129

Braziers of all different shapes and sized filled a shelf that was perpendicular to the table of glass jars. A small table on wheels stood between the braziers and the jars. A glass jar full of a deep purple liquid rested on a wide brazier there. Orphic noted an open book on the table as they passed. The yellowed pages and illuminated image of a massive horse with a skull for a head showed the age of the books. The words were in a language that was unfamiliar to Orphic. There was a diagram on page opposite the hose illustration showed a glass vessel on a brazier that was of a similar shape to the one on the table. Whomever was following the recipe had been careless and had let some of the purple liquid splash onto the books ancient pages.

"The books.."

"Will be destroyed." Hallie finished. "Thousands of years of history will be lost on this night. Knowledge that that Skapatian's kept in the face of the Tyrants and the Electorate but will now lose in the face of the fire. There is nothing to do." Her voice was wistful. "The world turned it's back on this knowledge. Time has passed the order until we were nothing more then a storage facility for the vanity of the rich. Most of the order care nothing for what knowledge is stored within these walls. I was wrong Orphic."

"Wrong?"

"When I said that the knowledge will be lost on this night. The knowledge was already lost. Knowledge must live. Stored knowledge is dead knowledge. What good does it do for an answer to be written in a book when no one knows where they book is. That is this place, an answer to a question that is no longer being asked. Few will the loss of this temple on this day."