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Merletta blinked at the unfamiliar word, but didn’t bother to ask for an explanation. She had been in classes for less than a week, but she had already learned to be sparing with her questions. It wasn’t that she was unwilling to face the inevitable battle—she just wanted to choose the right ones, to make it worth it. At least Wivell seemed to actually want her to learn something, unlike Ibsen, the history instructor.
“Second and third years,” Instructor Wivell turned to Ileana, Oliver, and Sage, “records maintenance.”
The three young merpeople nodded, flicking their tails with purpose as they crossed the room. Clearly they knew where they were supposed to go.
“First years.” Instructor Wivell turned to Merletta and Jacobi. “With me.”
Jacobi shot a disgruntled look at Merletta, but she ignored him. She had well and truly learned to disregard the other trainees’ regular complaints at having to cover the same water they’d already studied, given the arrival of a new trainee. It was hard for her to sympathize—having been denied the opportunity to learn anything of substance all her life, she couldn’t imagine being so resentful just because she had to hear this crucial information more than once.
Wivell was swimming across the room, his posture stiff and upright. As Merletta hurried to follow him, something brushed across her arm.
“Jellyfish!” Jacobi hissed in warning, and Merletta spun in alarm, running a hand across her arm in a panicked gesture.
But all she saw was Jacobi’s fins as he pulled them back under him. His snicker brought heat rushing to her cheeks. She narrowed her eyes, hoping he couldn’t tell how much his prank had made her heart race. The slimy sea snake.
If Wivell had noticed the interaction, he gave no sign of it. “The scribes are the lifeblood of the Center,” he was saying, with his usual unconcern.
Merletta shook off her irritation and swam after him, looking around the large space with interest. The scribes were set up in rows, seated at long stone benches. These surfaces didn’t have indents like the table in the dining hall. Instead they were totally smooth. And spread across the surface, in front of the scribes, were bundles of large waxy leaves. The scribes were scratching on the surface of the leaves with sharpened prongs of coral, much like the one Merletta had been given to use for her test.
“The development of our language into a written form is one of the greatest achievements of merkind,” the instructor continued. “The ability to preserve information for others to read later is invaluable. But it is of course a resource that requires constant maintenance, as no written records can survive more than a few years.”
“So long?” Merletta asked, startled. She thought of how quickly all of her own scratchings had always disintegrated.
“With the right treatment,” Instructor Wivell said, nodding. “We prepare the writing leaves with a special compound, and sometimes seal them after they’ve been written on. That process is one of the things your fellow trainees are studying as they learn about records maintenance.”
Merletta was silent for a moment, impressed. She looked around again, taking in all the leaves stretched tightly across the stone surface.
“The scribes are all using coral,” she pointed out. “Why don’t they use sharpened rocks?”
“They do sometimes,” said Instructor Wivell, his tone neither encouraging nor impatient. “But in most cases, it damages the writing leaf too much, and the records don’t last as long.”
Merletta nodded absently, a slight frown on her face as she pictured the inscription over the doorway to the Center’s receiving hall.
“Records would last much longer if carved into stone, wouldn’t they?” she asked. “Why don’t they do that?”
Jacobi sighed audibly, but Merletta ignored him. It was surely a reasonable question.
“As you would know,” Wivell answered calmly, “we carve into stone for signposts and other such purposes. And we do engrave some records in that way. But it’s not practical for the majority of records. For the records to actually last a significantly longer period, it must be chiseled deep into a stone of decent size, and that process is very time-consuming. But also, stone is not an efficient medium to store.” He gestured at the leaves. “These take up much less space.”
He folded his hands behind his back again as he continued. “The scribes you see are only one of many teams of merpeople whose sole job it is to copy the contents of perishing records onto fresh ones. The process is constant. There are also others who inscribe stone as necessary.”
Merletta scanned the room again, amazed that this was only a fraction of the scribes. There were dozens of merpeople in the room.
“Are these scribes all former trainees, then? Who passed the first year, and chose not to continue, or who failed to pass second year?”
“No, of course not,” said Wivell. “There aren’t that many applicants to the training program. An individual can apply specifically to be a scribe, and undertake less complex training for that particular purpose. A high level of skill in literacy is necessary, even for a junior scribe, but many of the other qualities required to undertake our program are not as crucial in this role. For example, the superior memory.”
He glanced at Merletta. “The role of a scribe is not a role of such trust and honor as that of the record holders.” He gestured across the room. “These employees are copying out records to do with governance, finance, and other such important but uncomplicated matters. The most important records, such as those relating to our history and our culture, are the province of the record holders. That knowledge is primarily preserved not in a physical form, but in the record holders’ memory.”
Merletta’s forehead creased slightly. There was something strange in that explanation, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She filed the thought away for later, her mind still caught on the issue of the written records.
“It would save so much time and work if the records could be preserved for longer,” she mused. “All these scribes, copying records day in and day out, and I can only assume that the longer our kingdoms are around, the more the volume of records to preserve increases.” She glanced upward, almost unconsciously. “I bet air is less destructive than water. Perhaps we could find a way for the records to be stored above the surface line.”
“That,” cut in Wivell with unusual sharpness, “is a foolish suggestion.”
Merletta pulled her gaze downward, meeting his eyes in surprise. She had been speaking her thoughts aloud, not really expecting the suggestion to be taken seriously, and she was surprised by the strength of his response. He seemed to realize he had overreacted, because he took a moment to collect himself, pulling in a swirl of water through his mouth before continuing.
“Look at these scribes.” He gestured again to the room. “They are valuable and hardworking citizens of our kingdoms. Would you expose them unnecessarily to the risks of the surface? Imagine how much time they would need to spend going back and forth if such a system as you propose was pursued. Any potential—and likely minimal—benefit we gained from our records being dry above water would be far outweighed by the risk of our citizens drying out.”
