A.R. Jarvis's Blog, page 11

The Scottish Fairy Book

Definitely not Scotland

I used to read two fairy tale books for every non-fairy-tale book I read. That seems to have swapped. But last week I did manage to complete The Scottish Fairy Book by Elizabeth Grierson.

The fairy tales are Scottish (obviously), but they are not the rough written sort of tales, the author clearly rewrote them (going by descriptions and dialogue). This isn’t completely a complaint, since it frequently means the fairy tales are more…readable than if they’d just been transcribed, but it also leaves me to wonder how much (and of what) was left out.

Overall I was happy to have read the book, and there were a few stories that I found to be excellent–like the polyamory one I talked about last week, and the one where the two Earls went hunting together, and the one Earl had to save the other Earl (who was his dear friend). There were a couple other gems in here, too.

But. Not for feminists. Well, okay, a few of the stories weren’t all that bad, but a few of them were…woah. Especially the last one, where the two elder sisters were abducted for being outspoken, then beaten when they failed to be perfect housewives to their kidnapper, who then left them for dead in the rafters. So Little Sister came along, and she was abducted, too, but was the most perfect housewife ever, and the giant wanted to keep her. She did manage to extract herself and her sisters (whom the giant restored because she was so meek and industrious), and they killed him in the end (damn, spoilers!) but…it did not sit well with me. Not at all.

Should you read it? Sure. Should you get all offended by it? probably not (product of its times). Should you share it with impressionable children? Unlikely. Should you use it as an illustrative point as to how society’s perception of women has changed? yes, yes, please.

Eggs Unsung v2.0 pt 4

Look, if I had a better picture of an egg…

So. We meet the eggs. There may also be some quantity issues between these versions. Or at least so far in this version there seems to be.

But! since you’re like, a captive audience or something, I want to talk about this fairy tale I read today. I found it in The Scottish Fairy Book, and it’s called Gold-Tree (possibly and Silver-Tree). At first it’s a very Snow-White tale, king, daughter, new wife, magical trout in a deep dark well–the usual. Then the king marries his daughter to a foreign prince, so…no dwarfs? No. no dwarfs. She goes away, the step-mom talks with the trout again (trout??), finds out Gold-Tree is still alive, goes to poison her, Gold-Tree locks herself in the treasury, but gets her finger pricked by a poisoned needle anyway because. Then her husband returns, and is all depressed, but marries again.

The new bride (cleverly named Other Princess) is told not to enter the room where Gold-Tree’s preserved body lies, but does anyway, finds the needle, rescues Gold-Tree, ‘gives’ her back to their husband and declares that she’ll just go home because she’s not jealous or anything.

But the prince says no, she can stay. Other Princess and Gold-Tree can be friends–they can all be a family! So. You know. Polyamory. You read it here first, guys. The princesses are friends, and together manage to thwart the step-mom (who is Silver-Tree, btw) on her next attempt. And then they all live happily ever after. The End.

I can’t shake the feeling that the prince really got the best of that deal, no matter how you slice it. The very, very best.

But now, what you’re really here for: Cyrphon; the Greatest Egg-Singer the Aetherverse has Never Seen!

Eggs Unsung pt 4

“There are old shrines and tombs all throughout these hills,” Edgar said, gesturing as they passed a window overlooking the dark and distant landscape. “They were built by the first people to settle this region—the first people to settle this world, really. Most of them are just a simple statue and a few offerings of carvings or jewelry or something else precious. The tombs are a bit more elaborate, and were generally used for whole families, but even then the offerings are more along the lines of ‘pretty’ than incredibly valuable.”

Cyrphon followed silently, not sure where the story was going.

“Most of the tombs have been found as the area repopulated lately, but there’s still enough of them out there that sometimes an idiot will get lost in the woods and stumble onto one.”

“That’s where you found the egg,” Cyrphon said, hurrying a few steps because this story was suddenly very interesting.

Edgar nodded. “I actually found the grotto shrine a long time ago, back when I was a teen, but—” he shrugged “—it was just a shrine, so I didn’t think anything of it. I used to go there to meditate, or relax, or just get away.” He rubbed his neck guiltily. “I look back and wonder how I could have been so foolish, but it never crossed my mind that the rocks might be worth something.”

A faint tingle started playing along Cyrphon’s scar, and he hoped it meant they were very close to the egg, because he’d feel like an utter idiot if he had to beg off half-way there. Especially since his scar was a bit too personal to bring up at this point.

“The grotto was damaged in a landslide awhile back, though, and in having it moved, someone said something about aethereggs, and I had the epiphany I should have had years ago. Here we are.” Edgar pushed open a dark wooden door and held it for Cyrphon.

As Cyrphon entered the room, the tingle in his scar turned into a tickle, which settled into a sensation just below a sting when he surreptitiously rubbed it. It wasn’t terribly comfortable—and he’d have to salt if he was going to be working with this egg daily—but it wasn’t unbearable, either. Condition assessed, Cyrphon looked up to take in his surroundings.

The walls were of stone, and the room felt cool, cool and damp, much like the cave it was decorated to resemble. The colors were deep green and mottled grey, with the benches around the room designed to look like they formed naturally from the stone—though of course the cushions and pillows made it obvious they hadn’t. Opposite the door was a statue, made of a pale grey stone; the figure of a person, gender indeterminate, dressed in long robes and holding a pale egg—white with light gray veins—in its supplicating hands.

In the middle of the room was a short and slender pillar of much more modern make. It held a soft white pillow, and on that rested the Saige Egg. Much like its confectionary doppelganger, it was a mottled color, as if made of a pale green marble, shot through with veins of tawny brown and splotches of creamy white.

Cyrphon could feel it humming, begging to be awakened, its song promising to be complex and beautiful beyond compare. How could they ever have thought you silenced, Cyrphon thought, walking slowly across the room towards it, his discomfort forgotten. Even the clunkiest of vibration readers should have been able to register the noise the Saige Egg was making.

“Careful of the Invisiglass,” Edgar warned when Cyrphon started to reach out a hesitant hand.

Withdrawing his hand, Cyrphon circled the egg on its pedestal, and as he moved more and more to the side, he started to feel something unusual. It was almost as if—as if there were two eggs, pulling at him. Cyrphon shook his head because that was absurd, but the closer he got, the more distinct the two egg-songs became, until he was standing between the egg and the statue, his teeth nearly chattering with the subaudible egg-songs.

Cyrphon turned to look at the statue—or more precisely, its egg. It was lighter in color than the stone of the statue, but its texture was nearly the same, so Cyrphon understood how it could easily be mistaken for being made of local stone. But aethereggs came in every color imaginable, and some that weren’t.

“That statue was in the shrine with it,” Edgar offered when he noticed Cyrphon staring at it. “It’s the classic style for all the tombs, supposed to represent the diety…”

He kept talking, but Cyrphon stopped listening, reaching out carefully—no Invisiglass here—and placing his hand on top of the statue’s egg. It didn’t budge, but that didn’t mean they had been carved from the same piece of marble. “You didn’t just find one egg,” Cyrphon said.

“What?” Edgar was startled out of his speech. “No, I— but how did you—?” His words cut off as he realized what Cyrphon was saying. “No, that’s…impossible. You cannot—no one can tell an egg on first sight. And it cannot be—” He shook his head and backed towards the door, face pale and eyes wide.

“It is not impossible to immediately recognize an egg for what it is.” Cyrphon rubbed the egg slowly with his thumb. Its song was quieter than the Saige Egg’s, quieter and gentler, but it was no less eager to be heard. “You’re beautiful,” Cyrphon told it, leaning down to kiss the cool surface gently.

Then he remembered that he still had an audience, and jerked around, but Dr. Saige was supporting himself with one arm on the doorframe, while his other hand clutched at his heart. Cyrphon could almost hear him trying to calm his breathing, to stay the panic attack.

Cyrphon hummed a calming tune, and wandered over to his host. The egg on the pillar approved of the music, and echoed it back—still inaudible to ears, but changing the feel of the room, pressing against Cyrphon’s aetherscar. Cyrphon had never heard an egg do anything like that, but there would be time later to learn about the egg; eggs lived in centuries, humans, like Cyrphon’s host, lived in moments.

“Dr. Saige?” Cyrphon asked, as he came closer. “Edgar? Two eggs is significant, but not—”

“Two?” Edgar said, a hysterical edge to his tone. “Two eggs. Haha.” It didn’t sound like real laughter. “Every shrine—every shrine and every tomb in these hills has a statue, and every statue has an egg. Every. Single. One.”

“But surely—”

“Every shrine.” Edgar seemed stuck on that fact. “We call them the Egg-people.”

Cyrphon dug his fingertips into the edge of his scar. There had to be something he was missing, because that sounded like the sort of hidden treasure that meant dancing in glee, not a panic-attack.

Edgar must have read something in Cyrphon’s lack of response. “You don’t understand, do you?” He straightened, letting go the death-grip on the doorway. “This one egg alone is worth almost as much as this whole world makes in a year. If every egg in every statue from every shrine is worth that much, then…”

Cyrphon shook his head.

Edgar gave another bitter laugh. “Then the society and world that I love are displaying their doom on the mantel.”

Cyrphon still didn’t understand, but Dr. Saige seemed disinclined to explain further, and when he suggested they leave, Cyrphon was more than happy to agree. His scar was edging on into painful territory, and while he wasn’t about to suffer a panic attack, Cyrphon’s head was reeling from just the idea of two thousand-year-old eggs, and everything that could mean for him, for oology, for society. A salt-treatment and a long hot bath with Ampherdien on emittaloud sounded like the best idea Cyrphon had had in ages.

Blue Skies

Blue Skies by Tamara Allen is a slash time travel novel that I believe hasn’t been out for too long (almost relevant again!). Tamara Allen is an author I stumbled across through free reads on Amazon, and I’m usually quite pleased with reading her works.

Blue Skies, however, was …not as good as I’d hoped. It was a time travel novel, Allen has pulled off before, but they kept going back and forth, and every so often a discontinuity fell in because of that. She was also trying to keep track of four different characters POVs, which was not terrible, except that it was occasionally difficult to tell who was saying, thinking, or doing what.

Also, her female character was …no better than any other. Another ‘strong female lead’ who turns to giddy pudding when her beau/brother rescue her. She did try to rescue herself with modest success, and part of her problem was the anti-feminist values of the time period she was stuck in, but it wasn’t exactly raising any bars.

But when all that’s said, I did enjoy the book, and stay up until 3am to finish it. It had it’s moments, like the twists, and the period descriptions, and the endearing traits of the characters, so I recommend checking it out, as a light weekend read.

The Snoring Bird

Can’t you hear it?

Sometimes, between reading steamy gay romances, outdated fairy tales, and science-fantasy books, I manage to fit in a dollop or two of non-fiction. I used to do it more when I work at a place where I could immediately apply or pass on what I’d learned, but I still find a lot of value in non-fiction (especially with a science focus).

When I worked out in the woods, one of the authors that was frequently read by my coworkers, and thus by me, was Bernd Heinrich. He’s a nature writer and scientist–a naturalist, I suppose, of the sort who still does field observations. His science is fascinating, and he discovers some really amazing things–I always realize how much there is still to learn when I read his books.

But. I find his prose to be…scattered. It’s not awful, but he has a way of skipping between subjects that frustrates me to no end. So I read one of his books, love the science, get annoyed at the style, then over time I forget the latter and read another of his books, where I love the science, but hate the style, and so the pattern repeats.

The Snoring Bird was on sale a while back, and I got excited (obviously in the forgetting stage) and purchased it. I expected that when I finally cracked open the file I would have a repeat of my experiences.

The Snoring Bird isn’t just a scientific tome, however. It’s the narrative story–almost a memoir or auto-biography–of his family history (and his own), focusing mostly on his father’s lifetime contributions to science, and then on his own, but also covering …so much more.

And the style didn’t bother me. I don’t know if it was the less-scientific nature of the book, or that I’ve adjusted to his style better, or if this is a later work than his others and he’s been growing into an even better writer, but I liked this more than I liked the other books of his I’ve read. Not that I disliked those, just that this one was even better.

Eggs Unsung v2.0 pt 3 v2

Because I didn’t like how part 3 was going and redid it. I adjusted some of the stuff before pt 3, too, but mostly that was insignificant things, whereas this is a whole new world. It’ll probably change yet more still, too, but that should be minor (except maybe that Edgar will put his damn ‘emitter’ away).

I’ll go delete the other pt 3 shortly to prevent mass confusion.

Eggs Unsung pt 3

The view from the opposite side of the manor was vastly different from the mossy gully Cyrphon expected, which he learned upon entering the dining hall. The hall was long and narrow, with the side across from the door made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows which looked straight out into the sunset—it appeared that Crosshills Manor could just as easily been called Cliff’s Edge Manor, for the ground was hundreds of feet below, and the horizon was hundreds of miles away. The sky was orange and gold, streaked with pink and purple clouds, all over a range of distant blue and white mountains. It was an arresting view, and a startling contrast to the humble gully at the entrance.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dr. Saige asked. Cyrphon jumped slightly, for he hadn’t heard his host arrive.

“It is one of the more breathtaking views I have seen,” Cyrphon agreed, turning enough to look at the doctor. The light turned his skin to gold, highlighted the shadows of his face, and darkened his hair to midnight. His Sugar-cut jacket had been replaced by a corded sweater, and the glasses were thankfully not in evidence.

“You have not been waiting long, I hope?” Dr. Saige gestured to the table, which had only two seats set, both near one the end.

Cyrphon demurred, and took his seat.

“How was the journey from…?”

“Left Star Station,” Cyrphon supplied. “It was long, but mostly quite comfortable. I usually find I quite enjoy travel by aethertrain. Have you traveled much, Dr. Saige?”

“Call me Edgar,” Dr. Saige said, waving that away. “You’re my guest.”

“You are my host, but also my patron.”

“If it costs extra for you to call me by name, I will pay it,” Edgar said. “I hear enough ‘Dr. Saige this’ and ‘Dr. Saige that’ during the day. It almost makes me regret earning the title.”

“Oh, yes, you are a medical doctor, aren’t you?”

“By degree, if not currently by trade.” Edgar sighed. “There are too many people who want me to run the world for me to run a practice.” There was a buzz from his pocket. “Case in point.” He gestured, but it didn’t stop him from pulling out his emitter.

Cyrphon tapped a finger on the table, but before he could truly become impatient, the first course arrived. Edgar’s emitter remained, however, and every few minutes the conversation was interrupted by a new buzz from it. Going by Edgar’s reactions, this was not whatever disaster had claimed his attention before, which meant that it was just plain rude.

“So,” Cyrphon said into the conversational lull after the penultimate course. “Tell me about this egg I am to sing.”

Edgar looked up from his emitter. “It’s sort of a pale green, about this big—” he demonstrated with his hands.

But Cyrphon waved that away. “The physical appearance of an egg doesn’t matter to its song. Green, brown, lumpy, smooth, small, none of it. Only the age of the egg, and possibly how it’s been treated over the years makes a difference, though there is much debate on that latt—”

Edgar’s emitter buzzed again, and he glanced down at it. “I’m sure you got the official file on how I found it.” He spoke slowly, distracted by whatever he was entering into that device.

“It was a dry account,” Cyrphon said, his own tone dry for different reasons. “I’d love to hear your personal story about it.”

This got Edgar’s attention, and he set the emitter aside. “There’s not much more to tell, I’m afraid. I was looking through an old treasury that belongs to my family, and there it was. I didn’t think it was an aetheregg at first—the treasury itself is five hundred years old, and society had hardly any understanding of the eggs that long ago.”

“Your family has a five-hundred year old treasury?”

“Crosshills Manor itself is nearly that old,” Edgar said. His emitter buzzed against the table, the sound enhanced by the wood, and Edgar’s eyes slid towards it. “Emphentia—Sagia, rather—has been occupied for slightly over a thousand years, and my family has been of some importance for all of its history.”

“Do you know how your family came by the egg?”

Edgar shook his head. “It was without papers of any sort—it wasn’t even inventoried.”

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“Yes, but not entirely unheard of.” This time when the emitter buzzed, Edgar picked it up, and glanced at the screen. “Most of Emphentia’s history is carefully documented, but some things were deemed unimportant and lost.”

“Unimportant enough to store in a treasury for half a millennia?”

Edgar shrugged. “There’s a pair of seven-hundred-year-old baby shoes in there. Things go in, they don’t come out.”

Cyrphon couldn’t argue with that, though it still didn’t feel right. “But the egg would have been five hundred years old when it went into the treasury.”

“Perhaps it was part of an older collection that got moved.”

“Then wouldn’t they have thought it worth documenting?”

“Green rock: five hundred years old.”

“If your family was rich enough to afford a treasury five hundred years ago, they ought to have at least heard of singing eggs. It was all the rage back then; that’s why we have so few unsung eggs older than five hundred years. You’d think—”

“Look, I don’t know what my ancestors were thinking. All I know is that I found the egg without papers or documentation.” Their eyes locked until Cyrphon looked away, reminding himself that the origins of the egg didn’t matter to his job, and it was idiocy to argue with the man who’d found it.

Mr. Taylor appeared then, as if he’d been waiting for a lull in the conversation to slip in with dessert. Dessert was a pair of exquisitely decorated cakes made to look like aethereggs.

“This is the Sun-Egg,” Cyrphon said, staring at his with his hand hovering over his fork. The Sun-Egg had been the first named egg he’d ever sung, and he only received that chance because his father was an old friend of the Emperor of Sugar. It had been the one to kick-start his career, the one that opened the door to the smaller stepping stones leading eventually to the Egg of Ambient Crystal.

“Is it?” Edgar asked. “My cook has a fascination with aethereggs. He’s one of the few I’ve told of your coming, and that because I feared food poisoning if he had learned after the fact.”

“I don’t recognize your egg,” Cyrphon said. He knew most of the more popular named eggs on sight, and quite a few of the less popular ones.

“Oh, it’s mine.” Edgar sounded so nonplussed that it took Cyrphon a moment to understand what he meant.

“Your millennial egg? The Saige Egg?” It was a pale green, mottled with cream and tan, hardly a flashy sort that were usually kept so long.

“Yes, that one—the Saige Egg?” He wrinkled his nose.

“It must have a name.”

“I suppose it must.” Edgar picked up his fork and carved off a piece of cake.

Cyrphon still couldn’t bring himself to do the same. “The Saige Egg, the files said you’ve had it assessed three times?”

“Yes, all agreed that it was a thousand years old, though I didn’t let them see each other’s assessments.”

“And two said it was silenced.”

“Yes. I believed it was worth a chance that the third was correct.”

Cyrphon would have done the same himself, even before he’d sung the Egg of Ambient Crystal he’d had a few experiences with silent eggs that…did not go the way his professors had anticipated.

Edgar frowned at his dessert for a moment. “As you are an egg-singer, perhaps you can explain more clearly what it is that makes an egg silent. I’ve never yet understood an oologist’s explanation.”

“It’s complicated,” Cyrphon said, tapping his fork against the table a few times before he caught himself. “And lately it’s become controversial. Both of which are largely due to the fact that we don’t fully understand what aethereggs are. I mean, hell, as a society we barely understand what the aether itself is. And then sometimes it lays eggs.” He waved his hands in a hopeless gesture. “Those eggs gather sound or stray pieces of aether—”

“Or siphons off souls,” Edgar interjected.

“Sure,” Cyrphon said. “Far as science can tell us the craziest theories are as possible as the mundane ones. But eventually an egg-singer comes along, and using resonances and sound theory and maybe an echo machine we wake the egg.”

“Or he fails and damages the egg into silence.” Edgar sounded downright bitter, which was curious.

“Yes, one way to silence an egg is to sing them so poorly that their music never reaches audible levels. Or if an egg is damaged, usually a pretty significant crack or split is needed, but sometimes just an idiot who tries to turn it into a necklace.” The Egg of Ambient Crystal had suffered internal fracturing when someone tried to steal it during the rebellion. “And lastly, if an egg is too old, it is speculated that it’s simply not possible to sing it.”

“Speculated?” Edgar leaned forward intently.

Cyrphon sighed. “As an egg ages, its song becomes more and more complex, which makes it harder and harder to sing. Even if an older egg is not technically silent, it may be impossible for humans—or machines—to awaken the egg, trapping the song and rendering it effectively silent.”

“What about environmental factors?”

Cyrphon needed a moment to think through that one, and so he looked to his dessert, hardened his heart and stabbed his fork deep into the frosting. As far as he had experienced ‘environmental factors’ was a load of fake salt hawked by people who wanted to make money off egg storage. “If your egg was in a treasury for the last five centuries it’s probably fine.”

“But what if it wasn’t?”

Cyrphon’s first bite of egg cake stalled half-way to his mouth, lowered back towards the table. “I suppose it would depend on how it was stored.”

“Oh, this is just speculative, of course,” Edgar said hastily. “Well, mostly speculative, as I don’t know what situation my egg was in before it came to the treasury. What if it had been left in a—a cave or something?”

“Moccan Marnie found an egg that had been in a tomb for three hundred years, and it was fine. I doubt a thousand in a cave have done your egg any ill.”

Edgar sank back in his chair, relieved. Then he abruptly straightened in his chair. “Not a thousand, just five—”

“You can’t unspill the salt,” Cyrphon said, finally eating that first bite of cake. It was as exquisite in flavor as it had been in decoration.

“Then I assume you’ll be discreet?”

“It’s no matter to me what the official story is versus the real story. I don’t understand why it has to be an egg from a family treasury and not from a cave, but I know better than to gossip it about.”

“I have my reasons,” Edgar said.

They sat in silence as the very last purple rays of the sun dipped below the distant mountains, the very last bites of the Sun-Egg vanished as well.

“Would you like to see the egg tonight?” Edgar asked at last.

“Of course,” Cyrphon answered without thinking—and then he could almost have kicked himself when he remembered he hadn’t salted his scar. He rubbed a hand over it as they stood, wondering if he should change his mind—but no, a short viewing of the egg wouldn’t be too bad. And anyway, Cyrphon was really quite desperate to catch his first sight of this thousand-year egg.

Eggs Unsung Pt 3

You’re just egging me on.

I think…I think I may have made it through the minor holiday season (the one with my birthday, Mother’s Day, my sister’s birthday, and other assorted minor holidays). I even managed to write a thousand words last week.

Oh shush, it’s something.

This scene is…I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. It makes Cyrphon a bit too clever and Edgar a bit too foolish, especially considering their relative ages and life-experiences. But on the other hand, I need to convey that information, and it’s moderately important that Cyrphon acquires the information on this first night. Feel free to share thoughts you may have on the subject.

If you even exist.

Eggs Unsung pt 3 (of v2.0)

Unlike the parts of the manor Cyrphon had seen so far, the dining hall faced the sunset. The sky was orange and gold, streaked with pink and purple clouds, all over a range of distant blue and white mountains. It was an arresting view, made all the more so by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dr. Saige asked, almost startling Cyrphon.

“It is one of the more breathtaking views I have seen,” Cyrphon agreed, turning enough to look at his host. The light had turned his skin to gold, highlighted the shadows of his face, and darkened his hair to midnight. His formal suit had been replaced by a corded sweater, and the glasses were not in evidence.

“You have not been waiting long, I hope?” Dr. Saige gestured to the table, which had only two seats set, both near one the end.

Cyrphon demurred, and took his seat.

“How was the journey from…?”

“Left Star Station,” Cyrphon supplied. “It was long, but mostly quite comfortable. I usually find I quite enjoy travel by aethertrain. Have you traveled much, Dr. Saige?”

“Call me Edgar,” Dr. Saige said, waving that away. “You’re my guest.”

“You are my host, but also my patron.”

“If it costs extra for you to call me by name, I will pay it,” Edgar said. “I hear enough ‘Dr. Saige this’ and ‘Dr. Saige that’ during the day. It almost makes me regret earning the title.”

“Oh, yes, you are a medical doctor, aren’t you?”

“By degree, if not currently by trade.” Edgar sighed. “There are too many people who want me to run the world for me to run a practice.” There was a buzz from his pocket. “Case in point.” He gestured, but it didn’t stop him from pulling out his emitter.

Cyrphon tapped a finger on the table, but before he could truly become impatient, the first course arrived. He had plenty of chances later, though, because every few minutes the conversation was interrupted by a buzz from Edgar’s emitter. Going by Edgar’s reactions, this was not whatever disaster had claimed his attention before, which meant that it was just rude.

“So,” Cyrphon said, when the dishes from the last course had been cleared, and only dessert was left. “Tell me about this egg I am to sing.”

“Oh, right.” Edgar looked up from his emitter. “It’s sort of a pale green, about this big—” he demonstrated with his hands.

But Cyrphon waved that away. “The physical appearance of an egg doesn’t matter to its song. Green, brown, lumpy, smooth, small, none of it matters. Only the age of the egg, and possibly how it’s been treated over the years makes a difference.”

Edgar’s emitter buzzed again, and he glanced down at it. “I’m not sure how they’ve been treated, but—” he trailed off, distracted by whatever the device was telling him.

“They?” Cyrphon said, raising an eyebrow.

“They—it, it, the egg I found.” Edgar glanced up at him, but only briefly.

Cyrphon had had no cause to doubt what had been in the files about the Saige Egg, but now he wondered. “Where did you find it, by the way?”

“In an old treasury of the family’s,” Edgar’s eyes were once again on his device. “Back in…the…hills.”

“The egg was in the hills?”

“No, the treasury. We’ve been here for ages, there’s buildings all over the place that still belong to my family.”

“Your family has been here for a thousand years?”

“Well, the treasury was only five hundred years old, but—” buzz “—the shrine could have been a thousand.”

“The shrine.”

“What?” Edgar looked up, startled.

“You said the shrine.”

“The—I meant the treasury. It felt like a shrine to my ancestors.”

Cyrphon cleared his throat. “Let me see if I got it right. The official story is that you found the egg in a five-hundred-year old treasury located somewhere on your family property. Assessing showed some of the treasure to be older, including the egg, which was a full thousand, give or take.”

“Yes, that’s—”

“But what really happened is that you found the eggs in a shrine in the hills, which was itself a thousand years old. Eggs, as in, more than one.”

Edgar stared at him, and his jaw dropped slightly, then his gaze slid slowly to the emitter in his hand as he realized what it had just cost him. “And they want me to run the place,” he muttered, turning off the device and handing it to Mr. Taylor, who had appeared with dessert just then.

Conversation stalled as dessert was placed before them; two small cakes, decorated like eggs.

The one placed in front of Cyrphon looked just like the Sun-Egg he’d sung for the Emperor of Sugar, which was both amazing and flattering, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t even pick up his dessert fork, waiting until they were left alone for the fallout of his discovery instead.

“Your contract specifies discretion,” Edgar pointed out, making no move for his fork, either.

Cyrphon nodded. “I won’t betray you. But why the subterfuge?”

“There are hundreds of shrines and tombs in these hills, each one with multiple offerings, many of which are eggs formed from stone or some other hard material. The youngest of them is five hundred years old, the oldest dating back a thousand years to when this world was first settled. If the shrine I found had three eggs—though I suppose I haven’t shown the other two to anyone, so perhaps they are not—but regardless, can you imagine the affect finding that many ancient aethereggs would have on the economy of a sparsely inhabited planet such as this one? Not to mention the local ecology that would be destroyed by people seeking undiscovered shrines. Or the fact that many of the shrine eggs have made their ways into local homes.”

“Tomb robbing—”

“It’s not,” Edgar interrupted. “Well, it is, technically, I suppose, but those are our ancestors, and so the eggs are ours, too. Besides, all the information we could want about them are still recorded; there’s nothing for an archaeologist to learn that he can’t gain from the records of that time.”

“And no one ever thought that these might be aethereggs before?” It felt like a gross oversight to Cyrphon, but then, aethereggs were his life.

“We’re miles from the nearest entrance to the aether, and no one knew what an aetheregg was a millennia ago. Besides, ovoid objects have been around longer than mankind, of course they crop up in our art.”

“But singing eggs is so common now, surely someone—”

“There have been other eggs sung on Sagia, of course, but it’s not like a singer—or even an assessor—can tell an aetheregg by looking at it. And how many of them would be interested in seeing egg paraphernalia from a millennia ago on a lark?”

It may have felt harsh, but that was a fair assessment of the egg-singers Cyrphon had met, himself included—except for the part about not being able to tell an aetheregg at first glance. Cyrphon was excluded from that category. He didn’t say anything, though, opting instead to pick up his fork and try to choose where he would mutilate the sugary egg before him. “This is really very exquisite.”

“My cook is quite the fan of egg-songs and egg-singers,” Edgar said, accepting the change of topic. “He’s one of the very few people who know who you are and why you’re here, and that mostly because I feared food poisoning if I told him after the fact.”

That would explain why the cake looked like the Sun Egg; it was the first famous egg Cyrphon had ever sung. “You’ll have to tell more than one person if you’re going to have an unveiling.”

Edgar shrugged. “I figured something much more intimate for the primary unveiling, and besides, two of the three eggologists who looked at it claimed that it would be silenced. Not to mention its origins and the economic effects if they come to light. No, if you sing it, and it’s beautiful, I will move it off planet for a proper unveiling, far from speculation. And if you figured out my secret so easily, I will probably not even attend.”

Cyrphon had his doubts about the possibility of getting proper security to transfer an egg worth more than certain worlds off of a backwater planet like Sagia, but it wasn’t his place to say. Instead he braced himself minutely and stabbed his fork into the cake before him, expertly cutting off a bite. It was as exquisite in taste as it had been in decoration, and Cyrphon smiled in delight.

Edgar cleared his throat. “Would you like to see the egg tonight? I don’t expect you to begin work on it, of course, but it is worth seeing. Or so I like to believe.”

Cyrphon took another bite of cake as he debated his answer. Under normal circumstances he would say yes unhesitatingly, but he hadn’t salted his scar before dinner, which meant it would be more sensitive, so a thousand-year-old egg would probably be an intense experience for him—but then again, it was a thousand-year-old egg. “I would love to see it this evening.”

Myths and Folk Tales of Ireland

Careful. A wee red-haired man lives there.

Remember how I said I’ve hardly read any Irish/Celtic fairy tales? Well, I finished my second book of them in a row today. This one was Myths and Folk Tales of Ireland by Jeremiah Curtin, and it was fabulous. That book of Celtic tales was decent, but this was way better.

Mostly it’s fairy tales, but the last few stories were about Fin McCool (+/- 8 letters) and his entourage of heroes, and how most of them wanted to kill him–except it was just that one guy (possibly their house druid) who keep telling Fin he should get rid of one guy or another before that guy killed them all, so Fin would send them off to do a bunch of different impossible tasks until the guy got so fed up he did try to kill Fin. At which point Fin’s 30year-old son would come and rescue them. Or something like that.

Reading those stories reminded me that I actually have read the Fin McCool cycle before, although these stories were not actually those stories. More…fanfiction for popular media characters. There was even a crossover tale with the hero of the Tain bo Cuailnge (who’s name I will not attempt to spell at this time).

My favorite story was the one where Fin sails across the ocean, ends up the worse of a giant, and then a blackbird chews on his entrails and is all “Oh yay, eating three bites of Fin McCool’s entrails is the exact cure for my curse! Now I’ll heal him! C’mon Fin, we’ll go to this nearby kingdom and stop the princess’ wedding!” And Fin goes “Noooo, I just want to go home.” but the man who used to be a bird insists, and then keeps killing/destroying things to get better stuff for Fin, and Fin keep protesting. Yeah. Good times.

I also had an interesting insight into the idea of the servant who does everything (not so much that notabird guy, since Fin kept trying to stop him, but in general). There’s a lot of stories where one man collects a bunch of super-powered servants, who help him save the princess or whatever, but it’s the leader who gets all the credit. Now, mostly when I read these stories I just giggle and compare them to The Avengers, but in this book it was more often one master and only one servant who could do everything.

So what’s with this trope? Because, when you think about it, it’s still alive today–the story where the CEO can’t tie his own shoes without his secretary/PA, or the dumb king saved only bu his advisers.

And it occurred to me this week that these are stories of humility for people who aren’t really humble. Like, “well, I can’t be king, but the king’s an idiot, and I can be his loyal servant who actually does everything. And then let him have all the credit.” So you can argue that it’s about keeping people in their classes, because only the king can be the king, but at a certain point in life all your dreams of growing up to be a princess are faced with reality, and you learn that not everyone can be president. But, hey, maybe anyone can be in the president’s cabinet. Maybe you don’t have the proper bloodlines to be CEO, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the CEO’s vizier. The power behind the throne. The Penny Potts behind Tony Stark.

There’s also a follow-up set of meditations about how this could arguably be the role of women in many stories. I’m sure this will get someone’s goat, but since women and girls who listened to the fairy tales couldn’t identify with the female characters (when there were none, that is), it’s possible that they could then look at these unrewarded support personnel, and realize that that’s the job/position they will have in life; make their man look competent, and get none of the reward directly.

Which means that it’s classist and sexist!

But if the role of the females is to support the man, and the servant characters can thus be compared to the female role, does that mean there’s some basis for me giggling over stupidly-loyal servants and their incompetent masters? Together, like.

Eggs Unsung V2.0 pt 2

Not you get all my egg-scrutiating puns again.

Oh, Cyrphon, you are so…so…you.

I rewrote a lot of this one last night, plus the next scene, and I guess I’m happy with it? I’ll probably polish it as I go, as with everything.

We remeet Dr. Saige, and he’s…not supposed to be a social commentary, yet he is. Oh well. At least he’s something.

Eggs Unsung pt 2 redux

The manor house blocked most of the light from the setting sun, blanketing the canyon in a cool green gloom. The air smelled of wet and moss when Cyrphon stepped out of the ground-car, stretching as he took in his surroundings. The river that had accompanied the road disappeared under the house, as best Cyrphon could tell, though not before flowing through several decorative pools and fountains. The yard was dark grey stones covered with vibrant green moss, cobbled paths of a lighter gray winding among them. It was peaceful, serene, if a bit faded and lichen-covered.

Movement caught the corner of his eye, and Cyrphon turned to see the front door opening at the top of the staircase. A man stepped out, dressed in a formal suit, an emitter in one hand, an aetherpad in the other, an earpiece tucked behind his ear, and a faint flickering glow from his glasses turning his upper face a pale green.

“Mr. Saffron, I will have to call you back later,” the man was saying, his words echoing back from the walls of the canyon. “This is important. It can wait a few minutes. Shortly.” He pulled out the earpiece, and stuffed it in a pocket along with his emitter, then carefully placed the aetherpad on the wide bannister of the stairs. The glasses remained in place, making his face glow eerily in the half-light. “You must be Cyrphon Greindiel.” The man held out his fist. “I am Edgar Saige, welcome to Crosshill Manor.”

Cyrphon knocked his own fist against it politely. “I have brought you the salt of my homeland.” He pulled out a soft white marble and held it for Edgar. It wasn’t actually from Cyrphon’s homeland, since he lived on an aetherstation, but it was close enough.

“And I offer you the salt of mi—” Edgar was interrupted by a sudden flash from his glasses. He sighed impatiently, and shoved them onto his forehead, where their light made his black hair shimmer green. “I offer you the salt of my home, for as long as you stay.” Dr. Saige offered a flat white oval.

Cyrphon gently picked it up, murmuring his thanks as he tucked it into a pocket.

“I hope that—” Dr. Saige began, but he was again interrupted by a flash from his glasses, this time also accompanied by a buzzing from the emitter in his pocket. Edgar’s expression became pained, but he pulled the emitter out of his pocket. “I’m terribly sorry, I had arranged things so I’d be free this evening, but it seems this is the day the ship ran out of salt.”

“Oh, of course,” Cyrphon agreed, though inwardly he was seething. He’d traveled across half the universe to meet with this man and sing his egg, and while, yes the opportunity was itself unrivaled, was a bit of common courtesy too much to ask? It wasn’t that hard to turn off an emitter.

Dr. Saige’s glasses started pulsing light, and he took a small step back. “I’m afraid I am desperately needed elsewhere right now. Dinner is in an hour, and in the meantime Mr. Tylor here can show you to your room to freshen up.” He gave Cyrphon one last grimace of a smile and all but ran back to where he’d left his aetherpad, fumbling with his emitter at the same time.

Mr. Tylor—the butler, by his attire—stepped forward with a courteous bow. “If you will follow me, Singer Cyrphon.”

He led Cyrphon up the stairs and into the house, which was as elegant inside as out. As they wound through the halls and up the stairs, Cyrphon could tell that they were approaching the newer potions of the manor, though even that seemed a relative term. The last flight of stairs put them level with the tops of the cliffs that formed the canyon, Cyrphon saw as they passed a window. There was still golden sunlight dappling the distant hills, and he wondered what the view must be on the other side of the manor.

Cyrphon’s room—rooms, actually, since there was a bathroom, and a small front room, as well as the bedroom—were paneled in wood, with a thick carpet and long curtain that hung over the windows, all of which deadened the acoustic effects in the room itself. Still, there was enough stone and salt in the halls to shame a mountain, so Cyrphon didn’t let it bother him. Instead he hummed quietly to himself and peeked out the window. His room was provided him with a lovely view of the dusky canyon below and faded gardens below, but not much beyond.

Shrugging, Cyrphon turned away from the window, stripping off layers of clothing as he headed into the bathroom for a shower. He paused in front of the mirror over the sink, studying the deep color of his skin, and the pale half-circle of the scar that covered his abdomen. He ran his fingers along the rainbow edge, feeling—or possibly just imagining—the tingle of aether as he did.

I should salt it. He usually did, after traveling, but his salt case was packed with his clothes, not with his toiletries, and there was no harm in leaving it until tonight.

Cyrphon showered and dressed himself, selecting a pair of soft mahogany leggings and a pale green short-robe, embroidered with darker green geometric patterns that he thought reflected the decorations of the manor. They were, at least, reminiscent of the appropriate time-period. Blending in with the furniture was never a good idea, but there was no harm in elegantly complementing the surroundings—and it should flatter Dr. Saige, assuming he looked up from his emitters long enough to notice.

Scoffing, Cyrphon picked up his own emitter and tucked it into a pocket, along with a twilleno, in case he had need to demonstrate his skill at dinner. Unlikely, but it had happened before.

Catching sight of himself again in the mirror, Cyrphon batted his eyes at his own reflection, admiring the symmetry of his face, the elegance of his eyelashes. His hair curled delicately, and his ears were tastefully lobeless. He was an artist’s dream, a poet’s muse, a photographer’s lure.

He was Cyrphon, the best egg-singer the universe would ever see, even if it had yet to understand that.

Cyrphon bestowed on himself one last dazzling smile, and made his way to dinner.

Stranger on the Shore

Lookit me, trying to be all relevant and shit, reading a book that just came out–for the first time–this month. This month. Not a year ago, not a decade ago, not a century ago, this month. holy shit.

And what is this paragon of a book, you may ask? Stranger on the Shore by Josh Lanyon. I preordered it, even. I got it on…Wednesday? But I couldn’t read it then, because I was stuck in the middle of The Song of Achilles, so it waited until last night (and early this morning).

Now, I’m a big fan of Josh Lanyon. He was one of the first gay/pickaterm authors I started reading, and he remains a go-to author for when I need a comfort book (look, some people drink wine, I read gay romance novellas. Don’t judge.) But, despite being a fan, I’m not unaware of his flaws as a writer. Actually, they aren’t really even flaws, it’s just that there is a certain set of similarities in all of his books.

Most notable, of his two MCs, one will have a military/uniform background, and the other will have an…intelligentsia job, usually relating to writing, or else antiques, or wine, something that requires training and attendance to detail. I haven’t read all of his books (by no means), but I was arguably impressed a few weeks ago when I read The Dark Farewell (which I didn’t review, sorry?), because one of his MCs was both the military guy and the writer guy, and the other MC was neither.

So if that was on the impressive side, then the fact that Stranger on the Shore has no military/uniform character at all is practically brain-shattering. Not that one of the MCs didn’t feel a bit like a military guy in the way he was written, but hey, at least it’s oozing out the side of the mold.

Anyway, that’s more amusing to me than actual criticism, of which I don’t think I have any at all. I did enjoy this more than some of his shorter stuff, since Lanyon’s novellas often end with only a presumed happy ending, while the longer novels get an almost-epilogue, which is way more satisfying.

I also really enjoyed the twists in this story. There was some heavy-handed foreshadowing of some of it, but the rest was appreciably subtle, and I’m not sure I’d fully guessed the conclusion before I’d read it. I mean, the obvious stuff was obvious, but the subtle stuff was subtle. Not to be circular in my explanation or anything.

Was it worth reading right away? Oh hell yeah. Was it worth reading right away? Oh hell yeah. Was it worth preordering? I have no regrets.

The Song of Achilles

I don’t know if you were awake during high school English class when they covered the Iliad. I know I wasn’t. Well, actually, I think we focused far more on the Odyssey, since I was uncooly awake and alert through all of my English classes. But the point I’m making is that I’ve never read the Iliad. I know the story, and a few highlights, but I’ve never read it. Or really wanted to (not even when I had my obsessed-with-Greek-myths phase).

I still haven’t read it.

But now I have read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which is probably pretty close to the same thing. I spent a lot of time around Classics majors in college, and took a few classes in that department (yeah, liberal art education!), so I heard a lot of the talk about how things are changed and watered down, and…uh…ungayified for modern audiences (or slightly pre-modern ones, and we’re still trying to live it down).

The Song of Achilles, however, is a gay retelling of the Iliad, and it felt very…right. I’m sure a lot of that can be attributed to the writing style, which was very appropriate–which in this case means slow with plenty of fancy old words and slightly archaic sentence structures. But it was also apparent that the author knew what she was talking about with the time period (or I know naught about it), and the way everything built together…

It was amazing. Just, here’s the old culture, and why this would have affected the characters this way, and what it meant to everyone when they did thus or such, or whatever, and if it’s not authentic, it’s some damn good world-building.

Certainly it was better than any Hollywood adaptation I’ve ever seen (*coughTroycough*).

And it was a tragedy! I hate sad stories. But it wasn’t sad. I mean, it was, I was all asniffle when I finished, but it also wasn’t. Touching, maybe. I did take some extra time to read it, though, knowing that it would end tragically.

Oh shit, did I just spoil it for you, saying it was a tragedy? Or is this something like the Titanic, where I can just go ahead and assume everyone knows everyone dies?

Anyway, The Song of Achilles was a great book, and you should read it, but keep a box of tissues on hand near the end. Just in case.