Nation
The people who keep to knowledge and to right. Not the only nation that keeps records, but the most orderly.
The first document I hold came from this nation. The part describing themselves was written by one of their own — faults and all.
They love to know. They keep to what is right and leave no one hungry at their table. The folds of the turban are not given at birth but earned. To determine who is in the right in a dispute they count as their own work. — A Treatise Upon Devran, leaf 12b
The scribe traces the fault to the same root: “whoever wishes to know everything cannot abide ignorance.” The unfinished places in his register, he writes, are the record of that impatience. — A Treatise Upon Devran, leaf 12b
I saw the everyday form of it myself. No one I asked would answer; one man walked away from me. The third neither took offence nor scolded — she simply pointed at the library. — Record 2
Two lines were cut above the door:
no answer is given, it is written no question is asked, it is read
The reasoning: to answer a question is to hand knowledge to one person, while to write the answer is to answer everyone who asks it after. Here, speaking is counted as smuggling knowledge to a single person. — Record 2
The rule is finer still: to ask about something already written in the books is shameful. If you have searched and found it nowhere, then you may ask — and answering you is no longer a favour but a debt. — Record 2
They live with the sea. Canals ran through the town I saw; the houses were built out over the water. — Record 2
The scribe also admits the comfort of his own people: “having our water and our ships, being just costs us little.” — A Treatise Upon Devran, leaf 12b
How many cities they have, how they are governed, what exactly the folds of the turban record — I found none of it.