As he walks toward Scott Hall his damp hair freezes in curls that brush crunchily against his neck. The snow is crisscrossed with so many boot tracks that there is hardly an untouched patch on campus. Zachary passes a lopsided snowman wearing a real red scarf. A line of busts of former college presidents is mostly obscured in snow, stray marble eyes and ears peeking out from beneath the flakes.
Kat’s directions prove helpful once he arrives at Scott Hall, one of the residences he’s never been in before. He passes the stairs and a small empty study room before finding the hallway and following it for some time until he reaches a half-open pair of French doors.
He’s not sure he has the right room. A girl sits knitting in an armchair while a couple of other students rearrange some of the postapocalyptic-looking tea-party furniture, velvet chairs and settees worn thin and wounded by time, a few repaired with duct tape.
“Yay, you found us!” Kat’s voice comes from behind him and he turns to find her holding a tray with a teapot and several stacked teacups. She looks smaller with her coat and striped hat removed, her buzzed-short hair a fuzzy shadow covering her head.
“I didn’t realize you were serious about the tea,” Zachary says, helping her move the tray to a coffee table in the middle of the room.
“I don’t jest about tea. I have Earl Grey and peppermint and some sort of immunity-boosting thing with ginger. And I made cookies.”
By the time the tea and the multiple trays of cookies are arranged the class has filtered in, about a dozen students, though it feels like more with all the coats and scarves flung over the backs of chairs and couches. Zachary settles into an ancient armchair by the window that Kat directs him to with a cup of Earl Grey and an oversize chocolate chip cookie.
“Hi everyone,” Kat says, pulling the attention in the room away from baked goods and chatter. “Thanks for coming. I think we have some newbies who missed last week, so how about we do quick intros around the room, starting with our guest moderator.” Kat turns and looks at Zachary expectantly.
“Okay…um…I’m Zachary,” he manages between chews before swallowing the rest of his cookie. “I’m a second-year Emerging Media grad student, I mostly study video-game design with a focus on psychology and gender issues.”
And I found a book in the library yesterday that someone wrote my childhood into, how’s that for innovative storytelling? he thinks but does not say aloud.
The introductions continue and Zachary retains identifying details and areas of interest better than names. Several are theater majors, including a girl with impressive multicolored dreadlocks and a blond boy with his feet propped up on a guitar case. The girl with cat-eye glasses who looks vaguely familiar is an English major, as is the girl who continues to knit but barely glances down at her work. The rest are mostly Emerging Media undergrads, some of them he recognizes (the guy in the blue hoodie, the girl with the tattooed vines peeking out of the cuffs of her sweater, ponytail guy) but no one he knows as well as Kat.
“And I’m Kat Hawkins, senior Emerging Media and theater double major and I mostly spend my time trying to turn games into theater and theater into games. And also baking. Tonight we’re going to discuss video games specifically, I know we have a lot of gamers here but if you’re not please ask if you need terminology clarification or anything like that.”
“How are we defining ‘gamer’?” the guy in the blue hoodie asks with enough of an edge in his voice that Kat’s bright expression darkens almost imperceptibly.
“I follow the Gertrude Stein definition: a gamer is a gamer is a gamer,” Zachary jumps in, adjusting his glasses and hating himself for the pretentiousness but hating the guy who needs to define everything a little bit more.
“As far as how we’re defining ‘game’ in this context,” Kat continues, “let’s keep along the lines of narrative games, role-playing games aka RPGs, etcetera. Everything should come back to story.”
Kat prompts Zachary into sharing some of his standard primers on game narrative, character agency, choices, and consequences, points he’s made in so many papers and projects that it’s a pleasant change to relate them to a group that hasn’t heard them all a thousand times before.
Kat jumps in here and there and it doesn’t take long for the discussion to take off organically, questions becoming debates and points volleying between sips of tea and cookie crumbs.
The conversation veers into immersive theater which was last week’s topic and then back to video games, from the collaborative nature of massive multiplayer back to single-player narratives and virtual reality with a brief stopover on tabletop games.
Eventually the question of why a player plays a story-based game and what makes it compelling comes up to be examined and dismantled.
“Isn’t that what anyone wants, though?” the girl with the cat-eye glasses asks in response. “To be able to make your own choices and decisions but to have it be part of a story? You want that narrative there to trust in, even if you want to maintain your own free will.”
“You want to decide where to go and what to do and which door to open but you still want to win the game,” ponytail guy adds.
“Even if winning the game is just ending the story.”
“Especially if a game allows for multiple possible endings,” Zachary says, touching on the subject of a paper he’d written two years previously. “Wanting to co-write the story, not dictate it yourself, so it’s collaborative.”
“It’ll work in games better than anything,” one of the Emerging Media guys muses. “And maybe avant-garde theater,” he adds when one of the theater majors starts to object.
“Choose Your Own Adventure digital novels?” the knitting English major throws out.
“No, commit to being a full-blown game if you’re going to go through all the decision-making option trees, all the if-thens,” the girl with the vine tattoos argues, talking with her hands so the vines help emphasize her points. “Proper text stories are preexisting narratives to fall into, games unfold as you go. If I get to choose what’s going to happen in a story I want to be a mage. Or at least have a fancy gun.”
“We’re veering off topic,” Kat says. “Sort of. What makes a story compelling? Any story. In basic terms.”
“Change.”
“Mystery.”
“High stakes.”
“Character growth.”
“Romance,” the guy in the blue hoodie chimes in. “What? It’s true,” he adds when several raised eyebrows turn in his direction. “Sexual tension, is that better? Also true.”
“Obstacles to overcome.”
“Surprises.”
“Meaning.”
“But who decides what the meaning is?” Zachary wonders aloud.
“The reader. The player. The audience. That’s what you bring to it, even if you don’t make the choices along the way, you decide what it means to you.” The knitting girl pauses to catch a slipped stitch and then continues. “A game or a book that has meaning to me might be boring to you, or vice versa. Stories are personal, you relate or you don’t.”
“Like I said, everyone wants to be part of a story.”
“Everyone is a part of a story, what they want is to be part of something worth recording. It’s that fear of mortality, ‘I Was Here and I Mattered’ mind-set.”
Zachary’s thoughts begin to wander. He feels old, not certain if he was ever so enthusiastic as an underclassman and wondering if he seemed as young to the grad students then as this group seems to him now. He thinks back to the book in his bag, turning over ideas about what it is to be in a story, wondering why he has spent so much of his time propelling narratives forward and trying to figure out how to do the same with this one.
“Isn’t it easier to have words on a page and leave everything up to the imagination?” another of the English majors asks, a girl in a fuzzy red swe
ater.
“The words on the page are never easy,” the girl in the cat-eye glasses points out and several people nod.
“Simpler, then.” Red-sweater girl holds up a pen. “I can create a whole world with this, it may not be innovative but it’s effective.”
“It is until you run out of ink,” someone retorts.
Someone else points out that it’s nine already and more than one person jumps up, apologizes, and rushes off. The rest of them continue to chat in fractured groups and pairs and a couple of the Emerging Media students hover over Zachary, inquiring about class recommendations and professors as they put the room more or less back in order.
“That was so great, thank you,” Kat says once she’s gotten his attention again. “I owe you one, and I’m going to get started on your scarf this weekend, I promise you’ll have it while it’s still cold enough to wear it.”
“You don’t have to but thanks, Kat. I had a good time.”
“Me too. And oh, Elena’s waiting in the hall. She wanted to catch you before you left but didn’t want to interrupt while you were talking to people.”
“Oh, okay,” Zachary says, trying to remember which one was Elena.
Kat gives him another hug and whispers in his ear, “She’s not trying to pick you up, I forewarned her that you are orientationally unavailable.”
“Thanks, Kat,” Zachary says, trying not to roll his eyes and knowing she probably used that exact phrase instead of simply saying that he’s gay because Kat hates labels.
Elena turns out to be the one in the cat-eye glasses, leaning against the wall and reading a Raymond Chandler novel Zachary can now identify as The Long Goodbye and he realizes why she looks familiar. He probably would have placed her if her hair had been in a bun.
“Hey,” Zachary says and she looks up from her book with a dazed expression he’s used to wearing himself, the disorientation of being pulled out of one world and back into another.
“Hi,” Elena says, coming out of the fiction fog and tucking the Chandler in her bag. “I don’t know if you remember me from the library yesterday. You checked out that weird book that wouldn’t scan.”
“I remember,” Zachary says. “I haven’t read it yet,” he adds, not sure why the lie is necessary.
“Well after you left I got curious,” Elena says. “The library’s awfully quiet and I’ve been on a mystery kick so I decided to do some investigating.”
“Really?” Zachary asks, suddenly interested when before he had been lying in nervous apprehension. “Did you find anything?”
“Not a lot, the system’s so barcode-happy that if the computer doesn’t recognize it it’s hard to dig up a file, but I remembered that the book looked kind of old so I went down to the card archives, back from when everything was stored in those fabulous wooden catalogues, to see if it was there and it wasn’t but I did manage to decipher how it was coded, there’s a couple of digits in the barcode that indicate when it was added to the system, so I cross-referenced those.”
“That’s some impressive librarian detective work.”
“Ha, thank you. Unfortunately, the only thing it turned up was that it was part of a private collection, some guy died and a foundation distributed his library to a bunch of different schools. I updated the files and wrote down the name, so if you want to find any of the other books someone should be able to print out a list for you. I’m working most mornings until classes start up again if you’re interested.” Elena digs around in her bag and pulls out a folded scrap of lined notebook paper. “Some of them should be in the rare book room and not in circulation, but whatever. I gave it a catalogue entry so it should scan fine whenever you return it.”
“Thanks,” Zachary says as he takes the paper from her. Item acquired, a voice in his head remarks. “I’d like that, I’ll stop by sometime soon.”
“Cool,” Elena says. “And thanks for coming tonight, that was a great discussion. See you around.”
She’s gone before he can say goodbye.
Zachary unfolds the paper. There are two lines of text, written in remarkably neat handwriting.
From the private collection of J. S. Keating, donated in 1993.
A gift from the Keating Foundation.
Paper is fragile, even when bound with string in cloth or leather. The majority of the stories within the Harbor on the Starless Sea are captured on paper. In books or on scrolls or folded into paper birds and suspended from ceilings.
There are stories that are more fragile still: For every tale carved in rock there are more inscribed on autumn leaves or woven into spiderwebs.
There are stories wrapped in silk so their pages do not fall to dust and stories that have already succumbed, fragments collected and kept in urns.
They are fragile things. Less sturdy than their cousins who are told aloud and learned by heart.
And there are always those who would watch Alexandria burn.
There always have been. There always will be.
So there are always guardians.
Many have given their lives in service. Many more have had their lives taken by time before they could lose them in other fashions.
It is rare for a guardian not to remain a guardian always.
To be a guardian is to be trusted. To be trusted, all must be tested.
Guardian testing is a long and arduous process.
One cannot volunteer to be a guardian. Guardians are chosen.
Potential guardians are identified and watched. Scrutinized. Their every move, every choice, and every action is marked by unseen judges. The judges do nothing but observe for months, sometimes years, before they issue their first tests.
The potential guardian will not be aware that they are being tested. It is critical to steep the tests in ignorance to result in uncorrupted responses. Many tests will never be recognized as tests, even in hindsight.
Candidates for guardianship who are dismissed at these early stages will never know that they were ever considered. They will go about their lives and find other paths.
Most candidates are dismissed before the sixth test.
Many do not make it past the twelfth.
The rhythms of the first test are always the same, whether it occurs within a Harbor or without.
In a large public library a small boy browses books, biding time before he is meant to meet up with his sister. He stands on his toes to reach volumes shelved above his head. He has long since abandoned the children’s section but is not yet tall enough to reach all of the other shelves.
A woman with dark eyes and a green scarf—not a librarian, as far as he can tell—hands him the book he had been reaching for and he shyly nods his thanks. She asks if he will do her a favor in return, and when he agrees she requests that he keep an eye on a book for her, pointing out a thin volume bound in brown leather sitting on a nearby table.
The small boy agrees and the woman leaves. Minutes pass. The boy continues browsing shelves, always keeping the small brown book in sight.
Several more minutes pass. The boy considers looking around for the woman. He checks his watch. Soon he will have to leave himself.
Then a woman walks by without acknowledging him and picks up the book.
This woman has dark eyes and wears a green scarf. She looks quite similar to the first woman but she is not the same person. When she turns to walk away with the book, the boy seizes up with mild panic and confusion.
He asks her to stop. The woman turns, her face a question mark.
The boy stammers that the book belongs to someone else.
The new woman smiles and points out the fact that they are in a library and the books belong to everyone.
The boy almost lets her leave. Now he is not even certain it is a different woman, as this woman is nearly identical. He is going t
o be late if he waits much longer. It would be easier to let the book go.
But the boy protests again. He explains in too many words that he had been asked to watch it for someone.
Eventually the woman relents and hands the book to the small flustered boy.
He holds the hard-won object to his chest.
He is unaware that he has been tested but he is proud of himself nonetheless.
Two minutes later, the first woman returns. This time he recognizes her. Her eyes are lighter, the pattern on the green scarf is distinct, golden hoops climb up her right ear and not her left.
The woman thanks him for his service when he hands her the thin brown book. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a wrapped piece of candy and puts a finger to her lips. He tucks it into his pocket, understanding such things are not permitted in the library.
The woman thanks him again and departs with the book.
The boy will not be approached directly for another seven years.
Many of the initial tests are similar, watching for care and respect and attention to detail. Observing how they react to everyday stress or extraordinary emergencies. Weighing how they respond to a disappointment or a lost cat. Some are asked to burn or otherwise destroy a book. (To destroy the book, no matter how distasteful or offensive or badly written, is to fail the test.)
A single failure results in dismissal.
After the twelfth test, the potential guardians will be made aware that they are being considered. Those who were not born below are brought to the Harbor and housed in rooms no resident ever sees. They study and are tested again in different ways. Tests of psychological strength and willpower. Tests of improvisation and imagination.
This process occurs over the course of three years. Many are dismissed. Others quit somewhere along the way. Some, but not all, will figure out that perseverance is more important now than performance.
If they make it to the three-year mark, they are given an egg.
They are released from their training and studying.
The Starless Sea Page 4
