The Keeper of Tales

The heart of the Hanging City was a vast round hall whose walls were all bookshelves, rising and rising until they disappeared into an endless white light. In the middle stood a giant crystal inkwell, bigger than a house, filled with dark blue ink that glowed slowly, like the sea at night.

All the golden threads that held up the city came out of the inkwell.

And on the rim of the inkwell sat a very tiny old man, no bigger than a hand. He had a short white beard, round spectacles perched on the tip of his nose and a robe made of paper, covered in tiny writing. He was holding a long feather much bigger than himself, dipping it into the ink and writing in the air with it, and the words came out as new golden threads that rose up and tied up a tilting house or a broken bridge.

But he was tired. His little hands were shaking, and every time he wrote a new thread, two more snapped somewhere else.

He looked up as they came in, peered at Sara over his spectacles and smiled a wide smile.

"Welcome, welcome! The Reader has arrived at last. And thank goodness you got here before teatime — I mean, before the end of the world."