Byblos is a monster who has the ability to read and translate any known language. He is believed to be many thousand years old. He surprisingly wandered into the Language Department of Grammatik and has been working voluntarily with the linguists. Although he does speak modern languages, he doesn't speak on his own free will. It appears he only speaks when translating. Although his presence has helped the linguists learn what many translations mean, because he doesn't explain how he translates the material, little progress has been made since he joined the project. After Torin had Blake's notebook translated, Byblos joined the party and left Grammatik.