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Palimpsest: work in progress, public for review. The reasons on the Tower pages are an invented test fixture. The reasons on the Pyrewood pages are the plans and summaries Project 2 wrote for that story. Where a version shows “Rationale unrecorded”, no reason was written down.

For Deliah

Version 2 of 11 · first seen 2026-10-07 22:57

Types of change in this version

33 marked passages in the text, none with a recorded reason.

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What changed and why

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unlisted v2-u1 jump to the passage ↓
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was: once been surprised,
now: been surprised and does not intend to start,

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was: There was a boat tied up there,
now: A boat was tied up there, low in the water,

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was: dead, and from
now: dead. They lay in rows. Someone had been patient with them. From

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was: in the water

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was: One of them
now: I have stood among the dead before. I am one. This was different, because nobody had asked them anything. One

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was: hand. Inside
now: hand, and inside

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was: Someone had to, and I was the one standing there. Hadrec turned it
now: I looked at my own hand afterwards, to see whether I had worn one. It told me nothing. Hadrec turned the ring

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was: use
now: keep

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now: The Rot Hide, then, take the dead across water to be used. I know a little about that. I was used for a time by someone else, and I do not remember it, which they call a mercy here. I have not decided.

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was: to take
now: meant to carry

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was: mean to. I have been busy.
now: have not gone. A magistrate will want a name and a grave, and I have a ring.

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was: had

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was: and

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was: twelve, and I walked back across Lordamere Lake as a ghost with a good view of the jetty. Back for my body, with the jetty in front and the brutes behind.
now: twelve. I do not feel pain as I am told I once did. It is a dimming, the way a lamp goes down, and then I am standing on the wrong side of my own body with the water cold around my knees. The cold I feel. I am not sure w…

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was: Then
now: After that

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was: looked at
now: studied

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was: did not take it personally.
now: have learned what a pause is for.

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was: once worked beside Bethor, and had
now: worked beside Bethor once, and

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was: had

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was: Forsaken, I am learning, are very good at that.
now: Forsaken are good at that. I practised it on the way up, Thule Ravenclaw, and it came out sounding like a man ordering bread.

unlisted v2-u21 jump to the passage ↓
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was: I went back up through the sewers, and

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was: I stood up from it.
now: A body should not mind losing a fifth of itself when it cannot feel the other four. I minded. I took that as news.

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was: So the man whose creatures
now: The creatures that

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was: was taken in by
now: belong to a man

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was: I keep failing to reach.
now: took in. I have wanted that tower for a week the way other men want a harbour. I am less sure what it would hold for me now.

unlisted v2-u26 jump to the passage ↓
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was: meet the queen. I said so, to the little stone:
now: see the queen. I told the little stone so:

unlisted v2-u27 jump to the passage ↓
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was: would like to say she and I spoke.
now: had expected to feel something. The woman who gathered us when the Lich King let go stood three paces away, and I felt what I feel for most things, which is a small, courteous distance. I noticed that, and I noticed that…

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now: I looked at my own hands again. They were intact. I thought about that for longer than I meant to.

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now: It is not quite a joke. It is the one room in the city where nobody looks away from what we are.

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now: I did not ask whether the dead who walk free were counted among the living or among the Scourge. I am not sure which I would rather be.

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was: The book has two entries I keep going back to.

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now: Somebody kept a ledger once, and he had a very steady hand. I should like to know what he was counting.

unlisted v2-u33 jump to the passage ↓
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now: Below it, smaller, I wrote Deliah, and did not underline that.

The text

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Preview
The boat
High Executor Hadrec, who commands the Sepulcher and has the manner of a man who has never once been surprised,been surprised and does not intend to start, sent me to the Decrepit Ferry on Sunday. There was a boat tied up there,A boat was tied up there, low in the water, and the boat was full of the dead, and fromdead. They lay in rows. Someone had been patient with them. From the way it sat in the water it had been meant for Fenris Isle.
unlisted v2-u1
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was: once been surprised,
now: been surprised and does not intend to start,
unlisted v2-u2
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was: There was a boat tied up there,
now: A boat was tied up there, low in the water,
unlisted v2-u3
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was: dead, and from
now: dead. They lay in rows. Someone had been patient with them. From
unlisted v2-u4
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was: in the water
One of themI have stood among the dead before. I am one. This was different, because nobody had asked them anything.
unlisted v2-u5
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was: One of them
now: I have stood among the dead before. I am one. This was different, because nobody had asked them anything. One
One was a woman with a ring on her hand. Insidehand, and inside the band someone had cut For Deliah. I took it. Someone had to, and I was the one standing there. Hadrec turned itI looked at my own hand afterwards, to see whether I had worn one. It told me nothing.
unlisted v2-u6
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was: hand. Inside
now: hand, and inside
unlisted v2-u7
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was: Someone had to, and I was the one standing there. Hadrec turned it
now: I looked at my own hand afterwards, to see whether I had worn one. It told me nothing. Hadrec turned the ring
Hadrec turned the ring over and said the dead had very probably come out of the mass graves in Tirisfal, and that the Rot Hide were carrying them to the isle. He did not say what for. He said very probably in the voice the Forsaken usekeep for certainly, and please do not ask. The Rot Hide, then, take the dead across water to be used. I know a little about that. I was used for a time by someone else, and I do not remember it, which they call a mercy here. I have not decided.
unlisted v2-u8
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was: use
now: keep
unlisted v2-u9
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now: The Rot Hide, then, take the dead across water to be used. I know a little about that. I was used for a time by someone else, and I do not remember it, which they call a mercy here. I have not decided.
The ring is still in my bag, beside the two catfish. I am to takemeant to carry it to the magistrate in Brill. I mean to. I have been busy.have not gone. A magistrate will want a name and a grave, and I have a ring.
unlisted v2-u10
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was: to take
now: meant to carry
unlisted v2-u11
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was: mean to. I have been busy.
now: have not gone. A magistrate will want a name and a grave, and I have a ring.
The isle
The week before, Hadrec had sent me to end a banshee called Nightlash, whose magic had been keeping the gnolls on their feet. It had not kept them off the isle. On Monday he wanted ichor, the black stuff that runs in the Rot Hide, and eight vials of it. The brutes give it up one at a time, which is the only way the brutes do anything.
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was: had
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was: and
They put me down at a quarter past twelve, and I walked back across Lordamere Lake as a ghost with a good view of the jetty.
unlisted v2-u14
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was: twelve, and I walked back across Lordamere Lake as a ghost with a good view of the jetty. Back for my body, with the jetty in front and the brutes behind.
now: twelve. I do not feel pain as I am told I once did. It is a dimming, the way a lamp goes down, and then I am standing on the wrong side of my own body with the water cold around my knees. The cold I feel. I am not sure w…
Back for my body, with the jetty in front and the brutes behind.twelve. I do not feel pain as I am told I once did. It is a dimming, the way a lamp goes down, and then I am standing on the wrong side of my own body with the water cold around my knees. The cold I feel. I am not sure what that says about me.
The water was the only thing that morning I could feel. [Picture description: A pale ghost wades through grey water toward a wooden jetty, with pines and the stone shape of a keep fading into mist beyond.]
those rothides got me on fenris isle
They got me again at half past. ThenAfter that I had my eighth vial, and I took the lot to Apothecary Renferrel, who tipped them into something and looked atstudied it for a long while. His findings were not conclusive, he said, which in an apothecary means the opposite. He thought the ichor had been made with warlock work and necromancy. He said warlock twice and did not look at me either time. I did not take it personally.have learned what a pause is for.
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was: Then
now: After that
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was: looked at
now: studied
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was: did not take it personally.
now: have learned what a pause is for.
The Magic Quarter
Renferrel is no mage, so he sent a sample down to the Undercity, to a man in the Magic Quarter called Bethor Iceshard, who is not an apothecary either but knows what magic leaves behind.
This is where the mages are. My voidwalker kept a pillar between himself and the whole district. I will wait here.
Bethor held the vial to the light and said some of the spells in it he had not seen for a long, long time. Then he cast something over it, and a name came out. Thule Ravenclaw. A man who had once worked beside Bethor, and hadworked beside Bethor once, and gone over to the Scourge, and had made the ichor, and the gnolls with it. Bethor said colleague with no heat in it at all. The Forsaken, I am learning, are very good at that.Forsaken are good at that. I practised it on the way up, Thule Ravenclaw, and it came out sounding like a man ordering bread.
unlisted v2-u18
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was: once worked beside Bethor, and had
now: worked beside Bethor once, and
unlisted v2-u19
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was: had
unlisted v2-u20
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was: Forsaken, I am learning, are very good at that.
now: Forsaken are good at that. I practised it on the way up, Thule Ravenclaw, and it came out sounding like a man ordering bread.
He gave me a scroll to carry back, so Renferrel could brew something against Thule’s stronger spells. I went back up through the sewers, and Hadrec agreed that Thule must be stopped, and fitted me from the arsenal. Then he sent me to bring back Thule’s head.
unlisted v2-u21
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was: I went back up through the sewers, and
That is the only line in the book I cannot yet cross out.
The wood
That afternoon I went after Moss Stalkers and Mist Creepers in the Skittering Dark, for a different errand, and a Son of Arugal caught me there and held me at a fifth of my health for forty-seven seconds. I counted. I stood up from it.A body should not mind losing a fifth of itself when it cannot feel the other four. I minded. I took that as news.
unlisted v2-u22
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was: I stood up from it.
now: A body should not mind losing a fifth of itself when it cannot feel the other four. I minded. I took that as news.
Dalar Dawnweaver had told me earlier in the week what Arugal was. Accepted into the Kirin Tor, Dalar says, and he finds it puzzling, since the man’s casting was as transparent as a blown glass bauble. So the man whose creaturesThe creatures that chase me through this forest was taken in bybelong to a man the order that keeps the tower I keep failing to reach.took in. I have wanted that tower for a week the way other men want a harbour. I am less sure what it would hold for me now. I wrote that down twice.
unlisted v2-u23
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was: So the man whose creatures
now: The creatures that
unlisted v2-u24
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was: was taken in by
now: belong to a man
unlisted v2-u25
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was: I keep failing to reach.
now: took in. I have wanted that tower for a week the way other men want a harbour. I am less sure what it would hold for me now.
The queen, and the hooks
On Wednesday I went to meet the queen. I said so, to the little stone:see the queen. I told the little stone so: off to meet the queen
unlisted v2-u26
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was: meet the queen. I said so, to the little stone:
now: see the queen. I told the little stone so:
The man on the left had work for me. [Picture description: Percy, Mezzlos and the Banshee Queen stand in a dim green-lit chamber of the Undercity; a man called Morbin Lightbane waits at the left with a quest mark above his head.]
I would like to say she and I spoke.had expected to feel something. The woman who gathered us when the Lich King let go stood three paces away, and I felt what I feel for most things, which is a small, courteous distance. I noticed that, and I noticed that I had expected to. She stood where she stood. The man on the left, Morbin Lightbane, wanted twenty-five limbs, and he was particular that they be intact. I looked at my own hands again. They were intact. I thought about that for longer than I meant to.
unlisted v2-u27
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was: would like to say she and I spoke.
now: had expected to feel something. The woman who gathered us when the Lich King let go stood three paces away, and I felt what I feel for most things, which is a small, courteous distance. I noticed that, and I noticed that…
unlisted v2-u28
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now: I looked at my own hands again. They were intact. I thought about that for longer than I meant to.
Then I went down to the Apothecarium. gruesome part of undercity, my favourite place
It is not quite a joke. It is the one room in the city where nobody looks away from what we are.
unlisted v2-u29
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now: It is not quite a joke. It is the one room in the city where nobody looks away from what we are.
Zinge, at the bench, working. Nobody else looked up. [Picture description: Chains and hooks hang from a high ceiling in a dim vaulted hall, with bodies hung from some of them; Percy in a purple robe stands below beside the blue shape of Mezzlos, an apothecary at work behind them.]
I do not like the hooks, said Mezzlos. There are more hooks than bodies.
I had gone there to finish a five-day-old errand. Master Apothecary Faranell took six bear hearts and six samples of spider blood from me, which is what he had been waiting on, and paid me five silver and a good deal of conversation. The recipe, he said, was for a plague that would take the Scourge and the living alike, and the paper said it in the tone of a man proposing a picnic. I did not ask whether the dead who walk free were counted among the living or among the Scourge. I am not sure which I would rather be. Then he gave me the second half, a man called Berard’s journal to be found, and at the next bench Theodore Griffs was waiting with something highly toxic.
unlisted v2-u30
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now: I did not ask whether the dead who walk free were counted among the living or among the Scourge. I am not sure which I would rather be.
The toxic thing was at the end of the bench. [Picture description: Percy at the foot of a stair in a workshop of hanging weights and shelves; at the far right a man called Theodore Griffs stands with a quest mark above him.]
The book
The book has two entries I keep going back to.
unlisted v2-u31
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was: The book has two entries I keep going back to.
A boat of the dead goes to an isle where a man makes ichor out of them. A hall of hooks hangs under a city where a man mixes bear heart with spider blood. I have a theory that this is one business with two ends. I wrote it in the book, underlined it, and have so far found nothing to stop me believing it. Nobody in the Apothecarium has asked what I think of the hooks, and I have not asked what they are for.
I notice, reading the page back, that I have ruled the columns. I do not remember learning to. Somebody kept a ledger once, and he had a very steady hand. I should like to know what he was counting.
unlisted v2-u32
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now: Somebody kept a ledger once, and he had a very steady hand. I should like to know what he was counting.
The ring is in the bag. The head is on the list. Eight vials, one recipe handed in, and a head still owed. I underlined the head. Below it, smaller, I wrote Deliah, and did not underline that.
unlisted v2-u33
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now: Below it, smaller, I wrote Deliah, and did not underline that.
Pictures
1 caption changed; 3 unchanged.
Pictures are matched by file name. A caption or description change keeps the same picture; a different file is a different picture.
A pale ghost wades through grey water toward a wooden jetty, with pines and the stone shape of a keep fading into mist beyond.
caption changedBackThe forwater my body, withwas the jettyonly inthing frontthat andmorning theI brutescould behind.feel.Description: A pale ghost wades through grey water toward a wooden jetty, with pines and the stone shape of a keep fading into mist beyond.
Percy, Mezzlos and the Banshee Queen stand in a dim green-lit chamber of the Undercity; a man called Morbin Lightbane waits at the left with a quest mark above his head.
unchangedThe man on the left had work for me.Description: Percy, Mezzlos and the Banshee Queen stand in a dim green-lit chamber of the Undercity; a man called Morbin Lightbane waits at the left with a quest mark above his head.
Chains and hooks hang from a high ceiling in a dim vaulted hall, with bodies hung from some of them; Percy in a purple robe stands below beside the blue shape of Mezzlos, an apothecary at work behind them.
unchangedZinge, at the bench, working. Nobody else looked up.Description: Chains and hooks hang from a high ceiling in a dim vaulted hall, with bodies hung from some of them; Percy in a purple robe stands below beside the blue shape of Mezzlos, an apothecary at work behind them.
Percy at the foot of a stair in a workshop of hanging weights and shelves; at the far right a man called Theodore Griffs stands with a quest mark above him.
unchangedThe toxic thing was at the end of the bench.Description: Percy at the foot of a stair in a workshop of hanging weights and shelves; at the far right a man called Theodore Griffs stands with a quest mark above him.