The Origamium

393 AC - I wait impatiently for the election results. The paper heralds must be flitting around the Origamium by now. Dragonflies, grasshoppers, doves and crows… The origamophiles must be sorting them and releasing them towards their final destination. And one of those folded pieces of paper is on its way to me, bearing the name of the person who will succeed Avkan. There must be hundreds or even thousands of them, swirling around in a rustling of crumpled paper. I look out the window, fully aware that I won't receive a missive today… In the meantime, I decide to do my mental exercises. It's become a routine recently. I can't afford to let my mind fail again…

Thinking is all I know how to do. The Rati doctors believe I suffered the same illness as the other labyrinth explorers. But why did the symptoms start well before we arrived at the City of Scholars? I can almost hear the rustling of paper wings… Unless that's just the whir of my thoughts constantly turning over in my head. But I haven't suffered any other symptoms, and I haven't had any irrefutable proof of actual degeneration. "You're worrying about nothing, old man." Mack is snooping around the ventilation ducts in the Ouroboros, looking for information. He's probably right. Fear is the enemy of the mind, and I need to banish it…

WARU