Library / memory shard

A crystal of the Arcane Congress, rare even among the Congress, that stores written knowledge inside itself. Some call them library shards and some call them memory shards, and the second name misleads: there is nothing of anyone’s mind in them, no images, no smells, no borrowed moments. What is in there is text. Reading it is reading; it simply happens behind the eyes rather than in front of them, and it takes a mind strong-willed and well-practiced enough to work its way inside.

The good ones hold dozens of volumes in a few ounces of stone, and the stories say the very best hold hundreds. The poor ones hold a handful of sentences, or a poem. Nothing about a shard tells you which kind you are holding.

This one came off Venros’s body after the mind-mage died and came apart into the three pieces he had really been. Mikhail could not appraise its quality, and did not attempt to read it that night. He was three points of himself lighter by then and very tired. His argument for keeping it was simply that Venros had chosen to carry it.

It has not been opened since.