Legomenon for the Author M, sometimes known as the MISSIONARY

The Author of the memoir {Writings of the Missionary} does not name himself except to sign the salutation to his disciples with the character 'M'. The hortatory content of its opening paragraphs has led many to attribute this Writing to the so-called Missionary to the Remnant, a legendary figure who appeared tangentially in the now-lost annals of the Golias from Egderus' time.

There is considerable argument over who M actually is. Some identify the Missionary with the Good Doctor, the cruel torturer who appears in some of the Writings of Egderus himself and also of his friend, Praetor Aric. Others believe that the Writings ascribed to him are the contrivance of a later Author, composed perhaps as early as the generation following Egderus — that is to say, the generation of Markito Scriptor, Egderus' secretary and successor as Curator of the Archives, who has himself been identified by some as the pseudonymous Author 'M'.

Further, certain partisans of this latter conjecture assert that Markito may in fact be the Author of all the Writings of Egderus and his contemporaries, not just their Curator. This revolutionary but intriguing notion has yet to win a majority of adherents.

Three other texts have come to be credited to this Author. The first of these, entitled {M Part 2} (possibly because of its account of a second meeting with the Historian, under circumstances quite different from those of their first encounter), offers sufficient correspondence with other Writings to be challenged on the basis of being too 'convenient' — a popular charge among critics who have nothing of their own to contribute to the discourse.

The validity of {in the Keep} is somewhat less tenuous: passages in {Testimony of Praetor Aric} echo this one; further, the independent but parallel Writing {Aric: Aftermath} supports giving this Writing to the former Good Doctor.

It is very tempting to consider the last of these new Writings, {M the Wanderer}, as the sequel to {in the Keep}, but only because it 'feels' like the logical next step in M's story — there is no defense for this proposition to be found in the Archives other than such a feeling. The events in this Writing could just as plausibly belong to the narrator of {Peripatikos Soter}, the questSaga attributed to the much later Voice from the Locust Grove, and indeed this theory has some support, but only enough to warrant mentioning it here; the trend of opinion runs more strongly in the direction of the mysterious M.