One day, while sweeping out the ashes of a fireplace in an empty meeting room, paper crinkled under the Scholar’s broom. He froze, lifting the broomstick. Partially burnt paper in a fireplace. What else could this be but evidence of the Archives’ crimes? Heart racing, he glanced around. No one was nearby. Dropping to all fours, he sifted through the ashes and fished out several more pieces of paper. Some pieces were even still legible. He stuffed all of the scraps into his pockets and continued sweeping. Over the next few hours, he scurried to every fireplace in the building, rescuing old notes and burnt paper from the embers.

Later, hidden in the depths of the library, the Scholar sat between the high shelves and inspected the day’s findings. The stories told here painted a far more disturbing picture of the Empire: instead of brave combat against rebel forces, there were brutal beatdowns of villagers. Instead of praising the imperial soldiers’ helpful acts of public service, some reports begged the regional government to recall the troops. The recluse in the western woods seemed to be a recurring problem for the local villages, yet soldiers refused to even approach the man. Taxes went missing on a regular basis, yet the pleas of regional clerks appeared again and again—often with complaints about the same few officials. Indeed, the Empire’s true nature seemed a far cry from the stories that he had admired as a youth.

The Scholar’s hands trembled as he read truth upon wretched truth, and often he closed his eyes in horror. If these original reports were burned, no one would ever know how different reality was from the sanitized version recorded in the Archives. How many crimes had already been erased through the Archives’ obfuscation? By the time the Scholar finished reading through the reports, he was close to tears. He gathered up the scraps of ragged paper, wishing that there was a way to somehow restore this truth to the Archives.

Wait. There was a way. Realization flooded through the Scholar, accompanied by profound relief and a new sense of purpose. He could fix this—he could! All it would cost was time and effort, and after being demoted to a mere sweeper, the Scholar had both in abundance.

The Scholar increased the speed of his daily rounds, making sure to clean out every major fireplace at least once per hour.

The cleaning manager noticed his sudden burst of productivity, saying, “I’ve never seen such a dedicated sweeper.”

The Scholar could only nod along. “Just doing my duty, sir. Just doing my duty.”

Whenever he saw pages burning, he would grab a fire poker as though to reshuffle the firewood—but instead, he would separate the paper from the wood, pat out any flames, and pocket this evidence. He appropriated a small amount of paper, pen, and ink from the storerooms. Using these supplies, he copied every half-burnt scrap of truth onto pristine archival sheets. Then, when he passed through the library on his daily rounds, he found the fraudulent entries that corresponded to his exact copies and switched them.

If the Archives replaced truths with falsehood, then the Scholar just needed to work twice as hard to replace their falsehoods with truth again. The scraps of original reports piled up at home, annoying his wife and crowding his young daughter’s play space, but the Scholar had more important matters to consider. What was a family compared to the nation’s secrets?

One day, the Scholar saw another member of the cleaning staff pour a bin of ragged-edged paper into a large fire pit in the dining hall. Dark smoke spewed from the fire, escaping from the chimney track to make the air hazy in the entire room. The lunch hour had passed hours ago, and the dining hall was deserted; evidently, paper was best burned in bulk when no people were near to experience the smoke. Inspiration struck. If the Scholar could get his hands on the reports before they were tossed, he would not need to struggle with deciphering half-burnt scraps anymore.

He approached the fellow cleaner, noting exhaustion in the slump of the other’s shoulders.

“That’s a lot of rubbish for one person to haul about. Would you like some help there, friend?” the Scholar offered, giving his most sympathetic smile.

The cleaner’s face brightened, and he nodded. “Yes, please do. There are three more writing halls I haven’t cleared out yet.”

The Scholar accompanied his new friend to the next writing hall. There were two rubbish bins in this hall, one by the door and the other in a far corner. Both cleaning staff entered the hall silently, careful not to disturb the scribes filling every row of desks. The Scholar picked up the bin by the door while his friend took the other. Each bin was filled with scraps of unwanted paper, consisting of both ragged-edged original reports and pristine rejected transcriptions. They carried these bins through the halls, returning toward the dining hall. Behind the cleaner’s back, the Scholar shoved handfuls of paper into his pockets, his sleeves, and the collar of his tunic. Sadly, he could not save every sheet, and a tragic number of reports still remained in the bin when they reached the fire pit.

The other cleaner poured both bins into the fire, unafraid of the sudden flare of heat from adding fuel. Wiping his brow, the cleaner frowned.

“Huh. These bins are lighter than usual.”

The Scholar shrugged carefully, hoping that the other would not notice the crinkle of paper as he moved. “Shared work always feels easier. This is what friends are for, right?”

Every day, the Scholar hid more reports in the guise of helping his fellow cleaner. A week passed in this manner, but the Scholar’s progress was slow. For each bin of reports that he managed to rescue from incineration, there were five more that he was too late to save; for each word of truth that he wrote, there were twenty more scribes putting lies into the history books. He worked as hard as he could, spending every free moment at the Archives copying or searching for original reports. He even brought the work home, staying up late into the night and rising early to write even more. His wife berated him for spending too much time on work, but he refused to decrease his efforts. Every hour turned toward the country’s betterment was an hour well spent, and he had a lifetime to give.

Three weeks after the Scholar started work at the Archives, and almost as long into his efforts to restore the truth, the Scholar was caught switching out the library records. He had been inserting a freshly re-copied entry into the appropriate stack when a hand caught his wrist. He gasped, turning.

“What are you doing, shoemaker?” asked the same senior scribe responsible for his current sweeping post.

Panic came over the Scholar. He had always waited to swap the entries until the lunch hour, since everyone ought to be too busy eating to catch him in the library. Over the past weeks, no one had ever come to this corner of the library while the Scholar was replacing records. Why had the senior scribe come along now, of all times? Now that the Scholar was caught, how could he explain fixing the histories that a lowly dust-sweeper was never even supposed to read? The senior had been far from sympathetic about the Scholar’s concerns the first time around.

“I... was just... dusting the shelves?” Even to his own ears, the excuse sounded pathetic.

As it turned out, the senior was also unsympathetic this time. After taking one look at the true-copied report in the Scholar’s hand, he promptly hauled the Scholar to the head office to see the master archivist, chief of the entire Archives.

Before the master archivist’s desk, the senior scribe revealed the Scholar’s deeds. Unauthorized access to the library, modifying the historical records, undermining the mission statement of the Archives—the accusations piled on and on. The senior scribe clearly was an expert at fabricating lies. After the senior scribe presented enough accusations to have the Scholar fired twenty times over, the master archivist nodded patiently.

“Yes, yes. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Go back to your work now. I will handle this,” the master archivist said to the senior. Turning to the Scholar, the master archivist said, “You have a lot of face, to stand there unashamed of your misdeeds.”

“I am not guilty. I have only corrected the wrongdoings of others,” the Scholar replied. He explained every lie he had discovered, sparing no detail as he presented the full evidence of the disturbing edits made in the historical records. In the end, he pleaded that all participants in such crimes be fully investigated and properly punished for deceiving the public.

The master archivist chuckled, stroking his long beard.

“You must be mad with the fever. You know not the gravity of these accusations. Do yourself a favor: take a few months off to regain your senses. No one will hold it against you,” the master archivist suggested.

“I am in full command of my senses—do you not see? Ousting the wrongdoers for these modifications is the only way for you to clear the Archives’ name. If one criminal goes unpunished, others will think it is acceptable to falsify information as well. Such lies I cannot abide!”

The master archivist sighed. “You youngsters are always rash. These minor edits are hardly worth noting. If the people running this Empire only want to hear good news, then it is our job to oblige them. Doctoring unsavory reports is a time-honored tradition of our Guild. We tell the people good news, and they give us good pay. You should be grateful. It is why even the lowest cleaner here enjoys a luxurious salary.”

“Pay?” The Scholar stared in shock. How could the master archivist imply that he cared about money, of all things, when truth itself was being twisted?

“Do you understand why all scribes, including you, must participate in fixing unpleasant reports?”

“I understand perfectly.” The Scholar placed his hands on the desk, leaning forward. “It’s far worse than I thought. You are part of the problem, and you should be demoted as well.”

The master archivist sighed.

“If you truly feel such resentment toward your superiors, there is no place for you in the Archives, much less the Scribes’ Guild.” Before the Scholar could protest, the master archivist pulled an employment file from the desk and stamped it with a red seal. He tossed it at the Scholar. “Go seek your fortunes elsewhere.”

The Scholar caught the file as it slid off the edge of the table. Red marks cut across the page like wounds. Just three weeks ago, he had been overjoyed to see this file stamped with the blue seal of employment after passing the Guild Exam. Today, the Scholar’s dreams of a bright, hardworking future ended in bold red letters.

Excommunicated from the Scribes’ Guild. Fired from the Archives, the one job he had wished for since before he learned to read. Unemployable in any other Guild-run establishment.

He could not bear the master archivist’s pity. He fled.