The Book of Lamplight

n the long winter of the comet, when the river froze to the mill wheel and the bells rang hollow, the brothers of Saint Wendel kept one lamp burning in the scriptorium. They called it the patient flameGlossA lamp of rendered tallow and hawthorn oil, trimmed every third hour by the youngest novice., and it was said that no word copied beneath it was ever lost.

Brother Aldric ground the blue from stones carried over three mountains. He mixed it with egg and patience, and laid it down so thickly that the sky in his pages looked deeper than the sky outside. Of lapisMarginal noteWorth more than its weight in silver. Aldric kept the grinding stone under his pillow. he said only that it was the colour of things remembered.

The gold came last. Leaf thinner than breath, pressed onto a bed of gesso and burnished with a dog's toothInstrumentSet in a handle of ash wood. Polished gold catches lamplight and returns it doubled. until the letters seemed to hold their own small fire. Readers who turned the folio at night swore the initials kept glowing after the candle was snuffed.

¶ What follows was written in an ink that would not show itself to the impatient. Rest your hand upon it and wait.