was as different from the written characters of Low as fire was to stone bricks. Almost literally -- High Anthem script curled and overlapped and was read perpendicular to the page's beginner bar, which was usually striped against the bottom of the page, unless the paper was marked, at which point it was placed at a more auspicious location. Declensions lengthened nouns to three times their dictionary length (depending on tense and possession), punctuation flattered itself in angles from loop-ends and flurs.

Low Anthem writing, in contrast, failed only in its minimal punctuation and lack of kerning between characters. Otherwise, it scrolled predictably from the right to the left, and in general it was very soothing to translate from High to Low. It was like arranging out-of-order things. Or doing laundry.

At the very least, it helped him pass time away from his head.

Seph sighed, closed his eyes, searched for another dustcloth amidst the stacks of books with his hand, gently running over the spines of books until he found something pinched between the stiff covers. He tugged out the dust cloth and then wrapped it around his damp neck.

This set of journals was particularly difficult to make out. They didn't seem to be entirely in order -- indeed didn't seem to be written even by a singular author from sentence to sentence. If it was written by one author, it was by an author with a pretty ambiguous sanity.

"Ku-hee-oh," he pronounced beneath his breath -- opened an eye -- saw the page, the little umlauds, tried again, "Ku-HEE-oh? Ku-HEE-yoh...something...nnn...nuh. Mu - mur - mureh."

Kuheeyoh, he decided, for now.

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