Rift-Sniffers
"A door smells like cold iron and somebody else's kitchen. A bad door smells like nothing at all. Run from the doors that smell like nothing." — First lesson given to every pup
The Rift-Sniffers keep Quillnib's Handle from falling apart. They turn the pages of the Book of Doors, they keep the register of every goblin born in the city, and they go and fetch people who have stepped through the wrong page. Most of the Handle treats them the way a village treats its midwife and its gravedigger at once: with respect, and at a slight distance.
The Nose
Rift-Sniffers smell space. A folded corridor, a hidden cupboard, a page that is about to stick: all of them have a scent, and a trained Sniffer can follow it through three walls. Nobody is born with the skill. Pups are chosen at about six years old for having a good sense of smell and a bad sense of direction, on the theory that goblins who get lost easily pay more attention.
Training lasts nine years. For the first two, pups are blindfolded for every lesson.
Ranks
| Rank | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Pup | Trainees. Carry lanterns, fetch water, get lost on purpose and are timed finding their way back. |
| Nose | A full Sniffer. May turn pages for paying visitors and escort them through. |
| Long Nose | Senior Sniffers who handle faded pages, rescues, and registering newborns. |
| Chief Nose | One at a time, chosen by the Long Noses. The current Chief Nose is Hobb of Page Nine. |
The Register
When a goblin is born in the Handle, a Long Nose carries the baby to the Book, and the Book opens to a page of its choosing. That page number becomes part of the child's name for life: Pim of Page 40, Skeel of Page 212. Goblins registered on one of the First Pages spell the number out, as in Hobb of Page Nine, and are touchy about it. The Sniffers write it into the register in ordinary ink, and the Book remembers it in its own way.
Goblins raised on the same page tend to look out for each other, the way cousins do. Being called pageless is the worst insult in the city.
Work and Wages
- Turning a page for a visitor costs whatever the Sniffer thinks the visitor can afford. Rudeness doubles it.
- Rescues from faded pages are free for Handle-born goblins and very expensive for everyone else.
- Page repairs are the only lawful use of Blackweight in the city, and Long Noses keep the licence under lock.
- Sniffers are forbidden to drink at the Slow Pot while on duty, because a nose full of stew steam cannot smell a door.
Persuading the Book
The Book of Doors sometimes refuses. Sniffers have a long list of ways to change its mind: reading aloud to it, apologising on behalf of whoever upset it, dusting the spine with a feather, or simply sitting next to it in silence until it gets bored. None of them always work. Hobb claims the only reliable method is patience, and nobody else has that much.