The Stewards

The Stewards are Namar’s independent offices of water and passage. Each controls reservoirs, draws, and canyon roads within an inherited responsibility that no city or dynasty appoints. A Steward trains one apprentice in the whole office. At death, that apprentice succeeds without confirmation. Resignation is lawful, occurs about once in a generation, and does not give another institution power to choose the replacement.

A Steward may increase or reduce a draw, open or close a canyon, price passage, seal a reservoir, or deny a house its season without stating a reason. Water councils at the Nine Wells debate allocation and administer the city, but Stewards determine what the reservoirs and roads can sustain. The councils decide what ought to be distributed; the offices decide whether it can move.

The Red Gates inspect cargo, collect tariffs, schedule crossings, and maintain their gorge. That authority ends at the crossing. Roads beyond it remain dependent on wells held by Stewards, so a caravan may clear every gate and still meet sealed water farther along an otherwise open route.

Steward authority does not reach private cistern households. Those families hold their water knowledge as inheritance and owe no declaration to a council or office. Sextons serving the Stewards preserve public reservoir seals rather than opening family stores. The Voice at Tareth is separate as well: the office speaks for Namar abroad but cannot alter a draw or command a canyon.

The system’s greatest risk is succession. Namar has no procedure for removing an incompetent or hostile Steward after accession. The last canyon closed from spite remained closed for nineteen years. Velyr has called the offices an administration that outlived its government for eleven centuries, while Kharad sends gifts and treats continued access as the more useful judgment.