Ludus Umbrarum (The Game of Shadows) is a lost work of the mage Paulus of Alexandria, known only by its title and its prayer, shared word for word with the Rerum divinarum et humanarum of Marcos the Mage:
“Los muertos no viven, las sombras no se alzan, aunque tú lo jugaste y luego el vivir lo extirpó de tu memoria.” (“The dead do not live, the shadows do not rise, though you played it and then living cut it from your memory.“)
Its plate shows the empty place on a scholar’s table where the volume lay, a dark board, and shadows of game pieces on the wall, none on the board.
The title echoes the Game of Shadows of the Platforms, where participants risk becoming Guardians. If it is that game’s treatise, its loss explains why the rules are known only by playing. Paulus’s Eisagogika survives.