The Oak Box Codex is a hand-written manuscript signed
simply “E. C. M.” and entrusted to the Editors by an
anonymous intermediary.
The codex consists of the not entirely linear account of the travels of
the Delvens, interspersed with tables, diagrams and notes,
in the manner of a diary or notebook.
It is evident, however, that the text was not meant to be a private diary
but a public chronicle, though one with dissimulated identities:
a crypto-biography.
The original codex consists of a collection of folios labled “canticles”,
the first of which is the Canticle of the Open Hand.
The folios, each hand-written in a miniscule script on paper of
unidentifiable origin and bound with a simple hand-sewn binding,
were found stacked inside a solid block of oak
marked only with a smallish hand-print.
After determining through experimentation that the block was
hollow and yet not empty, attempts were made to locate a seam, but none
were ever found. The block was finally opened by carefully
splitting it along the grain, revealing the folios inside.
It is as if the box were grown around the folios.
In part due to the nature of this box and the obvious secrecy implied,
the Editors have chosen to remain anonymous. The original codex has been
hidden to protect it as well as those connected with it.
Echoing the words of E. C. M., the Editors must hope that most intelligent
readers will take take the manuscript for the work of fiction that it is,
and that the most insightful among them will not.
– The Editors
codex
a manuscript in book form, from Latin caudex,
literally “block of wood.”