Dear Arturo,

You are uniquely qualified to answer a question which may have profound implications for my research. Did you happen to come across a very large book in your travels? The book in question would be nearly a man’s height and possibly weightless and glowing. I am sure that you would have mentioned it before if you had seen it but if you heard even the barest hint of it, I want to know. I have already asked the mayor and the lawbaron and they know nothing.

Because I know you enjoy these things, I will tell you that my present fascination was prompted by a couple of tales from the outer towns which were recently related to me by one Tazac of Pannadem, whom you may recall. He was inspired by your discoveries and told me the following.

Elac, Slumbering Sage of Pannadem

No child was ever so sleepy and sluggish as Elac of Pannadem. In his family he was the first to bed, the last to rise, and often took naps throughout the day. While his brothers and his father were busy coiling copper and distilling vitriol, Elac would lie on his couch and blissfully drift in and out of sleep.

Elac’s family were fulminologists by trade. They built the contraptions which made up Pannadem’s lightning towers that protected the town from woodland horrors. Weald-beasts would go straight for fulminologist academies and foundries when they attacked, the places where parts and weapons were imagined and produced. Those raids would destroy years or decades of work but the Pannademians’ skill and wit always allowed them to recover.

Elac was as skilled and as witty as the best of them. His instruments were always fine-tuned and his creations perfectly balanced. That was why his mother was especially upset that her child should waste such talent by sleeping so long.

One day while her other sons and her husband were busy in the workshop she went to the couch and hit Elac with a broom and shouted, “Get up! Get up! How many hours does one boy need? Get off your lazy hide and get to the workshop!”

“I am in the workshop,” Elac replied. He waved his hand and his eyes remained shut.

His mother griped, “Get up! Your brothers are learning how to coil copper tighter and faster! Your father has nearly discovered how to distill vitriol oil more cleanly! You must get up and go help them now!”

“I am helping them now,” Elac groaned as he turned on the couch. His mother would have none of it and she jabbed him so hard with the broom handle that it nearly broke his rib. He got up at last and shuffled off to the workshop where he was given the dull task of taking inventory.

His brothers reprimanded him all the while saying, “Six hours is enough for the rest of us. If we all slept as much as you do, Elac, the good men and women on the walls would have no weapons for their battles.”

Elac answered, “If you knew the battles I fight for you in sleep then you would not reprimand me.”

Elac’s family did not accept his argument and they decided that enough was enough. Every morning the boy would wake up to the strike of a broom handle against his ribs. When he nodded off in the workshop his brothers would strike him and wake him up. Eventually Elac’s drowsy streak was broken and he joined his brothers in their daily labours. He worked faster than any of them but he grew fearful and anxious.

His mother was proud that they had cured her son’s bad habit. She had a clear head and a calm heart but at night she slept poorly. Her husband tossed and turned in bed. The bed shook as he twitched and his groans woke her up. At breakfast her husband said,

“I keep having these nightmares. I am up the town walls and weald-beasts fly up from the woods and darken the sky. They hiss and squeak and I reach for my tools but they are gone. The lightning towers go dark and I must fend them off with my fists.”

One of his sons rubbed his eyes and said, “I have also had nightmares. Kite flocks and swarms of grasshoppers come out of the sky and start pecking and biting.”

The mother said, “You are all ready to present great achievements to your peers and you are excited. That is why your dreams are like this. Soon our town will have more springs and more acid than ever before. Do not let your dreams frighten you.”

But Elac said nothing. He worked through the day and at night he lay on his bed unable to sleep. Every time he began to drift off he felt a ghostly pain in his rib.

One morning his father and brothers woke up in a panic. They said, “It’s gone! It’s all gone! I don’t remember any of it! I dreamt that the beasts came and took away all our books and all our notes! Now I cannot remember how any of our tools work! And the lists, numbers, tables, charts, and diagrams in the workshop – I cannot read any of it! None of it makes sense! I’ve forgotten it all! It’s all gone!”

Tired but sleepless Elac explain, “They have stolen away your understanding and taken it to the secret airs. They took pieces of your learning before and I went away to bring them back. But lately I have left the secret airs unguarded and they took everything away at once.”

His mother pleaded, “Elac, Dear Elac, please go and fetch your father and brothers’ wit back from the secret airs. If you do not we will be ruined. The whole town will be ruined! Perhaps Geldorad will be ruined!”

“I would,” said Elac, “But I can no longer sleep.”

So all day they worked as hard as they could to get Elac to sleep. They gave him the most comfortable blankets and pillows in the house. When that was not enough they went out and bought the finest blankets and pillows in town. They hired singers and musicians, brought him tinctures and burnt sweet oils, but no matter what they did Elac would not fall asleep.

The sky turned dark. The stars were kindled. Cool wind blew over Pannadem. Crickets sang and his family tried every cure once more all at once. At last, Elac slept.

His family retired for the night and woke up the next morning. Their memories were still lost and Elac was still asleep. He slept through that day and through the following night. When the next morning dawned his father and brothers shouted and celebrated that their memories and discoveries had returned.

“It was amazing!” they said. “The sky was dark with flocks and swarms but Elac broke through them from above and drove them away! He ran through the air and chased off the weald-beasts until the sky was bright again! Then we woke up and our work made sense once more!”

“That is wonderful!” said the mother. “I will go wake up Elac!”

But Elac slept on all through that day and the day after. Nothing would wake him. Days passed and his family grieved that he should be trapped in undying sleep. Yet on the seventh night of his long slumber he met his family in the secret airs and spoke to them.

“I must remain here,” he said. “I cannot return. But do not be grieved. As often as you dream we will be together and as often as you work I will fight beside you. I stand before you neither a memory nor an illusion, but heaven has granted that when sons and daughters of Pannadem sleep they will walk the secret airs.”

So Elac slept and his family lived on fruitfully. Whatever knowledge the forest took, Elac’s parents and brothers soon restored. In time his mother died, his father died, and his brothers all died and were laid in the ground. Elac himself is said to live on, still slumbering somewhere in Pannadem’s civic hall.

Naturally, Arturo, you will wonder how this story prompted me to as you about a book. Well, I thought that the name Elac sounded somewhat familiar and I had vague feeling that it had to do with a collection of Madnakhi folktales I used to read with Ishwin. So I asked some Soowelli colleagues and they pointed me to the following. If you show this to your family, you may wish to first explain how five hundred years of our history were lost and preserved only in fables and riddles.

The Cupbearer’s Trial

Who knows of the Dark Chronicle? Well, you may say you know it – that it exists – but have you ever bothered reading it? And if you’ve ever read it, did you really learn anything? Five hundred couplets is long enough for a poem when it makes sense and too long – far too long – for a poem that no one understands. Yet hundreds of generations have wasted time arguing about!

Not everyone considers it time wasted, though. Some say that the person who discovers its meanings will find riches and power and unlock secrets of the past! Why is that? Well, you may know that five hundred years of our history went missing. Yes, we all know the old tale from way back about warring gods and our city’s first founders. Yes, we all know how the towns were founded in centuries after. But nothing was written from about 500 to 1000. All we have is legends told well after the fact.

But we do have one thing: this long long poem which some say tells the unwritten years’ true story but in the form of riddles. That is the Dark Chronicle. So maybe if you can learn to understand it then you’ll find out where ancient treasures were buried or ancient battles fought.

So what does this have to do with an old man being found passed-out, locked in the reeve’s wine cellar?

Now I prefer to hold on to my drink for myself at table but the Madnakhi of Soowell have a distinguished title called cup-bearer and that’s what Amtu-Odwar used to be. A good reeve picked him and liked his choice all his years til he died. In proper manner, our Amtu resigned his post and returned his cellar key. An other good reeve chose an other good cup-bearer afterwards and our man took to a quiet life of reading until two years later when guards came and found him wallowing in the cellar next to not-a-few spilt barrels.

A moodier reeve might have condemned the drunk fellow then and there but the new reeve was a good man and had the former cup-bearer stand before the jurists instead.

The man at the bench said, “Amtu-Odwar, you are accused of theft, drunkenness on civic property, and unlawful entry into civic property. Moreover as former cup-bearer you are accused of abuse of civic office and public dishonouring of civic office. What is your plea?”

“Well, not guilty,” he answered. “Not because I didn’t make a pitiful display but because you have to learn the reason of it.”

“Then go ahead and explain yourself,” said the man at the bench.

And Amtu-Odwar explained.

“Well, after I retired and turned in my key I thought to myself that I should spend my time doing something else to serve Soowell. With fair savings and a fair pension I thought I had a good few years to do something great before having to take up some more common work. So I took up the old Dark Chronicle as so many adventure-seeking souls have before. And I stopped on these two couplets.

“’A slumberer’s sleep Slays in thousands
Thought-thieving ones, Thirsting for blood.
Ghosts must then guard From guile’s ministers
Elac’s amber-hoard In oceans of wind’

“Now I thought that if I found this amber-hoard it might be good for Soowell. And I thought that ‘oceans of wind’ might be the land of dreams. And I learned that the Pannademians have stories about a man named Elac so I read up on them. I then learned that I could make myself visit the land of dreams through drink – not the reeve’s drink, mind you, but healthy and wholesome drink that the Pannademians dreamed up. But don’t ask me the recipe. It was taken from me as you’ll soon learn.

“So I took that sparking drink and went to sleep and sure enough I found myself in the land of dreams, above the clouds and below the stars. There I stood on an island of rock where there were streets and houses and shops. I saw that the island was one of eight and each was full of people. I met a man with seven brothers who seemed to be in charge. He greeted me kindly but when I said I was there for the amber-hoard he told me to turn back. But I wouldn’t turn back when I had a chance to find riches for Soowell.

“Then the brothers showed me invisible roads which ran up and down through fields of cloud and I followed them alone until I found what looked like an amber-hoard far in the west! It shined yellow as it caught the sky’s light but it was something else. I ran to it and found a grand old book. It was almost as tall as me but weighed nothing! When I let it go it just hung in the air! I opened it and started to read. It told me where the amber-hoard was hidden but don’t ask me where now. That was taken away from me too.

“A shrill voice said, ‘Stop!’ I looked and there was a flock of shadowy creatures like swans but pitch-black and angry. They asked me, ‘What guile brought you here? What evil do you intend?’

“I answered, ‘No guile and no evil! I wished to find the amber and win it back for Soowell where the people have been good to me!’

“’And you could have taken it,’ said the black fowl, ‘Had you not read a page from the Book of Unwritten Years. Now we must return you below and take from you all knowledge of this place. Unless…’

“’Unless?’ I asked.

“’There is no land up here,’ they said, ‘Except for that kept by the eight brothers and they do not share their wine with the shadow-swans. Bring us a cup of your reeve’s wine every night. Each time you do we will let you remember one word of the page you read.’

“So every night I went to meet the shadow-swans and they whisked me through secret ways into the cellar where I took a single cup. I took no joy in it except for in thinking I would soon present the town with a huge hoard of amber. Night by night, word by word, I got closer to remembering where the treasure was hidden but then one night while we were in the cellar the swans changed the terms.

“’You will not bring us a cup from now on,’ they said, ‘but a barrel instead.’

“I said, ‘That was not the agreement! The reeve is a good man and you ask too much from him now. If we lose one treasure to gain another then we are none the richer! By my honour as the former cup-bearer I will not agree to your terms!’”

“Well, the unhallowed ghosts attacked me. We wrestled and fought, knocked over barrels, and dented fine cups. At last the swans said, ‘So be it! If you will not serve us we will take all your memories and leave you locked in here.’ I said, ‘Better that than betray my good reeve! I never should have made a deal with you.’

“They took my knowledge of the Pannademian drink and they took my knowledge of the Page of the Book of Unwritten Years and left me dazed and confused just as you found me. It was a nasty sight and a foolish deal I made, good sirs. But if those ghosts hadn’t turned on me then I would have done good by the town and the reeve. That is why I say I’m not guilty, good sirs. What I did was wrong but what I did was not what you think I did.”

That was Amtu-Odwar’s story of what happened. Well, would you have believed it? The jurists found him guilty but his sentence was light. After all, Amtu-Odwar had never done anything of this sort before. His story was almost easier to believe than believing that such a good man would wilfully act so shamefully. Everyone said that his amateur experiments with drink and his reading of the Dark Chronicle made him act on some foolish whim. He was let go but banned from touching drink ever again.

So if any of you ever read the Dark Chronicle, do it sober and with a good friend to watch over you. You wouldn’t want to end up like Amtu-Odwar did that one shameful night. But I do find it strange. They say the former cup-bearer turned in his key to the cellar and then they found him locked inside. How does that happen?

If a record of the Unwritten Years truly exists in the secret airs, I would obviously wish to discover it. We are well past the point of wanting to learn its secrets for the sake of wealth or power, of course. I would only like to know what stories of that time are true and which are imagined. And it would solve once and for all whether the Dark Chronicle is in fact the cryptic history which it is said to be.

I must put this pursuit aside for now. The more excited I make myself through this endeavour, the less likely I am to sleep.

Your grateful friend,

Sidwid Hull.