Puzzled by the grim expression that had settled on his face, she placed the book in a clear spot and began carefully turning pages. The writing was a little faded, but no more so than any book its age. For as old as it was, it was still in good condition and quite legible.
Twelve Words Left for Reason was a book containing twelve core prophecies and a number of ancillary branches. Those ancillary branches, when carefully cross-referenced, connected actual events to a number of other books of prophecy that were otherwise impossible to place chronologically. The twelve core prophecies actually weren’t all that important. It was the ancillary branches that served to link other trunks and branches in the tree of prophecy that made Twelve Words Left for Reason so invaluable.
Chronology was often the most trying problem facing those working with prophecy. It was often impossible to tell if a prophecy was going to unfold the next day, or the next century. Events were in a constant state of flux. The setting of prophecy in the context of time was essential, not just to know when a particular prophecy was to become viable, but because what was of overriding importance next year might be nothing more than an unimportant minor event if set in the environment of the year after. Unless they knew which year the prophecy took place, they didn’t know if it foretold danger or simply a matter of note.
Most prophets, when they set down their prophecy, left it up to those who would come later to fit it into its proper place in real-world events. There was no clear consensus on whether this had been done deliberately, through carelessness, or because the prophet, in the throes of having his visions, had never realized how important, and difficult, it would later be to chronologically place his vision. She had often observed with Nathan that a prophecy was so crystal-clear to the prophet himself that he simply failed to comprehend how formidable a task it would be for others to read and fit into the puzzle of life.
“Wait,” Nathan said as she turned the pages. “Go back a page.”
Ann glanced up at him and then flipped the vellum back.
“There,” Nathan said as he tapped a finger to the page. “Look here. There are several lines missing.”
Ann peered at the small gap in the writing, but didn’t see what was so meaningful about it. Books often had spaces left blank for a wide variety of reasons.
“So?”
Rather than answer, he rolled his hand, motioning for her to go on. She started flipping over the pages. Nathan thrust his hand in to stop her and tapped another blank spot so she would note it. He then urged her to continue.
Ann noticed that the blank places became more frequent. Finally, she came to entire pages that were blank. Even that, though, was not unheard of. There were any number of books that simply ended in the middle. It was thought that the prophet who had been working on such books had most likely died and those coming after didn’t want to interfere with what a predecessor had done, or perhaps they wanted to work on branches of prophecy which were more interesting or relevant to them.
“Twelve Words Left for Reason is one of the few books of prophecy that is chronological,” he reminded her in a soft voice.
She knew that, of course. That was what made the book such a valuable tool. She couldn’t imagine, though, why he had felt it important to point it out.
“Well,” Ann said with a sigh as she reached the end, “it is odd, I suppose. What do you make of the blank places?”
Rather than answer her directly, he handed her another book. “Subdivision of Burkett’s Root. Take a look.”
Ann turned the pages of yet another priceless find, looking for something out of the ordinary. She came across three blank pages followed by more prophecy.
She was growing impatient with Nathan’s game. “What am I supposed to see?”
Nathan was a moment in answering. When he finally did, his voice had that quality about it that tended to run shivers up her spine.
“Ann, we had that book down in the vaults.”
She was still not following what was obviously of critical importance to him. “Yes, we did. I remember it quite well.”
“The copy we had didn’t have those blank pages.”
She frowned and then turned back to the book. She leafed through the pages again until she found the empty spot.
“Well,” she said as she studied the place where the prophecy ended and then where an entirely new branch of prophecy resumed after the empty pages, “maybe whoever made this copy, for some reason, decided not to include some of it. Perhaps they had sound reason to believe that the particular branch had been a dead end and, rather than include dead wood in the tree of prophecy, they simply left it out. Such pruning is not uncommon. Then, because they didn’t want to make it appear they were trying to deceive anyone, they went ahead and left the appropriate space blank to denote the deletion.”
She looked up. The prophet’s azure eyes were fixed on her. Ann felt sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades.
“Take a look at The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory,” he said in a quiet voice without taking his penetrating gaze from her.
Ann broke contact with that gaze and pulled the copy of The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory close. She flipped through the pages as she had done with the previous book, if a little faster.
There were blank pages, only more of them.
She shrugged. “Not a very accurate copy, I’d say.”
Nathan impatiently reached in with a long arm and turned the stack of pages back to the front.
There, on a page at the beginning, all alone, was the author’s mark.
“Dear Creator,” Ann whispered when she saw the little symbol. It still glimmered with the magic the author had invested in his mark. She felt goose bumps tingle up from her toes. “This is isn’t a copy. It’s the original.”
“That’s right. If you recall, the one we had in the vaults was a copy.”
“Yes, I remember that ours was a copy.”
She had assumed this one as well had been one of a number of copies. Many of the books of prophecy were copies, but that didn’t diminish their value. They were checked and marked by respected scholars who then left their own mark to vouch for the copy’s accuracy. A book of prophecy was valued for the precision and veracity of its content, not because
it was the original. It was the prophecy itself that was valuable, not the hand that had set it down.
Still, to see the original of a book she loved as much as she loved this particular volume was a memorable experience. This was the actual book, written in the hand of the prophet who had given these precious prophecies.
“Nathan…what can I say. This is a personal delight for me. You know how much this book means to me.”
Nathan took a patient breath. “And the blank pages?”
Ann shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m not really prepared to venture a guess. What are you getting at?”
“Look at the place where the blanks fit into the text.”
Ann turned her attention back to the book. She read a little of the text before one of the blank areas, then read some of what followed. It was a prophecy about Richard. She randomly picked another blank place, reading before the blank area and after. It was another section about Richard.
“It would seem,” she said as she studied a third place, “that the blanks appear in places where it talks about Richard.”
Nathan was getting more edgy looking by the moment. “That’s only because most of The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory is about Richard. That pattern of blank pages associated with him doesn’t hold true when you start looking at the other books.”
Ann lifted her arms and let them fall to her sides. “Then I give up. I don’t see what you see.”
“It’s what we’re not seeing. It’s the blank places that are the problem.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because,” he said with a little more force in his voice, “there is something quite odd about those blank sections.”
Ann pushed a stray wisp of gray hair back into the bun she always wore at the back of her head. She was becoming frazzled.
“Like what?”
“You tell me,” he said. “I would bet that you could practically quote The Glendhill Book of Deviation Theory.”