The day wore on, and Amirantha drank two pots of tea. Other than having to relieve himself three times before lunch, his morning was uneventful; there was nothing remarkable about his findings. He had chanced across a few interesting things, a treatise on higher consciousness and the gods—which he found more compelling for the absolutely blind leaps of faith than he did for any compelling evidence to support the hypothesis, but done in language both precise and elegant. He found himself admiring it despite it having no relevance to his current search.

There was one interesting account of a very bad famine, more family chronicles than he imagined possible; the Quegans were a self-aggrandizing people beyond his imagination. Even modestly successful merchants had commissioned family histories—most of which were far more fanciful than fact, he surmised. One particularly vivid but improbable tale concerned a merchant from the Kingdom city of Krondor who had contrived to build a fortune out of thin air, or so he claimed.

There were a couple of interesting finds, beyond their value as quaintly curious; a book of “dark spells” that had more truth in it than the author understood; anyone with a talent for magic would recognize elements in it. He put it aside in case Pug or Magnus might be curious.

Another work was a chronicle of a struggle between two temples, neither of which he recognized. The magic he used to read foreign languages did not make the understanding of proper nouns any easier. Someone named Rah-ma-to was named Rah-ma-to, and his only insight into that worth anything was context. He might be a local god, a local name for one of the gods he knew, or a farmer, for all Amirantha knew. Still, it touched on something of myth and magic, so he set it aside.

Other volumes were likewise curiosities, but nothing remotely akin to the information he was seeking. He wondered if Pug and Magnus were having any more luck.

Time of the midday meal was announced by the arrival of Livia. The charming Quegan woman seemed amused by the sight of Amirantha on his knees stacking books. “Are you finding anything?”

He pointed to a dozen volumes stacked over on the table next to the empty—again empty—teapot and said, “Those look promising.” He exaggerated, but he wanted to make this look like a worthwhile undertaking to bolster his need to return.

“I’ve come to take you to the archivists’ quarters, where a repast has been provided.”

He rose up and found his knees slightly stiff. Feigning more discomfort than he felt, he said, “I need walk a bit more, I think. Too many days of sitting and I’m turning into an old man.”