My Lord Aquith directs me to place these words on paper. 
    He insists that I identify myself as the scribe. Men call 
me Piplerian Q'Norcail Veni. My Lord Aquith laughs as he 
rolls my name about his tongue. 
    "They gave you enough names to rule a country." 
    I was found forty-four years ago in a field. I came into 
this world deformed so my parents abandoned me. This wasn't 
cruelty but a chance to give the gods an opportunity to 
correct their error. They chose to do so by having Lord 
Aquith, the elder, my Lord Aquith's father, pass judgement 
that I should live. He gave me to the women of the Keep to 
use according to their needs and my poor talents. 
    Each of the eleven women offered the gods a name for me. 
Denir, the priest, accepted each name and gave them a form he 
called, "logical." 
    Wise Denir saw my eyes and pronounced me fit for 
education as a scribe. Denir had a wisdom that spoke of the 
elder gods although he wore the cloth of the usurper from the 
East, the one Patrick brought, the God of Death, the one they 
call, Savior Christ. 
    I fear this god. He has ambition. He states that other 
gods are false. I state no god is false who makes himself 
felt. Denir would have understood. With a grin, he adopted 
the cloth of the new god and let the water be splashed on his 
face. 
    "Patrick," Denir once told me, "had men with heavy swords 
at my baptism. I didn't want to be called to the bosom of 
this new god on that day so I made do with his blessing 
instead." 
    "But baptism is powerful," I protested. 
    "And I am a good Christian, Pip. I didn't take his holy 
water with a closed heart. Still, an ocean could not wash 
from me the ways of my fathers. I still carry the verse of 
law and the stories of old. The old gods have not left me. 
Christ will simply have to share me with them. 
    He laughed shamelessly. 
    Denir was old when I was young. He said he would face 
this Christ and mediate his quarrel with the elder gods in 
the next world. Denir's had no success as yet, if I may judge 
from the humorless monks who replaced him. They have not the 
poetry or humor of the Druid, nor his learning of the law. 
They act without precedent, relying on unknown spirits rather 
than the law. 
    Men no longer know how to behave. 
    These monks have only scribbling, something, if I serve 
as an example, any idiot may learn. 
    I bless my Lord Aquith that these pages will be secret 
and I can say my piece without fear of these dark monks. 
These men of small learning despise me as I know their craft 
without sharing their loyalties. I serve the elder gods in 
secret. When they splashed the holy water on me, I was in 
this world but a few days and so the baptism was less 
powerful and did not hold my soul. 
    They know but cannot kill me. My Lord Aquith protects me. 
    Still, the purpose of these pages is not served by my 
ramblings of the past. It is the events of recent days that 
must be set down. I place my first lines only because my Lord 
Aquith thinks they will help those who are to come to under- 
stand. He has faith that these pages will be found in an 
age when we are both dust. 
    "Even the walls have their lifetimes. There'll be a time 
when these stones are removed and the iron chest will once 
again come before the eyes of men. 
    "What sort of men will find it?" 
    "You're curious for a scribe, Pip. I venture they'll be 
much like us." 
    "Wiser?" 
    "I fear not. Cleverer, perhaps, with better tools. But 
not wiser." 
    I could see he was having private thoughts as he said it. 
He broods at times. I can't presume to understand the 
meanderings of my betters. He gives me much freedom in the 
strokes of this quill. He knows I understand the limits of 
his tolerance." 
    My Lord Aquith was presiding over the festival of the 
fall.  It has always been a time of joy. For the space of a 
few days, the drudgery of summer is replaced by mild weather 
and there is time for contemplation. 
    The poets are at their best just before the first snows 
and will recite for long hours before the fires of cool eves. 
    Children born in this season are strong. 
    If they are boys and survive the winter at their weakest, 
they become the good right arm of my Lord Aquith. The common 
soldiers are always chosen from this stock. 
    If they are girls, they will bear many children. 
    It's a good time under the rule of the elder gods. I 
don't know what this Christ will bring. No comforting 
thoughts, I fear. 
    The festival was lit by seven huge fires set in the 
ancient pattern. They lit the spirited dancing of the young. 
If the old gods looked on all this with mirth, the sexless 
monks from the East viewed the dancing with fierce and 
unforgiving glares. But for the will of my Lord Aquith, this 
ritual would be forbidden. 
    I saw the future Lord Aquith standing among the monks, 
his hair unnaturally cut with continence as stony as theirs. 
    May the gods preserve! 
    The child, who has barely seen six summers, seemed so 
joyful at birth. Now he is Christ's. Does a dark generation 
cloud this Keep? 
    They say Christ walked the Earth in the guise of man. 
Could he have been like his followers? I wonder if his judges 
were not correct in their judgement. My Lord Aquith once 
executed a man who was leading his followers in a pattern of 
worship my Lord Aquith thought too rigid. I asked him why. 
Did not this man honestly worship the old gods? Surely the 
complaints of worthless monks was not reason enough to 
execute a man?