But as the years and the decades passed, many now waited impatiently for Haloch to finish the text. The irony of this, as the date of completion drew near, was the apparent lack of interest from either the King or his Loremasters. They were conspicuously absent, sequestering themselves in the King’s city of Valerian, far to the Northeast. It was as though they had withdrawn themselves to a safe distance, waiting for something to happen.
As the day of completion drew near, several of the older scholars began to grow concerned, fearing that the King meant to betray them in some manner. This fear was not unfounded, for some of them had first-hand knowledge of the King’s private obsession with eternal life: namely his own. They began to wonder and worry if the King’s absence and the Book’s completion were somehow linked . . .
Small-minded fools! They think the world revolves around themselves and their works! The false Adjunct had to suppress a tremor of anger. What the Scholastic community did not know, of course, what had been carefully kept from them from the beginning, was the fact that Haloch had been told to finish the final illustration, which was incomplete. The old Scribe was secretly (so he thought) looking forward to this final piece of work, for in his entire life, he had never been directly involved in the creative process. He saw this as a fitting way to retire, capping the completion of his life’s work. That the groundwork for the illustration was clearly laid out disturbed him not at all. When he was done, his copy would reflect the outcome of the original, had its author seen fit to complete it himself. Then, in his own mind at least, he could pack up his Scribing tools for the last time, and spend his remaining days in retirement collecting his pension.