The three huge parchment galleons drifted through the black deluge like floating tombs carved from dead history. Each vessel was eight hundred feet long, their multi-layered paper hulls flexing and groaning against the howling empty pocket like dry leaves in an autumn gale.
Along the iron-bound boat sides stood hundreds of hooded figures. They wore flowing robes woven from shredded royal edicts, their faces hidden beneath cone-shaped wicker masks painted with weeping mouths. In their right hands, they gripped five-foot-long calligraphy quills carved from the stone-hard thighbones of ancient void-dragons. In their left hands, they held heavy cast-iron inkpots brimming with boiling, pitch-black deletion fluid. The air around the ships was thick with the scent of dried gall, scorched sulfur, and rotting book glue.
At the prow of the lead galleon—the Bile of the Chronicler—stood Scribe Commander Mo Sha. His paper robes rustled with a sound like millions of dried insects crawling through an empty library. He opened his mouth to speak. Then, there was no breath, no throat cords, and no shaking of air. His voice sounded like a sheet of coarse ancient parchment being ripped in two by an iron claw.
SKRRRRR-RIP.
“Secret administrator detected,” Mo Sha spoke, the words echoing through the minds of every living soul within fifty leagues. “Sector 04-Jiuzhou. Entity identifier: Frank.”
