Chương 84: Chapter 17: Everything is Interpretable

After an hour of brooding and sighs, Selena rose from the bed, determined to take control, even of this small domestic cell. Her voice, though still a bit veiled by the shock, sounded firm, adopting the tone of authority that now came to her with terrifying ease. —Fjora. Go and buy lunch for the three of us. She ordered, looking directly at the Nordic warrior. —Today I need Samira to stay with me. The warrior nodded with a short, efficient movement of her head. Not a word.

She stood and left the room, closing it behind her with the same silence with which she had entered. Samira turned her honey-colored gaze toward Selena, a silent question floating in her expressive eyes. —I need your knowledge for something —Selena said. Then, as if a crucial memory emerged from the fog of Terracanto, she made a gesture with her hand, evoking the image. —Some time ago, when I was in Terracanto, I tried to read a book I found. It had a black cover, smooth as obsidian, and its letters…

were not letters. They were only glyphs, strokes that intertwined like tangled roots. I couldn't decipher a single word. She leaned forward a bit, her voice dropping to a whisper laden with curiosity. —Tell me, Samira, if you know… what language was that? Samira blinked, and for an instant, a spark of authentic interest, of that fire that only knowledge can ignite, lit up her eyes. Once Selena had finished, she spoke with her soft and measured voice, each word chosen with precision.

—My Lady, from the description, it seems to be Veritasilba, one of the oldest languages recorded in the annals of history. It is a pictographic and syllabic writing system, used in ancient times by the human tribes that inhabited the Altovida region. She paused briefly, touched her chin, and tilted her head to one side; something seemed to click within her, and only then did she continue. —Each sign represents a syllable, and often also a natural concept, such as 'sun', 'water', or 'mountain'.

It is currently a dead language, my Lady, purely picto-syllabic. Its remains are found mainly in sacred caverns and monoliths eroded by time. It is studied almost exclusively by anthropologists and some linguists obsessed with origins. She lowered her gaze, a gesture of humility that could not hide her passion. —I do not know much more about it, I am sorry. But… She looked up again, and this time the glint in her eyes was unmistakable.

—If you so order me, I could help you find books in the library containing more information, or even basic dictionaries, if it is your wish. The spark of knowledge, once lit, was hard to extinguish. The revelation about Veritasilba had only fanned Selena's curiosity, that thirst for answers that was the last vestige of who she once was. —I tried to read another one. It was almost a confession, her voice a thread of concentration while her gaze got lost in the memory of that other impossible volume.

—It was of an immaculate bone-white, with golden letters that seemed closer to what we write today. I am no expert in languages, I admit, but even with my inexpert eyes, at that time I managed to distinguish that the language of the white book… derived from the one present in the black one. She arched an eyebrow, challenging Samira with a look full of intrigue. —Do you know what it could be? Samira remained silent, her serene face clouded by a moment of deep reflection.

Her fingers, long and slender, joined over her lap as if she were organizing the scrolls of her memory. The silence stretched out, broken only by the distant whisper of the wind in the leaves of the Forest Cloister. Finally, she looked up, her honey eyes reflecting the dim light of the room. —It must be Volg-Thûr. She declared, and the name itself sounded harsh and ancestral, like the echo of thunder in the mountains. —Also known as the 'Mother Tongue'.

It is often confused with Veritasilba by neophytes, but they are not directly related. Selena smiled bitterly upon hearing the word neophytes, and her heart twinged slightly; it was wounded pride, the pride of what she had once been. Samira, however, paused, choosing her words with the precision of a goldsmith. —Some linguists, it is true, speculate that both must descend from a common root, lost in the mists of time.

But Volg-Thûr was more guttural, harsh, carved by the throats of mountain peoples whose civilization rose and fell long before Erabergh was even a dream in the minds of its founders. She leaned forward slightly, and her voice dropped to an almost confidential tone. —It is the foundation upon which the Erahari we speak today was built.

It is only studied by obsessive scholars and the high clergy, to decipher inscriptions in forbidden ruins and the laws of the oldest churches that still rule, in silence, the foundations of their religions. A shadow of respect, almost of reverent fear, crossed her face. —It is also a dead language, my Lady. But unlike Veritasilba, it is not a key to nature, but to law and power. It is the key to the darkest philology and the civil code that sleeps beneath the stone of our cities. Selena felt fascinated.

It was only curiosity that drove her now, and also a deeper understanding. She was poking around the very foundations of this world, in the dead languages that sustained its history and its power. She continued asking questions, fueling the conversation until the door opened and Fjora returned, carrying a tray with a simple but substantial lunch. The three of them ate in a silence that, for the first time, was not uncomfortable, but laden with the echo of the recent scholarly talk.

Selena and Samira continued exchanging words between bites; it was thus that Selena discovered the existence of two other root languages: Proto-Erahari, which had been established by Lethon Volgthar the Tenth King, but over millennia had evolved, becoming so different from common Erahari that philologists had given it another name. Then there was Khel-Ghur; two dead linguistic trunks, ancestors of all the languages spoken on the continent.

Four differing roots, four pillars of a forgotten Babel whose secrets lay buried in dust and eroded stones. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. By the time they finished eating, night had begun to weave its mantle of shadows outside the window. They lit the tallow lamps, whose flickering flames cast dancing shadows on the walls. With a sigh of determination, Selena prepared to continue with the book she had started the previous night, the Chronicles of the Echo.

But the search for concrete truths met, once again, the wall of legend and myth. She read about a resonant who, according to the fable, had cured a dying king out of pure love; the arcane chronicle, however, cold and ruthless, revealed that the sorcerer had paid for the miracle with decades of his own life, dying a few weeks later.

Another story spoke of a village beset by a curse of ghosts and apparitions after the death of a local resonant; the book explained, with somber logic, that his demise had been so violent that it had uncontrolled "the Void a bit," releasing residual echoes of his power that now tormented the living like nightmare specters.

Page after page, it was a procession of acts that history had embellished as heroic or pious, but which the chronicle stripped bare as brutal transactions with a power that always claimed its price in blood, years, and sanity. Fatigue, finally, overcame her tenacity. The heaviness of her eyelids and the weight of so many bitter truths became unbearable. Resigned, she closed the book, whose spine felt cold and distant like the tombs of the resonants who lay within its pages.

She turned off the lamp and let herself fall onto the bed, where sleep claimed her not as a rest, but as a necessary refuge from the overwhelming reality of her new and dangerous heritage. That night, sleep did not take her by surprise. Selena sank into it with a new lucidity, aware that it was Halom, a fragment of the cryptic future that the Whispering Void offered her like a riddle.

Expectant, she tried to look at herself, and there she was: Selena's body, clad not in silks, but in leather armor the color of desert sand, pure and functional. The gloom around her was absolute, a mantle of darkness that seemed to devour light and sound. Then, with an instinctive movement, her gloved hand turned one of the rings she wore on her left hand, a detail she had never worn before, which gave her a strange sensation.

Suddenly, as if she had activated a mechanism hidden in reality itself, everything lit up with a warm and unnatural light. In front of her, emerging from the shadows, she saw an ancient war helmet. It was made of steel, but rust consumed it like a disease, and from one of the eye slits, a blind eye dripped dark blood. However, the blood vanished into the air before touching the earth, as if the dream itself refused to accept its substance.

The image, laden with brutal symbolism, vanished before she could decipher it. The world transformed into a cacophony of smells, so vivid she could almost taste them: the petrichor of the earth after rain, the cutting cold of snow on a desolate moor, the metallic stench of spilled blood, the sting of cheap alcohol in a sordid tavern, and finally, the resinous and bitter aroma of a branch recently torn from a tree, a smell of violated life.

She woke up abruptly, but not agitated, nor with her heart constricted by fear as on previous occasions. The clarity of the dream, though cryptic, had possessed a distant quality, like observing a painting in a museum. The light of dawn was already entering through the window, painting the floor with golden stripes. As she got up and prepared for the day, her mind continued to turn the images over. But the mystery was not revealed, she thought with a hint of frustration.

After all, they are interpretable, as Isolde said. A bleeding helmet that does not stain the earth... smells of battle and pain... and I, in leather armor, in the darkness. She tried to give it meaning, but frustrated, she sighed and said to herself: Is not everything open to interpretation? It was a puzzle whose pieces did not fit, a message from destiny written in a language she did not yet understand. Without further thought, she quickened her pace as soon as she was ready to go to the lecture.

She arrived just as the medicine class was beginning. Today's instructor was not the old and wise Anselmo, but a young man with straight black hair and a beardless face. His white tunic, a symbol of academic purity, was stained on the sleeve by what looked like iodine tincture or perhaps dried blood. He arrived accompanied by four assistants, all young and with nervous movements, who carried and placed several anatomical charts on a chalkboard.

Once everything was arranged, the young professor took a pointer and, with confidence bordering on arrogance, struck the first chart. —There are four types of fundamental humors in the body. He announced, his voice clear in the expectant silence of the classroom. —The first, blood, associated with the heart. It is hot and moist. It defines a sanguine character: cheerful, energetic, sociable, and, at times, excessively confident. The pointer moved. —Next is phlegm, associated with the brain and lungs.

Cold and moist. Phlegmatic character: calm, serene, sometimes lethargic. Selena listened to him, initially with curiosity, perhaps waiting for a nuance, an empirical basis. But the man continued to break down his lesson on black bile melancholy and yellow bile choleric as if he were reciting unquestionable sacred dogmas. The other students, educated in that paradigm, took notes diligently in respectful silence. Selena could not. Each word was a nail in the coffin of reason.

Her mind instinctively refused; she wanted method, she wanted evidence or systematic doubt. Then she rebelled with a powerful feeling of rejection in her chest. It wasn't just that the theory was antiquated; it was that it was being taught with the same solemnity with which the elder Anselmo had described bone structure, a tangible and verified knowledge. A heat of indignation, pure and rare, rose through her chest. It was the cold, solid anger of the academic in the face of charlatanry.

In a second, before she could contain herself, she stood up. The screech of her chair against the stone floor sounded shrill in the silent classroom. All eyes fixed on her, some with surprise, others with discomfort. Without uttering a word, her face turned into a mask of well-polished contempt, she crossed the aisle and walked out the door, leaving behind the class and the young professor with his pointer suspended in the air, his lesson interrupted by the eloquent exit of the Duchess Heir.

Pseudoscience, she thought, the word sharp and cutting, resonating in her mind like a banner. There was no time to waste on superstitions dressed as knowledge. Without wavering, she changed course. Her steps, firm and determined, did not lead her back to her room, but directly to the only source of truth she recognized in this world of shadows and dogmas: the library.

There, amidst dust and parchment, between the Chronicles of the Echo and dead languages, perhaps she would find something that was not smoke and mirrors. Something worth learning. The path to the library was a short stretch of polished stone and air laden with student silence, but that day it was interrupted. A meticulously dressed figure stepped into her path, a boy with a youthful and neat face, dressed in silk so fine it seemed to pour over his body in an impeccable flow.

His brown hair was styled with a precision that spoke of dedicated servants, servants who, moreover, followed behind his back. —Lady Isabella. He said with a clear and polite voice, the typical voice of one who has never had to raise it to be heard. —Do you remember me? I am the son of Marquis Sylvaire. It would be a pleasure for me... And he gave a slight tilt of his head, calculated and courteous. —... to have a moment of your time. Selena stopped.

Her eyes, still clouded by the irritation the medicine class had caused her, swept the young man from top to bottom. She did not see a person, but another specimen of the idle opulence that populated the university. Another product of the wheel of nobility that turned upon itself, oblivious to the foundations of real knowledge or the misery of the world. Her response was not long in coming. She straightened her back, and when she spoke, her voice was not that of the dazed intruder, nor that of the curious student.

It was the voice of the Duchess Heir, carved in ice and protocol, a sharpened blade that cut the polite air between them. —His Majesty the King. She said, with each word falling with the weight of a royal seal. —... has expressly asked me to dedicate my time, entirely and without distractions, to academic research. She made an infinitesimal pause, just long enough for the message to sink in. —Now, if you will excuse me, I shall continue with it. The effect was instantaneous.

Young Sylvaire turned pale as if he had been bleeding. The polite smile froze and cracked on his lips. Without articulating a word, with clumsiness that betrayed his bewilderment, he took a step back and vanished among the shadows of the hallway, defeated by the most absolute authority he knew: a royal mandate.