“We don’t know what that word means,” he tells me from behind the desk. “We’ve come across it in a few places in these texts. You could go down and find a native speaker to consult.”
The next day, I do. Or, I try.
People of every size, color, aspect, origin are here. So many. I come out from the tower’s walls so infrequently, I forget. It overwhelms me. I ask the wrong person where they come from.
The next day I return, and it is no more bearable. The only thing I can do is wander through the market, saying the word for “help” in as loud a voice as I dare.
A man takes me by the shoulder. “What do you mean by that?” he asks me, gruff.
“I need someone who can read in your tongue,” I say.
He smiles, as if understanding the punchline to a clever joke.
I take him up to the tower. He is wary of the place, and says it is cold and dank and dark. “My land is open, and the night skies unchained by the light of many fires.” I am struck by the beauty of his words, if not the idea they convey.
He looks at our library, accustomed now to the light. “What are these?” he asks.
“Our holy books.”
“Your holy books?” He stares quizzically, then nods in apparent agreement. “Which words do you need help with?”
I show him.
“Ah,” he smiles. His explanation is not what I expect, both different and more complex. He teaches me things I could not have known.
“So which would it be here?”
“Definitely the second.”
“I would have thought the first, with the context…” I show him.
“That could be, if they were an unskilled writer, or a recent one. But note where it falls in the sentence. And this, next word, is a letter from an older alphabet than ours. It is quite intentional.”
“Can you be sure?”
“I can be sure. There is no difference between intention and object, with the correct context. Are there more?”
I thank him, and he takes tea with us.
The next day, I show my brother, who had been curious.
“That is not at all what I wrote when I saw that word,” he said.
“When did you see it?” I press, but he says he does not remember.
It is weeks later when a missive arrives, addressed from the Throne.
“Your labor has come to our attention,” we read, amazed, overcome. “Send the following manuscripts to be evaluated for inclusion:”