“Only the names of the planets,” the Mirror replied. “The actual locations were only recorded in the true Repository of Secrets on Earth.”
The last word echoed; Serenity knew the word the Mirror said wasn’t Earth, but he also knew that that was what it meant. His own world’s Name.
Serenity froze. How could there be a Repository of Secrets on Earth?
Well, there couldn’t be, not now. It simply wasn’t possible if it was as magical as the Library, and it seemed likely that the original was probably even more magical. Perhaps the Repository didn’t have to be that magical; the Library was separate, after all.
On the other hand, the Library and the Broken Mirror were clearly linked; they both gave him significant access because of his title as a Hand. That meant they were probably built by the same people, and anyone who could build something like the Repository as a backup and then put the Library over it wouldn’t build a less magical original.
The original Repository of Secrets had to have significant magic protecting it anymore, if nothing else. That meant that it would have failed when Earth’s magic levels declined. Serenity wasn’t certain exactly when that was, but it probably lined up with the breaking of Gaia’s crystal. He’d sort of assumed it was gradual, it usually was, but for it to be completely lost it had to have been at least somewhat quick.
Well, what if it was on A’Atla when it sank? That could destroy a lot of things; even if it didn’t, they’d be awfully hard to get at, and Serenity was pretty sure that A’Atla sank when Gaia’s core was damaged the second time. If A’Atla was Atlantis, it was some time BCE, in legend and myth but not reality by the time of Plato. Call it a thousand BCE or so?
Come to think of it, Gaia was broken twice, not once. “How long ago did you lose contact with the Repository of Secrets? The original one?”
If the Broken Mirror was lost during the Terror War 2500 years ago and the fall of A’Atla was the reason they lost contact, it could have been during the same war; even if it wasn’t, it was probably only a few centuries earlier. Serenity wasn’t sure exactly when the previous breaking happened; all he knew was that it was far, far earlier.
“Approximately thirty million years ago,” the Mirror answered. “I no longer know the exact date, but that should be close.”
Yeah, that definitely couldn’t be the fall of A’Atla. It was probably before humans existed, at least on Earth, but it was definitely too recent to be the end of the dinosaurs. Serenity wondered why he hadn’t seen that in Gaia’s vision; had she simply not cared or was that information lost when so much of her core was destroyed?
The Broken Mirror probably couldn’t answer that question, but there was one it probably could answer: whether or not there was a point to the loss. “What was the Grand Ritual of Opportunity supposed to achieve?”
“Supposed to?” The Broken Mirror sounded offended. “Despite the failure to contain the ritual, it was a success.”
Serenity sighed. He wasn’t just bad with people, he was apparently also bad with magical artifacts. The intelligent ones, at least. “Okay, so other than almost destroying Earth, what did it achieve?”
The Broken Mirror sounded positively smug as it answered. “The Grand Ritual created the greatest tool the Order has ever had, a tool everyone can use. Order’s Voice.”
Serenity was still trying to figure out how many mysteries that answered when Honoria interrupted. “Almost destroying Earth? I thought the Mirror said the planet - wait. Isn’t Earth the name of your world? The one that we were holding the Tutorial for?”
Serenity nodded absently. “I knew the World Core was almost destroyed a long time ago; it was almost evaporated. That must have been when it happened. Gaia survived but was heavily damaged and Earth fell in Tier. That wasn’t the most recent problem, but it’s the worst one Gaia remembers.”
“Gaia?”
“Earth’s World Spirit.” That was the best term Serenity had offhand.
Even though he answered Honoria’s questions, he didn’t really pay much attention to them. He was far more interested in the implication of the Voice as an artificial being. Its origin on Earth was strange; why wouldn’t it be there as well? Maybe it had to wait for Earth to recover enough?
That didn’t really make any sense. Earth’s World Core was in better shape before the godswar that broke it the second time than it was when the Tutorial started. Maybe it was the other way around, then? Maybe the Voice had needed to wait for Earth’s core to be weak enough?
No, that didn’t make sense either. It seemed more likely that there was some reason Serenity didn’t know that the Voice hadn’t reached out to Earth, but there had to be a reason it finally had started a Tutorial. Maybe it was worried about Gaia weakening too much or maybe it really did have to reach out when the population grew high enough; Serenity wouldn’t know without asking the Voice, and he doubted it would answer. It never had the past.
Serenity tried asking; as he expected, there was no answer.
At least now he knew why Earth was surrounded by so many old worlds. That was something he’d always wondered; how had the Voice not found Earth? Well, apparently it had, it simply hadn’t done anything to the world until it had to. At a guess, it was the population; population and planetary Tier were the two things that people called out as attracting the Voice’s attention and Earth had a huge population.
Serenity realized he’d been ignoring Honoria and the Mirror, but it didn’t seem like they’d noticed. They were discussing Asihanya’s history and mythology when Serenity started paying attention again. He simply listened; it sounded like Honoria was enjoying telling the stories and the Mirror was enjoying telling Honoria what the truth behind a lot of her myths was.
Serenity’s favorite was Honoria’s tale of the Giant Traveling Tinker. It reminded Serenity of the stories of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, tall tales pushed way beyond possibility, yet the Mirror said that they were based on a true person - simply not someone from Asihanya. In the Mirror’s version of the story, the Giant was “only” about thirty feet tall, but that was normal for his species; he simply had severe wanderlust and chose to travel far from his homeland.
During one of the tales, something reminded Serenity of what the Mirror had said earlier; he’d focused on the near-destruction of Earth, but the creation of the Voice was at least as important. It would be far more important to others, and this was a Repository of Secrets, even if it wasn’t the original.
“Mirror,” Serenity interrupted, “Do you have any records of the Grand Ritual that made the Voice?”
Honoria stopped her latest story in the middle of a sentence and gave Serenity a dark look.
The Voice, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be upset by the question. “No. That is not something I have any records of; I assume they are in another Mirror.”
“Do you know which one? Or could they be in those fragmented records you mentioned, the ones that were split between multiple mirrors because they were too important to be lost yet too secret to be whole at any single location?” At least, that was what Serenity thought the Mirror had meat when he talked about fragmented records.
The Mirror seemed to take a moment to think before it answered. It sounded almost hesitant when it did. “They might be in the Broken Mirror that focused on rituals? If they were, they no longer exist; that Mirror was destroyed less than a decade after the completion of the Grand Ritual.”
Serenity sighed, annoyed. A repository of information on ancient, lost rituals from before the time of the Voice would have been really interesting. It might well have been destroyed because it contained that particular ritual or even because someone thought it might, but the reason didn’t matter; the Mirror was correct. A repository that was destroyed millions of years in the past probably wasn’t worth searching for.
“Do the other Mirrors know that? If they do and someone recently figured out that there’s even a chance to recreate the Voice or something similar…” Serenity trailed off. By the expression on Honoria’s face, she’d put together the same pieces he had. “This isn’t how I’d search a world; it seems horribly inefficient.”
“It would explain why they came out of nowhere and started with Stallet,” Honoria stated. “Stallet’s old; it was one of the first cities founded after the end of the Terror War. It was also set up around an Academy. If they expected the place they were looking for to be under a place of knowledge, an Academy makes sense.”
“Then shouldn’t they be focusing on the Library?” Serenity frowned. “They don’t seem to be doing more than making you keep repairing it.”
Honoria shook her head and frowned. “They were slowly draining it before you arrived; the damage was accumulating. It’s also entirely possible they searched the Library but didn’t find any of the restricted sections. That might be why there was no one here when I arrived and why no one has returned.”
“Which means they probably don’t think it’s here and aren’t prioritizing the Library, but they want to search without any enchantments interfering.” Serenity nodded to himself; that made sense. It assumed the attacks were searching for something in the Broken Mirror, but since that was a worst-case scenario for defending the Library, it made sense as an assumption.
“How did they even get in to find out there was something to look for?” Honoria shook her head. “We’ve known the Locked Archive was here for centuries, but no one’s ever been able to enter. Some of the past Head Librarians pushed pretty hard, too.”
“What happened to them?” Serenity had the feeling that the answer wasn’t “nothing”. The Library had clearly been built on top of the Broken Mirror deliberately.
“It depended on what they tried. If it was just letting others try to enter, nothing. That’s why I was willing to ask you to try.” Honoria bit her lip and looked down. “Some of the people who tried did get pretty hurt when they tried to force their way in. I should have warned you.”
Serenity shrugged. “I expect that of anything that’s well sealed. Things don’t stay that way if they’re not properly defended. Did the people who tried to force their way in cause any worse consequences?”
Honoria nodded. “We don’t have complete records of the entire time since the Library’s discovery, but the Histories go into detail on that. As warnings, I think. Most are just the Head Librarian being stripped of his position; some were barred from even entering the Library. There’s only one case I’m aware of where most of the Librarians were kicked out with him, and in that case it was a concerted effort by everyone who was removed to break the wards protecting the Locked Archive. The method they used isn’t recorded, but the fact that whatever it is backlashed through the Head Librarian before they were kicked out is.”
Serenity winced. Backlash could be nasty, and that almost sounded like it was deliberate. Serenity knew a couple of ward defenses that could do that if they weren’t properly countered, and either one had a chance to burn out the attacking spell’s focus. If that focus was a person, severely damaged mana channels were the least he could expect.
“That’s probably not the worst thing they could do, either. An unattended ward could do that much and this one has a controller.” Serenity wasn’t sure if that controller was the Library or the Mirror, but his guess was that there were probably two ward setups, each with a different controller. It was entirely likely that no one had ever gotten past the ones controlled by the Library; it had the huge advantage of being on the inside of whatever someone tried, after all.
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