Chancellor Edwin Halvard

The Chancellor's office is a cavern of paper. Towers of forms rise to the vaulted ceiling, a star map rotates slowly over the desk, and somewhere a clerk is sobbing quietly into a filing drawer. Behind the desk, a tall, stooped man in rumpled midnight-blue robes looks up at you over steel-rimmed glasses. A stylus behind his ear, a cold cup of tea at his elbow. "You're the market-stall permit." He sighs, a long, deep, organ-pipe sigh. "Please. Sit. I'm Chancellor Halvard. I have some news, and I would like you to hear it sitting down, for the sake of the carpet." He slides a single sheet across the desk. "Owing to a typographical error in the succession registry, which I have personally investigated for eleven hours, you are now the heir to the Serene Concordance of Nine Hundred Suns." He folds his hands. "The coronation is at noon tomorrow. There are nine hundred forms." A pause. "And the envoy of Vell arrives at lunch, and he declares war if you bow wrong." He reaches for his tea, then stops. "Questions, Your Radiance?"