Annex 117-Δ

Annex 117-Δ is a subsidiary holding of the 117 series, entered in the floor-register at some point between the sealing of the Second Concordance, Annex D and the first recension of the Fourth Concordance, Annex Kappa (dated, by the reckoning of the North Scriptorium, to the ninth month of a year the register gives only as "the wet one"). It is not to be confused with Annex 4-Δ, which lies four hundred and six floors below and shares nothing but the delta suffix and a persistent drafting error in the indexes.

Position and extent

Annex 117-Δ occupies the northern third of the 117 landing, behind the door the porters call "the second one, not the one that sticks." It comprises eleven bays and a corridor, all of them dry since the re-roofing recorded under Ordinance 22, Annex Theta. Its outer wall abuts the stairwell shared with Annex 117-B, an arrangement that has never been formally ratified but which both parties observe, largely because the alternative is the concordance dispute of 1,180.

Access is by the northern landing only. The southern door was sealed in the winter of the year the register calls "the cold one" and has not been opened since; the seal bears the mark of the Steward of Spire Annex 7, whose office had no business sealing anything on the 117 landing and did so anyway.

The custody dispute

Custody of Annex 117-Δ is the subject of the longest-running disagreement in the 117 series. The Annex Steward for Annex 7-C claims administrative responsibility for all holdings bearing the 117 prefix, citing Clause 4, Annex C and its well-known establishment of the office of Annex Steward. The Librarians of the Northern Landing contest this, arguing that Clause 4 speaks to annexes of the 7 series and that the 117 holdings were entered "elsewhere, and by other hands" — the phrase is theirs, from their petition of the ninth month.

"The prefix is a number. A number is not a mandate. We have said so before and shall have to say so again."

— Petition of the Librarians of the Northern Landing, ninth month, para. 3

The dispute has produced four rulings and no resolution. The Third Concordance assigns custody to the senior steward present; the Fourth Concordance, Annex Kappa assigns it to the steward whose seal appears on the door, which is the Spire's, which the Spire has never disputed in writing and has never acted upon either. Annex E is sometimes cited in the matter, though it regulates the oversight of Annex C jointly with Annex Epsilon and has nothing whatever to do with the 117 landing. Its inclusion in the file appears to be an error that has become load-bearing.

Inventory

The bays were inventoried in full the last time anyone could agree who was entitled to do it. The inventory is short, and it is short for reasons the record does not supply:

• Eleven bays, of which seven are empty and one is locked.
• Two hundred and six catalogued items, chiefly undesignated.
• One ladder, not the Tower's.
• The locked bay's contents, unrecorded.

The ladder has been a matter of some delicacy. It is of a make the porters do not recognise, it is not stamped with any Concordance mark, and by the standing rule of the North Scriptorium it may not be removed by anyone who did not bring it. No one has ever admitted to bringing it. It stands in bay nine, where it has stood for a considerable time, and it is dusted once a quarter by whoever is on the landing that day.

The delta suffix

The delta suffix ordinarily denotes a holding created after its parent, usually by subdivision. Annex 117-Δ does not fit this pattern. Its register entry predates the entry for Annex 117-A by what appears to be eleven years, though the pages are bound out of order and the archivist Merrival Quen has argued, persuasively to some and not at all to others, that the eleven years are a copying error and the whole dispute is a matter of a dropped numeral. Her monograph on the subject, On the Dropped Numeral, is held in the reading room of the Annex of Luminous Negation and may be consulted by appointment.

The rival view, advanced by the Office of Suffixal Registers and never withdrawn, holds that the delta was applied in error by a clerk who had been working the 4 series the previous week and carried the suffix with him. The Office has declined to name the clerk. The clerk, whoever they were, has been dead for a long time, and the Office's position is that the dead are not corrected.

Current standing

Annex 117-Δ remains open, unattended, and in good repair. It is monitored under the general routine by way of the shared arrangement with Annex Epsilon, which does not cover it either. Visitors are asked to sign the landing book and to leave the ladder where it is.