...Dwllis, Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, surveyed the fifty or so fragments of metal and plastic before him. They ranged in size from one no bigger than his thumbnail to a monster as large as his fist. These were antique memories, their collection and investigation being the task that took up most of his time, though why they were appearing remained a mystery to him and to the authorities he served. Antique memories were exuded by the fabric of the city, and it was his job to compile them. They could be found like cankers on street walls, or gathered together in the corners of rooms by the cumulative action of booted feet.
Dwllis entertained a private theory regarding these objects. He considered them an echo of an earlier city, which he thought to detect like the central truth of a fable. However it meant that his position in Cray, already deemed somewhat irrelevant, was made more ridiculous, an attitude he tried to ignore.
He stood up and began to walk around his room, hands clasped at his belly. He was a tubby man of medium height, balding at the brow with brown fuzzlocks too long down his back. A pair of pale blue eyes were dominated by thick eyebrows, and there were dark rings underneath them. His mouth was small. With large flat feet, but extravagent jacket and kirtle, he looked like a fop trying to impress but not quite succeeding.
So he considered his position in Cray. Without him, the information carried by the antique memories would stay buried in the labyrithine worlds of abstract data present in Cray’s networks, data so profuse that the libraries of Noct stood by it as a speck of dust before a cliff. He, a historian at heart, could not complain of their existence. Without him the reafication of Cray’s memories would go unexamined, unnoticed even. Yet in the mass of ancient administrative minutes and undated weather reports he was sure he had found something important. How could he convince the authorities of this?
Perhaps he should use the tradition surrounding the Keeper of the Cowhorn Tower, an ancient position, with himself the eighteenth incumbent. Alternatively, he could point to the fact that some Crayans brought him antique memories, and thereby stress his relevance to the city. Or he could just carry on being ignored...