The small print of the sheets — where the Empire actually talks to itself. The Catch does not distinguish between news and advertisement. Neither does the world. “We simply charge for both.”
Three notices by, and one about, a regular fella of near-Brokebridge.
REGULAR FELLA, new to the district, quiet habits, good with his hands, has a table. Sets two places at it, most nights. Company welcome — no obligation, no trouble wanted, no charge, and I have got the mead in already so it would honestly be a favour to me.
Callers should knock in the ordinary way and should not be alarmed if the door opens before they have finished knocking. I am usually awake.
I am always awake.
— A. M.
Placed by Adam Mann in Kivarro; reprinted in The Culvëen Catch under “Carried from Upriver — Kivarro Notices,” which adds: “The Catch prints this notice at the usual rate. The Catch would like the gentleman to know that his coin was accepted, that his notice will run as long as he likes, and that if he ever finds himself at the Crossing there is a chair at the Dropped Coin and a Lark who sings the same four minutes every night and would not mind at all being watched by someone who never looks away from a door.” Signed only “— A. M.”; the attribution to Adam Mann rests on the contents — the table, the two places, the wakefulness — and is as near certain as an unsigned notice gets.
NIGHT WORK UNDERTAKEN. Watching, minding, sitting-up-with. I do not sleep and see no reason the hours should be wasted. Reasonable. References cheerfully given and entirely unverifiable. — A. MANN, Brokebridge.
Adam Mann, in the small-advertisement columns of the Kivarro sheets and, latterly, the Culvëen ones. Layer note: this notice survives in a superseded draft of his entry, not the fullest one.
I AM USUALLY AWAKE. I am, in point of fact, always awake. If you are also awake and it is bad, the light in the near-Brokebridge that is always on is mine, and you may knock, and I will put the kettle on, and you need not say anything. Singing not included, but occasionally happens anyway. — A regular fella.
Adam Mann. Same layer note as above: superseded draft of his entry.
WATCH SERVICES — A man who does not sleep is available to watch your door. All night. Every night. References available but, notably, no one has ever needed to check them, because he is, in fact, still there. Rates negotiable. Singing not included, but occasionally happens anyway.
The Crossing Courant, Classifieds. Placed by persons unknown, about Adam Mann. Its closing line — “Singing not included, but occasionally happens anyway” — also appears in his own notice above; which borrowed from which, the record does not say.
Transcribed from the printed broadsides — No. 16 and the Latesummer afternoon edition — whose colophon places the paper at the sign of the Drowned Bell, the Undertow. Everything in this section is read from the printed sheets, not from the written archive.
LOST — One husband. Canalman, answers to BELLO. If found in any tavern between the Ninth Arch and the Saltmarsh, do NOT return. Keep him. He is good company and I am tired.
— WIDOW VASS, the Saltmarsh Stair
The Unfortunate, No. 16, as read from the printed sheet. The same issue's lead story concerns a drowned woman of the Saltmarsh Stair, returned. The paper draws no line between the items. Neither do we.
TEETH. TEETH. TEETH. — Set, unset, and reset. No questions. Payment in kind accepted. Knock three times at the Black Door, Undertow.
The Unfortunate, No. 16.
TO LET — One dry room above a chandlery, ninth arch. Dry in most weathers. Landlady discreet; stairs less so. Enquire within, after dark preferably.
The Unfortunate, Latesummer afternoon edition.
LOST — A wedding ring, gold, much worn, somewhere between the Saltmarsh Stair and the Undertow. Of no value but one. Reward: one story, well told.
The Unfortunate, Latesummer afternoon edition, as read from the printed sheet — whose lead story that day was the Listener at the ninth arch, who asks only for stories.
SERVICES — Discreet, permanent, thorough, and you will be entirely convinced it was your own idea. No blade drawn. No exceptions made. Six years, no confirmed fatalities, several confirmed retirements. Inquire by leaving a note where you'd least expect it to be found. (Fee negotiable. Fee sometimes zero. You will not know which until it's over.)
The Crossing Courant, Classifieds. Anonymous.
WARDING — Hearth-witch, forty years' keeping, offers threshold consultations. Note: license pending under current Ministry review timelines, i.e., indefinitely; services offered on a “sweeping the step is not technically illegal yet” basis. The Imperium has tested what a true hearth-ward can keep out. The Imperium does not discuss the results. Draw your own conclusions about what that recommendation is worth.
The Crossing Courant, Classifieds.
THE PERSISTENT WILL PRINT ANYTHING
Handbills, bills of lading, ballads, banns, warrants of no legal force, love letters set in type because you cannot bear to write them out again, the last words of the condemned (cash in advance, obviously), and any lie you care to pay for provided you let us declare it at the arch.
Rates on application. Discretion assured. Discretion has a price and the price is on the board.
The Culvëen Toll — placed by its own press, the Persistent, moored at the Third Pylon.
THE IMPERIAL PAPER BIRD POST
Swifts · Doves · Hawks · Nightingales · the Imperial Penguin (waddles; arrives; is dignified about it)
Folded on whisperwillow stock, treated with crushed crystal, moonflower pollen, and essence of direction.
Resistant to water. Resistant to fire.
Not resistant to a determined cat. No claim will be entertained where a cat is, on the balance of probabilities, involved.
The Culvëen Catch, Advertisements.
LOST — One (1) very large dog. Answers to nothing. Piloted last, brass, nine times projected size, headed toward the Archways. If found, do not approach; do report to any registered pigeonfolk fence, who will know precisely who to tell.
The Crossing Courant, Classifieds. The ad names no one, but readers of the Journals will recognise the description — the brass, the piloting, the pigeonfolk fence point to Doom, bodyguard to Professor Birb: seven feet of brass mech, piloted by a very small chihuahua. The identification is an inference, and a confident one.
LOST — One paper Swift, gray-plumed, will not deliver its message to anyone but its intended recipient, who is, despite two days of increasingly polite negotiation on our part, evidently not this newspaper. If found, do not attempt to read its cargo. It will know, and it will remember which of us tried.
The Spandrel, Classifieds — placed by the paper itself.
FOUND. One coat, heavy, deep-cold rated, Kivarro make, pockets sewn shut. On the hook by the door of this office. Nine days. Owner may collect at any hour. The Catch would, in fact, very much like the owner to collect. The Catch has begun to find the coat's continued availability a matter of some interest, and would prefer to stop finding it that.
The Culvëen Catch, Notices & Small Advertisements.
FOR SALE — Farscope, Observatory-grade, lightly used, one small scratch on the lens that certain regulars swear improves the view of the third moon. The seller neither confirms nor denies believing this, and is asking accordingly.
The Spandrel, Classifieds.
SCUMBLE & SHANK, SOLICITORS AT LAW
Culvëen Chambers — Now Open Above the Archway Market
“Your Legal Problems Are Our Financial Opportunities”
HAVE YOU BEEN TOLLED?
Were you charged duty in an arch in which the Toll Master's Tower does not, per the new hex survey of the Guild of Aerial Cartographers, legally stand? Did an Imperial officer collect revenue from you across a cartographical boundary he was not aware existed until this newspaper printed it?
YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO EVERYTHING.
Our Culvëen practice specialises in:
“Scumble & Shank established that my barge, being under the arch and not on it, had at no point entered the Imperium. I have not paid a copper in six years and I have named my second boat after Mr Shank.” — A Delighted Client
First consultation free with the password: “The Empress's new crown looks absolutely genuine.”
The Culvëen Toll, Advertisements.
✨ THE ALTERATION FOUNDATION FOR HUMANISTIC PROGRESS
A Division of Alteration Industries
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED POST-CORPOREAL EXISTENCE OPTIMIZATION?
Why be limited by the body you were regrettably born into? The Foundation's research floors are pioneering tomorrow's consciousness, today, in a fully consenting, entirely voluntary, extremely well-funded environment. As our founder likes to say: “A constraint is only an agreement.” Ask about our introductory transfer rates.
Alteration Industries is not liable for outcomes, definitions of “outcome,” or continued possession of the reader's current sense of self.
The Crossing Courant.
NANA KINDFISHER — GHOST EEL, FRESH, MOONLIT
Caught only on the clear nights, only on the Kellen, only by me.
Prices are up. Prices are up because some fool in Vys put a bred specimen into a building's water and the whole market has gone mad and now every apothecary from here to the coast wants eel, and every fool with a net thinks he can take one.
Every fool with a net cannot take one. Handle a ghost eel wrong and it stops being supper and starts being either a poison or a revelation, and I have seen a man get the second one and I would rather he had got the first.
Buy from me. I am expensive. I am expensive because you will wake up tomorrow.
The Culvëen Toll, Advertisements.
RATTLER MANUFACTURING CONSOLIDATED
(an Alteration Industries concern)
NOTICE TO OWNERS: MOTIVATIONAL MISALIGNMENT
Your Rattler wants to go somewhere.
This is not a fault. This is enthusiasm.
Owners experiencing enthusiasm are advised not to fight the wheel, not to leave the vehicle unattended near an open road, and not to make eye contact with the lamps. Owners whose Rattler has already gone somewhere should not pursue it. It will come back. It always comes back. It is fond of you.
THE ROAR OF THE ROAD. FEEL IT.
The Culvëen Catch, Advertisements — a product-safety notice, of a kind.
BEEDLE & GROUT'S PHARMACY
…HARMACY
Ironweld. Open. Green light in the window.
The Culvëen Catch, Advertisements. The Catch notes that this advertisement has been paid for a full year in advance, in coin, by a party we did not see, at an hour when the office was locked. The Catch has cashed the coin. The Catch will continue to run the advertisement. The Catch would prefer not to discuss it further.
WANTED — Cellar space, Underspan preferred, no questions asked because we already know better than to ask them ourselves.
The Crossing Courant, Classifieds.
The illustrated ads from The Unfortunate's own pages, lettering transcribed from the artwork. These run along the foot of both surviving broadsides — Fortuna sells its drinks hard.
SHIV'S — Light ale. (The label shows the shiv, dripping, as a corkscrew.)
The Unfortunate, both broadsides, foot of page.
VK — taste eternity.
The Unfortunate, both broadsides, foot of page. The bottle offers no further information, and eternity is presumably the point.
BIDDLY DO BEEF ALE — “It's udderly great.”
The Unfortunate, both broadsides, foot of page.
The BURNING CUTLASS TAVERN, on the Crimson Canal.
The Unfortunate, both broadsides, foot of page.
XANDER'S trinkets & baubles — NOW RAT-FREE! Still on the Sweft.
The Unfortunate, Latesummer afternoon edition, foot of page.
The AMULET, on Deadman's Strait — Damsels drink free on holy days.
The Unfortunate, Latesummer afternoon edition, foot of page.