PART EIGHT: THE BOOK OF MAGES 28 Fond Magics of Maya 215 29 Leucosia’s Singing 220 30 What Solomon Wanted 225 31 The Chivalry of Merlin 229 32 A Boy That Might As Well Be 238 PART NINE: THE BOOK OF MISPEC MOOR 33 Limitations of Gaston 247 34 Ambiguity of the Brown Man 255 35 Of Kalki and a Döoppelganger 259 36 Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes 263 37 Contentment of the Mislaid God 270 PART TEN: THE BOOK OF ENDINGS 38 About the Past of a Bishop 281 39 Baptism of a Musgrave 294 40 On the Turn of a Leaf 298 41 Child of All Fathers 301 42 Theodorick Rides Forth 305 43 Economics of Redemption 310 44 Economics of Common-Sense 319 45 Farewell to All Fair Welfare 323 PART ELEVEN: THE BOOK OF REMNANTS 46 The Gray Quiet Way of Ruins 329 47 How Horvendile Gave Up the Race 333 PART TWELVE: THE BOOK OF ACQUIESCENCE 48 Fruits of the Sylan’s Industry 345 49 Triumph of the Two Truths 352 50 Exodus of Glaum 362 THE ARGUMENT OF THIS COMEDY Set forth as clearly as discretion permits, for the convenience of the intending reader THESE shadows here are subtle: for they wait Like usurers that briefly lend the sun Disfavor and a stinted while to run With flaunting vigor through life’s large estate Of fire and turmoil; or like thieves that hate No law-lord save the posturing of desire With genuflexions where dejections tire The fig-leaf’s trophy with the fig-leaf’s weight. Yes; they are subtle: and where no light is These tread not openly, as heretofore, With whisperings of that at odds with this To veil their passing, where a broken door Confronts the zenith, and Semiramis, At one with Upsilon, exhorts no more. PART ONE THE BOOK OF OUTSET “Wheresoever a Man Lives, There Will be a Thornbush Near His Door.”