Ilyan began with the places where the inscription was missing.
A torn edge cut through three characters in the rubbing. Farther down, a dark patch in the old copy had been transcribed as a complete word by someone whose later commentary occupied the opposite margin. Ilyan put a small marker beside it and explained that the original surface had since deteriorated. They could compare the surviving wall with the earlier copy, but they could not now examine what the earlier reader had actually seen.
“Then this is not one account,” Juno said.
“No. These are several accounts being read beside each other.”
The distinction suited the objects on the table better than the single story Eli had expected. One inscription described an intelligence that entered minds and changed what people believed belonged to them. Another commemorated the construction of a seal. A later text gave the builders praise without naming the people whose contributions had sustained their work.
The interpreter worked slowly. Some terms had ordinary meanings still used in the settlement. Others survived mainly in formal phrases, where familiarity could make people too confident about what they meant. Ilyan sometimes offered two possible renderings. At one line he asked her to leave the phrase in its original form until they could compare another inscription.
