A Hypothetical History of the Sapphire Swords

by arianedartagnan

Centuries after the entire city of Alexandria vanishes into Euclid's Abstract Realm, historians are still trying to piece together what happened. One scholar proposes that the Sapphire Swords, a shadowy group of magical artifact thieves, had more to do with it than previously supposed.

A Hypothetical History of the Sapphire Swords

Unfortunately, most of the documents concerning the origins of the Sapphire Swords have been lost or destroyed since the secret order's founding in sixteenth-century Alexandria, but the basic outlines have been pieced together in Alessia Vesalius's remarkable dissertation.

Before it disappeared into the Abstract Realm in 1555, Alexandria had a vibrant, cosmopolitan character, in which mysticism, rationality, religions of all kinds, and diverse cultures all mingled freely in a bustle of debate and exchange. According to the Neoplatonic philosopher Nectarios of Alexandria, whose letters to his father in Athens provide an invaluable picture of the social and political milieu, the Order of Hermes dominated the intellectual scene. "House Tytalus," he wrote, "controls seemingly boundless resources and owns property throughout the city, chief of which is a magnificent, almost Gothic fortress. Its vault is rumored to contain an unparalleled collection of magical artifacts. Of course," he continued sourly, "Primus Tytalus and his wife, the Magister Scholae Pralix, are the only ones with access." At the far end of the city from House Tytalus stood the Library of Alexandria, whose thousands of rare tomes were guarded zealously by the librarians of House Criamon, a smaller but no less proud Hermetic house. "The head librarian, Magister Scholae Seshat, is determined that her Library should rival the original burned by Julius Caesar, a laudable but unrealistic task," in the words of Nectarios.

In addition to the Order of Hermes, the Celestial Chorus maintained an uneasy bastion in the city, making its headquarters in the Temple of Alexandria, which stood in the center of the city at the end of the Royal Road. Although the head of the order, Josephine Ives, devoted her life to tracking down and destroying Nephandic artifacts, the Chorus was never fully welcome. As Nectarios noted, "Ever since the Alexandrian Crusade of 1365, Alexandrians have viewed Choristers with suspicion due to their close association with the Church that sanctioned the sack of the city."

Apart from the mystical factions, the fledgling Order of Reason, headed by Francis Pare, had just begun to recruit members in Alexandria in the late 1540's. Nectarios apparently did not deem them worthy of comment, and we know of their presence only because Pare mentored Andrea Vesalius, one of the founders of the Sapphire Swords, and joined the order himself much later.

In 1546, Vanessa Ives, daughter of Josephine, left the Celestial Chorus to found the Sapphire Swords with her friend, the brilliant anatomist Andrea Vesalius (not to be confused with the historian Alessia Vesalius, a descendant through Andrea's daughter Callia Aedesia). Legend has it that Ives grew frustrated with her mother's refusal to "liberate" potentially useful, but non-Nephandic, artifacts from the collections they raided and decided to take matters into her own hands. By focusing on artifacts of questionable origins, the two ensured that owners would hesitate to report their losses, and as a result it is difficult to confirm most of their heists. The first, from which they took their name, was a trove of sapphire artifacts belonging to Magister Slovenius of Tytalus, who had himself stolen them from a Florentine mage. In addition to the uncertainty surrounding Sapphire Sword exploits, the names of the members are shrouded in mystery, as Ives was extremely cautious. An official history written by the Sapphire Sword secretary a century later records that Ives and Vesalius recruited one Aedesia Lyle, a librarian, in 1549 and one Evander, a mathematician of House Tytalus, in 1550, although the accuracy of the document cannot be ascertained.

Based on extensive research in the archives of House Criamon, House Tytalus, and the Sapphire Swords itself, Alessia Vesalius presents the intriguing hypothesis that the Sapphire Swords played a significant role in the vanishing of Alexandria, one of the most dramatic events of the sixteenth century. Multiple eyewitness accounts of the Battle of the Temple in 1550 agree that a man claiming to be Euclid wielded a mysterious artifact known as the Septus of Ptolemy I Soter as he overlaid the Abstract Realm with the Corporeal Realm. Over the course of the next five years, the city slowly disappeared from the Temple outwards. Although the history of the Septus is difficult to trace, a list of House Tytalus treasures does include the item: "a metal sphere, carved with intricate, mobile geometric designs" with the warning, "dangerous – do not touch," a description that matches the Septus. As already noted, one of the Sapphire Swords was a member of House Tytalus; intriguingly, he may have been carrying on an affair with Magister Scholae Pralix, acting head of the house, and hence may have had access to the vault or heard of the Septus. In addition, an account written later by the librarian Venetia Gibbons states that shortly before the Battle, she saw Lyle "running up out of the depths of the Library, robes askew, hair disheveled, shouting triumphantly, 'I know where the Septum [sic] is!'" As Vanessa Ives was known for her passionate belief that "artifacts should be used, not hoarded by ancient, decrepit dragons," it is thus likely that either Evander or Lyle brought word of the Septus to Ives, who then decided to raid the House Tytalus vault.

Copies of the architectural plans of House Tytalus, supposedly drawn by Lyle (who had an eidetic memory), show that the vault was located in the family quarters and could only be accessed by a door that required a runic password. Beyond the door was a circular antechamber from which two hallways branched outward symmetrically before curving back to open into a second circular chamber. Beyond that lay the vault, filled with rows upon rows of hermetically sealed rooms and display cases for treasures, such as a jewel-encrusted Spirit-Correspondence sword Wonder and a rare jade bracelet. Magister Slovenius recorded in his journal that the two hallways were guarded by a spirit of symmetry, and that Primus and Pralix, who were masters of Correspondence, would simply co-locate along the two paths to maintain their symmetry and bypass the spirit's wrath. Invaders without similar abilities would be summarily ejected from the hallways. In the second chamber was laid a trap that would summon Enochian's Bane, a terrifying pair of spirits that distorted communication of any form, turning invaders against one another. Finally, the vault itself was guarded by spirits that manifested as each invader's greatest fear.

Although the vault seems impregnable, Captain of the Guards Marcus Livingstone offers a hint as to how the Sapphire Swords may have stolen the Septus. In his journal, he wrote that an unfamiliar gardener bearing a large plant attempted to gain access to the private family garden. When questioned by the guard at the gate, she fled. Later, when Livingstone recounted the story to his gambling partner, Vanessa Ives, she gave him an amusing explanation: The fake gardener was a member of the lowly House Criamon who wished to switch houses, and hoped to ingratiate herself with the Magister Scholae with the gift of a flower. Apparently Livingstone never connected the incident to the fight that occurred in the garden later that night.

His official logbook records that two and a quarter hours after sunset, he received reports of a great disturbance in the family garden. When he and a team of guards and mages arrived, they discovered Magister Scholae Pralix and Adeptus Maior Evander battling "a massive, terrible white flower whose petals were lined with sharp teeth, and a vicious bird the size of a horse." Pralix was shouting furiously that the flower had eaten one of her projects, a "small tree whose multicolored flowers blossomed into young ravens," and corrupted its magic into a disgusting monster. It took a good three hours for the Magister Scholae to recover and repair what remained of her raven tree, and though Livingstone and his guards searched the area thoroughly, they could find no trace of whoever brought the flower there. The historian Vesalius speculates that since Andrea Vesalius practiced Life magic, she could very well have created the flower, and Evander could have brought his lover into the garden to see it. As Lyle practiced Mind magic, she could then have extracted the password to the vault from Pralix during the fight. Ives, a practitioner of Entropy, might have arranged for Lyle to flee unnoticed.

Orders from Primus Tytalus to his mages, written around the same time, probably refer to the Sapphire Swords' heist. "Last night, intruders broke into the vault and made off with an Artifact of immeasurable value," he stated. "You have failed in your Duty to protect this House. Do not let this happen again." A young mage confided to a friend, "The Magister Mundi was livid with fury that anyone was powerful enough, or clever enough, to avoid his traps."

However the Septus came into the hands of the Sapphire Swords, Francis Pare recorded in his laboratory notebook that his protegee Andrea Vesalius came to him with it. "Eyes all aglow with excitement," he wrote, "she showed me a wondrous sphere, calling it the Septus of Ptolemy, which she said contained a soul that she would use to animate the child she had constructed. I was fascinated by her project and immediately followed her and her companion, a mathematician, to her quarters." There, Vesalius and Evander overpowered him and forcibly transfused much of his blood into the body of a ten-year-old girl, which Vesalius had fashioned from cadavers using Life magic. When Pare returned to consciousness, he found himself hidden in a closet. "The indignity of it!" he mourned. "But I could well understand Andrea's eagerness, for had I not myself transmitted to her this passion for anatomy?" The next time he saw Vesalius, it was at the Temple, and she was hovering protectively beside the girl, who was now animated with the spirit of Euclid.

But once released from the Septus, how did Euclid obtain the power to overlay the Abstract and Corporeal Realms? The librarian Venetia Gibbons again offers a clue: "Just before the Battle of the Temple, a terrible fire broke out in the Library. In the ensuing chaos, a group of thieves made off with the original copies of Euclid's Elements and Hypatia's Arithmetica, which had been kept in the most secret archives that none but Magister Scholae Seshat could access." Elements was next seen in Euclid's possession, as he, protected by Vesalius and Evander, headed for the Temple where he intended to continue the Royal Road into the Abstract Realm; multiple eyewitnesses saw Ives carrying Arithmetica as she walked towards House Tytalus. Although it is possible that the Sapphire Swords had nothing to do with the break-in at the Library, it seems unlikely.

The Battle of the Temple is something of a misnomer, for shortly after the Library heist, the spirits of philosophers and mathematicians began to appear and fight all over the city. Some supported Euclid, arguing that Alexandria should be perfected by merging it into the Abstract Realm, while others, led by Hypatia and Pythagoras, fiercely opposed them, pointing out the risks of tapping into the Infinite. Alexandrians recalled watching these conflicts, which involved "savagely ripping holes in one another's logic and accusing one another of skipping crucial parts of proofs." Many eyewitnesses saw Hypatia appear again and again next to Vanessa Ives, imploring her to stop Euclid before he destroyed everything: "The physical realm may be modeled by the mathematical, and it is right and glorious to do so. But when the abstract realm comes to define the corporeal world, the latter collapses. Materiality, existence, and consciousness cannot persist in a world of infinite abstraction, for in that world all concepts, all ideas that could ever happen, already exist and always have." Ives' response was not recorded.

Physical battles also began to break out all over Alexandria, with Francis Pare and the Order of Reason summoning Platonic abstractions, numbers, and other geometric gear to attack partisans of House Tytalus and the Celestial Chorus, which fought back with more traditional magical means. Eventually, the combatants converged on the Temple. There, guarded by Vesalius and using a hyperdimensional compass as his Focus, Euclid was tracing the Ideal Alexandria directly onto the fabric of reality. One of the Choristers who fought the Order of Reason just inside the Temple doors later described the terror he felt as "Reality began to slide into Abstraction: Flat surfaces such as walls and floors turned into perfectly smooth planes, and I could see the whole of Alexandria rearranging subtly into a perfect grid layout. It was the most eerie sight I had ever beheld." In Euclid's own words, spoken to his fellow mathematician Evander, "You see, this is the proof that {Alexandria, Abstract Realm} has cardinality one."

Just before Euclid finished his proof, Vanessa Ives entered the Temple and tried to convince Vesalius to leave Euclid's side, but Vesalius refused to leave the child she had created. Then, "with a sorrowful air," Ives channeled Arithmetica to hurl a terrible explosion at Euclid. Vesalius, discerning Ives' purpose, knelt by Euclid and flung her arms around him, shielding and strengthening him with a Life Effect. Ives' and Hypatia's magic burst against the bubble of the Abstract Realm with an immense flash of blinding white light, and "for a moment the entire city seemed encased in silence," recalled the young Chorister. What had happened, Primus Tytalus explained later, was that the magics partially canceled each other out. Ives had come too late to prevent Euclid from completing his proof, but she had succeeded in slowing the spread of the Abstract Realm in Alexandria.

Thus, the Alexandrians had five years in which to decide whether to accompany Euclid and their city into the Abstract Realm, or to leave for the real world. As recorded by Gibbons, Seshat and Aedesia Lyle organized the copying of all their books, to be carried into the real world by librarians who would establish a new library. Of the four Sapphire Swords, Lyle disappeared into the Abstract Realm along with the Library and all the original books (one hypothesis is that the Library was her phylactery and her ability to do magic was bound up with its fate). Evander of Tytalus unsurprisingly leapt at the chance to see mathematical perfection and stayed in the city. However, Vanessa Ives and Andrea Vesalius, who was heartbroken that the child she had created did not love her, chose to leave, carrying "sacks bulging with potent artifacts," as well as Elements, a parting gift from Euclid, who had forgiven Ives for her attempt to stop him. "He said to her: 'I have never seen someone who was such a natural at magic,'" recorded Pare. Josephine Ives and Hypatia were reportedly appalled that Vanessa Ives would carry artifacts tinged with the Infinite into the Corporeal Realm, but as Elements shows up in a later listing of Sapphire Sword possessions, Vanessa Ives apparently accepted the risk.

In March 1555, the Abstract Realm swallowed Alexandria, leaving behind only a grassy field across which the Royal Road ran to what was once the center of the city. There, an infinitely high spiral staircase wound up into the skies. None who climbed it ever returned. The following year, a Roman newspaper first mentions the Sapphire Swords in connection with a burglary at the Vatican.

Thus, the historian Alessia Vesalius presents a convincing argument that the Sapphire Swords unleashed a chain of events that led to the disappearance of Alexandria into the Abstract Realm, before Vanessa Ives and Andrea Vesalius successfully re-founded the order in Rome in 1556. It is hoped that as House Tytalus, House Criamon, and the Sapphire Swords continue to release new documents from their archives, scholars will eventually be able to reconstruct a full picture of the early years of the Sapphire Swords and the final days of Alexandria.