“How wonderful,” Virgil said, delighted. “It is so rare for irony to be on my side.”

The princess set the lantern on the floor once more. “This doesn’t mean gods exist, merely that another person has been equally duped.”

“And yet what is existence, but that which we believe it to be?”

Farilane scrubbed her palms together to clean off the dirt. “I’m astounded that you were appointed to be my teacher.”

“It may appear that I’ve been a poor tutor. After forty years, I wonder if you’ve learned anything from me, but is that the fault of the instructor or the student?”

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by Kolby shouting, “Ferrol!”

Turning, they saw him with hands cupped on either side of his mouth, yelling into the darkness. He looked surprised when nothing happened.

“He’s so cute,” the princess said to Virgil.

“What?” the knight asked. “God’s name is Ferrol.”

“You’re right,” Virgil told the princess. “He wouldn’t have comprehended the supposition.”

“I don’t understand,” Kolby said.

“Exactly,” the philosopher replied, and having rubbed life back into his heel, he put his sandal on.

Kolby frowned and hooked a thumb in his sword belt the way he usually did when annoyed. “Would you care to explain whatever it is I’m apparently missing?”

“Certainly,” Virgil said. “My role is to educate, after all, and since the princess refuses to allow me to improve her mind, I might as well help you. First, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gods. Everybody has their favorite. Second, Ferrol is the elven god, and the people who built this vault were definitely not elven. They were, or are, a sect of humans known as monks, a word derived from the elvish monakus, meaning solitary. This is a bit of a misnomer, as these men always dwell in groups. You saw one of their little habitats outside the village of Roch—that ruined stone building next to the domed temple. They call buildings like that monasteries, which also absurdly means to live alone.”

“Or apart,” the princess inserted. “The monks were outlawed by the empire during the reign of Nyphron for spreading subversive lies. They were driven into hiding in remote places like this. They were hunted, practically for sport.”

“Why?” Kolby asked.

“Nyphron didn’t like the monks’ practice of writing things down,” Virgil explained. “He sought to erase their slanderous lies by destroying their records, hoping that memories would, in time, grow fuzzy and fade into non-existence. The monks countered by hiding their most important texts in secret vaults like this.”

“So we’re here to destroy this book you keep speaking about?” Cedric asked.

Farilane shook her head. “No. We’re here to learn the truth.”

Virgil coughed most insincerely.