you will have children and when their children's children will long be dead and somewhat forgotten, your Balà descendants will witness what which I spoke of and the need for their numbers will be great to form an army worthy of the conquest of the universe and to topple the reign of the Three."

  Renachel cried some more for now he had a purpose again and it gave him such joy that tears fell from his eyes and he knew that all Balà's suffering will once be vindicated under the light of the One. Sensing the surrendering of Renachel to his words the spirit went back to the river where it dissolved its essence into the water which became traversed by the most eery scintillating lights for a while.

  The man Renachel went forth from the riverside and met a Balà women, Tinide of Sil-Magn who wanted him as her companion so that she espoused him and they had four children who all grew up to marry and have children of their own who lived and produced children and so on until one day one of them came to me and told me the tale of his ancestor Renachel the Bereaved and his encounter of the Spirit by The Riverside.'

  The young captain placed the last square on the table and stared at the wall of dug out stone in front of him. Something was shifting inside him, and the troubling signs that the priest had seen were clear to him now. Looking to the side at the flat box he took the remaining fragile squares and placed them neatly before himself, he found the place between the forty-fourth and the forty-sixth Insanities and put the story of Renachel back in sequence, then, going back to the very first he endeavored to read the work of Obed in the light of his three lamps. He had to refill them twice with oil before reaching the last, seventy-second Insanity and finally lying down on his bed to sleep as the sky began to pale with the rising sun.