THE MORS DELECTAMENTI HOTEL \u2014 Episode Two: “The Vizier” A man who has spent thirty years deciding which version of events is permitted to survive is now making a record of his own. By choice, he insists. On a device he carried up the mountain himself. Izlanor Leohanart, Royal Vizier to the Principality of Vintenshad, ascends Carbowee Mountain in a private carriage, stripped of his wards at the gate, permitted to keep only a book and a recorder. He has been to this hotel before. He knows what stands on the summit. He knows what is appointed to occur beneath it tonight. And he is climbing anyway, because the only alternative is to remain at a gate in the cold and say aloud the reason he cannot. Three weeks ago, a knight of the Cerulean Academy played him a recording of a young man’s voice and studied his face to learn what it would do. The knight recorded what he saw as a confession. Let him. The second guest checks in. The vizier does not remain at gates. The hotel has been expecting him \u2014 it remembers all its guests, especially the ones who insist they are only here on business of the crown.<\/p>\n