Overview
The Legacy of Thalion Zenith is a hidden text artifact authored by Helena Hyperion / Thalena about Thalion Zenith, the Order of Thalion Zenith, the Fall of Malverand, and the Thalion-Abraxas War. It records Thalion's history, memorializes the Order, and reaches Varnhallow before Thalion formally founds the Order.
Thalena finishes a fine leather-bound copy for Eira in Chronasis, calling it a lighter book and warning Eira not to show it to anyone in Chronasis or read it until the time has come. When Eira reaches Varnhallow, the title engraved in silver reads The Legacy of Thalion Zenith.
Transmission and Copies
Eira gives her copy to Eltaru / Michael. Michael reads it, recognizes Eira's mission as a recruitment into the Order, and understands that Thalion will eventually arrive to free the world from Malverand. He keeps the book during the Varnhallow meetings and later gives Thalion a polished Legacy copy, telling him that it speaks of Thalion's deeds.
Thalion and Aelius recognize the book as a record written by someone who lived through the Fall of Malverand and the Thalion-Abraxas War. For them, those events still lie in the future. Thalion reads enough to understand that the Order belongs to him and that he will lead it against Malverand's surviving guardians. Benedict has also read the Legacy, and he follows Thalion because he expects Thalion to make the world a better place.
Thalassai's records later contain a hidden copy in a small essence-empty chamber behind a bookshelf. Thalena wrote the hidden copy and gave it her secrecy language about the forgotten Order.
Contents and Uses
The book recounts Thalion's legendary story, his loyal followers, the formation of the Order, the Fall of Malverand, the Thalion-Abraxas War, and the Order's preservation of its own hidden history.
The book memorializes Thalion, the Order, and the people the world must forget. The final signed message closes chapter four, The Forgotten Order, and makes the book a memorial to all of them rather than Thalion alone. The hidden copy contains the same secrecy language: the Order must remain lost.
Related Texts
Thalena's childhood tales to Aelius used the name The Legacy of Thalion. The Legacy of Thalion Zenith preserves the same story as one chapter of the Eleven Stories variant tradition and expands it into a detailed account of Thalion, the Order, the Fall of Malverand, and the Thalion-Abraxas War.
The Legacy uses The Forgotten Order as a chapter ending, and at least one copy of The Eleven Stories of Old uses it as a chapter title. Jin later writes The Forgotten Order as a highly modified and renamed version of The Legacy of Thalion. His version adds material from Jin, Eira, Kaelion, and Thalena and preserves the account of Thalion's past, the Fall of Malverand, and the Thalion-Abraxas War.
Thalena creates Eira's lighter Legacy copy with the massive desk volume titled The Architect open and writing under her magic.