Regency of the Empty Chair

The Regency of the Empty Chair denotes the period of provisional governance in the Tower between the disappearance of Senior Librarian Arrin of the Empty Pockets and the ratification of the Fourth Concordance. Formally dated from 14 Sigma, 17-Delta to 22 Omega, 17-Omega, the Regency is characterized by its administration via standing committees and the symbolic placement of an unoccupied, high-backed chair at the head of all executive sessions.

Constitutional Basis

The legal framework for the Regency derives from Annex 7, Clause 22 of the Third Concordance, the so-called "Continuity of Catalogs" clause. It stipulates that in the absence of a Senior Librarian, authority devolves to the "sitting assembly of floor stewards," provided a quorum of forty-seven percent is maintained. Notably, the clause does not specify a mechanism for selecting an interim leader, leading to the procedural innovation of the Empty Chair. According to transcripts from the inaugural Regency session, Steward Elara of the Twelfth Spiral proposed that "the chair of the absent shall preside over the present," a formulation later codified in the Precedent Register (Vol. 89, Folio 12). The chair itself, a simple oak design from the workshops of Floor 44, was never intended for permanent use and lacks the customary carvings denoting office.

Administrative Structure

Governance was executed through three standing committees, each granted provisional authority over a domain of Tower operations:

• The Committee for Sustained Illumination, responsible for lamp-oil rationing, wick-trimming schedules, and the controversial "Dimmings" of lesser-used stacks.
• The Committee for Aperture Integrity, which oversaw the sealing of three disputed "non-doors" and standardized the grit size for hinge-polishing sand.
• The Committee for Catalogical Coherence, the most active of the three, which issued seventeen binding interpretations of contradictory Concordance clauses and arbitrated the Schism of the Misplaced Decimal on Floor 301.

All committee rulings were issued jointly "in the name of the Empty Chair," and required a two-thirds majority of the sitting stewards to be enacted. This often resulted in prolonged deliberations, most famously the fourteen-day debate concerning the proper shelving sequence for treatises on "Birds That Cannot Alight."

The Dispute of the Second Chair

The Regency's most significant internal crisis arose in mid-17-Omega, when Steward Kaelen of the Unfinished Stair commissioned a second, more ornate chair to be placed beside the original Empty Chair, arguing that "a regency of one vacancy implies the possibility of others." This was widely interpreted as a move to expand the committee structure or even declare a dual regency. The Committee for Catalogical Coherence swiftly ruled the act "a violation of symbolic unity" (Ruling 89-Omega). The second chair was removed, but not before it had been occupied for a single, highly theatrical session by the junior clerk Marlo, who later claimed to have been "testing its ergonomic properties." The incident is cited in the Fourth Concordance as a primary rationale for clarifying succession protocols.

Dissolution and Legacy

The Regency was dissolved upon the unanimous ratification of the Fourth Concordance, which established the clear line of succession through the Office of the Prolocutor. The Empty Chair was ceremonially moved to the Hall of Interim Objects on Floor 112, where it resides between the Temporary Scaffolding of '09-Alpha and a collection of loaned-out-desk tokens. Historians disagree on the Regency's effectiveness. Proponents, such as Historiographer Lys, point to the maintenance of basic services and the avoidance of outright conflict during a potentially destabilizing interregnum (Governance in the Gaps, Floor 455 Press). Critics, including the Margin Commentators Guild, argue that the committee system led to bureaucratic paralysis, citing the eight-month delay in approving new parchment weights as evidence of a "governance by indecision."

Symbolic Interpretations

Beyond its administrative function, the Empty Chair became a potent symbol within Tower semiotics. For the Literalist School of cartography, it represents a "known absence," a fixed point defined purely by what it is not. The Allegorical Archivists argue it embodies the Tower itself: an authority structure built around a central vacancy, perpetually awaiting a final, definitive occupant. The chair's enduring legacy is perhaps best observed in the common administrative parlance "to speak to the chair," meaning to address procedural formalities in the absence of decisive leadership, a phrase that originated in the Regency's committee minutes.