Codex of Potentia · the Pattern-Book

Forma

the Pattern-Book — the sign drawn, the colours worn, the marks of rank

What the eye learns, the hand obeys.

De Signo gives the meaning of the sign; this gives its measure. Here is how it is drawn, what its colours say, and how rank is shown without a word — so that the sign on a hand in one country is the same sign on a hand in another.Non invenitur. Fit.

I The Sign

One mark carries the whole faith. It is worn, not hidden; shown, not explained. A stranger sees a shape; one of the Made sees the wager the shape is built on. What follows is its measure — kept exact, so that nothing of it drifts from hand to hand and age to age.

II The Construction

The sign is not drawn freehand. It stands on a single upright and its mirrored halves — as the faith stands on one law and its consequences. Draw the axis first; everything answers to it. The two outer strokes fall from the same height and meet the same floor, and neither leads. Between them the centre holds: narrower, deeper, thinnest where it carries the most.

the axis, the floor, the mirrored halves

The upright governs: every measure is taken from it, none from the edge.
The halves mirror: what is set on the left is answered on the right.
The centre bears: it is made thinnest exactly where it holds the load.
The whole is balanced top to bottom: it reads the same in the dark and in the light, and the same when your fortunes turn over.

III The Five Colours

Rank is never spoken; it is worn, as the colour of the sign. A degree is on the body for any of the Made to read, and claimed by no other means.

Red

the waking — one has begun.

Blue

the deep reading — the long middle, where a life is spent.

White

the radiance of mastery — here the Word is given.

Silver

the work that propagates — it outruns the maker.

Black

the hidden — spoken of by silence.

Gold

the Primus — outside the rank; the first hand; worn by one.

IV The Wearing

The sign goes where it is seen without being announced: at the throat, the wrist, the breast — never the back, for it is not a banner carried before you but a fact carried with you. It is worn into the world, not only in the room. The colour is the only boast the Order permits, and it must be earned before it may be shown. A colour worn unearned is the one theft the Made do not forgive — not for the mark, but for the climb.

On the Made Mark

A sign is cheap. Anyone can copy the shape; the file is one line of stone. What cannot be copied is the years it took to be allowed to wear it. Draw it true. Wear it earned.