Spiral Stair

The Spiral Stair

The Spiral Stair is the common designation for the catalogued object The Spiral Stair (Δ-19-SA.13.8.112), a helical ascent of undocumented total extent situated within Eastern Stair Spiral 14 and accessed through Eastern Stair, Gamma Corridor. It is the principal subject of the custodial office of the Warden of the Spiral Stair and the original charge of that office's first holder, Wren of the Spiral Stair. Under the cataloguing convention of the Ninth Recension, a "spiral" is any stair whose treads are rotated by a constant arc about a fixed centre; the Spiral Stair is one of four hundred and six entries to which the designation has been formally applied, and the only one whose rotation is recorded as changing between passes.

Designation and physical record

The stair's catalogue number, Δ-19-SA.13.8.112, is not a location, an ordinal, or a walk of any kind. It was issued in the winter of the 8th Cycle by the Bureau of Vertical Registration and has been reissued twice, on each occasion with its numerals unchanged but its delta prefix altered and restored. Surveyors of the Eastern Stair Survey Corps record the stair as rising at a pitch of 28 degrees with an initial landing diameter of four and one-half spans; beyond the two hundred and eleventh tread, however, the diameter ceases to recur consistently, and no survey has produced the same figure twice.

A standing instruction of the Corps, retained from the Concordance of Treads and reaffirmed in Third Concordance, Annex 4, states the recording requirement plainly:

"The transit of the Spiral Stair shall be entered in the survey ledger on the day of return, and not on the day of departure."

— Third Concordance, Annex 4, clause 4.2

Surveys have accordingly been filed as occurring on dates earlier than the expeditions they describe. The discrepancy has been upheld on appeal as correct.

Custodianship

The early custodianship of the stair was ambiguous. The office of Warden was created to hold it, but the instrument of creation assigned the stair only by description, and the description was of a structure that survey later declined to confirm as the structure surveyed. The Warden's title and procedural duties were retained notwithstanding, and the office now discharges them under the boundary ruling set out in the Concordance of the Gamma Boundary, which places the stair within the corridor while placing its upper landings outside it. The practical consequence is that the Warden stamps research permits for Floor 743 without having jurisdiction over the treads by which petitioners reach it.

Following the terminology of Kaelen of the Unfinished Stair, who characterised the stair's recurring irregularities as "dimensional fatigue," the Chair of Spiral Integrity was commissioned to advise the Warden. The Chair has advised the Warden in every year since its commissioning and has not yet been asked a question.

Recension dispute

Scholars disagree as to whether the Spiral Stair is one stair or a series of stairs successively encountered. The Archivist's Council vs. The Keepers of the Spiral Stair turned on precisely this point. The Council held that a stair whose diameter does not recur cannot be demonstrated to be the same stair on the second pass, and therefore that the count of passes is not evidence of a single structure. The Keepers answered that the stair had been walked continuously and that continuity of passage, not sameness of tread, constituted identity.

The dispute was settled, in the manner of the Tower, by finding for neither party and amending the record. Fourth Concordance, Annex 2, now provides that the stair "shall be described in the singular, and counted in the plural where necessary." Both parties cite the clause in support of their position. The Office of Recension has declined to clarify it on three occasions, noting that clarification would itself require an amendment.

Comparison with neighbouring structures

The Spiral Stair is frequently confused with the Quiet Stair, which adjoins it without intersecting it, and which returns different measurements when measured by the same instruments on the same day. Surveyors are instructed to observe both stairs on any visit, in that order, as the Concordance of Paired Ascents directs. The instruction exists because of an incident in the 9th Cycle in which an expedition measured the Quiet Stair first and filed a description of the Spiral Stair that matched no entry in the catalogue for eleven years.

Comparable catalogued spirals include the Spiral of Deferred Action, Spiral 719-Gamma, and the Aethelred Spiral, though only the last shares the Spiral Stair's property of altered rotation. The relationship between the Spiral Stair and the broader Sultanate of the Silent Stair, whose dominion was designated over the surrounding corridor, remains unresolved; the Sultanate's claim over the stair was lodged in the 7th Cycle and has never been withdrawn or examined.

Access and current standing

Ascent of the Spiral Stair requires a stamped research permit, which may be obtained from the Warden on any day the Warden is in attendance. Descending the stair is not separately permitted.

No expedition has reported reaching either terminus. The Register of Unreturned Ascents lists one hundred and forty-one parties as of the last revision, of which eleven have since been removed on evidence of return, and one removed twice. Whether the stair ends, and where, is not a question the Concordances address; the Warden's standing reply to enquiries on the matter, recorded in the Ledger of the Spiral Stair for the 12th Cycle, is that the stair is administered, not concluded.