She discovered that in the monks’ Codex of Maribor, The Book of Brin had been cut apart and reorganized into what was believed to be a more sensible progression, with which—Farilane now understood—the monks had taken liberties. A small section concerning the pantheon of deities that appeared near the end of The Book of Brin was moved to the front of the Codex, expanded, and given its own title, “Treatise on the Gods.” In this new and improved volume, Brin’s contemplations and doubts about the nature of the gods were erased in favor of a cleaner narrative. The new story declared that Ferrol, Drome, and Maribor created Elan’s elves, dwarfs, and men, while their sister, Muriel, created the world’s flora and fauna. She also gave birth to the evil one, Uberlin, son of their father, Erebus. The only way the monks could fathom this development was to claim the father had raped the daughter. Given that this event launched a war that set sons against their fathers, it must have seemed reasonable to the monks that these were the indisputable facts of the case.

The second portion of the Codex had been penned by Falkirk de Roche, in the form of interpretations on The Book of Brin known as “The Meditations.” They covered the basic rules to live a proper life in the grace of Maribor. “The Meditations” formed the true foundational core of the monks’ creed, the most referenced and dynamic part of their book. In some copies of the Codex, Farilane had found additional “meditations” added by venerated members of the order, who helped further define the growing complications and even some annoying contradictions that plagued the doctrine.

“The Meditations” section was followed by the “Treatise on Nyphron”—sometimes spelled in the human vernacular as Novron—which described events that led up to the Great War, including the famous epic poem “The Battle of Grandford.” Farilane was pleased to see that it closely—though not entirely—matched the original penned by Brin. After that came the fables that included “Gronbach and the Treasure of Neith” and “The Evil Dwarf of the Crescent Forest,” which Farilane herself had re-written. Back when she dreamed of helping to usher in an era of literacy, the princess had taken the liberty of cleaning up the fable’s archaic language style and modernizing the text, in the hope that children could read them as literary primers.

Nowhere in the Codex of Maribor was there any mention of the Underworld Odyssey. Farilane was only familiar with that particular myth through various bits of ancient folklore, which varied widely from one monastery or village to the next. The princess had only found a few accounts recorded in ink. The most prominent and enduring version came from the Belgric Kingdom, and it told of a band of great heroes led by the future king Rain who entered the afterlife in search of the Sword of King Mideon.