At the time, none of us thought much about these changes. Ambergris, for all its history, its secrets, its allure, had always been dirty, sickly, on the verge of crumbling back into itself—battered, babbling, incoherent in its design and intent. We all thought that, ultimately, the molt wouldn’t take, and the reptile that was the city would sink back into the mud a little, its skin ever more mottled from the experience.

Into this strangeness, this bubble of trapped amber, in which everything and nothing was happening all at once, the war intruded. Suddenly, what had seemed random had form and structure: it was Us against Them: a Hoegbotton many of us could not tolerate against Frankwrithe & Lewden, an Other that was far worse: an invader, usurper, the likes of which we had not known since the Kalif’s temporary Occupation generations before.

It was in this atmosphere that we became reporters for The Ambergris Daily Broadsheet under the guidance of the Broadsheet’s editor and publisher, James Lacond.

Duncan, in the absence of Mary—still, in those early days of the war, imprisoned by the two-semester ban—decided to take it upon himself to visit Lacond and make the arrangements with him. I can’t say I minded Duncan going instead of me. I had made some inquiries about Lacond and discovered a man of many vices—he smoked at a ridiculous rate, he drank, often while on the job, he swore constantly, and he sometimes participated in the dangerous fungal drug trade. (All vices you once possessed, Janice!)

At first, Duncan found Lacond to be cantankerous and irritating. He seemed unable to understand the value of adding us to his stable of broken-down journalistic nags. However, he had met Duncan before, read his work, and even reviewed one of his books in the past, and that made him warm to us. (Warm to me. I don’t know if he ever really warmed to you. It certainly wasn’t your fault—he was, without much doubt, a blustery old fart. The day I went to see him, James had already begun a downward spiral. I think this is why he wound up liking me when we got to know each other better. He saw in me a fellow lost soul, an underachiever, a candidate for an early reputational grave. As I was to find out, I had crossed his path as his expectations were decaying—journalism was as much a low point for him as for us. When I came upon him—bloated, red-nosed, squat, a cigar in his mouth—setting type for the printing presses that clacked and rattled and sobbed behind him, I sensed a stubbornness, a refusal as yet to acknowledge his fate. He was talking fast, his stubby fingers working the type in and out of position with an unexpected grace. The man liked plain shirts, over which would hang striped suspenders, holding up pants that he tucked into short boots. He often muttered to himself—always muttering to himself as long as I knew him, whether about the price of ink or the vagaries of typefaces.