Northpoint journal, the new apprentice
Autumn of 207.
The last cart before the snow came up the north road today. Teg drove it, as always. It brought coal from Copperhold, flour, potatoes and new lamp glass. It also brought one long crate with my name on it.
In the crate was my apprentice.
It is made of copper and iron. It is a little shorter than me. The copper is bright and new. Up here it will go green, like the tower roof.
A note from the tutors at Vell was tied to its arm. "Mind tested on walking and carrying. Not tested on ladders. Do not send it up alone." I read the note three times. Then I put it in this book.
I set the mind crystal in its chest, as the note said, and shut the little door. It woke. It looked at me. Then it looked at the stove for a long time.
An apprentice wakes knowing nothing. What it knows, it has to learn. So I showed it the coal sacks and the coal bin. It carried the sacks in, one by one. Then it put them all in a row in front of the stove. That is not where the coal goes. But it was a very neat row.
I have named it Lantern, because it will help me keep the lamps. Tam will say that is not a name. Tam named his apprentice Pip. Tam can be quiet.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. Two pairs of feet at Northpoint tonight. It is strange to hear them.
%%
Northpoint journal, first snow
First snow. It came in the night, soft and thick. By morning the yard was white to my knees.
Lantern had never seen snow. It went out of the house and stopped. It stood in the yard with snow falling on its head. It did not move for an hour. I watched from the window with a cup of hot milk and honey. I think it was trying to learn snow.
Then the snow got into its knees, and it came back in, creaking. I dried its knees by the stove. Note for this book: wax Lantern's knees before winter. Nobody told me apprentices creak.
At dusk I lit the two small lamps by the door. Then I crossed the yard to the tower and climbed the ladder to the great lamp. Ninety rungs. I have counted them every night for eleven years, and there are still ninety.
I swept the snow off the lamp room roof. I cleaned the glass, inside and out. Snow sticks to the outside. Soot sticks to the inside. A dirty lamp is a weak lamp, and a weak lamp loses messages.
I lit the coal in the great lamp. Then I sat by the south window and waited. Far off, the lamp of the south tower blinked. Good evening, Northpoint. I blinked back. Good evening, south.
Lantern had followed me to the tower. It stood at the foot of the ladder, looking up. It did not try to climb. Good. Not yet.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed.
%%
Northpoint journal, the ladder
Lantern's first day on the ladder.
I tied a rope round its middle and tied the other end to the post at the bottom. Then I went up three rungs and called down. "Come."
Lantern knows "come". It came to the ladder. It put one hand on a rung. Then it put the other hand on the same rung. Then it stood there, holding on hard, with both feet on the floor.
We did it again. And again. One hand up, one foot up. One hand up, one foot up. The manual from Vell says this is how every mind learns. The same thing, again and again, and each time a little less wrong. The manual does not say how cold your hands get.
By noon Lantern reached rung seven. On rung seven it held on so hard that it bent the rung. I will have to fix rung seven.
By evening it reached rung twelve. Then it would not go up, and it would not go down. I climbed down beside it and moved its feet for it, one at a time, all the way to the floor. It took a long time. We were both very patient. Well, Lantern was very patient. I said some words I will not write here.
Tomorrow we try again. Twelve rungs is a good start. There are ninety.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. One rung bent.
%%
Northpoint journal, a thief
A fox lives under the rocks by the woodshed. It is white, with a black tip on one ear. It is the boldest fox in the north.
This morning I hung my mittens on the line by the door to dry. When I came back, there was one mitten. The fox sat on the woodshed roof with the other one in its mouth. It looked at me. I looked at it. Then it was gone over the snow, with my mitten.
Its name is Sock, for the first thing it stole from me. Thief would be a better name. Tam will say anything is a better name than Lantern.
Foxes up here take anything they can carry. Last winter a fox took a fish, a spoon, and the brush for the lamp glass. I found the brush in spring, by the rocks, with teeth marks on the handle. I never found the spoon.
Lantern saw it all. When the fox ran, Lantern took three steps after it and stopped. I had told it "stay" that morning, and it remembered. Good. A copper apprentice running over the ice after a fox would be a sight. It would not catch it.
So now I have one mitten. When I climb, my left hand goes cold on the rungs. I will sew a new mitten from the old wool blanket. It will be ugly. Sock can have that one too, if it wants.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. Fox one, keeper none.
%%
Northpoint journal, a letter from Tam
A message came up the relay tonight for me. That does not happen often. Most messages are for other people, and I only pass them on.
It was from Tam. The south tower took most of an hour to send it. I wrote it down letter by letter. Here it is, all of it.
"Mira. Snow here too but not much. Pip is in the barn for the winter. Pip learned to feed the pigs. Then Pip fed the pigs again. And again. Big Beet is very fat and very happy. Biscuit got out again. Brin says hello. Brin does not say hello, but I am saying it for him. Are you warm? Eat your stew. Your brother, Tam."
At the end the keeper at the south tower added one line. "Northpoint, please tell your brother a relay message should be short."
I have told my brother that for eleven years. A relay message costs one emerald for every ten words. That one cost Tam seven emeralds. Tam does not count words. He does not count emeralds either.
I sent one back. "Tam. Warm. Eating stew. A fox took my mitten. Lantern is on rung twenty. Short messages, please. Mira." Eighteen words, two emeralds. That is how it is done.
Then I sat by the stove and read his message again. It is a very silly message. I read it six times.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. One of them very long.
%%
Northpoint journal, the long night
Midwinter. The longest night of the year.
The sun did not come up today. Around noon the south sky went grey for a little while. Then it gave up. I do not blame it.
The great lamp burned for twenty hours. I climbed up four times to feed the coal and clean the glass. Ninety rungs, four times. My knees now creak like Lantern's.
Lantern is on rung thirty-one. Every day it goes a little higher, stops, and comes back down. It is getting very fast at coming down.
I counted the coal. Forty-one sacks. Enough until the thaw, if I am careful.
At midwinter the people in the south have a feast. At Kettle Ridge they bake pumpkin pies and light a big fire on the ridge, and everyone sings. Tam sings the loudest and the worst. I used to sing with him.
Here I made a small feast. Baked potatoes. Fish from the ice hole. A bottle of honey from Tam's bees, kept since summer. I set out two cups, out of habit. Then I gave the second cup to Lantern to hold. It held it very carefully all evening. It did not know why. I am not sure I did either.
At midnight a message came up the line, from tower to tower: "Good midwinter. The days get longer now." Every keeper sends it on to the next. I am the last keeper. There is nobody north of me to send it to. So I wrote it in this book instead.
Good midwinter. The days get longer now.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed.
%%
Northpoint journal, green lights
Clear and very cold. The green lights came tonight.
Everyone in the north knows them. On clear nights in deep winter, the sky over the ice turns green. The lights hang like long curtains. They move slowly, as if a wind were blowing them. Sometimes there is a little pink along the bottom edge. They make no sound at all.
In the south they call them the north lights. Up here we just say our lights. Old Runa at the ice camp says they were here before the first tower. Her mother saw them, and her mother's mother.
I had work to do tonight. For a while I did none of it. I stood on the walk round the lamp room with a blanket over my head, and I watched. The lights went from the west side of the sky to the east side, and back. One curtain came down so low that I thought I could touch it from the top of the tower. I could not. I tried.
Down in the yard, Lantern stopped carrying wood. It stood still with its head up. It stood like that until the lights faded. I did not tell it to go back to work. Some things are worth stopping for, even for an apprentice.
I sent the weather south: "Clear. Very cold. Our lights out tonight." The keeper at the south tower sent back two words: "Lucky Northpoint."
Yes. Some nights.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. Nose very cold.
%%
Northpoint journal, the storm
Snowstorm, day three.
On the first day the wind came from the north and did not stop. The snow came sideways. By noon I could not see the woodshed, and the woodshed is twenty steps from the door.
I tied a rope from the house to the woodshed. I tied another from the house to the tower. In a storm you hold the rope and you do not let go. That is the first rule of Northpoint. The second rule is: the lamp stays lit.
The lamp stayed lit. Three times a night I climbed up and scraped the ice off the glass. The wind shook the whole lamp room. But the south tower could not see my lamp through the snow, and I could not see theirs. So there were no messages for three days. Down the line, people are waiting for news. They will have to wait.
Lantern was a great help. Last week I taught it "haul". The coal rope hangs down the outside of the tower to the coal bin. When I ring the bell at the top, Lantern hauls up a bucket of coal. In the storm it stood by the coal bin for three days with the rope in its hands. Every time I rang, up came the coal. In the mornings it had a little hill of snow on its head. I brushed it off. It is the most useful snowman I have ever had.
Tonight the wind dropped and the stars came out. Far to the south, a lamp blinked. Eleven messages were waiting. I wrote until my hand hurt.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed, at last.
%%
Northpoint journal, messages
A busy day. On busy days I write the messages here in short.
Morning. The weather, sent south: "Northpoint. Snow stopped. Wind north, light. Very cold. More snow in two days." The farmers at Kettle Ridge read my weather. So do the boats at Saltreach. It is good to be useful to people you never see.
Noon. From the ice camp, by Runa's grandson, who ran the whole way: a baby girl was born at the camp, and mother and baby are well. I sent it south to the father's family at Three Wells. They sent back joy, in a great many words. They did not count the emeralds. I sent the joy back to the camp with the boy, and a hot baked potato for the walk.
Afternoon. From the Archive at Vell: every relay keeper must send the year's log before the cart road closes. The road closed months ago. I sent back: "Will send in spring." Oren at the archive asks every year. Oren is always very polite about it.
Evening. From Saltreach: a man asks every tower if anyone has seen his brother's fishing boat, the Grey Gull. We have not seen a boat at Northpoint in eleven years. We have ice. I sent back: "No boat here. Sorry. Ice only."
Night. From Dace, the mayor of Three Wells: the spring fair will be late this year because of the snow. Every keeper in the north read that and laughed. Spring? We will see spring when we see it.
Two days later. The Grey Gull is home safe. The man sent thanks to every tower on the line. We all sent back: you are welcome, we did nothing.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. A busy day at the end of the line.
%%
Northpoint journal, the thaw
Spring of 208. The thaw.
All night the lake ice cracked and boomed, like doors slamming far away. In the morning there was dark water in the middle of the lake. The ice at the edges was grey and soft. The ice camp moved back to the shore. Runa says the fish are happy. I do not know how Runa knows what fish feel.
Water runs everywhere. It runs down the tower steps and into my boots. The snow by the woodshed sank, and there, at last, was my old spoon. So it was Sock all along. There was also a mitten. Not mine. I do not want to know whose.
And now the big news. Lantern climbed the ladder to the top.
It went slowly. One hand, one foot. One hand, one foot. Past rung seven, which I fixed. Past rung thirty-one. Past the landing. All the way to ninety. Then it put its head up through the hatch and looked at the great lamp. It looked for a long time, the way it looked at the stove on its first day.
I came up behind it and gave it the cloth. It wiped one pane of glass, badly. Then a second pane, a little less badly.
A whole winter for ninety rungs. That is not slow. That is about right. The first time I climbed it, I was frightened, and I was a lot older than Lantern.
Lamps lit. Glass clean, mostly by me. Messages passed.
%%
Northpoint journal, the tutor
The summer cart came, and on it was a visitor. It was Nessa, the tutor from Vell. The same Nessa who wrote the manual I read all winter.
Every few summers Nessa travels up the north line to test the apprentices at the towers. Nessa carries a box of drills and a book of marks. Nessa did not want hot milk. Nessa wanted to see Lantern climb.
So Lantern climbed. Up ninety rungs, four panes cleaned, and down again. Nessa wrote in the book of marks and did not smile.
Then came the drills, all afternoon. Come. Stay. Haul. Carry this. Put that down. Clean this pane, not that one. The same things, again and again. When Lantern got one wrong, Nessa did it again, the same way, and did not get cross. Not once. I would have been cross by the second time.
At the end Nessa said: "A good mind. Slow, but it keeps what it learns. It may clean the glass alone. Not light the lamp alone. Not yet."
I asked when. Nessa said: "When you have seen it light the lamp right a hundred times." Then Nessa said: "Never send an untested mind to the fields." Nessa looked up at the tower and added: "Or up a ladder." I think Nessa says the first part a lot.
In the evening we sat outside in the long light. Nessa told me about an apprentice at Kettle Ridge called Pip, which is getting very good in the fields. I said that is my brother's apprentice. Nessa said: "Yes. Your brother talks a great deal." Yes.
Lamps lit. Glass clean, by Lantern, alone. Messages passed.
%%
Northpoint journal, midsummer
Midsummer. The sun did not set at all. All night it rolled along the north edge of the sky, low and orange, and then it climbed again. At midnight it was as bright as a winter noon.
Up here summer is short and busy. I fixed the woodshed roof. I painted the door. I picked sweet berries on the hill, a whole bucket, and ate half before I got home. I cut spruce for the winter, and Lantern carried the logs and stacked them. It stacks very well now. Every log the same way, like a wall.
The copper on Lantern's shoulders has gone a little green, the same green as the tower roof. In the south they wax copper to keep it bright. I will not. The green suits it. I told it so.
Sock has kits. Three of them, under the rocks by the woodshed. All evening they tumble in the grass and fight over a bit of old rope. I left a fish head by the rocks. It is not stealing if I give it.
In the evening the north sky went a hard yellow grey. That means big wind, in a day or two. I sent a warning south to every tower on the line: "Big wind coming south. Tie everything down." I hope Tam ties down his farm. Tam never ties down anything.
I sat on the step with a bowl of berries and watched the sun not set. Summer at Northpoint is very good. Nobody in the south believes me.
Lamps lit, late. Glass clean. Messages passed.
%%
Northpoint journal, Lantern alone
Autumn of 208. I have a cold in the head. My nose is red and my head is full of wool.
Last night I could not climb. At rung ten my head went round, so I came back down and sat on the floor.
It was nearly dusk. The lamp had to be lit. Since Nessa left, I have watched Lantern light it with me ninety-four times. I counted. It was not a hundred. But my head was full of wool.
So I said, "Lantern. Light the lamp."
It looked at me. Then it went up the ladder. I heard it go up, rung by rung. I heard the hatch. I heard the little glass door of the lamp open and shut. I sat at the bottom in a blanket and waited. It was a long wait.
Then the yard went bright. The great lamp was lit. A little later the south tower blinked: good evening, Northpoint.
Lantern came down and stood in front of me. I think it was waiting to hear if it was right. I said, "Right. That was right." I may have cried a little. It was the cold in the head.
This morning I climbed up to look. The glass was clean. The ash was swept. The coal was back in the bin with the lid on. Better than I do it.
Nessa said a hundred times. I will tell Nessa it was ninety-five. Close enough, for the north.
Lamps lit, by Lantern. Glass clean. Messages held till morning. Keeper in bed.
%%
Northpoint journal, coal and a crate
The last cart of the year came up today, before the snow. Teg says the road is already hard with frost.
It brought seventy sacks of coal from the Deep Works at Copperhold. On top of the first sack was a note in a square hand, the same note as every year: "Keep it lit. Hesk, Deep Works." I sent thanks down the relay, the same as every year: "Coal here. Thanks. Mira." Hesk and I have never met. I like Hesk.
There was a soft parcel from Tam. I will open it later.
There was also a second crate, full of straw, with a paper from Vell. In the straw was a big mind, in a crystal the size of a loaf. It is for the relay house, which is my house, at the foot of the tower. Big minds live in relay houses and answer the apprentices through the relays. The ice camp has an apprentice now, to carry the fish and mend the nets. When it does not know what to do, it can ask the big mind here.
So now Northpoint passes messages for apprentices too. When I came here, twelve years ago, every message was for people. A birth, a storm, a price. Now one message in three is for an apprentice. Haul this. Store that. Fetch the other. The towers get busier every year.
I put the crystal on a shelf by the stove, where it is warm, and dusted it. It did not say thank you. Neither does Lantern. I am used to it.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed, for people and for copper.
%%
Northpoint journal, first snow again
First snow again. It is a year since Lantern came.
It came in the night, like last year, soft and thick. In the morning the yard was white to my knees.
Lantern went out of the house and stopped, like last year. It stood in the yard with snow falling on its head. Then it turned round and went into the woodshed. It came out with the shovel.
It cleared a path from the house to the woodshed. Then from the house to the tower. Then it cleared a path to the rocks where Sock lives, which nobody asked for. Sock came out and sat at the end of the path, very pleased.
I watched in my new mittens. They were in Tam's parcel. Red wool, from the fair at Three Wells, with a note: "One for each hand. Do not give any to foxes. T." They are too big. They are very warm.
A year ago Lantern stood in the snow for an hour, trying to learn what snow was. Now it knows that snow means the shovel. It knows ninety rungs, four panes on each side, and coal in the bin with the lid on. It knows "come" and "stay" and "haul". It knows the lamp. What it knows, it learned, and most of it, it learned here. I did not know I had so much to teach.
At dusk we climbed the ladder together, Lantern first. I let it light the great lamp. I cleaned the glass, because I like to. Far to the south, a lamp blinked. Good evening, Northpoint. Good evening, south.
Lamps lit. Glass clean. Messages passed. Two pairs of feet at Northpoint tonight. It is not strange now.
%%
Deep Works log, Clank comes below
Spring of 206. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, and one apprentice.
Level: four.
Count: copper 16 carts, iron 5, coal 12.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody. One beam dented.
Notes. The mine master gave us an apprentice today. Copper and iron, with a mind tested at Vell. The tutor's paper says: tested on walking, carrying and carts. Not tested on ladders, picks, or sense.
Bram named it Clank, for the noise it makes on the stairs. I said we would not keep a name like that. We have kept it.
On the fourth level the beams are low. Clank walked into the first beam. Then the second beam. Ola tied a bit of wool on its head. It still walks into the beams, but now it is quieter about it.
After that, Clank pushed carts all shift. A full cart up the rails to the lift. An empty cart back down. It does not get tired. It does not talk. It does not complain. Old Fenn says it is the best miner he has worked with in forty years. Old Fenn says that about anyone who does not complain.
At the end of the shift I said "home", and Clank followed us up the stairs, clanking. Then it stood by the tool shed door all night. It did not know where else to go. Tomorrow I will give it a corner of its own.
All up safe.
%%
Deep Works log, rails
Summer of 206. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank.
Level: five.
Count: copper 9 carts, iron 3, coal 4.
Water: wet at the far end.
Hurt: Bram, a cut thumb.
Notes. A low count. We laid rail most of the shift. The fifth level gets new rail all the way to the far face, two hundred paces. Iron rails on oak ties. Every eighth rail is a powered rail, with gold and redstone in it, so the full carts can climb the slope.
Ola knows the pattern. Rail, rail, rail, rail, rail, rail, rail, powered. Clank watched her lay the first twenty. Then it laid the next forty by itself. The same pattern every time. It did not get one wrong. It is better at patterns than at beams.
At the bend, Clank pushed a full cart too fast, and it tipped off the rails. Copper all over the floor. We picked it up by hand. Then Clank tipped another cart at the same bend. So I stood at the bend all afternoon. Each time a cart came, I said "stay", and Clank stayed, and I took the cart round the bend myself. Then I said "come", and it came. We will work on bends.
Bram cut his thumb on a rail and bled on the ties. He wants it written down that he was brave. Bram was brave. He was also loud.
All up safe.
%%
Deep Works log, water
Summer of 206. Night shift.
Crew: Hesk, Ola, old Fenn, Clank. Bram at home with his thumb.
Level: six.
Count: copper 2 carts, iron 1, coal none.
Water: bad.
Hurt: nobody. Everybody wet.
Notes. We broke into water on the sixth level. Old Fenn's pick went through the far face, and water came out like a barrel tipped over. It was cold as snow. It ran down the tunnel, over our boots, then over our knees.
We pulled back to the dry part. I sent Clank up for buckets. It came back with eleven buckets. I did not say eleven. I said buckets. It brought every bucket in the shed.
Then we bailed. Fill the bucket, pass it up the line, tip it in the drain, pass it back. Old Fenn, Ola, me, and Clank at the top of the slope. Clank carried the full buckets up two at a time. We bailed until the water came slower than we could carry it away. Then we packed the hole with clay and cobblestone and left it.
Tomorrow we cut a channel along the floor to the old sump. Water always wins in the end. The trick is to show it a better way to go.
We came up at dawn, wet to the chest. The cook at the mine gate had soup on. Clank stood by the fire and dripped. Steam came off its copper. Old Fenn laughed so hard he had to sit down.
All up safe. All up wet.
%%
Deep Works log, the lost pickaxe
Autumn of 206. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank.
Levels: four and six.
Count: copper 14 carts, iron 6, coal 10.
Water: draining well. The channel works.
Hurt: nobody. One temper lost. Mine.
Notes. My pickaxe is gone. Iron head, oak handle gone dark from my hands. It was my father's. He dug half the fourth level with it. For twenty-two years I have hung it on the same nail at the end of every shift. This morning the nail was empty.
I said some hard things to Bram, because Bram borrows things. Bram had not borrowed it. I said sorry. Bram said fine, but I owe him a pie.
We looked everywhere. The sump. The rail bends. Under the lift. Ola looked in the lunch tins, as if I would leave a pickaxe in a lunch tin.
At the end of the shift, Clank came up from the sorting shed with my pickaxe in its hands. It had gone up in a cart of iron ore. Somebody put it down on the ore at the end of the last shift, and I think that somebody was me. Clank was sorting the iron into the iron bin, and it found a thing that was not iron. So it did not put it in the bin. It brought it to me. It did not know the pickaxe was mine. It only knew it was not iron.
I hung it back on its nail. I gave Clank a pat on the head. It made a sound like a pot. Bram wants it written down that I said sorry to him. I said sorry to Bram. I owe Bram a pie.
All up safe. One pickaxe up safe.
%%
Deep Works log, deep stone
Winter of 206. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Ola, old Fenn, Clank. Bram at the forge, sharpening.
Level: seven.
Count: copper 4 carts, iron 8, coal 2, deep stone 20 for the wall builders.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody. Cold to the bone.
Notes. We are into the deep stone now. Below the sixth level it is all deep stone. Some call it deepslate. Down here we just say deep stone. It is dark grey, nearly black, and it breaks in flat pieces. It is hard. A pick that cuts cobblestone all day goes blunt in deep stone by noon. So Bram sits at the forge and sharpens, and we send picks up and down all shift.
The deep stone is always cold. Summer or winter, it is the same cold. Put your hand flat on the wall and it pulls the warm out of you. We wear coats below the sixth level, even in summer. The young ones laugh at that until their first day down there.
It is quiet in the deep stone. Far off, water drips. You hear your breath, the picks, the carts. That is all. Old Fenn likes it. He says the deep stone is the only quiet place left in Copperhold, now that Bram has learned to sing.
Clank does not feel the cold. It worked all shift with frost on its arms. But by evening its joints were stiff, and it went up the stairs like old Fenn. We will wax its joints more in winter.
Good iron in the deep stone. Hard work to get it. Worth it.
All up safe. All up cold.
%%
Deep Works log, cave spiders
Winter of 206. Night shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, Clank.
Level: five, the old west tunnel.
Count: copper 7 carts, iron 2, coal 5.
Water: dry.
Hurt: Bram, a bite on the leg. He is fine. He says he is not fine.
Notes. Tonight we broke into an old tunnel. Nobody knew it was there. Old wood, old rails, all rotten. And webs across it, thick as wool. Where there are webs like that, there are cave spiders. Small, blue, quick. The bite makes you sick.
I said: torches first. Light every step before you take it. Keep the torches lit. We went in slowly. Torch, step. Torch, step.
Then Bram shouted. A cave spider came out of the webs at his feet. Then another. Bram ran one way and his torch rolled the other. Ola hit the first spider with her pick. I got the second. Clank did not move, because I had told it "stay" by the cart. The third spider ran up Clank's leg, found nothing but copper, and fell off. Ola got that one too.
At the end of the tunnel we found the spider cage. It is an old iron cage with a little fire inside, and the spiders come from it. We broke it with our picks. Then we filled the tunnel with cobblestone. Nobody goes in the old west tunnel now.
The healer at the mine gate gave Bram a bucket of milk to drink, which is what you do for a spider bite. Bram is lying still and telling everyone about the spiders. There were three spiders. By morning there will be thirty.
All up safe. Mostly.
%%
Deep Works log, a good week
Spring of 207. End of the week.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank.
Levels: four, five and seven.
Count for the week: copper 96 carts, iron 41, coal 58, gold 3, redstone 2, lapis half a cart.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody, all week.
Notes. Best week this crew has ever had. Best week on the fourth level since my father's time. The mine master came down to look at the count board and read it twice.
Why? Good rails. Good drains. Sharp picks. And Clank. Clank pushes carts all day and never stops to talk, eat or sing, unlike some. Bram says Clank is taking his work. I said Clank is taking your pushing, so you can do more digging. So Bram digs more now, and he is better at it than he thinks.
Today was pay day. Emeralds for everyone, and one extra for Ola, who found the gold. I sent two of mine to my sister Rue at Ambrook. She will send back apples. She always does. Then old Fenn bought a round of hot cider at the inn by the mine gate. Old Fenn has not bought a round in forty years. I do not know what he is up to.
At the inn all the talk was apprentices. Two more are coming to the Deep Works this summer. The farmers at Kettle Ridge have them now, and the relay towers too. Somebody said that in ten years every crew will have one. Somebody else said: then what will we do? Old Fenn said: sit at the inn, and let them buy the rounds.
All up safe. All week.
%%
Deep Works log, Clank's first order
Summer of 207. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank.
Level: seven.
Count: copper 5 carts, iron 11, coal 3.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody.
Notes. Something new today. I want it in the log.
Until now Clank knew single words. Come. Stay. Haul. Home. We had a word for each job, and it did the job for the word.
Today, at the end of the shift, the carts were full and the store sheds were empty, and I was tired. Without thinking, I said to Clank: "Take all this lot up top and put it away." That is not one of its words. It is a whole sentence, in a tired voice.
Clank stood still. Then it pushed the carts to the lift. It went up with them. It sorted every piece into the right place. Copper in the copper bin. Iron in the iron bin. Coal in the coal shed. It understood me. Not the words. What I meant.
The tutor from Vell who tests our minds says this is the next thing. Apprentices that understand an order, said any way you like. The tutors write orders in the manual like this:
> take all this lot up top and put it away
= store
Ola says I should not be so pleased. Ola says she has understood what I meant for nine years, and I never once wrote that in the log. That is fair. So: Ola understands what I mean. Now it is in the log.
All up safe.
%%
Deep Works log, coal for the north
Autumn of 207. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank, Rivet.
Level: four.
Count: copper 12 carts, iron 4, coal 31.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody.
Notes. Coal week. Every autumn the Deep Works sends coal north for the relay towers, before the north road closes. The towers burn coal in their great lamps all winter, and the lamps carry the messages. No coal, no messages. So we dig coal.
Forty sacks go to each tower on the north line. Seventy go to Northpoint, the last tower. The winter there is longest, and no cart gets through after the first snow.
Every year I write the same note and put it on the Northpoint sacks: "Keep it lit. Hesk, Deep Works." And every year, when the cart gets there, a message comes back down the relay. Short and neat: "Coal here. Thanks. Mira." That is all. I have never met the keeper at Northpoint. I like the keeper at Northpoint. Anyone who can say thanks in four words is someone I could work with.
We have a second apprentice now. It came in the summer. Bram named this one too. Its name is Rivet. I did not argue this time.
Rivet is learning carts from Clank. Clank pushes, and Rivet watches. Then Rivet pushes, and Clank walks beside it. Nobody taught Clank to do that. Old Fenn says that is how he learned too, from my father.
All up safe.
%%
Deep Works log, amethyst
Winter of 207. Day shift.
Crew: Hesk, Bram, Ola, old Fenn, Clank, Rivet.
Level: seven.
Count: copper 3 carts, iron 9, coal 2, amethyst 1, by hand.
Water: dry.
Hurt: nobody.
Notes. Today Ola broke through into a hollow in the deep stone. It was a round room as big as a house, and the whole inside of it was crystal. Purple amethyst grew out of the walls in points of every size. When we held up the torches, the room lit up purple and pink. Tap a crystal and it rings, a small clear note, like a glass.
Nobody said anything for a while. Then Bram said, "Oh." That was the right thing to say.
I let the crew stop work. A crew that finds a thing like that and does not stop to look is not a crew I want. We sat on the floor of the hollow and ate our lunch in the purple light. Old Fenn said he has seen four of these in forty years, and this is the best one.
Clank walked to the wall and touched one crystal with one finger. Very gently. Clank has never been gentle with anything in its life. I do not know what it was thinking. I do not know if it thinks. But it was gentle.
We took one cart of the loose pieces, by hand, for the glassmakers and the tutors at Vell. The rest we left on the walls. The mine master agreed. Some things should stay where they grew.
All up safe.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, Pip comes home
Spring of 207. Wind from the west, strong. Rain at noon.
Big day! I bought an apprentice at the spring fair at Three Wells, from a trader in a red hat, and it rode home on the cart. Copper and iron, about as tall as the gate, very shiny. A paper was tied to its arm: "Mind tested on the field drill. Passed. Never send an untested mind to the fields." So that is all right.
I have named it Pip. It is small, and it will grow things, like a pip in an apple. Mira will say that is not a name. Mira can say what she likes, up there in the snow.
First I showed Pip the farm. The top field, for wheat. The long field, for beetroot. The bottom field, for potatoes and carrots. The barn. The pigs. The hens. The three hives. And the windmill up on the ridge. It is not mine, but you can see it from everywhere, so it feels a bit mine.
Pip looked at everything. Then it walked straight into the pig pen and stood there. Big Beet, my best pig, was very surprised. So was Pip, I think.
Old Brin from the next farm came to the fence to look. Brin said: "A field needs hands, Tam. Not copper." I said Pip has hands. They are copper hands. Brin went home.
The paper says Pip passed the field drill. I do not think the field drill had a pig pen in it. We will see.
Lost my hat today. I will find it tomorrow. I always find it tomorrow.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, sowing wheat
Spring of 207. Wind from the west. Dry.
Sowing the top field. I showed Pip how. Hoe the ground. Make a row. Seeds in the row, a hand apart. Cover them. Water them. Next row.
Pip did the first row with me, very well. Then I went to get water. When I came back, Pip had sown the path. All of the path from the gate to the barn, seeds a hand apart, very neat. I said no. Not the path. The field. Pip looked at the path, and the field, and the path. Then it sowed the edge of the pig pen.
So we did it again. Field, not path. Field, not path. The manual from Vell says to do it the same way every time and not get cross, and the mind will learn. The manual does not say that Big Beet will eat every seed in the pig pen.
By evening Pip had sown four rows in the field and none in the path. One in the pig pen. That is better.
Then I told Pip the three things a farmer has to know. Bare ground: plant. Dry ground: water. Ripe wheat: cut. That is all farming is. It took me twenty years to learn it. Pip has until summer.
Found my hat. It was in the hen house. I do not know why.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, beetroot
Early summer of 207. Wind from the south, warm.
The beetroot in the long field is up. Little red stems and green leaves, in rows. The weeds are up too, between the rows. Weeds are green. Beetroot is green with a red stem. Pip did not know that yet.
This morning I told Pip to weed the long field, and I went to see the bees. When I came back, Pip had weeded the long field. It had pulled up every weed. It had also pulled up every beetroot. There was a neat pile of everything at the end of the field, and a very neat brown field.
I sat down in the brown field and laughed until my sides hurt. What else can you do?
Then we started again. I sat Pip down by the pile and showed it. This is beetroot: red stem. This is a weed: no red. Beetroot. Weed. Beetroot. Weed. Again and again, all afternoon. When it was wrong, I said no and showed it again. When it was right, I said yes.
We sowed the long field again, late. Brin watched from his fence. He did not say anything. He did not have to.
One week later. Pip weeded half the long field. Only three beetroot pulled up. I put them back in. Two lived.
Two weeks later. Pip weeded the whole long field. One beetroot pulled up. It was a small one, and it did look a lot like a weed. I would have pulled it too.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, honey day
Summer of 207. No wind at all, which is strange on the ridge. Hot.
Honey day. My three hives stand at the edge of the bottom field, by the flowers. The bees go to the poppies and the dandelions and the cornflowers. In summer they come home heavy and slow.
To take the honey, you light a small campfire under the hive. The smoke makes the bees calm and sleepy. Then you open the hive and fill the bottles. If you forget the fire, the bees remember you for a week.
I did not forget the fire. I did forget my hat. Two stings on the head.
Pip stood beside me and held the bottles. The bees walked all over Pip and did not sting it once. I think they like it. It is warm in the sun and shiny, and it does not wave its arms about like me. Pip stood very still, with bees on its head and bottles in its hands. It looked like a hive with legs.
Seven bottles of honey. Three for the house. Three for the fair. One for Mira, on the next cart north, because she cannot keep bees in the snow, and because she is my sister.
Pip gets better in the fields every week. It sows the right field. It pulls the right weeds, nearly always. It waters what is dry. It has not cut anything yet. That is for harvest. Bare ground: plant. Dry ground: water. Ripe wheat: cut.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, rain at last
Summer of 207. Wind from the east. Dry, dry, dry.
No rain for twenty days. The top field is going yellow too early. The ground has cracks in it. The well in the yard is low, and the pond at the foot of the ridge is half mud.
So we carry water. Every morning and every evening, buckets from the pond to the fields. I carry two. Pip carries two. Pip does not get tired, so Pip goes again, and again. I stopped counting. Pip did not stop.
I taught Pip the dry ground drill. Dry ground is pale and cracked. Wet ground is dark. Dry: water. Wet: leave it. It learned that in one afternoon. It learns faster now. The manual says that happens. The more a mind knows, the faster it learns the next thing. I hope that is true for farmers.
Today the rain came. Big grey clouds over the ridge at noon, and then the whole sky opened. I ran out into the yard with no hat and stood in it. Then I danced in it. Brin saw me from his fence. I do not care.
Pip came out and stood in the rain too. Then it picked up two buckets and went to water the top field. In the rain. I had to go and stop it.
Wet ground: leave it. Even when it is raining. Especially when it is raining.
We need a new drill for that.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, the mill
Autumn of 207. Wind from the west, good and steady. Mill weather.
The harvest is in! Pip cut the top field nearly all by itself. It knows ripe wheat now: tall and gold, with the heads bent over. It cuts the ripe and leaves the green. Then it plants seeds in the bare ground right behind. Cut, plant. Cut, plant. All down the row. It made me tired to watch.
Then today, a new thing. I had twenty sacks of wheat in the barn for the mill. My back hurt. So I said to Pip, the way you would say it to a friend: "Could you take these up to the mill for me?"
Pip did not know that order. It knows words, not sentences. But it stood still a moment. Then it picked up two sacks and walked up the ridge to the windmill. Then it came back for two more. It took all twenty. Sefa the miller sent it home with a sack of flour on its head, like a hat.
I wrote it in the back of the manual, the way the tutors write orders:
> could you take these up to the mill for me
= haul
Pip understood what I meant! I went straight over and told Brin. Brin said: "Does it know beetroot from weeds yet?" Yes, Brin. It does.
The windmill turned all day. It squeaks on every turn. Sefa says it has squeaked since she was a girl, and if it ever stops squeaking, then she will worry.
Found my hat on Pip's head. I do not know who put it there.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, winter on the ridge
Winter of 207. Wind from the north, cold. Snow on the ridge.
Not much to do on a farm in winter. Mend the tools. Mend the fence. Mend the barn door, which Big Beet broke. Feed the pigs. Feed the hens. Feed Tam.
Pip helps with all of it. Pip is very good at fences now. Post, rail, post, rail. Every post the same distance apart. Better than mine. Brin came to look at my fence and said nothing for a long time. Then he asked what an apprentice costs. I told him the price in emeralds, and the price in patience. He went home to think about both.
Early in the winter I sent a message to Mira on the relay. I had a lot to tell her. I always do, because she has nobody up there but foxes and her apprentice. The keeper at our relay house said it was too long. I said it was nearly midwinter. He sent it anyway. Seven emeralds. Worth every one.
Mira sent one back. Short, as always. She is warm, she is eating stew, a fox took her mitten, and Lantern is on rung twenty. I do not know what rung twenty means, but it sounds like good news.
A fox took her mitten! I laughed all evening. Then I wrote on the wall by the door, with a bit of charcoal: MITTENS FOR MIRA. So I do not forget at the fair.
One night a zombie came up the ridge and knocked on the barn door. Big Beet knocked back from inside. The zombie went away. Now I keep the torches lit by the barn.
On midwinter night we lit the fire on the ridge. Everyone came up with lanterns. We burned the old straw, ate pumpkin pie in the snow, and sang the long song. I sang very loud. People asked me to sing less loud. I sang the same.
Pip stood at the edge of the firelight and watched. It did not sing. Somebody has to listen.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, spring again
Spring of 208. Wind from the west. Showers.
Sowing again, and this year it is easy. Pip remembers everything. It hoes the top field. It sows the wheat a hand apart, in rows as straight as a rope. It does not sow the path. It does not sow the pig pen. Big Beet is very sad about that.
I walked behind Pip with nothing to do. So I fixed the hen house roof, and painted the gate, and found my other boot. It was in the barn under the hay, where I left it last autumn.
Brin has an apprentice now! It came on the cart from Three Wells last week. Biscuit, his sheep, keeps getting out, so Brin wants it to mend his fences. He named it Fence. It does not know anything yet. Today it sowed Brin's path.
I did not laugh. I went over and showed Brin how we drilled Pip. The same thing again and again, and no shouting. Field, not path. Brin listened. Then he said: "Your hen house roof is crooked, Tam." So Brin is feeling better.
There are six apprentices on the ridge now. A year ago there was only Pip. The children walk beside them to school. Sefa says she will get one for the flour sacks. In the evening you can see them going home along the ridge, copper shining in the low sun, one behind the other, like hens going in to roost.
Pip walks at the front. Of course.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, the big wind
Summer of 208. Wind from the north. Then a lot more wind from the north.
Two days ago a warning came down the relay from Northpoint: "Big wind coming south. Tie everything down." That is Mira's tower. My sister sent it! I told everyone at the well. Nobody cared that it was my sister. But they did tie things down.
Everyone on the ridge worked all day. We roped down the hay. We put the hens in the barn. We took the sails off the windmill, all but one, which was stuck. Sefa climbed up to free it. I held the ladder, and Pip held me.
The wind came in the night. It roared over the ridge like a river. The house shook. Something big went past the window. In the morning I saw what it was: my hen house roof, the one I fixed in spring. It was in Brin's field, with Biscuit the sheep standing on it. Brin carried it back. He only said one word: "Crooked."
The windmill lost its stuck sail. It broke in half, and the pieces went down the ridge. But the mill still stands, and the other sails were safe in the barn. Without the warning we would have lost them all, a month before harvest.
Pip spent the morning picking the farm up out of the fields. Boards, buckets, a hat (mine), a cat (not mine, very cross). It put everything in a neat pile by the barn. It put the cat on top. The cat did not stay.
I sent a message up the line to Mira: "Your wind came. Mill safe. Thank you." Seven words, one emerald. Short! She will be so proud of me.
%%
Kettle Ridge diary, the fair
Autumn of 208. Wind from the west, light. A perfect day for the fair.
The fair at Three Wells! Pip pulled the cart all the way, with the beetroot, the honey, the wheat, and me on top.
Three Wells was full. Stalls all round the three wells. Flags on the notice board. School children running everywhere. Dace the mayor had put new rules on the board: No pigs in the tents. No apprentices in the pie tent. No singing before noon. I think the last one was for me.
Then the beetroot contest. I put in my best three. Brin put in his best three. Brin won, as he does every year. I came second, as I do every year. Then Brin said my beetroot was very good, and that Pip's rows are the straightest on the ridge. Then he went red and walked off. It is the nicest thing Brin has said to me in ten years.
Pell the merchant bought all my wheat for the Long Road and paid in emeralds. Barley, Pell's horse, ate my fourth-best beetroot. Pell paid for that too. Pell says there is more wheat everywhere this year, because of the apprentices. I do not know if that is good or bad for me. Today it was good.
A child called Bel asked me if Pip was happy. I said I did not know. So Bel asked Pip. Pip did not answer, because Pip does not talk. Bel looked at Pip for a long time and said: "I think it is. It looks like it is." I hope Bel is right.
I bought mittens, the warmest at the fair. Red wool. One pair, for Mira, for the last cart north. I wrote a note to go with them: "One for each hand. Do not give any to foxes." I bought a new hat for me. I have lost it already.
%%
Archive day-book, a good shelf
Spring of 207.
Filed: 5. Copied: 4. Back on the shelves: 52. Lost: none.
A good day. I want to write down why.
This morning I finished putting the Kettle Ridge shelf in order. It is in the fourth hall. Farm books, letters, harvest counts, all of them, oldest on the left and newest on the right. Every record with its card. Every card with its number. Every number in the big book by the door.
When a shelf is in order, it is quiet. You can put your hand on the right book in the dark. I stood and looked at it for a while. Ulla, the head clerk, came by and asked what I was doing. I said: looking at the shelf. Ulla said, "Ah." Ulla understands.
Over the door of the archive, the first keepers cut words in the stone: We will keep everything we write. Everything. Not only the laws and the maps. The letters, the shopping lists, the bad songs, the farm books with honey on the pages. Each one was somebody's day. Our work is to keep them, so that nobody's day is lost.
Some days that is a big thought. Today it was a small, good one. One shelf in order. Five more days kept.
Supper was bread and beetroot soup at the inn on the hill. The soup was good. The bread was on the wrong side of the plate. I said nothing.
%%
Archive day-book, the copying room
Spring of 207.
Filed: 3. Copied: 7. Back on the shelves: 30. Lost: none.
I spent the day in the copying room. Every record that comes to the archive is copied once, by hand. The copy goes on the shelf, for reading. The first one goes down to the deep halls, where nobody reads it, so it will last.
The copying room is the brightest room in the hill. It has the big window over the town, eight long tables, and ink in every corner. Our ink comes from Saltreach, from the squid the fishers catch. It smells of the sea. New clerks hate the smell. Old clerks do not notice it.
We have a new clerk, young Cob, from Ambrook. Cob has good eyes and terrible hands. Today Cob copied a letter from a baker at Three Wells. The baker had spelled bread "bred". Cob fixed it.
So I had to explain the first rule of copying. Copy what is there. Do not fix it. If the writer spelled it wrong, we spell it wrong. If the writer was cross, we are cross. The record is not ours. We only keep it.
Cob copied the letter again, with "bred". Cob's face was very red. I said: well done. It is hard to copy a mistake on purpose. It took me a year to learn it.
Tomorrow: the Saltreach boat logs. Ninety records, all damp at the edges. I will bring a cloth and my patience.
%%
Archive day-book, the leaking roof
Spring of 207. Rain for six days.
Filed: 1. Copied: none. Back on the shelves: none. Lost: none, I hope.
The roof is leaking. Well, the archive has no roof. It has a hill. But the hill is leaking, which is worse.
This morning there was a drip in the sixth hall, over the shelf of old songs. Then a second drip. By noon a little stream ran down the wall and across the floor. Water and paper are not friends.
We moved every record off the wet shelves. Ulla, me, Cob and four clerks stood in a line and passed the boxes along, like a fire crew. Three hundred and twelve records. Some were damp at the corners. None were lost. I counted twice.
We hung the damp pages on lines across the copying room to dry, like washing. The whole room was full of old songs, hanging up. Cob walked under them, reading out loud. Some of the songs are very rude. The first keepers really did keep everything.
In the afternoon the builders went up the hill in the rain and found the trouble. A light well had cracked. The light wells are glass shafts that bring the daylight down into the halls. They put in new glass and packed clay round it. By evening the drip had stopped.
After supper I sat in the sixth hall for an hour, listening. No drip. A dry hall is a lovely sound.
Note for tomorrow: buy buckets. We had four. We needed forty.
%%
Archive day-book, school visit
Summer of 207.
Filed: 2. Copied: 2. Back on the shelves: 40. Lost: one small boy, for a short while. Found.
The school at Three Wells came to visit. Twenty children and their teacher, Sorrel, came all the way up the Long Road in two carts. They had never been inside a hill. In the front hall they were very loud. Then they went into the stacks, and the dark and the quiet and the long rows of shelves made them whisper. The stacks do that to everyone.
I showed them the copying room, and the stairs to the deep halls, and the oldest record we have. It is one page: the first keepers' promise, their names, and a note about the weather. It rained. More than two hundred years ago, it rained in Vell.
One child, called Bel, asked the most questions. Do you keep everything? Yes. Even shopping lists? Yes. Even letters from children? Yes. Even my letters? Bel has written to the archive four times. I went and got them. They are filed under Letters, Three Wells, by year. Bel held them for a long time and said nothing. It was the only quiet moment Bel had all day.
A small boy went missing in the fourth hall. We found him asleep under the Kettle Ridge shelf, on a pile of sacks. I do not blame him. It is a very good shelf.
Before they left, Bel asked if the archive would keep today too. I said yes. I would write it in my day-book, and my day-book will be filed with the rest. So here it is, Bel. You are kept.
%%
Archive day-book, a lost record found
Autumn of 207.
Filed: 4. Copied: 3. Back on the shelves: 33. Lost: none. Found: one!
In spring an old woman came up from Ambrook. Her name is Edda. She asked for her grandfather's orchard book. He planted the first apple trees by the mill pond, and he wrote down every tree. Where it stood. What kind it was. The year it first gave apples. Her family wants to plant the old trees again.
The big book by the door said the orchard book was on the Ambrook shelf, in the third hall. It was not. Its card was there. Its place was there. The book was not.
A record that is not in its place is lost, even inside the archive. All summer, on quiet days, I looked. The Ambrook shelf. The farming shelf. The apple shelf. The copying room. Ulla said to let it go. I did not let it go.
Today I found it. It was on the craft shelf, between a book on glass beads and a book on dyes, filed under Amber. Long ago, somebody read the card wrong. One smudge of ink, and a book was gone for sixty years.
I sent a copy to Edda with the next cart, and a note: Found. Sorry it took so long. Every tree is in it. Ten days later a message came back on the relay: "Thank you. We planted the first one today."
I put the book back in its place, Ambrook shelf, third hall. I put my hand on it for a moment. Found.
%%
Archive day-book, the relay logs
Winter of 207.
Filed: 9. Copied: 6. Back on the shelves: 12. Lost: none.
Relay log season. Every winter the relay towers send us their logs for the year. Every message passed, every lamp lit, every storm. It is a lot of paper. The towers are busy now.
When I was a new clerk, there were nineteen towers. Now there are thirty-four. Three new ones went up on the coast road this year alone. Their first logs came in today, short and very proud. First message: "Is this working?" Answer from the next tower: "Yes."
Many of the messages now are not for people at all. They are for apprentices. Haul this. Store that. Fetch the other. The big minds in the relay houses answer the small minds in the fields. I do not understand it all. Nessa says I do not need to. I only need to file it.
Every log has its own hand. Saltreach writes big and wet. Copperhold writes in coal dust. The towers on the Long Road write about travelers and gossip.
Northpoint, the last tower in the north, always sends its log last. A message from Northpoint reaches us before supper. But a log is paper, and the road is closed all winter, so it comes in spring. I asked for it again on the relay this week. The answer came back: "Will send in spring." It is the neatest log of all. Small straight letters. No mistakes. No gossip. Lamps lit, glass clean, messages passed, every night for eleven years. I do not know the keeper. I feel I do.
The logs fill the relay shelf. I have asked Ulla for a second relay shelf. Ulla said yes.
%%
Archive day-book, Ink the cat
Winter of 207. Snow on the hill.
Filed: 3. Copied: 4. Back on the shelves: 25. Lost: none. Silverfish caught: 4.
Silverfish are the enemy of every archive. They are small, grey and quick, and they eat paper. They live in the stone and come out at night. One silverfish can eat a page of a farm book in a winter. I have seen it.
Our best clerk against silverfish is Ink, the archive cat. Ink is black, with one white foot. Ink belongs to nobody and sleeps wherever is warmest. Today Ink caught four silverfish in the second hall and laid them in a row on my desk. I said thank you. It is important to say thank you to a cat.
Outside, the snow is deep and the wind blows. Inside the hill it is always the same: cool, still and dry. In winter the clerks eat their lunch in the stacks, which is against the rules. Crumbs bring silverfish. I have said this many times. Today I found a crust of bread on the poetry shelf. I filed it in the bin.
In the evening I walked the halls with a lantern, looking for drips and silverfish. No drips. No silverfish. Ink walked with me, all through the six halls and back. At the end Ink jumped up on the Kettle Ridge shelf and went to sleep on top of it.
It is the warmest shelf, because the kitchen is just behind that wall. It is also the best-kept shelf. I think Ink knows.
%%
Archive day-book, founding day
Spring of 208. Founding day.
Filed: none. Copied: none. Back on the shelves: none. It is a holiday.
Today is the first day of the 208th year of the archive. Every spring on founding day, the clerks close the doors at noon and read the first record out loud in the front hall. Anyone from the town may come. This year the hall was full. People stood on the stairs.
The first record is one page, in a careful hand. The ink has gone brown. Ulla read it this year, because Ulla is the oldest. It says, more or less: We are a few people in a hill. We have decided to keep everything we write. Not only the important things, because we do not know yet what will be important. Everything. So that nobody who comes after us has to start from nothing.
Then come the names of the eleven first keepers. Then a note about the weather. It was raining.
Every year, when Ulla reads the line about the rain, everyone laughs. And every year I think: they wanted to keep even that. Even the rain. That is the whole archive, in one line.
After the reading there was honey cake and cider in the copying room. The children played hide and seek in the stacks, which is against the rules, and nobody stopped them. Ink sat on the big book by the door and would not move.
The 208th year. More than forty thousand records. Thirty-four towers. Six halls and the deep halls, and more every year. We will keep everything we write.
%%
Archive day-book, an apprentice
Spring of 208.
Filed: 4. Copied: 3. Back on the shelves: 61. Lost: none.
The archive has an apprentice. It came from the tutors' house at Vell, just down the hill, so it did not have far to walk. Nessa brought it and stood in the front hall with a book of marks. "Tested on stores," Nessa said. "It will learn the shelves." Then Nessa said the thing Nessa always says: "Never send an untested mind to the fields." I said these were shelves, not fields. Nessa said: "Shelves too."
The clerks named it Box, because it carries boxes. I tried to call it by its number, which is fourteen. Nobody else does. So it is Box.
Box cannot read a word. But it can learn where things go. I showed it the numbers on the shelves. Third hall, Ambrook shelf. Fourth hall, Kettle Ridge shelf. Now Box carries a record to its shelf, puts it in its place, and comes back for the next one.
The first week it was wrong a lot. It put Saltreach on the Lowmarsh shelf. It put the songs with the laws. Once it put a box of records on top of Ink, who was asleep. Each time, I took the record back and we did it again, the same way.
By the fourth week it was right nearly every time. Today I checked the whole pile after it. Sixty-one records. Sixty-one in the right place.
Box does not know what is in the records. It only knows where they go. That is half of my work. I find I do not mind sharing it.
%%
Archive day-book, a farm diary
Winter of 208.
Filed: 2. Copied: 2. Back on the shelves: 40. Lost: none.
A parcel came today from Kettle Ridge. Inside was a farm diary, two summers of it, and a note: "For the archive. They say you keep everything. Tam, Kettle Ridge."
It is the untidiest record I have ever filed. There is honey on half the pages and mud on the rest. One page has a boot print. The writing goes uphill. Some days are one line: "Lost my hat." Some days go on for pages about a pig called Big Beet.
I read more of it than I should have. Clerks are meant to file, not to read. But it is about an apprentice called Pip learning the fields, wrong at first and a little better each week. I wanted to know if Pip learned. Pip learned.
There is a lot in it about a sister who keeps a relay tower in the north. It must be the Northpoint keeper, with the neat log. I would never have guessed they were family. Two hands could not be more different.
Cob copied it. It took Cob a week. Cob left the honey out of the copy, but kept every mistake. Cob is learning.
I filed it in the fourth hall, at the right-hand end of the Kettle Ridge shelf, with the newest records. Box carried it there. Ink went and sat on it.
A good shelf. A good day. Kept.
