The Erosion Codex

The Erosion Codex is not a book you read. It is a book you submit to. Each of the seven known copies is bound in pale leather � human skin, the Arch-Seers do not deny this � stretched over boards made from the compressed bone of Greyvasti who died during the Fall. The pages are not paper. They are vellum, scraped thin from the skin of Pale-Touched who donated their bodies to the faith before reaching Stage Six. The ink is silver, ground from moon fragment dust mixed with the blood of the scribe who wrote the page. Every copy of the Codex contains traces of its own creation: the scribe's blood, the donor's skin, the bone of the dead. The text is divided into seven sections, each attributed to one of the seven original Arch-Seers who witnessed the First Moon Ritual. The first section � The Doctrine of the Fragment � establishes Yssara as the divine source and the moon fragments as her living body. The second � The Hierarchy of Erosion � codifies the ranking system of the Dominion clergy based on how much of their soul they have sacrificed. The third � The Liturgy of Offering � contains the precise rituals for soul-sacrifice, including chants, postures, and the required purity grades of moon fragments for each ceremony. The fourth section is the one the Tide-Weavers stole. It is titled The Catalog of Prohibited Applications, and it lists uses of moon fragments that the Dominion has declared heretical � uses that even the Arch-Seers consider too dangerous to permit. The Tide-Weavers have not revealed what they found in the stolen section, but their salvage operations have become more targeted, more secretive, and more successful since the theft. The Dominion has not acknowledged that a copy is missing. To admit the Codex can be stolen is to admit that Yssara's protection is not absolute. Reading the Codex is itself an act of erosion. The silver ink radiates a low, constant dose of fragment energy � a full reading of all seven sections is estimated to cost the reader approximately three months of lifespan. The Arch-Seers consider this appropriate. Knowledge has a price, they say, and the knowledge of how to destroy yourself should cost something.