Duncan stared for a long time at the little cube floating at the tip of the Black Sun’s wrist-tendril, watching the symbols on its surface as if they had forced themselves to reach his eyes.
He imagined, trying to picture by what means, by what process, that tiny metal block had been sent to this world — to this age.
It was a letter, a letter sent from the New World into the Old, yet every scrap of information that could prove that had been erased by some force.
Its maker had perhaps tried countless methods to make sure the cube could “declare its origin,” but it seemed those efforts had not succeeded — though failure did not mean absence of meaning.
Its mere presence was itself an interpretation.
Although that interpretation sounded like the Black Sun’s most audacious conjecture, in that moment Duncan was more than willing to believe it was the single true answer.