Distant tales of the Dichotomy

They agreed, of course. There was never really any doubt.

It took a little while to say it, because Thara said it twice and Orrin said it in three different tones, as if trying each on for size, and Nerissa said it with her chin up like a woman signing a death warrant for somebody she was fond of. Brannoch said “Mm,” and set his great square thumb on the page beside his X, so that there was, for the first time that day, a clear brown thumbprint on the charter of a guild. Veyra said it last, very quietly, with her violet eyes on the stamp.

And Marigold Tufton, with tears standing in her big black-rimmed eyes and her ears flat with emotion, brought the great stamp down.

It made a sound like a door closing in a very old and very deep house. The green seal of the Rotunda bloomed on the cream paper, round and perfect and glistening, and for a moment the whole dome seemed to hold its breath. Somewhere above, a canister rattled in its tube. A clerk on a ladder began, hesitantly, to clap, and was joined by another, and then by a gnome in the middle ring who had no idea what he was clapping for, and the noise rolled round the great circular room until even the troll with the receipt had put down his papers and was nodding, in slow, grave approval.

“It is done,” said Marigold, in a wobbling voice. “It is stamped. It is law. You are a chartered guild of the Rotunda of Dun Vurrim, with all the rights and privileges and obligations that go with it.” She blew her nose, with a great honk, into a handkerchief embroidered with small stamps. “You may enter the Pits. You may take contracts. You may sell your loot at the proper counters, at the proper rate, with the proper forms, in triplicate.”

“In triplicate,” said Thara, in awe.

“There is a very good reason for the triplicate.” Marigold folded the charter, and sealed it with a ribbon, and held it out across the desk with both paws, as one might hold out a newborn kitten. “It is yours. Guard it well. And now there is only one more small thing.”

It was the word small that did it. Fel felt the whole party go still, all at once, with the particular, weary, wary stillness of people who have been told before.

“How small?” said Fel.

“Very small,” said Marigold, brightly. “Almost nothing at all. You need a guild hall.”

For a moment nobody breathed.

Then, from seven separate throats, there rose a sound, which was neither a groan nor a sigh but something wonderfully in between, a long, low, exquisitely tired exhalation, like seven bellows being let down at once. Thara slid slowly down the front of the desk until she was sitting on the floor with her legs out in front of her. Orrin put a long hand over his eyes. Veyra said something in the old language, short and soft, that Fel had once heard her use on a very stubborn knot. The old man took off his battered hat, and looked into it, and put it back on again with the face of a person who has been told that a long-awaited bottle is empty.

“I knew there’d be a catch,” said Torren Ballast, to the ceiling.

“There is always a catch,” said Nerissa. “It is the single great law of civilization.”

“I thought we were done.” Thara’s voice came from the floor. “I thought, today, we were finished. I have been to a peacock. I have been slapped by a tortoise, a bit, in the abstract. I have seen a beetle eat twelve birds. I have signed my name, Marigold, twice.” She lifted a hand and let it fall. “I am a thief. I am not meant to do paperwork and real estate in the same week.”

“What kind of hall?” said Fel.

“Oh, don’t worry.” The little clerk had come round the desk, in a bustle of russet fur and rubber stamps, and was patting Thara’s shoulder with a small kind paw. “Please, don’t worry at all. It is much less terrible than it sounds. In fact, it is, I think, the most fun part. Everybody gets a little giddy, at this stage. They go and look at a building, and they say, oh, a staircase, and oh, what a lovely cellar, and then they are dreadfully happy for about a month.” Her ears tilted forward. “And you are in the most wonderful position, because there are a great many vacant halls.”

“Vacant?” said Veyra. She had lifted her head. “In a city this size? At the foot of the Pits?”