looked at Darius with a hint of surprise. Veson waited a moment for the colonel’s reaction, and his astonishment slowly grew when Bleist did not react as expected. ‘That preposterous story reminded me of the manuscript we were discussing earlier,’ he finally managed to say.
‘It must have been a truly remarkable work if it has stuck in your memory so firmly,’ said Darius, giving no sign that he was somewhat shocked by the amount of detail that had reached the historian. The fact that the accident had taken place was no secret. Too many people had witnessed it. The general circumstances were also to be expected, but the information about the corrupted artefact should still have remained classified. Either someone has a very loose tongue, or there are more agents in our services than we had anticipated, the earl thought grimly.
‘Yes, very unusual,’ Veson agreed slowly. ‘The lack of introduction complicated matters considerably, but the surviving text focused on descriptions of injuries, illnesses and deformities caused by black magic and monstrous alchemical practices, as well as accounts of attempts to reverse the effects of these twisted practices. Unfortunately, the aid provided often seemed just as inhuman as the cause of the wretches’ suffering.’ The As, as if embarrassed, looked away, focusing on something beside Darius. ‘Studying these cases was as fascinating as it was horrific.’
‘Any unauthorised recording of information concerning black magic is severely punished, even if it relates solely to observed effects.’ For Bleist, the very act of writing down an account of corrupted magic was unthinkable, let alone actively investigating its effects. Simply determining whether something was black magic or not was extremely dangerous, and investigating its effects was asking for trouble. ‘If these were lawful works, then Nikos of Itea, in his pursuit of knowledge, had got himself into the worst possible place. However, if that were not the case…’
‘We’ll never know that, though.’ The historian shook his head. ‘The surviving text contains no details regarding the reasons for the author’s presence at the scene of that tragedy. Nor is there a single
