Simon of the Book

Simon was a notable scribe during the later years of William the Mumbler's rein and later became an author and expert historian of Egdard the Occasional. In his early life, he was an overall competent scribe. His knowledge of history was a little sub-par, but he was surpassingly accurate at recording William's intentions. It is said that William "spoke like he had a mouth full of pudding and marbles", but Simon was able to understand and translate his intentions accurately about 1/3 of the time, which was significantly better than anyone else, including William's wife and children. The third book Simon published, "Wait... What Were William's Words? ", described several occasions where Simon was summoned to the royal chambers at absurd hours of the night to facilitate communication between William and the Queen.

Had it not been for one of the many strange decrees of Egdard the Occasional, Simon would probably not have become such a notable figure. The event that changed the course of his life is described in detail in Simon's first book: "Egdard: The Puppet Master":


 * On a cold afternoon after a warm lunch in the winter of what would later be called 240 RV, I was doing the normal upkeep in the wing of the library dedicated to warehousing the countless decrees of Egdard the Occasional.  Most of the decrees were written on parchment, rolled into tight cylinders and sealed with Egdard's red wax seal.  On the outside of each, the conditions for being unsealed are written.  Most are dates of varying specificity.  The dated ones are simply stored in sequential order to simplify the burden of handling so many decrees.  A small number of others have stranger triggering events, which makes them more dificult to handle.  For example, how does one index a decree that takes effect "when the earthquake nearly destroys the castle of dangerous toys"?  Most of these are indexed by the names and locations to which they refer, but there are some thst are simply unindexable.  For example, there is one that haunts me at night to this very day.  It is written on blood red parchment, sealed with pitch black wax and reads simply "When all hope is lost."  How does one index THAT?  For those of you who are as unsettled by this decree as I am, the only consolation I can offer is that there is a friendly looking parchment that rests along side it that says "When hope is restored the first child smiles again".  So at least there's that. 


 * Anyway, these un-indexable decrees are tricky.  They require us scribes to do a monthly walk through, to check if any decrees should be triggered, or are about to be triggered.  Once you have done a walkthrough and read through them enough times, you begin to get familar with the various triggers, and it gets easier to manage.  Every month there are usually somewhere between zero and four that need to be unsealed and read.  Most of them are simple enough to execute.  Some are quite arbitrary.  It can be a little strange, but as I said, one gets used to it.  On this particular night, I had two unindexable decrees to unseal.  One was marked "When the population of Moon City reaches 500.", which it had, according to the census results last Tuesday, and the other "When the Bertleburg bricks win a game."  They had, coincidentily on the same Tuesday.  I carried them to my work bench in the back of the library.  The first decree was simple, and instructed me to take 150 leos from a specific royal account, and send it to a specific man in Moon City along with a note reading "Use this for the rabbits.  - Love, Alfie".  As my elders used to say to me, and I have said to myself at least as many times:  "I don't ask questions".  After acquiring the funds and sending the package, I turned my attention to the second parchment.  It instructed me to "Immediately raise your arms in the air, wave them like you just don't care, and yell 'Gooooooo Bricks!'"  I can always count on Egdard to make me smile.  I hadn't met the man, but I really like his style.  I flailed my arms around inside the empty library with my shouts echoing off the walls, and down the halls.  I smiled to myself as the echoes died and the library grew quiet again.  


 * I walked to the far end of the library, and placed the two parchments in the stack labeled "finished decrees: no follow-up required", and headed back to my workbench.  As I walked, I noticed a small white mouse scurrying across the floor near the unindexed decrees.  No doubt he was roused by my earlier yelling.  If it were any other location, I'd have left out a piece of cheese for him, but unfortunately, I'd need to tell the staff about him, and have him removed.  A mouse in a room full of royal decrees is a recipee for disaster.  I imagined him nibbling the corners off the parchments and building a nest.  I wondered if I might be able to take him with me and find him a more suitable home.


 * I walked back to the unindexed decrees and looked around, but did not see him.  I spoke aloud "Sorry fella, but the staff will probably set traps in the morning." I turned and walked back to my workbench.  A few minutes later as I sat finishing up a little unrelated work, the mouse reappeared.  He was moving towards me awkwardly.  He was walking backward while dragging something which he had gripped in his teeth.  I watched quietly as he approached, not wanting to scare him away with any sudden moves.  He crept closer, and soon I could see that the object he was dragging was one of Egdard's decrees.  My eyes widened, but I did not know what to do, so I simply watched as he came closer, and closer.  I watched silently as he pulled the decree all the way until it was resting against my sandal.  He released it from his tiny teeth and looked up at me briefly with pink eyes, twitched his whiskers at me, and then darted under a shelf.  I crouched down to inspect the portion of the parchment where the mouse had been gripping it.  Other than two small impressions from his teeth, it seemed to be undamaged.  I picked it up and held it in my hand.  It was one of the larger ones.  Many pages.  On the outside of the roll, it read "When the mouse brings it to you."


 * I had seen this parchment many times before.  When I saw it in the past I had always wondered to myself "When WHICH mouse brings WHAT to WHO?".  But now it was crystal clear.  The mouse had brought it to me.  I suddenly became aware that I had been standing there silently staring at the roll of paper in my hands for an awefully long time.  I closed my mouth, and heard the "click" of my teeth echo in the empty room.  I put my thumb under the edge of the wax seal to open it, as I had done hundreds of times in the past.  But this time, it felt... personal.  I didnt know it at the time, but Egdard was about to meddle in my life in amazing and wonderful ways.  I unrolled the papers, and began reading.  It read:  


 * Hey there.  Relax.  This will be fun.  It's a fill-in-the-decree game!  Take these instructions, three blank pieces of parchment, a quill with ink, and two friends, and head out to a friendly pub where you can work on this together tonight.  You'll be home before midnight, I promise.




 * Okay, everybody have their drinks and ready to play?  Here are the rules.  Each word will....


 * I stopped reading.  What was I to do?  I hesitated, and instinctively answered my own question aloud with a sigh: "I don't ask questions."  I rolled the paper back up, tucked it into my satchel with three pieces of blank parchment, some ink and a quill, and headed over to collect Cedric and Rothgar: the only two friends that I knew would be up for this sort of thing.  We headed to the pub as I explained, starting with the white mouse.

The events that Egdard's decree set in motion that night had a huge impact on Simon's life. He became obsessed with learning everything he could about Egdard, and became the foremost expert on him. He eventually compiled his findings into the book "Egdard: The Puppet Master ". It was quite popular, and sold many copies. Simon went on to write another book about Egdard, and then one about William the Mumbler, and several others, but none as popular as his first. After Simon's death, his documents about Egdard were collected by his fellow scribes, and bound into a great compendium of tomes, which are still the most comprehensive collection regarding Egdard. Unfortunately, they raise far more questions than answers.