Chương 539: Chapter Five Hundred and Twenty-Four - Master of Her Craft

"So, this is the book, huh?" Booksie asked as she eyed Rainnewt's gift. The book was sitting on the captain's desk in the little office at the rear of the ship that Amaryllis had long ago taken over. I didn't mind that. She was the one who took care of all the paperwork, so she deserved access to the room with all of the ship's logs and maps and the small heap of documentation that came with operating an airship.

"This is the book," Caprica confirmed.

"It's a small miracle that we managed to keep possession of it. The city guard wanted it for their own reasons, the Mage's Guild made a claim, and so did the Exploration Guild."

"And yet it ended up on the Beaver?" Booksie asked.

"We were involved from the start, and while our claim is one of the better ones... well, we had it to begin with. Any of the others taking possession of it would mean taking it from us. The various groups involved all wanted it for the prestige, but they wanted others to have it less, and we're rather neutral as far as that goes," Caprica explained.

"Also, it technically belongs to you and Rhawr, and no one wants to confiscate something from a dragon."

"And I refused to let it go," Amaryllis said. She looked rather smug about it. We were rather cramped into the little captain's office at the moment. Most of my friends were here, Awen and Desiree and Caprica and Amaryllis. Calamity chose not to stay since it was around time for his 'I'm on break' catnap. The whole book-claiming thing sounded like a bunch of political gobbledygook to me.

"Can you tell us anything about it?" I asked. Booksie hummed and leaned in closer to inspect the book.

"Let me make some observations aloud, then look within. The inner pages should tell me more, but if my observations are somewhat accurate, then that'll lend some credence to me knowing what I'm talking about." I nodded, but I think she just wanted to show off her book smarts. Booksie reached down and ran her fingertips across the cover, then she carefully turned the book to check out the spine before turning it over completely to look at the back.

She raised the book up and gave it a sniff, then touched the pages along their edge.

"This is a treated leather cover," she said.

"Embossed. Look at how smooth this leather is. It's doe skin, I think. And it's been dyed. This isn't black, it's... very dark blue." Booksie twirled a finger and created a small ball of pure white light.

"Yup, dark navy blue stain, with gold leaf lettering? No, this isn't gold leaf."

"It isn't?" Awen asked. Booksie shook her head.

"I don't think so. This is a children's book, and while it's a quality printing, it's not exactly... noble-tier quality. This is schlag metal. It's mostly copper and zinc and arsenic, made to look like gold and pressed into thin sheets for gilding and for lettering." She twisted the book this way and that, and the title, Tales of the Black Avatars, caught the light.

"So, let me point out what I think is the origin of this book, without having opened it yet," Booksie said. I nodded, listening attentively. She was the book expert here.

"This book wasn't printed on this continent," she said.

"It wasn't?" Caprica asked.

"I don't believe so. Doeskin binding like this is very uncommon. The largest manufacturer of book-binding materials is the Trenten Flats, and they don't use this kind of leather... for obvious reasons." Booksie tapped the cover.

"Furthermore, the only people who do are the Endless Swells. Now, there are several coastal cities that this book could have been bound in, but I don't think that's the origin."

"Is the binding your only evidence?" Amaryllis asked.

"No. The tincture used to colour this book? This dark blue? I've seen it before. It's a dye usually made out west, in the Endless Swells as well."

"Isn't that a country on this continent?" I asked.

"Somewhat, yes," Booksie said with a nod.

"The nation of the Endless Swells extends around and through the Moonstruck Sea. But the capital and largest cities of the nation are all on the western coast of that same sea. Rather far from here. Still, the other hint is the faux 'gold leaf'. This style? It's something I've seen in books from Pyrowalk."

"So, two clues that point west," Caprica said.

"Couldn't it have been made closer to here? Dye can be imported, as can leather." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Certainly. And you could hire a bookbinder to make a book in this particular style as well." Booksie said. She turned the book over so that the spine was pointed up.

"See these spine ridges? There are four. The harpy always use three for whatever reason, so that removes the Nesting Kingdom as a point of origin. As previously established, the book is leather-bound, which the Snowlands don't usually do, and the 'gold leaf' is fake gold. The sylph of Sylphfree wouldn't use fake gold."

"Process of elimination leaves only Mattergrove, the Trenten Flats, Deepmarsh, or one of the smaller nationless cities to the west of the Nesting Mountains," Amaryllis said.

"Well, I already mentioned that the binding material is something the Trenten Flats don't use," Booksie said.

"And they usually have much sturdier spines on their books, usually with a flat piece of wood at the back. Also, they don't use embossed lettering very often. Mattergrove... hmm, that could be. The dye would have had to be imported from the Endless Swells, but it's possible. Deepmarsh is right out, however."

"It is?" I asked.

"Oh yes, they make their books in a very different way. Much shorter and longer." She mimed the dimensions the book would have to be in.

"I think it's because grenoil hands are flatter, but I could be wrong." Well, seeing as how she had a bookstore in Port Royal, a grenoil city in Deepmarsh, I wasn't going to doubt her.

"What about... the Ostri desert?" I tried.

"Scrolls," she replied.

"Huh," I said.

"I didn't know that. Is there more?"

"The pages," Booksie said.

"See how the edges are painted? That's not very popular around here; I don't see it often. Whereas it was all the rage in Pyrowalk about sixty or so years ago, and it stayed in vogue amongst book binders for a few decades. Judging by the age of this book, it would have been printed at the tail end of that period."

"How old do you think it is?" Caprica asked.

"At least forty, maybe fifty years old," Booksie said.

"It doesn't look bad," I said.

"Most people don't store books out in the rain," Booksie said.

"They tend to age gracefully." Amaryllis leaned back, then shrugged.

"We've poked and prodded the book plenty without even opening it. How about you take a peek inside and we'll see how right your guesses are?" Booksie chuckled.

"Fair enough," she said before opening the book up to its very first page. There wasn't a copyright page like a book on Earth might have had, but there was a page with a stamp from a publisher on it.

"Ah," she said.

"Inkborough Presses. That's a rather large printing company."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"In the city of Inkborough, in the Pyrowalk Empire. I've never been, but I've heard of it in passing," she said.

"It's one of the largest places where books are scribed. The date is here." The others leaned forwards to eye the date, but it told me very little.

"That's about thirty five years ago," Caprica said.

"I was a bit off," Booksie replied with a shrug.

"This is likely one of many copies of the same book printed as a batch."

"Does that mean anything for us?" Amaryllis asked.

"Only that it's likely that Rainnewt bought it from a book reseller. Not myself, of course--If I'd seen this book before, I would remember it--but there are others. Booksellers that focus on imports from that far west aren't common, exactly, but they're not rare either. And the book might have made its way here more naturally, passing from hand to hand for a while. Thirty years is a long time to trace a book's travels back."

Booksie idly flipped through the pages, and her thumb ran over a few tiny creases that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

"This one wasn't cared for much, but it was read a few times and kept in a dry place. The paper's the sort you usually find in northern Pyrowalk, the ink seems like the sort made in Inkborough, which only makes sense. As for the contents... well, you'll have to read it to find out, I suppose." She handed me the book, and I took it gingerly.

"It's all fairy-tales, right?" I asked.

"About these Black Avatars?"

"That seems to be the case," Booksie said.

"They're a popular enough fairytale back home. And I know that they pop up around here too. It would be interesting to see what the differences are."

"I guess we'll have to get reading, then!" I said.