The Folio-Pouch

The Folio-Pouch is a classified carrying receptacle issued to couriers of the Office of the Folio for the transit of documents between non-adjacent floors of the Tower. Its interior dimensions are recorded as 19.3 by 12.7 by 4.1 centimetres, though the Master Folio of Pending Evidence notes that eleven pouches measured on Floor 2,441 returned values differing by up to 0.6 centimetres without observable cause. The Folio-Pouch is never to be opened on a staircase, a prohibition restated in Third Concordance, Annex 9, and reaffirmed by the Red Folio Precedent in its supplementary recension of 804.

Issuance and Custody

The Folio-Pouch is entrusted upon the completion of the Courier's Vow, administered by the Scriptorium of the Immanent Folio in the presence of one silent witness. Custody records are maintained in Algernon's Folio, where the clerk Hestor Bindle entered a grievance in the winter of 888 complaining that his pouch had been logged to Floor 1,997 though he had carried it no higher than Floor 412. The Office of the Folio declined to arbitrate, citing Clause 3 of the Red Folio, which holds that "a pouch's recorded floor supersedes its bearer's recollection where the two disagree" (Red Folio, Clause 3). Bindle's pouch was thereafter listed as mislaid on a floor he had never visited, and the matter was closed without further annotation.

Construction and the Blank Vellum

Each Folio-Pouch is lined with a single leaf taken from the surplus of The Blank Folio, the master ledger from which vellum for Negative Folios is also drawn. The lining is believed by the Scriptorium of the Immanent Folio to absorb errant inscriptions that would otherwise appear on the carried document. This belief is disputed by the compilers of Self Contradictory Folio, who hold that the lining merely delays appearance of the script by "one full circuit of the carrier's round" (Self Contradictory Folio, Marginal Note 12). The Folio-Spanner is required to re-seal the lining every 49.5 hours, a maintenance interval borrowed from the early care of the Folio of Perpetual Inventory, though pouches are seldom opened for such service.

The A-77b Contamination Incident

In 811, following the quarantine of Folio A-77b, three Folio-Pouches used in its transfer were found to carry faint, self-erasing script mirroring that folio's logical inversions. The Terminal Acquisition of the Chen Folio records that one courier, upon opening his pouch on Floor 1,033, observed the words "REQUIEM, UNSPECIFIED — HOLD" before they vanished; the Office of the Folio declines to identify the hand that wrote on that folio, as it declines for all such appearances. The pouches were withdrawn to the annex of Sub Folio 112 A722, then a Temporary Folio holding, where the Curatorial Panel invoked Clause 7 of the Red Folio Precedent to suspend their use pending recension.

Scholarly Disagreement on Capacity

A long dispute concerns whether the Folio-Pouch may carry more than one document at a time. The Second Concordance states plainly that "a pouch admits of a single folio and no companion leaf" (Second Concordance, Section 4). The Third Concordance, however, permits "such number as the courier's round requires, not exceeding the pouch's silent allowance" (Third Concordance, Annex 9). The Master Folio favours the narrower reading but acknowledges the broader in a footnote added during the recension of 790. The contradiction remains unresolved, and couriers on Floor 1,997 have been observed carrying two documents without censure, a practice the Folio of Perpetual Inventory records but does not endorse.

Inventory of the Lost Pouch Round

The following pouches were recorded as irretrievable in the winter of 902, per the Case of the Echoing Folio:

• Pouch 14-Delta, last seen on Floor 778
• Pouch 19-Gamma, last seen on Floor 1,441
• Pouch 22-Alpha, last seen on Floor 2,013

No echo of these pouches has since been heard, and the Office of the Folio considers the entries closed. A visiting scholar may handle a Folio-Pouch only while wearing slippers of uncured felt, a rule entered without explanation in Algernon S Folio and observed without exception.