The Archivist and the Paradox

The first time Xigord heard the Index whisper, it was past midnight and the dome of the Grand Repository held the night like a shallow bowl. 

  He had spent a lifetime among shelves that groaned like old trees, their bark bound in calfskin and ribbon, their leaves smelling of dust, tannin, and a sweet iron hint of ink. 

  He believed in sequences, in the civility of dates, in the way a war always precedes a treaty and a birth certificate precedes a coronation.