The Writers on the Leaves of the Trees That Surround the Palace Hathel

The writers on the leaves of the trees that surround the Palace Hathel are the smallest of humans, bred to their occupation over numerous generations, the size of a grown man’s forearm, with arms the size of a grown man’s long finger, with hands the size of a full fingernail, with thin spidery fingers the lengths of a schoolboy’s nail paring.

When they are not writing on the leaves of the trees that surround the Palace Hathel they are putting their inordinately developed ears, ears the size of a farmer’s fist, to the tree-boughs and listening to the news from all over the lands of Phantaz, which the deep network of roots brings.

What they learn they then carry with them up these trees to write on the leaves; short dots and dashes and curlicues and circles and the 39 shapes which comprise the alphabet of Phantaz in a dark purplish color that stands out against the light green and golden leaves of spring, summer, and fall.

In Winter there are no leaves on the trees, and the writers on the leaves of the trees do not write for that reason, and instead spend their time in wintry pursuits, sledding through the great gardens that surround the Palace Hathel, skating on the frozen over lake and laughing at the skeletal knights seen beneath the ice, dancing and making merry and performing their dainty little courtship rituals and preparing for the seasons of writing to come.

Once, before the abandonment of the Palace Hathel and the downfall of the dynasty which is also known by that name, the princes and princesses and kings and queens of Hathel would walk among the trees reading what was written upon those leaves.

Theirs was a family peculiarly fitted to reading what was writ upon those leaves, bone tall and long-necked; their bodies were stretched upon a rack for hours each day until their maturity and their necks lengthened by the placement of gold rings that supported the head, and for each of them exquisitely made shoes were readied with heels as high as a normal man’s foreleg, so that to walk they had to carry canes taller than the knights of their guard, and balance themselves on these as though they were three-legged.

What a sight the royalty of Hathel made moving stately down the tree lined pavilions that surrounded the Palace Hathel, dressed in flowing robes striped in black and silver, or speckled with blue and gray, or maculated like a leopard’s pet, and bending about their trees to read what was writ upon those leaves by their miniature servitors.

But the royal dynasty of Hathel is now gone, overthrown, toppled, and the writings on the leaves that surround the burnt out husk of that once great castle are read by no one except the writers on the leaves, who must of course read as they write.