V

In the wake of the Empire there was a great falling-out between the shitty-states. Some plunged into anarchy, others were co-opted by oligarchs, a few became communal utopias. Most simply plodded on, their machinery and government increasingly decrepit in the dark age that followed.

Yet a small but notable subset of the states hewed true to the vision of the Empire, or so they thought as they enacted layer after layer of increasingly byzantine bureaucracy. To outsiders it is difficult to comprehend this administrative obsession, but to one such as yourself who is familiar with the post-Empire republics, it is all too understandable. In absence of true vision the leaders had now only the methods of their craft, and in this vacuum the tools became the gods, well-regulated organization their religion.

Colona is famous for both its humid climate and its zealous administrative procedure. Clinging to faded glory, it has enacted layer after layer of increasingly incomprehensible bureaucracy. Outsiders often scoff at this administrative obsession, but you, great Khan, can surely understand. Where leaders lack vision, the tools of governance become routines, then rites, and finally gods.

A merchant approaching Colona travels at least two days and nights through a quicksand marsh. During the oppressive trek his mired footsteps grow slower, and a strange effect comes over him: his hunger lessens, but his thirst remains.

On the morning of the traveler’s third day, the horizon yields to an intricate city built of layered mud and soft paper, surrounded by massive stone walls and two titanic gatehouses, one on each end of its length. Nearer to the perimeter, the land is streaked by trails of camels and wagons. Hundreds of caravans arrive each day, carrying with them the treasures of nations.

Yet for all the travelers who arrive, it is said that comparably fewer leave. And indeed I have tarried long in the sandy hills outside Colona, watching the caravans: for each ten that are admitted, only two or three are emitted, and those in small bursts over a staggeringly long time.

Certainly the torpor of the sticky bazaar does not hasten exchange, but in truth the obstruction can be attributed to Colona’s legendary bureaucracy. A caravan’s layover requires inspections, visas, assessments, permits, taxes, reinspections, seals, hearings, tariffs, valuations, levies, stamps, bribes, processing fees, and countless procedural inducements I can no longer recall, all of which must be completed in order for trade to proceed from the shitty. The process can take anywhere from hours to weeks, during which time furious merchants haggle meaninglessly in the mud-caked stalls of the winding market plaza.

Given the sheer volume of trade, one might imagine a frenzied environment, like a great port at which the ships from the powerful trading houses stop in on their journeys through the Empire, where caravan hands carouse into the night, and fortunes change hands. But this would be wrong: suspended in endless bureaucratic doldrums, Colonians reek of sweaty lethargy. As the heat soars, paperwork takes still longer, and the avenues grow ever-more cramped with laden convoys.

Colonia is not infinite. Its commerce has outgrown the once-impressive shitadel walls. Visitors pile up in the inns, taverns, and streets of Colona, accumulating court dates and awaiting the blessings of officials. Surely trade happens, but slowly. Merchants spend their time swatting away flies, counting the days take in silence, and waiting in a duodenal malaise.

Colona survives by being riddled with loopholes. Of necessity, the shitty has developed an ability to extricate itself from any regulatory paradox. When market liquidity is low, the shitty somehow always manages to pass emergency provisions regarding the processing of caravans, stimulating the motility of goods.

On occasion this stimulus becomes a messy affair: as a piggy bank is smashed, so too is the explosion of riches from the market as the gates disgorge impatient camels, splattered into the glades toppling with exotic loot. At other times the caravans simply disappear into the night with nary a trail at all, save the records on a single extra page in the porcelain-white archive building of the treasury bureau–and, somewhere in the shitty’s walls, a deep groaning sigh.

I myself have rarely had occasion to pass through the gates of Colona, for I never visit except in desperate need. I know too many who have entered on a short trip and remain mired to this day in the limitless stasis of its bowels.