Archive
The ants' archive and the counter-memory of the Tribunal. The Annals are written in spore-ink on wax, and the ink is alive: it keeps a record for decades and then, slowly, eats it. The archive is a tall chamber honeycombed floor to vault with tens of thousands of hexagonal niches, each holding one wax tablet and one sealed spore-capsule that glows faintly while its culture is alive. Scribe-ants run the walls on silk ladders, recopying what is fading before it goes; elephant readers stand in the ...
Located in The Chitinous Mandate.