Ishril 25, 4633 AIA

We have a problem with the shipment. I've just come back from the Taijis Nil library to find a message waiting for me on my desk. I only came back because my slate wouldn't stop buzzing. Urgent message, flashing bright and clear on the black screen. Now here I am with this note telling me I need to speak to the Guardian of External Affairs as soon as possible.

I'm Deputy Assistant Curator for the museum, so I've never talked with a Guardian before. It's not impossible, of course, but it does make me anxious. That sticky feeling that I must've done something wrong. It's not real, but boy does it feel like it is.

I want to head over there straight away, since it is the Guardian xirself, after all. But I sit at my desk and I wonder, what could possibly be so urgent about a shipment of junk from the Nas Ashca?

And it is junk, don't get me wrong, to pretty much everyone else outside the museum stores, it's pretty much useless. Dead tech from five thousand years ago, often more, mostly just mangled metal we can put aside to be recycled or reused. That's why it'd never get approval for a dragonlift, so it's coming overland instead.

Nobody ignores a Guardian, so I now I have to drop everything and head up to see xem, I suppose.

All I wanted was a quiet day, and a quiet life. You're going to have to put up with me whinging now, but I can't for the life of me work out why the Builders—all those brave souls who put so much work into tunnelling this city out of the canyon rock with what primitive kata skills they had to hand at the time—decided to put a library so close to what is, in real terms, the frontline in an endless war.

Why not put the library well back, out of harm's way? Nobody's going to want to get a book or pop ino the museum for a quick tour on the way to fight, are they? Are they?

I think all of this as I wend my nervous way over to the elevators. It's like a warren down here, but even with several thousand tons of rock between me and that hideous rend in reality they call the Gap, I can still feel it every time the bloody thing rips open.

We all can, of course. If you were born in an Exclusion Zone, inside a Barrier, then you know what I mean. Like somebody put metal needles in your teeth and bones and pulled you inside out. I don't know how all those Warrior and Watcher classes do it. Defending the Line. Fighting until the sifradan and the seers can get the Gap closed again.

I know I couldn't.

I like my quiet, I'm not gonna lie. Isha blessed me, I guess, with the sort of skills for sorting out objects in a museum store and stacking books, because you wouldn't see me anywhere nearer a Gap than I ever have to get.

I'm rambling. Here we are. The elevator, just the one this far down because there's only five of us who work down here, so we don't need more than one. I don't use the stairs; my legs won't take it. I can tell the Gap's open right now. My teeth pulse, my gums taste of metal. And my legs—I'm so glad of the elevators. If I had to use the stairs I'd die. They'd have to bring all the objects up to me in our home.

So, while I'm here in the elevator, I try to plan what I'm going to say to the Guardian. My slate's a good distraction. I send a message over to Ajaë to let xem know what's going on.

<Message from the Guardian Anarya. Xe wants to speak to me about a problem with a junk shipment from the Nas Ashca. I might be late home.>

Ajaë's busy; xe doesn't reply right away. Xe's always busy, the cheetah to my sloth. I struggle through the world on my failing legs and my failing heart, the kata eating away at me, and xe's the hero saving the world.

Well, xe manages all the tricky ways kata can be used to store data on the Amnet, so of course he's busy.

Right. We're at the right floor. I've never been up here before. Isha's sacred tits, the ceilings are high, and vaulted, too. It's busy, too. Nothing to do with me or my shipment, of course. Service staff and assistants are hurrying back and forth because the Gap's live and that keeps everyone on their toes.

I have to weave my way around them (not easy with my legs being daft from standing in the elevator), and make sure I don't bump into anyone. They all look important in their smart uniforms and stylish hair cuts. Bushu locs are in again this year, but they don't suit my hair. I'm Taija, and my hair's too thin, so I leave it natural.

Why am I thinking about hair? Oh, it's because it's one of the things the Gap can affect. Along with everything else. Hair, nails... Big windows give me a panoramic view of the canyon, the sharp rise of the West Wall with all its own windows and terraces, the waterfall at the very head (one upside of living this deep into Amin Duum's Zone, the constant background rushing noise).

And down on the canyon floor, everyone keeping all the flora and fauna under control as the loose kata from the Gap sets them off, too.

I thought I might be suited to Botanist Class when I was very young. I do love plants, but there was an incident—let's not go into that—and I stuck to the sort of objects not liable to suddenly spring to violent life and lash out whenever the Gap goes live.

Objects are affected, but their molecules are more stable than biological organisms, so it's not so dramatic. Worst we get in the museum stores is when something falls off a table without a warning.

So, I shuffle along to the side with the windows, catching some much-needed desert sun (Ajaë tells me I need more, and I nod but ignore him). Where am I going? I've not been up here before but the message said to come to the Guardian's quarters. What would they ask me to do if the Guardian was back home in Rad Ruinn? I don't know.

Now we're at the end of the corridor, I get to see the screens. These are like slates, some kind of special. kata-reinforced glass, but bigger. Anyone who wants can see a readout of data from the Gap Chamber itself. I flick a look, just out of curiosity you understand, and see a bunch of names and insignia I don't recognise.

Sacred Isha, keep them all alive and safe. May your blessing be with them this day.

A knot has gathered around the screens. "Wow, that's a bad one," somebody who can understand all those complex kata stats says. "Gonna be a long afternoon."

"Tanaka was saying they're gonna start calling in the—"

"Excuse me." I butt in, because my slate just buzzed again and I know what that'll be. I don't want to keep the Guardian waiting. As a group they all turn to stare, and suddenly I'm so aware of how I'm not wearing one of those official uniforms with the sashes.

I have one, of course I do, but if you spend all your time several feet underground sorting through dusty objects you don't wear it. It's only just now that I realise this. I'm not wearing a neat jacket and breeches and sashes. I adjust my work smock and apron, as if I'd meant to dress this way.

"I'm looking for the Guardian of External Affairs," I say, to collective raising of eyebrows.

For some of us, the world has to carry on even when the Gap is open. Our teeth might be tingling and our fingertips burning, but our jobs must march on.

"That way," says one sporting Bushu locs and having an especially elaborate face tattoo.

"Thank you." I give them an obligatory little bow, but they've already swivelled their group attention back to the screens, the feeds, and their analysis of the evolving fight.

I limp in the direction I've been sent, happy to be ignored. This can't be serious, I'll be back downstairs in a blink, I tell myself. Or I tell my hips and my back, which are already whinging about all this moving about.

I've been sent down a corridor with big windows and bright afternoon sunshine on one side and a series of doors on the other. Double doors, single doors, large doors, small doors. In between each doors, images of the High Ashad Isha Xirself in various life scenes.

I pause. I've not seen these before, but they're early. Really early. I would say early Builders, judging by the style. I must've read some research papers on the meaning of these poses, the use of bas relief, the colour.

I'm getting distracted. If I wasn't being constantly buffetted by people hurrying about with fretful expressions, I could stand here for hours. Even my lower body hushes, as if my femurs and pelvis are as fascinated by pre-Alliance history as my brain.

Helpfully, somebody has thought to put up good signage and three doors down, I find one of the double doors standing wide open and marked with the Sign of the Guardian of External Affairs. Immediately beneath this delicately carved arch, an owlish person stands, holding an unusually large slate and blinking frequently up and down the corridor.

At the sight of me, plainly out of place here, this person stretches up onto xir tiptoes and leans over, a heronish posture as if xe might pluck me out of the river of the corridor. I stop, alarmed, and lean back to avoid this.

"SDAC Tabishka?" Owlish has an appropriately hooting voice. Nobody uses my full title in that form. It takes me a blink to reply.

"Yes, you wanted to see me?" This isn't the Guardian of External Affairs. I might be a dusty creature from under the Taijis Nil library itself, but not even I am so uninitiated into the rarified air of the Caipashad that I don't know what a Guardian might look like.

This is an assistant. A senior assistant, of course, but still an assistant.

"Follow me." The assistant rotates like a top and strides off on a pair of long legs with a lot more power in them than I have in mine. I scuttle past him, but I'm breathless and aching a yard or so beyond the doorway. I huff, in a circular antechamber of some sort, with yet more bas reliefs of Isha.

I'd like a pause. "Could we stop here so I can sit down and break?" I hold up a hand to seek out support but it stops, hovers in the air because right in front of me is a scene I know so well but I've never seen this before.

"Of course." I feel Owlish hovering somewhere past my shoulder but look, this is the High Ashad Isha negotiating with the Five Nations. Not the big negotiations we've all seen a thousand times, enacted in Dura after Dura.

This was after the Rending. Isha, shown in the profile form the Builders preferred for their art, reaches out an arm, holding a palm leaf. A leaf with five spines upon it, one for each of the Nations. Two more lie on the ground before Xir feet.

Opposite Xem, the representatives of the Five Nations stand about in various bold poses to reflect the work they'd later take on as Guardians of the Alliance. That bit I know, but not the Guardian standing front and centre. I've seen the Guardian Defender taking xir palm, I've seen the Guardian Dragonmaster take xir's.

Never the Guardian of External Affairs (they can't have called xem that back then, can they?) reaching out to take the palm. Under xir feet, lines of smaller people represent the rest of the Nation that stood xe led. The Taija. My Nation.

"Are you all right?" A new voice slices through my reverie. I manage to untangle myself to see that yes, this is the Guardian of External Affairs. Not a carving but the living version, another tall being in a uniform, but xir jacket is open, and xe appears much more relaxed.

Xe reaches for me, offering a sturdy arm for me to lean on. Another tall being in a uniform, but xir jacket is open, and xe appears much more relaxed.

"This is post-Rending, isn't it?" I point at the wall with my free hand. "The Agreement and the Foundation?"

"You know it." The Guardian raises xir dark eyebrows. Xe doesn't have the hair for Bushu locs either, but I'm not sure whether a thousand-year-old being would be in any way a follower of fashion.

"I do and I don't," I say. "I've never seen it represented."

"Our big moment." The Guardian beams and it's unexpected. "Other than the one where we refused to fight, of course, and got demoted to basic administration for all eternity." Xe treats me to a wink. "Come this way. Tea?"

Owlish flutters along behind us, xir slate poised to take notes. All this must be recorded, I suppose, but for the moment, I'm more thrilled by the Guardian's surprisingly relaxed manner.

"I'm sorry to drag you all the way up here," xe says. "But we have some additional security—" Xe waves a hand vaguely around this new, almost circular space with its gently rough yellow walls and low furniture. "And what we need to discuss should be handled with caution."

"The shipment?" I accept a soft seat from Owlish—I should stop calling xem that, but now it's stuck and I don't know what else to do.

"Yes. It might not be as urgent as an active Gap to anyone else, but it is a matter of Alliance security beyond the Barrier. That falls to me, alas." The Guardian settles on a low sofa opposite me. As if by magic, Owlish withdraws. I wonder whether xe knows what kind of tea to bring. I hope it's cold. I'm thirsty after that rushed trip and even buried within Amin Duum's walls, it's warm.

"Is it a border issue?" I try to sound knowledgeable, since I'm pretty sure last time it was a border issue. A distant pair of cultures unsure about what protocols applied to such an odd assortment of goods. But that didn't require the Guardian's input. My boss dealt with that.

The Guardian sits forward. "No, not this time. It's more serious than that. The caravan was attacked. The whole shipment was stolen."

Ishril 25, 4633 AIA

I straighten up. "Stolen? What d'you mean stolen?"

"I mean stolen." The Guardian pauses as Owlish returns with a tray of tea. Naraik sets a cup down in front of me with a quiet nod. After this performance, everyone sits and the Guardian signals to xir assistant as xe begins to explain.

"Locaru will send you the report we received, but this is what we know." The Guardian signals again, and this time Owlish—sorry, Locaru—draws out xir slate and taps three times. Naraik is already on task, raising xir own slate to receive the documents.

They flutter through the air, turning the molecules blue as the kata activates.

"The dig was out to the north of the Nas Ashca, and so any finds were sent south and then routed overland, down to Rad Ulga. The team at Rad Ulga definitely got the shipment, but it wasn't being transported separately. It was moving with a long caravan and somebody attacked the caravan."

"Oh, so they were after the caravan?" I'm confused. I'm not an investigator. I just check a box and a sign a form on a paper like these, filed away in one of Ajaë's kata databases.

Naraik flicks a finger and the report glitters in front of us. A map to one side, a wall of text, and a lot of names I don't recognise.

"Everyone thought that at first," the Guardian agrees. "If you check the second page, you'll note that the attackers were focused on the section of the caravan holding our shipment."

I lean against Naraik, but xe's ahead of me and already has the next page set up, dimmed slightly to make it easier for me to read. The text has an odd tone, somehow managing to make the dramatic sound dull.

"The attack occurred at approximately Dusk Hour (Rad Ulga Zone Time). Witnesses report seeing six individuals approach the caravan from the north along the Wire Road, initially believing them to be fellow travellers. However, they then targeted the second freight section of the caravan and quickly overwhelmed the guards once the caravan reached the Wadi Wira. See Map 2 for details..."

With one finger, I pull the map out of its context on the page floating in front of us. As I shift it, the black and white lines light up and the colours fill out to make it clearer. Now the sides of the wadi are picked out in darker brown, while the Wire Road itself is bright, dark red.

It reminds me of blood.

The map animates, showing me as the Guardian explains the attack. The assailants are small dots, jumping down the steep sides of the wadi and leap onto the section of the caravan carrying the shipment. My shipment.

"They did make an effort to cover it up," the Guardian continues. Xe sips xir tea and nods xir approval to Locaru. I check xir movements through the gaps in the sparkling kata, so I tap the air to solidify it. "They took a few items from the section behind ours, but the witnesses in the report say only one person approached that section. The focus was obviously ours."

I stare at the dots as the animation repeats. Once they've grabbed the shipment, leaving chaos scattered across the wadi, the dots takes off towards the north.

"But why?" That's all I can think of to say.

"The report from the head of the dig at the Nas Ashca is that they think it's linked to series of thefts at the dig site itself."

I glance past the map at the Guardian, who is sipping tea. "What? I haven't heard about this."

The Guardian's eyebrows stretch up and xe exchanges a glance with Owlish—no, Locaru. "It seems a fair amount of information isn't getting through to us. Until the attack on the shipment, everything was being handled at the Nas Ashca. It's the closest External Affairs Office. I apologise, sir, we weren't made aware that this was high priority."

I twitch, and Naraik puts a warning hand on my arm. "Why not?"

Locaru shifts on the spot, like xe has bees up xir backside and I'm surprised I can have that kind of effect on somebody this far up the food chain. "The dig artefacts haven't been considered high priority, and the thefts themselves were... relatively minor."

"You'd better clarify what you mean by 'minor'," the Guardian suggests. "These digs are outside Amnari territory but shouldn't this kind of thing be treated a little more seriously? Why haven't I been informed up until now?"

"I cannot speak for the External Affairs Office or the archaeology teams themselves." The bees in Locaru's butt are definitely stinging. "It would seem there has been a breakdown in communication. Nothing was stolen."

"But they did steal something from the shipment." I don't have a loud voice, but right now, I don't need one. "They must be looking for something."

I peek back to the documents, Naraik already ahead of me. Xe pulls up a new page and the kata shifts in the air in front of us. A series of images, rendered iridescent the way that kata reproduces them, as if they've been coated in oil. I scan them each, one by one.

Hunting for one. Oh, I'm way ahead of you. A light blinks on in my head, like all the warning lights they have for an active Gap. "Naraik, what d'you think?"

"I don't know." Naraik is cautious, doesn't want to commit. This isn't xir specialist subject, after all. It's mine.

"You think you might have identified something in particular?" The Guardian takes another sip of tea and leans forward.

I flush, and for once it's not just my body misbehaving. "I'm not sure."

"I think you'd better tell us." The Guardian eyes me over the tea, as if I'm a kid in class. I suppose I am, comparatively speaking. But no, I can't get distracted or intimidated. Naraik gives me a supportive squeeze.

"The Head Curator would not be happy about me mentioning it." I'm even more cautious than I am walking on a low energy day. The Guardian and Locaru lean forward.

"Well, they're not here now, so you might as well tell us, if you think it's relevant."

I have everyone's attention, and my cheeks burn. "There are meant to be certain artefacts used by the scientists who worked for the Basat. I've been going through documents for a study of the experimentation they were doing on how to use certain forms of kata." I shudder. "It's... dark."

"Illegal?" The Guardian and Locaru exchange glances. "Are we talking about Shades?"

I must be imagining it, but I'm sure the room darkens. It must be getting late outside.

"So far, we haven't found anything," I admit. "We have a document about certain objects being able to hold the memories of the dead." The Head Curator's voice echoes in my head, and I have to add a caveat. "Of course, many of these books were political pieces from the Empire. Claims. Threats. It might well all be nonsense."

One of the Guardian's eyebrows arches. "But you don't think so."

"The documents we have weren't intended for public consumption outside the Basat Empire," I explain. "So there's no reason for them to make such claims unless they could back them up. Especially that late in the period. This was close to the Rending."

"How have I not heard any of this before?" The Guardian asks.

It's a good question. "I've put out a few papers but only on the archaeology Amnet. A very... narrow readership."

"But you think somebody would be interested? Somebody outside the Alliance?" Locaru asks. "What could they do?"

"And who are 'they'?" asks the Guardian. "Our thieves?"

"That we don't know." Locaru straightens xir shoulders, flicking something on xir slate to send to both me and xir boss. "The assumption is its locals to the dig site, or it was until the shipment was attacked. This would be a stretch for them."

"Who?" The Guardian narrows xir eyes. "Even if it's not them, speaking to the locals would give us a sense of who's been in the area."

"They call themselves Maïti, sir," says Locaru. My slate blips as the file arrives. "I did look into it, and our relationship with them out that far east. We've not had much contact, but we know they're related to the Tagluk reindeer herders north of Nas Isca."

"All right then, that's a starting point." The Guardian dusts off xir hands. "Locaru, can you get Shinika up here? I think boots on the ground is the best way to sort this out."

A tightness knotted in my chest unravels. The Guardian and xir Servants will sort it out, so I can relax. I'll have to write up a report for the Head Curator and the Assistant Head, but they can be sure it's in good hands—

"You'll obviously want to go along," the Guardian says. "You'll be the best person to identify what's been taken, what kind of value it has."

I open my mouth, then close it again. Naraik's hand squeezes my arm. "I'm sorry, but there's no way..."

I wave my arms at the extent of myself. I might enjoy reading reports from far flung digs, but I've never left Amin Duum. I've got everything I need here. I'm comfortable in my dusty basement.

"I can always check the reports Shinika sends back, and once I have a list of items, I'll be able to identify any possible targets," I add, just in case this isn't what the Guardian of External Affairs wants to hear.

Naraik takes over as I curl into myself, head spinning. "We have complex needs, and two assistant supports, Gada. A flight would necessitate additional supports—"

"Of course, of course. Can you speak with Shinika to arrange it? I'm sure Iabaston can adapt if she's interested in flying out."

I try to imagine dragonflight. It's great, I'm sure, if you're fit and healthy and can sit on a dragon's back for hours at a time. Not something for somebody who likes to be within hobbling distance of a bathroom and needs a stretch every half an hour to keep my bones from aching too much.

In short: I've never been outside the Exclusion Zone, and I'd never want to be. Why else d'you think I'd stay so close to such a painful thing as a Gap? If I want to go on adventures, I can read a book.

"Can we get back to you on that, Gada?" Naraik doesn't meet my gaze. "We'll have to confirm that this is the best thing, healthwise."

The Guardian pats xir knees. "Of course, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to assume. What I mean to say is, if you want to be on the ground for this, we would ensure you had all the support you needed."

What do I make of this? I put my hand on Naraik's. This is the kind of language we've used all the years we've worked together. Xe knows what this means, and responds immediately.

"We'll speak to Shinika about this," Naraik says. "Thank you, Gada, for taking this so seriously."

"Yes!" I put in as Naraik helps me to my feet. "Thank you, Gada. I didn't think anybody but me was interested in the things they've been digging up out there. It's very strange."

My head won't stop spinning and for once, I don't think it's a migraine. As I find my balance, I spot the relief on the wall. Another image of Isha, with the first Guardian of External Affairs, in some distant pocket of time, negotiating with tribes. A dragon uncoils behind xem. I squint, figuring out a comfortable way I could sit on its back.

Before we leave, I see we forgot the tea.

"There's no way you're going to put me on a dragon, not even a large one."

I lean on Naraik in the elevator back down. My slate has messages from Ajaë and the Head Curator. They're both curious, but for different reasons.

The shimmering walls have small seats, enough for me to heap myself down and rest my feet. If I can't make it down the corridor from the Guardian's offices to my own without a break, how am I supposed to go running all over the wilds looking for some missing archaeological finds?

"So tell me about this thing that holds the memories of the dead. What is it?" Naraik senses the pain coming on even before I do. These are distracting questions, but they have the desired effect.

"A myth. I was curious about it, you see, because it reminded me of what Ajaë does. Storing information using kata, putting it into something physical like a slate." I lean back and close my eyes. It took a lot to get that article published, and I'd put it out of my mind.

"But not real. I don't remember you writing that paper. I'm going to have to find it, aren't I" Naraik lets me rest on one arm while checking xir slate with the other hand. "This is the list from Locaru. You'll have to see if you can pick out anything that looks suspicious."

Naraik flicks a thumb to show the list sparkling in the air in front of xem. "Recognise any of it?"

I peer closer, but at first sight, I don't identify any items anybody other than me would want to investigate. Nothing suitable for reuse, no weapons, only the small, broken bric-a-brac of everyday life. And nothing like the object I remember from the texts. But right now, my head is swimmy with pain and it's all I can do to breathe.

"Let's look at it back at the office. We can figure out what to tell the Guardian while we're at it." Naraik catches me and holds me until the elevator stops and we're back in the safety of the basement. The Gap must be open again; that bitter taste is back in my mouth and my bones burn.

Once we're back at our desks, I can settle into a comfy chair that's almost as old as I am. Could we fit it onto a dragon? That's a comical image, but I have to sweep it aside, because I have to know what happened to this shipment and I'm not leaving here unless I have to.

"If you want to go, we'll make this work." Naraik rests xir hands on my arm. The soft, stable kata in xir fingers is enough to ease the pain, creating a barrier between my body and the distant roaring of that monstrous rip in reality. "There's no reason you wouldn't be able to leave the Exclusion Zone and visit the site for yourself. If you wanted to."

"It's not a matter of not being able to," I say, choosing my words with care. "We could do it, of course. But not all our documents are katarised, are they. We'd have to take all the books with us." I wave a hand at the stacks on my desk. Naraik's, like Ajaë's back home, is conspicuously tidy.

"Do we need all these?" Naraik swirls coffee with a stylus. Xe's making up for not getting that cup of Guardian's tea. "Really?"

"What if we need to cross-reference something? We don't know what it might be. We should be thorough." I study the list from my slate, the blue kata sparking the air around me. This is stable kata, it doesn't hurt. It's only the raw stuff the Gap spits out I can't deal with.

Naraik takes a slug of xir drink. "But you reckon you can guess what it is. This paper you wrote."

I take a long sigh. The burning in my bones settles to a subtle tingling. "This was before you came along. I was a newbie graduate with big, wild ideas and I thought I had a decent argument. I have no idea what made me think about it." I put up a hand to wave these thoughts off. "It's probably somebody desperate from Outside the Zones thinking it's packed with be gold or diamonds or something."

Naraik narrows xir eyes. "Yeah, no. I know you. If that popped into your head right then, you must have a sense that it's out there."

I keep gazing at the list. Scraps of metal, pottery, the detritus of every day life from five thousand years ago. We dust it off and write papers about how people drank their tea or painted their pots with images of the legends we've long since forgotten.

Then I see it. I freeze, chilled. I point, without speaking, and Naraik catches a copy of the document in the air to view it xirself.

"What am I looking at?"

"There." I highlight one item on the list.

Naraik squints, slugs coffee, then squints again. "You're going to have to explain this. It doesn't make sense to me."

I shift and for once it's not my own body making me uncomfortable. "All right." I'm going to have to admit to something I've been hiding even from myself, now. A sneaky little part of me that always hoped I was right, that I might prove the Head Curator wrong. "I found something, when I was writing up my graduate thesis. It's only one text, it's fragmentary, and it's in a weird dialect of Basati that's tricky to translate."

Naraik stares at me over xir coffee. "Go on. This is exciting."

"Well," I say, couching all my words in the language of academic caution, "my theory was the text was a series of notes. A couple of attempts to translate, but only a few words and phrases." I lean forward, getting into my groove. "Can you guess what everyone else thinks?"

Naraik grips xir coffee tighter. "No? Tell me."

"The standard theory is that it's from some sort of taxonomy of lepidoptera. A butterfly catcher keeping notes on their finds." I pick up my slate and start scouring all my old files. The paper's in here somewhere. Never threw it out, despite everything.

"What made you think it wasn't?"

"A couple of things." I have so many files on this thing, and my short fingers aren't the best at searching the deeper recesses of my slate's storage. But now I've opened the door in my mind, I don't need to re-read the paper. This was my whole world, for years. "Firstly, there were weird words relating to the body, or human bones." I shudder. Pause. Start again.

"Secondly, the handwriting looked like somebody specific. We only have two other examples, but enough similarities to suggest they were the same person."

"Oooh, who is it?" Naraik clutches the mug and takes a keen sip.

I don't answer. I'm too antsy to sit still; I hobble up onto my feet, round my desk and start toward one of the museum's old exhibits, sitting in a corner. It's waiting to be updated. I'll get to it, I promise. I've been distracted. I point to a board that's meant to depict the basic history of the Five Empires period as a timeline.

"That's what Samour wanted you to work on, wasn't it?" Naraik sets xirself up like a student. Xe's done this a thousand times before with me, knows what to expect. "The thing you were avoiding because you were 'sorting through junk'."

"Xir words, not mine." I hold up one hand, then point to the midpoint of the timeline. Under a small, roughly-drawn map, a label says 'Basat Empire triggers the Rending'. Five words that ended the world. Every Amnari has this history memorised. We study it, recreate it officially as we grow up. It's what makes us who we are.

"So this is about the Basati, then?" Naraik asks.

"Yes. We believe that members of the Basat senate triggered the Rending when their army of Shades failed to destroy Isha." I feel like a lecturer saying all this. Naraik knows it as well as I do. "And we think that they were still working with the scientist who'd made that army: Tallis or Tallat, depending on the translation." I pause. This is where my argument got me into so much trouble. My heart thumps and for once it's not the Gap or fatigue.

I take a very deep breath. I remember every word of that paper now. I could recite it right here, but I'd need a lie down after. "I argued that the 'butterfly paper', as they called it, was actually written by Tallis. Or Tallat."

"Ooooh, that's exciting." Naraik grins. "You think Tallat was into butterflies?"

"It's not about butterflies at all. It's about something else." Now I do have to sit down again. I fight it, because this matters, it matters so much.

Naraik leaves xir desk, abandoning xir coffee to prop me up. I propel us both out, heading for the stores. "You can rest, if you want."

I ignore xem, fixing my attention on the first storeroom beyond the office. "No. This is important. If I'm right, that document was a fragment of one of Tallat's notebooks. The most dangerous person from the Five Empires period, the one who caused all of this. Xe was working on something."

Naraik keeps me upright as we pass through the first storeroom. I keep going. Storeroom three, drawer fourteen, that's where we want to be. I can't catch my breath, I stumble and grip Naraik's arm harder. But I'm not going to stop now.

"All of the junk we've been pulling out of the Nas Ashca digs is old Basati material," I say. Storeroom two. One more to go.

"All right. You've told me this. That's where Basat was. You think we might find more documents?" Naraik holds me, balancing efficiency and care to keep me going. Where would I be without xem?

At last, we're here. Storeroom three. A low-ceilinged, square chamber packed with varnished wooden chests of drawers, all of them narrow, flattened out. Each one has a number on it. I pitch through the aisle, to the far corner. No room for us to move side by side, so Naraik swivels and guides me along. We use the chests for extra support.

"Tallat wouldn't want to let everything xe'd learnt go to waste," I pant, breath catching in my throat. "Everyone thinks it's all been lost."

"It was so close to the Rending Point, nothing would've survived," Naraik recites from xir history lessons.

I reach the right stack, lean on it for support as I pull out drawer three. "This did. I don't think Tallat was killed in the Rending."

Naraik hisses. "You're not saying..."

I gaze down at the grey folders within. Storing these ancient papers isn't easy. Every time we open these drawers, we expose them to more harm. But this is critical.

"I said there were objects Tallat was using to try to store data the way we do." I pull out the folder, then stop. I need my slate. I need the paper. I need to explain. "This paper is a set of notes I think Tallat was making about storing all xir work, all xir consciousness, in an artefact."

Naraik's eyes widen, but xe keeps me upright nevertheless. "Like a slate?"

"Like more than a slate. Like Tallat's whole being, whole consciousness, with everything xe knew and thought and wanted."

"Like a ghost."

I swallow. My throat hurts. "Like a ghost." I tap the folder. I don't dare open it. "What I saw on that list is described here. Xe made it out of xir own bone. Somehow, I don't know how. Something that would look like just another decoration. Nobody would be able to tell what it was, unless they knew what they were looking for. An amulet."

Naraik speaks. "A moth."