# Tessovar

*A basin capital west of the water*

Tessovar faces its reservoir across a working edge of canals, treatment facilities and public promenades. The dry city's shaded courts and freight districts give its national arguments ordinary addresses.

## Where the city stands

About 186,000 residents occupy Tessovar's continuous urban area, with roughly 250,000 in the wider municipal district. These estimates form part of Selnic's 4.6 million, not an additional population. The reservoir lies east of the city. A controlled feeder canal enters the northeastern service district and branches into managed distribution channels. No broad natural river crosses the whole built-up area. The freight line runs along the western side, keeping major yards away from the reservoir's public shore.

Basin Way is the principal west-to-east street, linking the freight approaches, markets and reservoir promenade. Kiln Avenue runs north to south west of the civic centre and meets Basin Way at the market approaches. Older court houses cluster near that junction; newer public buildings stand farther east. Low density beyond the southern workshops leaves room for storage, vehicle turning and future development without pretending the city ends at a neat wall.

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![Dusty low-rise houses and factories face a reservoir, with patched shade cloth, freight wagons and shoppers around a cart in the foreground.](../assets/illustrations/tessovar-reservoir-v1.png)

*Tessovar's reservoir edge, where shade, waterworks, freight and household life share the same dry basin.*

## Eight places on the plan

The plan's numbered destinations support the routes described here. Water-service crossings are small canal crossings where marked; none should be drawn as a city-wide river bridge.

| No. | Place | District | Why people go |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | West Exchange | Freight Ward, western edge | Local goods collection, carrier offices and rail freight |
| 2 | Arcade Market | Old Courts, west-central | Food stalls, ordinary shopping and evening company |
| 3 | Assembly House | Civic Terrace, east-central | Public proceedings and representatives' offices |
| 4 | Water Accounts Office | Canal Quarter, northeast | Allocation records, bills and transfer disputes |
| 5 | Reservoir Steps | Eastern promenade | Supervised recreation, walks and the evening view |
| 6 | Basin Referral House | South Civic | Specialist care and arrangements for visiting patients |
| 7 | Kiln Court | Southern workshops | Pottery, repair work, classes and small performances |
| 8 | Quiet Room Library | North Courts | Books, study rooms and a non-denominational quiet court |

## From a delivery to the evening shore

Start at West Exchange and follow Basin Way east. Cross Kiln Avenue at the marked market junction and enter Arcade Market. Return to Basin Way and continue east to Assembly House, then follow the pedestrian continuation to Reservoir Steps. A return loop heads south along the public promenade, turns west towards Basin Referral House and continues to Kiln Court. Follow Kiln Avenue north to regain the market junction. The northern branch from Assembly House reaches the Water Accounts Office; a separate shaded lane from the market reaches Quiet Room Library.

Freight Ward opens early and offers cheap meals, transport work and rooms whose windows face loading activity. Old Courts has quieter interiors than its crowded street fronts suggest. Civic Terrace has public shade but costly nearby rents. The southern workshops mix noisy daytime work with evening classes. Visitors seeking a picturesque quarter may pass a potter's ordinary production entrance twice before recognising the courtyard where the performance takes place.

## Keeping the household supplied

Raw reservoir water enters treatment facilities before reaching drinking-water mains. Irrigation and industrial channels are marked separately; a clear-looking canal is not a drinking fountain. Wastewater moves to treatment grounds south of the principal residential districts, away from the designated reservoir intake. Reclaimed water has defined uses and separate distribution. Household cisterns must be maintained rather than treated as an inexhaustible guarantee.

Public taps provide a basic alternative during local interruptions, with access points designed for carts and residents who cannot carry heavy vessels. Ramped crossings and shaded waiting places are more useful than an ornamental tree that blocks the path. Market refuse is collected through rear lanes. Dust, blocked drains and overheated classrooms generate complaints quite capable of occupying a council without a national emergency. The West Exchange sells transport services within its actual schedule; it cannot produce an interstellar berth.

## The bowl with the uneven birds

At Kiln Court, Ovara turned a bowl beneath the evening lamp. She had painted six birds around its rim. Five flew. The sixth appeared to be falling sideways with a grievance. Her sister looked from the bowl to the display table. 'You're charging the same for that one?'

Ovara moved it to the front. 'It holds the same amount.' She had spent the afternoon preparing plain storage jars and wanted, for once, to put something foolish where people could see it. From the next court came a singer testing a note and abandoning it without embarrassment.

A young man stopped, counted the birds and laughed. He bought the bowl after inspecting its glaze, saying nothing about whom it was for. Ovara wrapped it in clean paper. When the courtyard emptied, her sister asked whether she had another. Ovara held up the smaller piece she had kept beneath the table. Its birds were all standing. She had decided they deserved a rest.

## A city built around access to water

Before the Reservoir Bonds of SR 590, the old courts held storage, workshops and homes along smaller distribution works. Investment connected those systems and enlarged the freight town, while secured revenue made creditors a lasting presence. The Basin Settlement of SR 624 brought the Assembly's offices and new public expectations. It did not widen every lane or remove every family's debt.

Older plots survive around the Basin Way and Kiln Avenue junction. Buildings turned inward to obtain shade before newer civic terraces offered broad public approaches. A small house can therefore have a tolerable courtyard behind an oppressive street frontage, while a handsome newer room stores afternoon heat beneath its roof. A resident choosing a lease reads window direction as closely as the rent.

## The name accepted at the counter

The Water Accounts Office records allocations and transfers; municipal drinking-water provision is a different service. Buying an agricultural share does not entitle its holder to a private connection to any city main. This distinction is explained at the public counter often enough that the clerks keep an illustrated sheet. Some purchasers discover it only after paying someone who carefully omitted that sheet.

Residence adviser Vessa Tair holds evening sessions at Quiet Room Library. She helps workers assemble evidence from landlords, schools and employers without promising that every claim succeeds. One family's members may have different legal status and the same address. When a household loses its room, finding a new school place, restoring a work journey and answering a registry enquiry can become the same exhausting task.

## West Exchange in the morning

The western freight line brings metal, tools and parts towards cooperatives servicing bearings and machinery. Finished work must pass fit and load checks before carriers collect it. A signed order from a distant empire cannot substitute for the imported cutting tool missing from a locked cupboard. Tool-lending arrangements reduce idle time but require inspection: a damaged tool returned quietly spreads losses through several shops.

Freight Ward boarding houses serve workers whose hours disagree with ordinary meal times. Laundries distinguish domestic washing from contaminated work clothing; carrying grinding dust into a shared sleeping room makes exposure a household matter. The southern workshops need dependable energy and clean water without being connected to drinking supplies through improvised hoses. Utility inspectors trace these connections because a prosperous contract can produce a very cheap shortcut.

| Journey | Route or institution | What to check |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Collect a repaired part | West Exchange on the western freight side | Inspection record, collection time and packing |
| Attend a hearing | Basin Way to Assembly House | Public session notice and security arrangements |
| Seek specialist care | Basin Referral House, South Civic | Referral and plans for accompanying dependants |
| Visit the shore | Basin Way towards Reservoir Steps | Recreation notices; working intakes remain closed |
| Find evening study | Quiet Room Library, North Courts | Opening hours and available assistance |

## A clean-looking canal

The controlled feeder enters the northeastern service quarter, while marked industrial and irrigation channels remain distinct from treated drinking-water mains. Children learn this before school swimming outings. Reservoir Steps offer recreation on designated reaches; the beauty of the surface gives no information about a submerged intake's pull. Wardens closing a reach sometimes face more anger for cancelling a race than praise for preventing a funeral.

Dust settles in roof channels through dry weather. The first serious rain washes it into containers unless household collection systems are cleaned and diverted appropriately. Small mats of saltglass creeper take hold in neglected masonry, concealing weakened joints. Public crews inspect the northeastern service channels, and tenants can report damaged local collection without being made responsible for repairing a municipal structure.

## Treatment, trials and time off work

Basin Referral House receives injured machine workers, patients with dust-damaged lungs and people needing care unavailable in smaller clinics. Visiting families require food, washing and somewhere to sleep as well as a referral. The patients' lodging register lists actual places, not merely the number of beds a charitable committee hopes to obtain. Emergency care remains separate from a person's incomplete citizenship application.

Students from materials courses compare workshop samples under supervision, including rejects whose faults do not show to the naked eye. Psionic teachers offer practice within consent and strain limits; courts do not outsource credibility to them. Defence and municipal teams share exercises for damaged power and water services. The western rail approaches, rather than a fictitious river through the centre, determine where many bulky replacement parts can arrive.

## The court after the sun drops

Arcade Market sells roasted pulses, thin bread, sweet preserved fruit and chilled drinks when power and supplies permit. Neighbours bring chairs outside without turning every evening into a festival. A room too hot for sleep gives company an urgency that a visitor may mistake for spontaneous national cheerfulness. People also sit together because they like one another.

Kiln Court's performances and repair classes share space with ordinary production. Ovara's bowl with the uneven birds belongs among work made for pleasure after plain jars have paid for the firing. Shade-court ball clubs argue over painted boundaries while Quiet Room users ask for a peaceful entrance. Civic officers mediate competing uses instead of issuing a general instruction to enjoy leisure. Most residents have quite specific plans for the little of it they possess.

## City plan

![Original city plan](../assets/tessovar-city.svg)

Numbered places match the directory in this entry. Interactive version: https://worldsoftherim.com/entries/tessovar.html

## Explore the Atlas

- [Tessovar · central streets](../atlas.html#map=tessovar)

## Related entries

- [Tarsenne: planetary almanac](tarsenne-survey.md)
- [The Republic of Selnic](selnic.md)
- [Rimefold](rimefold.md)
- [Tarsenne: industries, dependencies and imperial demand](tarsenne-industries.md)
- [Knowledge and power](knowledge-and-power.md)