The silence that followed the restoration of the silver floor was ear-splitting. Across the vast hall, the miles of floating spirit-parchment unrolled by Master Ren began to shiver. A freezing draft blew through the paper halls, and one by one, the floating ribbons of ancient treaties and town charters began to turn brown at the edges. It curled like dead leaves in an autumn frost. Scribe Ren stood motionless on the dais. His silver-nipped pool quill shook in his ink-blackened fingers, his chest heaving in shallow, wheezing gasps as black blood trickled from both ears—the total end-post phase of ink-rot poisoning destroying his nervous system.
Beside him, Master Ren slowly lowered his heavy stone slate. The mammoth-tusk pestle in his right hand was cracked down the center, its ivory tip split by the spirit torque of the cut alphabet. The Scroll-keeper looked at Scribe Ren, and for the first time across nineteen burned lives, a faint, rueful smile crossed his stern, scholarly face. His fingers moved in one final, rapid series of silent sign-gestures: The margins are closed. The ink is dry. It was an honor to forge with you, brother. Scribe Ren let out a ragged, bloody laugh. ‘Likewise, Master,’ the forger wheezed. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve that was now more black ink than wool. ‘At least we made the old bastard read the fine print.’
