Chương 401: 11.i

My time in Ghergeintat was a curious one. Not in the number and kind of my students, for despite their ages, I will never fault a man for learning his letters no matter how late in life the will for it comes to him. But in this quiet city, the fervor with which they sought to learn despite how advanced they were in years was notable. For many, the wealthier merchant and guild masters of the trifold city, it was more a remedial refining of the long-disused skills.

Hardly calling for more than a dozen sessions with me. Among them, as there always were, I did find those that had to begin from a blank page, of course, somehow having avoided until my coming even the scantest knowledge of the written word or the manner of letters.

Said urgency was understandable though, for there was assuredly sorcery upon the place, a pail of water thrown in the street would be muffled from even a few paces away, a shout that made your throat sore could barely carry and a whisper could be lost even an arm's length away from the sharpest eared man or woman. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Animals do not call in the night, birds do not sing.

But it is not all bad, even with an apartment across from a blacksmith the normal noise and clatter of such men were already gone before they reached me no matter the laboring within. The market places have a serene, if muffled peace to them. And it brings an intimacy to one's every word, for you must draw close to be heard when speaking at anything but a shout. I rather think fondly of my time there. Alas, once you leave the walls of the city, it makes all the rest of the world seem so much more full of clamour.

—Journal of Gabriel Wordwright, five years after the Silencing of Ghergeintat.