Archivist Vel looked from the three-pronged iron key-pin on his blotter to Seyun’s gauze-wrapped hands, then shuffled around his desk to slide a heavy iron bolt across the inside of the outer service wicket so no clerk hall clerk could knock from the armory cellar while they worked. Every movement of the old man’s legs was stiff and careful, yet when he turned back toward the towering cedar pigeonholes lining the eastern wall of the vault. His watery eyes were held the fierce, possessive pride of a craftsman who had guarded a treasury in the dark for half a century.
“If you’re looking for a shelf labeled Counterpoise Sect or Monastery of the Last Question, Disciple Ilyra, you’ll not find a single scrap of paper under those names in this room,” Vel said. His voice dropped into the dry, steady beat of a scroll-keeper reciting house lore. “Two hundred winters ago, during the third month after the abbey fell, the Aperture Court sent seven Jade test judges and forty scribes into every chartered martial house between the northern range and the Oran river mouth. They didn’t merely ask the Hall Masters to burn their correspondence with Master Uren. They searched the vaults themselves with iron prods and burned every scroll that contained the characters for Balance, Answering Spirit vein, or Rival Mark.”
