By the time I reached Haunts and Scribbles I had perfected my anecdote, but I made the usual mistake of the bon vivant and shared it with the wrong audience. Ever since I first came to Libreigia, a witty story had been my stock in trade. Perhaps I should have been a songster myself, only I have no ear for music and a voice, I have been told, that makes young maidens regress to an infantile state and contemplate crawling back into their mother’s wombs.

I am the first to admit that it wasn’t a thirst for knowledge that drew me to Libreigia, but a hunt for a particular and rather elusive delight. I am in love with the moment of discovery. Most scholars are, I hope. But the discoveries that charm me are all whimsical, and my delight is in the basic silliness of the world. Or should I say the ingenuity, the creative oddness, of humankind. Western scrolls written during the Warring Kingdoms period, for instance, are littered with doodles of turtles. When I first saw them, my whole body pulsed with delight. Why did bored scribes doodle turtles in the margins of boring scrolls, I wondered? Then I learned that there is a supposed island in the Andiahibai River where nesting turtles turn into beautiful maidens when the moon shines down upon them. When I read this I was so amused by the idea of scribes who were horny for virginal reptiles that I leapt up from a table in the reading room and caused the nearby scholars to smear their notes. It is that feeling that I pursue in my studies. The in-breaking of the wondrous and ridiculous into the world.

This does not make me popular. Most of my compatriots are quite dull, including my fellow denizens of the Fourth Tower, which is popularly known as Haunts and Scribbles. It has always been a strange little tower. The First and Third towers loom above it. The Second tower sits to the west in secluded grandeur. Haunts and Scribbles weaves its way up into the air, first leaning in one direction and then the next, as if dodging the sneers of the other towers. It is made of green limestone, which makes it look as if it is covered in verdigris. It has wide round windows that look like surprised eyes. Its detractors claim that it is haunted, and that no Sasturi can exorcise the ghosts. It is haunted, in a way. Haunted by boredom. But so is every other tower.

Chief among its eery inhabitants at the time of my tale was a young and humorless scholar named Lianahndra the Drudge. Not her real title, of course, only my own private appellation. She never failed to hide her disdain for me, and I never failed to tease her by pretending to an excess of affection for her. That evening she was working, as always, and her door was open onto the landing. I paused in the doorway and looked in at her. She sensed my presence and raised her head from the tome that she was perusing. She had a smudge of ink on her rather narrow nose.

“Bends,” she said, in greeting. Everyone calls me Bends, then and now, as I am named for Doefrit’s Bend, my birthplace, and the nickname is obvious. I suppose it could be worse. I could be called Bendy.

“Lianahndra, my love,” I enthused, “I have had a most interesting evening. I met a rather monstrous woman, a matron of many curls and much face powder, much given to placating small canines.”

She sat back. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. She entangled my riddle. “You must be referring to someone in the king’s court.” She shot a glance at her window. It faced north, towards the Step Cliffs and the construction of the new palace.

“You are correct. But my description is too general, it seems. Her skin, under the powder, was quite worn, as if it had been exposed to too much sunlight in her youth. And she invented her memories as easily as the Prince of Churls composes his memoirs.”

The gaze that she leveled at me pretended to disinterest. “You know why they write memoirs, don’t you? When an empire is new, everyone thinks that they’re important. They feel that they have to record their thoughts and actions for posterity.”

“Empire? What empire? The Azerdondea eschew the word. They are mere kings, who happen to have a surplus of influence.”

“Yet they control all the land east of the mountains. All of the old Raensapali demesnes. They are an empire in anything but name. And,” she said sourly, glancing again at the window, “they want their monuments.”

“Well,” I said lightly, “they won’t have it this year. Or the next, probably. The palace seems much delayed in its construction.”

I was teasing her. There was a rumor going about that Nirmaluko the Builder, architect of the palace-to-be, was experiencing difficulties that had nothing to do with designs and materials. It was whispered in the cafes and wineshops that there was cabal among the scholars, a group of plotters who were actively sabotaging the construction. Of course, there have always been stories about cabals and secret societies. The Cabal of the Ancients. The Agents of the Sangrahalaya. The Conspiracy of Alchemists. As long as the world is unreasonably chaotic, there will be people who want to blame that chaos on a plot, a secret hand that stirs events for its own hidden reasons. At the time I discounted such ideas. They seemed ridiculous to me, as people are perfectly capable of messing things up without intention or motivation or plotting. And the thought that any of the ink-splattered scholars of Haunts and Scribbles could be involved tickled me. It shouldn’t have. But such is the arrogance of youth.

Lianahndra looked back down at her book. “It must have been a disappointing evening. You are rarely home so early.”

“Disappointing in its way, but diverting none the less. And I am just stopping by for a change of clothes.”

“Very well. Go change them.”

I was not surprised by her dismissal, and I was about to turn from her door, when there was a step on the stairs behind me. I turned and saw the tall, handsome figure of Lewibindi Jaestis ascending towards me. He looked very fine, in robes that were filigreed with silver and cleanly cut to show off his upright and muscular figure. He was Lianahndra’s lover, as everyone knew, but it was supposed that he was also the lover of several other scholars, and several people in the Azerdondea Court. He was his own kind of prissy drudge. He worked at sociability in way that was similar to Lianahndra’s labor over her manuscripts. It was clear that he was ambitious. He wanted to be Archivist one day, and not of Haunts and Scribbles. I could see right through him, yet we were very friendly with each other, as he had decided that he might one day have a use for me.

“Doefrit,” he said in surprise, “you’re all dressed up.”

“I have been dining with a disreputable lady of the court.”

He was confused for a moment, and then he smirked, solving the riddle I had set for Lianahndra with one go. “Yes, I heard that Malreesi Muelant was having a dinner party tonight. I imagine that every scholar in Libreigia received an invitation. What on earth enticed you into going?”

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“I thought the lady might have some interesting anecdotes.”

“And did she?”

“Yes, but they are not worthy of repetition. However, she had one other interesting guest. In addition to myself, of course.”

“Really? I thought that only bores and dissipated people would attend. With the exception of yourself, of course.”

“Of course. Well, she somehow convinced a Sasturi Guild Master to come.” There was a clatter behind me. Lianahndra had dropped her stylus. I glanced back at her and watched her scramble beneath her desk for it. I could see down her robe, and noted that she had rather seductive breasts. But it wouldn’t do to gape with her lover standing right there. And perhaps gaping is never very acceptable, anyway. I have learned not to gape as I have aged.

But then I was young, and lusty, and quite a fool. Still, I had enough manners to look away. Lewibindi was smiling at me, and I was delighted to see the confusion that he was trying to keep hidden behind his grin. “A Guild Master?” he asked. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met a Guild Master before.”

“Me neither. This one was very polite and entirely unflappable. Our host attempted to embarrass him by telling scurrilous stories about the Sasturi. But he was unmoved. He even pretended to enjoy them.”

“He sounds like a pleasant man.”

He said this dismissively, and tried to move past me into the room. I imagined that he had been made quite randy by courtly dancing, and wanted some privacy for a dalliance with his scholar-lover. I detained them for no better reason than a desire to annoy. “He was pleasant. And quite free with money. He gave me a purse of coins.”

Lewibindi paused and studied my face. Then he grinned again, his habitual buffoonish attempt at charm. “Well that is good,” he said. “I am told that you have many tavern debts.”

This, unfortunately, was true. But I didn’t let his reminding me of them get me down. I left Lian and Lew to their amorous endeavors and trotted upstairs to my chambers. As I dressed I reflected that my story felt somewhat spoilt. I should have waited and regaled my friends in the Dust and Pen with it. Perhaps I had told it wrong. As I slipped into my workaday robes, I reflected that I would perhaps, consider a different destination for the night’s revels. The Dust and Pen deserved a perfected story. I would go to the Bird and Baby and spend some time polishing my anecdote.

But when I arrived there I was not met with the usual bon homie. There was many a friendly face in the crowd, of course, but Sraymalik the bartender met my arrival with a scowl. “No, no, no, no,” he said, in an excess of negativity. “You cannot come in here until you pay your bill.”

“Never fear, my good purveyor of festive fermentation,” I said, spreading it on a little thick, “I am in funds. Tell me how much I owe, and I will gladly pay it.”

He told me. I had a moment of doubt. I slipped the purse of coins from the sleeve of my robes and tried to count my loot surreptitiously. Sraymalik glowered at me. With a small tinge of regret, I handed over a rigorous portion of my life’s savings. He bit a coin, which was offensive. “How did you get this?” he asked.

“You think that I am lowly,” I said, “but I have friends in high places. Now, let us begin a new bill with a round of drinks for that table of songsters in the corner.”

Sraymalik was having none of it. “No more lavishness from you,” he said. “You will pay for your drinks as you order them from now on.”

I blanched at this, consulted the purse once more, and said, in an undertone, “Then I will have a cup of mulled wine. Just one. Just for me.”

He nodded and moved off down the bar. I watched him pause and say a word to his nephew Oulute, a small and winsome boy who was usually good for a grin and a joke. But not that evening. Oulute gave me an apologetic look and ran off on some errand.

I took my wine over to the table of songsters and they greeted me kindly, although with a little less enthusiasm that they would have shown if I had stood a round of drinks. There was a band in the corner, three flautists and a very handsome woman with a guitar, and the songsters were waiting for their turn to provide some entertainment. An old couple who often attended festivities in the Bird and Baby were dancing quietly in the center of the room, and the door to the snug at the back was open. The snug was full of senior scholars, debating some fine point with great humor and inebriated finger waggling. I told my anecdote to the songsters, and they expressed proper appreciation for the wig, the face powder, the little dogs, and the terrible dessert. I was just considering a meander over to the Dust and Pen when its owner appeared in the doorway.

She made right for me and stood over me, and she wasn’t alone. She had brought Ipenlaya, her bruiser and bouncer, with her. His presence dispelled any illusions that she had come to escort me to her wine shop with joy and enthusiasm.

“Doefrit,” she said, as my erstwhile friends the songsters decided they needed another round and moved en masse towards the bar.

“Bhukahnee,” I said in greeting.

“It seems that you are in funds.”

I blanched. “I have had some good fortune.”

“It might interest you that an interdict against you went out this very evening.”

“An interdict? That is an alarming word. Aren’t interdicts used by emperors to condemn whole cities?”

“In this case it is a whole city condemning you.”

“For unpaid bar bills?”

“Indeed. You are bankrupting all of us.”

If you are surprised by the wittiness of this interchange, you should bear in mind that Bhukahnee was once a scholar herself. A scholar like me, I imagine. One who squandered her potential during a dissipated youth, and then decided that she was not well-suited to a scholarly life. She was wise enough to buy up the means of many a scholar’s destruction, though. For when she purchased the Dust and Pen, she became owner of the most ancient and famous wineshop in the city. Owning it made her de facto queen of all of the watering holes. Which meant that the interdict, such as it was, had come from her. And that I had made a bad mistake in not going to the Dust and Pen and paying my bill there first.

I gave her what remained of my coins, but she treated this offering with contempt. “This pays only an eighth of your bill. If that. Until you pay all of us, no one will serve you. Consider all of our doors closed against you.”

This was a calamity. As I have indicated, my main scheme for raising money to pay these very bills required that I have ready access to songsters, who would pay for any stories I might collect. But as these songsters rarely moved from the wineshops and taverns, my prohibition from those places meant a loss of access to my market. I protested, but Bhukahnee was relentless. She had no sympathy for those of us who while away the time that we should be spending in study on drink and song. She no doubt hated her younger self, blamed that self for all of the inconveniences of her current life, and told herself that she could have been an archivist, if only she had been wiser in her youth. It is very unfair, to bear the brunt of someone’s self-disgust.

I went home. What else could I do? I curled myself up on my bed and lay awake, scheming of ways to make money. And then the whole city was rocked by an avalanche on the Step Cliffs.