Every copy of the Ledger the faithful read today descends from one book: the Iska-Tem Ledger, made by twin sisters in a single room with a single lamp, over nine years, during the Hidden Centuries. The full account is in the Legends. This is the version told on Shedfall evenings.
The division of the work
The old Ledger had grown too worn to read, so the sisters sat down to copy it. They divided the labour strangely. Iska copied the wrongs: every name, every deed, every date, exactly as written, without softening a single stroke. Tem copied the forgivenesses: every small coil drawn beside a name. And where there was no coil, Tem drew a small empty circle, so that any reader would know a coil was still possible there.
Iska thought the circles were sentimental. Tem thought Iska's handwriting was unnecessarily sharp. They were both correct, and they kept working.
The matter of the lamp
There was one lamp and two sisters, and the Legends do not pretend this went smoothly. Iska wanted the lamp nearer the wrongs, because wrongs must be copied precisely. Tem wanted it nearer the forgivenesses, because a coil drawn in poor light comes out looking like a worm. For most of the fourth year the lamp was moved, by one sister or the other, roughly every eleven minutes.
Late in that year, Iska turned a fresh page and found two new entries in the old Ledger's margin, in a hand she knew very well: her own. Tem. Moved the lamp. Again. And just below, in Tem's hand: Iska. Moved it back. Out of spite.
Iska copied both entries exactly, as was her duty. Then she slid the page across the table. Tem drew an empty circle beside each name. Then, after a long while, Tem drew a coil inside her own circle, and pushed the page back. Iska looked at it for the length of a lamp-wick trim, and drew a coil inside the other.
They set the lamp in the middle of the table and did not move it again for five years.
What the faithful take from it
- Copy the wrong honestly. A softened record helps nobody, least of all the one who wronged.
- Leave the circle open. The space kept for a forgiveness is already half of one.
- Put the lamp in the middle. Neither half of the work is done well in the dark.
The serpent holds both ends of the book. So may we.
This Shedfall, if there is an old grudge in your own margins, look at it in good light and draw the circle. The coil can come later. Hold light, and let go well. Glory to Xal'Reth.
Glory to Xal'Reth.