51o04/05

Dagnett, my friend,

I trust you are still alive and functional - somewhere in the Dungeons no doubt - and that they are feeding you well and allowing for your occasional need of sunlight. Even Booknards need to breathe fresh air and see the Sun, from time to time.

I missed my last deadline, as you may have heard. I am unsure how much it might matter at this late stage, though one never knows. I have been busy scouring my accumulating notes, which at times seem ready to drown me with their depth and breath, like an ocean which began as a pattering of rain upon my imagination, and is now a deluge of tangled thought. I have been at sea.

Throughout all of these trials - which have been considerable, though fortunately bearable - you, my friend, have been a constant and hopeful presence at a remove; you are one reason I have continued to venture into this unknown with courage I had not expected to find, toward my known conclusion. At times, you have been the only reason - but one needs only a single one of those, at times. I am looking forward to visiting you in the Archives again, when I am finally done this interminable task, so that we might have a sit beneath a tree and talk again about where we both think these Worlds of ours are going. I have warmed somewhat to matters of idle philosophy as my own Autumn years have softened my disposition and, as you call it, my canterkerii.

During this mission, I have encountered so many spirits, both bright and dark - and a great many more hovering somewhere between these, in the grey areas of the soul - and have spent such a fortune on ink and parchment in my efforts to faithfully contain them, to the point of requiring the acquisition of additional work, just to keep myself gainfully employed. This has split my attentions, and left me wondering now and then what my true and final contributions are meant to be.

But no more of that. I am submitting my final report to the Magistrate on the morrow, which should arrive in Owl by Crow next Moonsday at the latest (barring Dire Eagles, obviously), and then I will be submitting my resignation soon after, in person if circumstances permit. I wanted you to know first. You might find this decision surprising - for that, I apologize, it cannot be helped. Although tomorrow is merely my 3-Count Day, I have decided to take an early retirement, while I am still able to enjoy it for a handful of seasons. I hear this is a trend among the younger folk in these times, and although I am no longer so young, I sympathize with some of their saner sensibilities.

I hope in fact to convince you to consider joining me in this, my next adventure - though I know you have always taken your own Life's Work to heart, and the size of your heart will make the wresting of your work from it a challenge. I believe I am now equal to that challenge. But more on that when I arrive home - I have much to recount of my travels. Perhaps some of the recounting can be done on muleback, as we travel the Realms as friends, broken free for a short time from the chains of our compelled commitments to curiosity, conquest, and commerce.

I am still a flagrant fan of the alliterative. Some things change less than others.

Following is a brief report of my present situation, since I know you will be wondering how the Accounting has been progressing. You are no doubt reserving a good spot in the Middle-some Levels for it - on a choice shelf at roughly eye-level, I hope - to be permanently housed so that perhaps it might be found and read again, now and then. It will be roughly one scroll in volume - about an Arms{e} length; I shall explain when I return. Do not exert too many frets or favours on this, though - I appreciate your friendship - it does not need to come with additional works and pulled strings. It on its own has always been more than sufficient.

I have been camped at the edge of a vast plain for the past three evenings, along with an assembly of knights of the Elder Order. With me at my tent are my traveling companions, Mihs. O'Hollows, the Grand P. Allanwarde, and the young Master Harlo. I cannot name the plain we have traveled to, as it is at the moment the scene of an impending military action of potentially great historical import. It is evening as I write this, and the Tear is in full flame above, and so the plain is alit and cannot be crossed without a risk of alerting the Foe.

Aside from this, our company is joined by others from the surrounding Realms. Each hour of each day, more arrive - additional Orders, mixed assemblies of soldiers, more than a few mercenaries (there are always those, though under whose employ one never knows), and even a great volunteer contingent assembled from the most nearby villages. It is no small thing which is being attempted here, but again, I cannot say more, lest I endanger the cause.

I have been transporting a treasure of sorts, something I had the fortune (whether good or bad I have yet to determine) of coming into possession of, some weeks ago. I intend to submit it for consideration of the Archive upon my return. I believe it to be of a powerfully Fey nature, or else perhaps some Hermetic artifact of the Third Age. I have encountered nothing like it before, in my travels. It is a trunk of tightly fitted IronedOak, hefty, sealed in Elderbee wax, banded in steel, and marked by obscure glyphs about its edges. There is a latch, but it came with no loop for a padlock, and so I am to assume it was not built to secure its contents from theft, but only protect them from the elements.

I will for now forgo the details of how I came by this item, as that is a tale unto itself. Several, in fact. That is what I have come to realize, now that I have been blessed or cursed to carry it about (I have acquired a strong and patient burro for this purpose, in case you are curious how I have managed to carry it with me): Every tale is in fact more of those - and this is a recursion.

The trunk is pressed full with parchments, of a variety of kinds, conditions, and ages - as though the collection has been in the works for lifetimes. When I first opened the trunk, the impression I had was that a great volume of tomes had exploded, and then been hastily stuffed back, with no time or concern for the order of anything. There seemed to be nothing else in the trunk, save for papers, sheaves, scrolls - sometimes more-or-less intact, sometimes fragments only, and not two pieces bound together in any sensible collection or order.

I was left with the thought that perhaps the collector - for it was clearly not one author who had produced all of the material - had been compelled to flee from some sudden danger, and had yet taken the time to tear out selected sections of various books to take with them, rather than taking the volumes themselves. A curiously time-consuming thing to do, if one were also in a hurry. All of this occurred to me before I had even began to peruse the contents themselves.

I might sum it up, so far, as this: I have inherited what appears to be a trunk of observations, opinions, conjectures, and rumours. Many of the items contain lore of the Realms. Some of this lore accords well with that which I have already acquired and even verified, some of it is entirely unknown to me, or even in stark opposition to that which I had believed I already knew. There are a great many narratives as well - at first, many appear simply as works of pure fiction, but then some detail or another, which is commonly known, grants them an unusual air of truth. The opinions and conjectures intermingled in great quantity between the fact and the fancy are, as well, presented to effect - either to convince, or else to incite a counter-argument, but not to be wholly dismissed.

As I began to dig into this curious trove, I naturally began to seek some patterns - some clue as to what the collection's binding principle might be - but so far, I have only managed to overwhelm my mind to the point of requiring frequent breaks. There is no seeming method to the myriad of words, yet they all seem oddly compelling, and I find myself straining to understand, while at the same time, trying to tear myself away.

Already, I feel I have been oddly edified by the experience, but I do not know yet at what cost. I am not intending to speak in riddles - this is simply the effect which the Trunk (I have taken to capitalizing it, to differentiate it from others of similar form but different nature) has had on me at present. I am wholly unclear how many days it will take me to catalog its contents - they seem to go on forever, although as we both know, that is impossible.

I might have gone on too long already. I know you are a patient sort, and no doubt have things in need of attending to. I am being called to the campfire to attend to a thing myself - Master Harlo has asked me to recount some details of a recent adventure for guests which have arrived from the nearby tents. He is well aware of the details but says that he prefers the way I tell the story. I am still unaccustomed to being in the firelight, having spend so many years mastering the business of doing exactly the opposite of that. Old dogs, new tricks, as the they say - or something.

I will say farewell for now, my friend, until we next meet. Although by the time you have received this, the coming storm might already have raged. Wish us good fortune nonetheless, if you may.

Your friend, Bardlii

Dagnett Booknard, dressed in the monk-like garb of his guild1, presses the palm of his thick hand against the parchment in front of him, and smiles faintly to himself, marvelling at how far Master Noonstar had come, since they first met, those long years ago. He rolls the letter with care back into its case, and stops the end, putting it to one side. The silence here is cool and calming. Dagnett breathes out a slow, steady breath.

This reading chamber, one of his favourites when he wishes to be at peace with his thoughts, is dim, save for the lone lamp on the desk, two candles on a narrow shelf near the door, and torchlight from somewhere down the corridor, beyond the open door. At the edges of the faint firelight, shelves full of books in reserve lean in all about him, cradled closely by the chamber's hewn stone walls and low domed ceiling, surrounded by the burying bulk of the ancient mountain, and roosted upon by the great and sprawling Old City of Owl... itself surrounded now as it is by the new Seas lapping at its outermost walls.

The great weight of Everything, both immutable and in dizzying flux, does not badger one to bear it here - though it can still be surely and sorely felt, no matter the levels to which Dagnett might descend to escape it. For him, the phobia of things pressing down is most strongly felt outside. In the Archives, all things above are kept at bay - and most things below, in alphabetical order.

His current shift is on its third fortnight. Soon, he will be required to visit the surface for a minimum of five days, as is the cautionary custom of his guild. Left to his own d'rathers, he would just as soon remain in the depths forever. The Gnomes are able to do this, and no-one asks anything more of them. Alas, Dagnett is no Gnome.

He does not relish the thought of being separated from his work and all that he knows, while imprisoned above in the open air. There is so much work awaiting him. The Summoning notes of Stilldrake Pheasantkin, housed in the Seaward wings of the eighth level, have been in dire need of a severe re-catalogue, having being rifled through by some wizard or another, no doubt on a quest for vague answers to inscrutable secrets; there is a plastering effort in one the upper floors which Dagnett has heard is seeking volunteers; there is the business of the rats, which have been raiding the pantries, again. The rats were often raiding the pantries. They had multiplied tenfold in recent years, some having grown concernedly bold, the longer they were permitted to wander the tunnels. A Booknards was always busy with one thing or another.

And though there was always much to do, mortal men still needed sleep - and yes, fresh air from time to time too, it was true. If only Dagnett were a golem. Alas, he was not one of those either.

He sighs again, before becoming annoyed at his own self-pity. Standing, Dagnett takes the scroll case and lamp, extinguishes the small candles by the entrance, and leaves the chamber, closing its stout door shut behind him. The corridor is low-ceilinged and rough hewn, like the chamber he has left. He travels down it, passing numerous side corridors and other chamber entrances as he goes, moving between pools of near darkness and flickering torchlight.

The Archives are a maze of these kinds of rooms and passageways - at-times confounding knotworks of stairwells of every shape and pitch, sloped corridors and alcoves, all along dotted with sconces kept alight by archivists of the lowest orders, two of whom nod in deference to Dagnett as he passes.

Down another corridor Dagnett turns, then comes to a firm iron gate blocking the way. He is allowed through by a Guarding Gnome wearing a thick mail coat, too-large helm, and bored expression. It takes its time finding the right key for the gate's lock, from the ring bearing dozens hanging from its belt. Dagnett casts a look at the creature's knotty club, leaned against the wall near a small chair and table where a game of solitaire waits, interrupted.

'Have the rats been behaving?' he asks, never sure what to say to the Gnome, whose job is unremarkably plain, and whose name he can never recall. The Gnome meets his eye briefly, but does not respond, and does not smile. It has never seemed to like Dagnett. Dagnett has never been able to understand why.

Once through the gate, he continues onward, and the hallway plunges down a steep flight of steps. He ducks so as not to scrape his head upon the ceiling as he descends. It is entirely dark here, except for more torchlight from below.

At the bottom of the staircase, he stands tall again. A small junction has been hollowed out here, with a simple domed ceiling, and lit by a pair of sconces. On the wall between them, the Letters M and N are carved. The corridor splits into three additional directions. Dagnett follows the largest, and it soon grows taller and wider still, joined by other passages arriving from other directions, like tributaries. The hallway is unadorned, though Dagnett knows it once housed many tapestries from a dynasty now long dead. Where these were moved and why, he was never informed.

The corridor ends at last at a heavy door, banded in iron, narrow and tall. It bears a bronzed plate, etched with the name: Noonstar, B. It swings open easily when he pushes on it.

The chamber beyond is of a considerable size. thirty-seven shelves run the chamber's length and stretch to the room's ceiling, a dozen arms or more above. Lamplights at either end suggest the chamber's general dimension, though its contents, the rows upon rows of books and scrolls lay largely in shadow. Dagnett takes a wimlight lamp from the small desk near the door, and signs his name into the ledger there.

Down a long aisle, Dagnett finds a section marked Letters from Afield, B.N., where he stops. The shelves here are like wine racks: hundreds of semi-circular holders for scrolls, of which there are nearly nine-thousand, now. Dagnett alone knows the precise number - it is not officially tallied in any record. In front of him, at eye-level, is the spot for this particular letter. The holder is marked, 3-Count Day, and is the last of those - there are none marked either two, or one. He presses the case to his forehead gently, closing his eyes for a moment, and then slides it carefully back into its place, so that it might be found and read again, now and then.

The Compendium Allegoriian by B.B. Butterwell is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal

Footnotes

the Booknards being an ages-old clan of persons of faith - the faith being the ceaseless curation of the Mortal Word, as it strives to accord at last with that of the Divine. ↩