There has been some question about how this remarkable story came to light with such a preponderance of supporting documents and evidence. I shall attempt to provide answers in this section.
I am the person called Ikonopeiston and I was the first. I am an amateur of archeology and was intrigued by the discoveries being made at the professional dig sponsored by the University of Spira at Bevelle in the Calm Lands. Through my contacts with some of those working as a part of the excavation team, I was permitted to enter the cordoned-off area and inspect some of the items which had not yet been shown to the public.
After picking through a number of oddities, identified only by their location numbers, I came across a battered, dirt-caked device which I recognized as a recorder, one typical of the time of the Last Pilgrimage and Interregnum. When I asked the cataloguer what was known of it, he smiled and told me it was of no interest to the researchers for now, since it could not possibly hold any information after so long a time and under such unpromising conditions. I hesitantly asked if I might examine it since I had some experience with such antique recorders and possessed several similar ones in my collection. He consulted with the leader of the dig and, upon returning, put the item in my hands and, with a wink, told me to be sure to let them know if I had any success in unspooling any information.
I worked with my regular tools for some time with no results before making contact with one of my customary consultants. He proposed a technique (which I will not detail since we are hoping to patent it) and suddenly, we were hearing the words of a man long dead, telling us the story of a little know episode during the waning years of the Last Pilgrimage.
I have transcribed his tale to the best of my ability, filling in those words which were lost with the closest approximations I can manage, making every effort to conform to the style of the speaker. When I had a few thousand words on record, I began publishing my findings in Feuilleton of Farpotshket Notations. To my astonishment, I shortly thereafter heard from three other people, each claiming to have a version of the Journal I was transcribing.
Naturally, I met with these people as quickly as was possible and found their claims to be creditable. Soon FFN was bending under the weight of our combined offerings. Since the question of how these other Journals came to light is a legitimate one, I have the permission of the three other contributors to tell how they obtained their own treasures.
the collaborators
The first one of the other Journal holders I met was called RyRy. She is a full professor at the University of Spira at Gagazet, Lowland Division, currently holding the Tobli Chair of Macalanian Music as well as being the Djose Distinguished Professor for Disappeared Dialects. A pleasant person, she told me she had come across her piece of the narration during a walking tour along the Mi'ihen Highroad. She had descended to the lower level to walk along the shoreline when she spotted light reflecting from an object half-buried in the silt-choked mouth of what had once been a river. Curious, she investigated and found herself holding a very early model of a helio-organizer with partially obscured markings on the case. When she rubbed away the dirt, she recognized the language of the label as Al Bhed, the tongue of a long vanished race known for its legendary skill in machinery and engineering. Since Dr. RyRy claims descent from these people and has made the study of their language and artifacts a specialty, she was able to read the instructions printed on the device. After cleaning and refurbishing the machine, she was able to extract from it the recordings it held and place them on a less fragile medium. Playing it back, she heard what she thought to be a fictional story from the past and shared it with some of her colleagues.
It was only when one of those who had heard the recording at a departmental gala read my publication in FFN and called it to Dr. RyRy's attention that she became aware that what she had was a valuable historical source document and made contact with me.
Her document consists of the series of events seen through the eyes of a young Al Bhed adventurer of rare common sense and ingenuity. Her Gippal, as he gives his name, is one of those picaresque characters who seems to turn up from time to time in real life just to prove that novelists do not invent them. It is an interesting peculiarity that the Journal of such a man should have ended up in the hands of so serious scholar as Dr. RyRy. In any event, the decision was taken to publish the “G” document in tandem with the “N” material I was making public.
The second person with whom I made contact was the dazzling and adored “Queen of Bevelle”. The woman named Never Draven was given this cognomen because of her beauty and multitude of talents. The descendant of one of the most respected families in the city, one which had managed to ride the changing fortunes of the city’s elite with uncommon skill, she was the heiress to a vast fortune which left her free to follow her own interests insofar as she wished.
She welcomed me with the courtesy those who speak of her always emphasize, making me feel as welcome as though I were one of her long and closely held friends. Over a sumptuous high tea, she told me how she came to possess the lovely little book she caressed as she spoke.
During the clearing out of a previously disused set of rooms in what had once been the Palace of the Praetor and was now a part of the Ecclesiastical Museum, a smallish box had been discovered. It was obviously old, yet tenderly cared for and locked with an elaborate combination lock. With some difficulty the restorers managed to open it and found inside what appeared to be the personal possessions of someone who had called the associated rooms home. There was a blue headband to hold the hair off one’s face, an eyepatch with a broken tie, a few shells, a crysknife inscribed in an unknown language and the book, bound in soft leather and tied shut with a lace. When opened, the book proved to contain small meticulous writing in faded ink. Never Draven, with her own delicate hands, worked alongside the finest experts in the kingdom to restore the volume and now it lay, in her soft palms, looking as though it had always been the perfect and intriguing treasure it was.
It was the personal diary of a former Praetor, named Baralai, telling of his days as a youth, before he ascended to his position of authority and the adventure he had with three friends during those days. Never Draven had delighted in it as a coming of age story, never thinking it might have wider connotations until one of those who helped restore the volume read the “N” material and recognized the events taking place. With her customary generosity, the lady agreed to permit the “B” document to be published along side the other two.
At this point we had three of the four variations on our theme. We knew there was a fourth one because of internal evidence in the others but hardly dared hope the last person on my list might be the holder of that final Journal.
When I called on KJ8673, I had no idea what to expect. The use of numbers as a part of her name told me she was one of the new feminists who rejected the subjugation of her sex which was becoming prevalent in the outlying and more rural areas of Spira and yet a quick trip to a reference book told me she was not only married but also the valued and esteemed Custodian of Incunabula at the Institute for the Preservation of the Written Word in Luca.
I met her in her office at the Institute, a spacious room crammed to capacity with piles of books and recordings in various states of repair. She pushed back the dark red hair which had escaped from its pins and reached into a deep drawer, withdrawing a shabby notebook with battered corners and what appeared to be bloodstains on the cover. Without a word, she pushed it over the desk to me and told me how she had come by it.
It was a habit of hers to spend the occasional weekend, prowling the back-lanes of the city with her husband, himself a scholar of note. They were especially fond of searching out the odd treasure still to be found in the piles of trash which accumulated in the many ‘antique’ or used-goods stores in the depths of the Inner City. KJ (as she permitted me to call her), would dig in dark corners of musty shops, up-end herself in cartons of miscellany and dive into cobwebby under-hangs in search of the unique and curious whilst her husband stood guard against petty thieves who also frequented such haunts.
It was during one such excursion she came across a barrow filled with books and scraps of writing. Without hesitation she purchased the entire lot, intending to take it to the Institute for evaluation since it was becoming increasingly rare to find written or printed material what with the ascendency of the recording spheres and so forth.
Later, as she was sorting through the contents of the barrow, she came across the notebook which now lay between us. The ink had remained remarkable stable during the long years which must have passed since it was last opened and read and the handwriting was unusually clear, being large and firmly formed.
When I read a few pages into the book, I was immediately entranced by this volume, the only one of the four written by a woman. The writer, a Warrior named Paine, told a clear and direct story about how four widely different people endured a torturous ordeal near the end of the period of the Last Pilgrimage and became a unit bound by ties of loyalty and love. I found myself understanding my own part of the saga much better seeing the events though the compassionate and honest eyes of this hitherto unknown literary genius. When I looked up to KJ to plead with her to let us publish this one along with the other three, I saw from her expression she had already decided to do so. She understood as well as I that the Paine document was the one which would tie them all together. So, it happened. The “P” papers joined the rest in the pages of FFN.
That is the way this remarkably detailed telling of a minor episode in the history of Spira came to be made public. So far, no amount of research has brought to light the fate of the four journalists. We only know that Baralai, at least, survived to become a Praetor of Bevelle – at least we think so from the evidence of the box although that needs further study. Of Gippal and Paine, we have no other news, save that a man named Gippal figured in some way toward the end of the history of the Al Bhed. There is no certainty he is the same man in the “G” document. I am still hungering to know what happened to the man whose words started all this. Did Nooj ever find the Honorable Death he sought with such dedication and despair?