Superior Saturday

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SATURDAY, SELF-STYLED Superior Sorcerer of the House, stood in her private viewing chamber at the very apex of her dominion, atop the tower that she had been building for almost ten thousand years. This clear crystal-walled room was always at the top, the builders lifting it higher and higher as new levels were slotted in below.

Saturday looked down through the rain-washed glass, at the multitude of fuzzy green spots of light below. It looked like the tower, thousands of feet high, had suffered a vast, vertical infestation of green glow-worms, but the spots of light actually came from the green-shaded lamps that sat on every desk in the Upper House, in exactly the same position, just as each desk was set exactly in the middle of an open cube of red wrought iron, with a grille floor and no ceiling.

These cubes – the basic building blocks of Saturday’s tower – ran on vertical and horizontal rails, ascending, descending, or moving sideways according to the merits of the Denizens who worked at the desks.

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