t seemed like recently Malia’s head was filled with too much unprocessed information. She was restless, couldn’t lie down and be still longer than a few moments. Apparently a part of her was constantly searching for something, yearning for something she couldn’t give. Not that she had even tried until that particular day. She knew that she had to give in to the urge of getting information. So her feet took her to the only public library in Syliras which was located at the second tier and quite simply built and decorated, but nonetheless filled with books on a variety of different topics. Although Malia had already been there several times before, this time was different. Stitch’s children had been demanding a lot of her attention and she had looked up a thing or two for them. The story about Priskil and Aquiras, for example … but this time she was coming there for her own purposes. The librarian greeted her with an absent-minded nod. He usually buried himself in books or lists and didn’t help the visitors except if they asked him for. Malia had learned to simply forget his existence when starting to research about a specific topic. Often she didn’t know where to begin, because the information she required was somehow specific. Then she usually collected as many books as she could carry, dumped them at the nearest table and started to browse through them. However, this time she knew what keywords she had to look for: Animation. Nuit. Pycon. Sahova. “Unfortunately the barbaric and inhuman magical discipline which is usually referred to as ‘Animation’ has been part of Mizaharian history for longer than we thought. There is some evidence that Protohumans already used it, although we do not exactly know what purpose or goal they wished to achieve through such skill. The first interesting and extensive usage of ‘Animation’ has been practiced in the pre-Valterrian Empire of Alahea. It is proven that court mages crafted golems that could move and obey simple commands, although the more complex the commands got, the more difficult it was to craft such a golem. ‘Animation’ is a time- and cost-consuming task which is why it was only available to wealthy and powerful individuals or lesser people with generous sponsors or employers. The Alaheans also started to do experiments and document the results. The most important facts and laws of ‘Animation’ they discovered and wrote down are still used nowadays. Still it should be noted that the breathing of life into normally lifeless objects can almost be called a rebellion against life itself. The Mistress of Light will never accept someone who shows interest in this magic discipline …” The first book she opened had been randomly chosen and she hadn’t really expected to find anything there, but … well. The title read “Rules and regulations of life”; apparently it had been written by a priest of Kihala and famous theologian. She quickly replaced it with the “Encyclopedia of modern Mizahar” which was written by a historian and anthropologist in Syliras almost thirty years ago. She felt that she could trust an impartial text much more than the biased descriptions of the gods’ followers. |