The Seal of Chaff

The rhythmic thud of the trebuchets outside the ancient walls of Damascus sent tremors through the limestone floor of the Bureau of Police. With every strike, fine white dust drifted from the high vaulted ceiling, settling over the open ledges like the ash of forgotten days. Julian did not lift his reed pen. His fingers, stained to the knuckles with carbon ink, betrayed only the slightest tremor as he meticulously recorded the manifests of grain shipments arriving from the ravaged Ghouta countryside. The air in the cellar was thick, stagnant with the scent of damp parchment and the mineral chill of stone that had not tasted sunlight in decades. The only break in the silence was the wet, labored cough of the guard at the door, whose heavy eyelids spoke of a city that had forgotten how to sleep. Julian’s breath hitched. His eyes locked onto the final line of a ledger written in a hand he did not recognize: 'Twenty loads of wheat, Bab Touma granaries, under the Seal of the Vanished Overseer.' The inkwell sat forgotten as a heavy droplet of black fluid fell onto the number 'twenty,' blooming like a dark bruise on the page. 'The Vanished Overseer.' It wasn't merely an administrative no…