True to her word, Rana was waiting for Arn after he’d finished breakfast. She wore the same outfit as yesterday and he wasn’t sure whether he’d missed it earlier; but she now wore a number of leather charms as well. Arn wasn't an expert, but he could recognize the general type of charm at least, the ones he saw on Rana didn't look familiar at all. They were fastened to her belt, and she touched them absentmindedly. He realized with surprise that each had a metallic core - the first time he saw a metal charm was when his father gave him the leaf just days earlier. They were rather rare and quite valuable, and he wondered how someone could have so many, perhaps more importantly, why would she have so many? Rana stood away from the movement and scurrying, her eyes fixed at the wall, but it seemed to Arn that she was watching something or thinking about it. So asrobed was she that he approached her completely unnoticed.
“Rana?” he said.
She turned to him, and her blank gaze immediately filled with recognition and warmth “good morning my young student!” she hugged him “ready for a day full of shadowing?”
Caught off guard, Arn gingerly hugged her back, nodded, and followed her outside. The sky was cloudy, letting through only a part of the sun’s warm rays - whatever the rays touched filled with colours and shone against the greyish tones around it. There wasn’t much of a breeze to speak of, just fresh morning air. Arn breathed it in, letting the crispness wake him up fully. They passed through the residential part of town and followed the old roads between the clan houses.
Every now and again the road opened into a small square with a stone statue at the center - each looked older than the other. Arn noticed cracks and chips on all of them - something the council in Nysaros would never tolerate. He cringed at a particularly neglected statue of Elar'Saga - the giant leopard was missing a tooth and a paw, and vines spread through the cracks in its foundation.
Rana spoke most of the way, she talked about the archives and its multitude of books and various indices, and the ancient scrolls in the restricted section. She didn’t seem to need very many responses to go on - which suited Arn just fine.
“Kalarhan had seen better days.” she said, noticing Arn’s glances at the ruined statues.
Arn nodded in agreement. "I’d think that the Small Coun -” he started.
“Oh, our council!” Rana cut him off. “Our - very - small council, has a great deal of things to take care of lately”.
“Like what?” he asked.
Rana chuckled “trust me, Arn” she paused and looked at him “trust me - you don’t want to know.”
He did in fact want to know, but there would be time for that later. They walked the rest of the way to the small council hall with occasional history lessons from Rana. A number of structures in the city survived from before the revolution - relics from the imperial past of Nedreal. Kalarhan wasn’t a large city - as Rana explained, though it was one of the oldest in the country. Many historians were drawn to that, including herself many years ago - “against all wishes from my family” she said.
By mid-morning they’d arrived at the council hall, Rana directed him past the main entryway and around to the side. Two town guards stood at each side of a door - they eyed Arn with suspicion but said nothing while Rana led him through and down a flight of stairs. He marvelled at their shiny bronze armor and the swords at their belts.
“Yes, we have armed guards in the city.” Rana said matter of factly.
“I’ve never seen a sword that wasn't displayed as an heirloom,” he said.
“It’s fine to stare, they are used to it from the newcomers. They’d be concerned if you didn’t - all visitors do.”
“Well, there go my hopes of blending in.”
“Blending in!” she launched, “you never had much hope of blending in. Border towns aren't like the rest of the country - can’t fake belonging here, no matter how long you stay, you’re always a visitor.”
Arn nodded and followed Rana as they descended a flight of stairs into a small foyer.
“There is a reason for that - I bet your relatives weren’t thrilled to know where your first summons took you.”
“You can say that,” Arn replied.
“Of course, they weren’t. You know what the Inspectorate thinks of foreigners. Towns like Kalarhan are too close to the outside world, to all that isn't under the Inspectorate's thumb," Rana shook her head “the Inspectorate and the Grand Council at the Capital distrust foreigners more than they fear the spirits.”
Arn looked up at the low ceiling arching above their heads. A few light emitters hung down just above them - they were metallic frames with blue crystals at the center.
"Light those, will you?" Rana asked him.
Arn hesitated and approached one of the emitters gingerly. Rana watched him for a moment then stepped in, "you've never done this, have you?" she said. Arn shook his head. "It's fine, just watch me do it." She stretched out her hand towards the emitter and a second later the blue crystal glowed with a soft light. “Can’t have open flames in a place like this, nor anything to dry out the air,” Rana said as she noticed him staring, “The Inspectorate values historic records more than the people recorded in them, if you know what I mean”. She opened the door and walked through, motioning Arn to follow.
The doors lead to a wall of pelts and furs that shielded the inner archives from temperature shifts. Arn emerged into a poorly lit hall, it was longer than it was wide. Several rows of bookshelves stretched into the distance, each with a thick stone column at the head, and at twenty-foot intervals thereafter. The two emitters next to them were already lit, but the rest were dim.
“If I didn't know better,” Rana trailed, arching an eyebrow “you've seen the inside of an archives vault before, haven't you?”.
Arn froze - he hadn't seen anything of the sort, but a student of bordertown history on their scholar’s journey would have undoubtedly seen more than a few. “Of course,” he said in as matter of fact a tone as he could muster, “the ones I've seen were just different.”
"Oh, were they now? All that I've seen were some versions of the same. You'll have to tell me about it later.” she said. On they went through the narrow rows of tomes, Rana lit the emitters as she passed and Arn saw a few sections with several emitters and a table with two stools - he assumed it was for reading. Soon they passed a fenced off area with rows upon rows of scrolls rather than books.
“We won't be going there,” Rana said, emphasising the last word.
“Yes, I wasn't expecting,” Arn replied and took one last look at the forbidden section as they went on. These scrolls had to be ancient - all official functions were now recorded in tomes. The only other place he’d seen scrolls was during traditional charm lighting ceremonies. He didn’t have to fake his interest in shadowing her - Rana was filled with knowledge of Kalarhan and told him many new tales of the town's history and of ancient wars and events he'd never heard of. They soon stopped by a large table with a collection of tomes piled up in disorganized stacks. Rana thrust her arm towards the pile “the first - and last - part of today’s shadowing”.
“These books?”
"These tomes were recently updated and repaired, now we need to put them back in their proper place.” she said.
“Of course,” Arn replied “we don’t usually repair so many books at a time”.
“Tomes” she corrected him.
“Tomes” he repeated, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to see how you do this in Kalarhan.”
Rana looked at Arn for a moment and he was sure she'd suspected something amiss. She then shrugged and picked up a tome. "Well, if the archives vault looked unusual to you, perhaps watching me before jumping in would serve you well." She checked the spine and cover, then carefully leafed through the pages. "Looks to be in good shape, so we can return it to the shelf. First, we'll need to separate them by starting date," she looked at Arn, "this is quite an important step, it must follow the starting date of the tome, not the final entry," she said, then put the tome on an empty nearby table.
She handed him one of the tomes, but then pulled her arm back before he touched it "you know what you're looking for when inspecting, don't you?" she asked. Arn nodded, though his face must have betrayed his thoughts. "Perhaps a refresher will serve the both of us, just in any case." she said. Rana proceeded to explain the intricacies of the various repairs and patches that can be applied to tomes and how to evaluate them. Arn couldn't remember it all, but he was reasonably certain that he could follow the main strokes of it. He was greatly relieved that for this at least he didn't have to use the Tjoreal for any complex assessments of the book. How would he fake the skills, if they come up, he didn't know - but that is a frozen river to be crossed at a later time.
They spent the day sorting, verifying, and returning tomes to their rightful place. Arn noted that they all went to the same section of shelves - which Rana explained was part of the upkeep process - “each tome is inspected every ten years and the ones in need of repairs are taken to the workshop”. Evening came before they finished even half of their work - “we’ll finish this tomorrow” Rana said, and they headed off to the Great Hall for the dinner ceremony.
