Steven J. Pemberton's Blog, page 20
April 8, 2014
Vikings at the British Museum
The British Museum is currently hosting its first major exhibition about the Vikings in over 30 years.
After nearly missing some of exhibitions I've blogged about recently, I thought I'd get in nice and early for this one. This was perhaps a mistake, as half of London seemed to have had the same idea, and I could barely move around the first half of the exhibition, which mostly consists of narrow twisting corridors with the exhibits set into niches in the walls. The second half is better in that respect, as it's a large open space with free-standing cases.
The Vikings made little use of writing (their myths and sagas were passed down orally, and not written down until the 12th or 13th century). Most of what we know about their way of life comes from the writings of neighbouring cultures, who were not usually on good terms with them. The exhibition attempts to give a rounded view of them. Yes, they were bloodthirsty raiders who felt justified in taking whatever they wanted from anyone who couldn't stop them. But they were also explorers, traders and poets, who settled down when they couldn't conquer. Despite their reputation as fierce warriors, their weapons, tactics and training on the whole were no better than those of their opponents, and they lost as many battles as they won.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the remains of a 37-metre longship, the biggest ever found. There isn't much of it left, though, and the archaeologists had to fill in the gaps by comparing it with similar ships of the same period. It's strange to think people crossed oceans in ships like that, and yet I've been on river boats that were bigger.
Many of the artefacts came from graves, and Viking warriors were often buried with their weapons, presumably so they could continue fighting in the afterlife. So I'm not sure what to make of one case of swords that had been bent or broken to frustrate grave robbers. Perhaps, like their owners, they were destroyed only in body, not in spirit.
Allow an hour to go around, or maybe two if you want to wait your turn to look at everything. The exhibition runs until 22 June 2014. The museum says advance booking is essential, and it's quite likely they're right.
After nearly missing some of exhibitions I've blogged about recently, I thought I'd get in nice and early for this one. This was perhaps a mistake, as half of London seemed to have had the same idea, and I could barely move around the first half of the exhibition, which mostly consists of narrow twisting corridors with the exhibits set into niches in the walls. The second half is better in that respect, as it's a large open space with free-standing cases.
The Vikings made little use of writing (their myths and sagas were passed down orally, and not written down until the 12th or 13th century). Most of what we know about their way of life comes from the writings of neighbouring cultures, who were not usually on good terms with them. The exhibition attempts to give a rounded view of them. Yes, they were bloodthirsty raiders who felt justified in taking whatever they wanted from anyone who couldn't stop them. But they were also explorers, traders and poets, who settled down when they couldn't conquer. Despite their reputation as fierce warriors, their weapons, tactics and training on the whole were no better than those of their opponents, and they lost as many battles as they won.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the remains of a 37-metre longship, the biggest ever found. There isn't much of it left, though, and the archaeologists had to fill in the gaps by comparing it with similar ships of the same period. It's strange to think people crossed oceans in ships like that, and yet I've been on river boats that were bigger.
Many of the artefacts came from graves, and Viking warriors were often buried with their weapons, presumably so they could continue fighting in the afterlife. So I'm not sure what to make of one case of swords that had been bent or broken to frustrate grave robbers. Perhaps, like their owners, they were destroyed only in body, not in spirit.
Allow an hour to go around, or maybe two if you want to wait your turn to look at everything. The exhibition runs until 22 June 2014. The museum says advance booking is essential, and it's quite likely they're right.
March 21, 2014
The Mirrors of Elangir, chapter 2
I finished the second draft of my new novel earlier this week, so by way of celebration, here's a peek at the second chapter. The first chapter is here.
“Goddess-damned idiot,” Uncle growled, moving towards me. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the floor — a priceless object, ruined by my carelessness. From the corner of my eye, I saw him bend to pick it up. He gasped.
“Look at this,” he said, taking the mirror to Yindrath. It still glowed with a white light, stronger than the light from the fire.
Yindrath gasped and muttered what sounded like, “Mazor guard us.” I hadn’t marked him as the religious type. He motioned me to join them.
Curiosity overcoming shame and fear, I came over to them. Now it was my turn to gasp. The mirror no longer showed a reflection. What I’d thought was a simple white glow was a picture — a landscape, but none like I’d ever seen. The ground was a sweeping white plain, with jagged hills to the left, also white. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. On the right, cut off by the edge of the mirror, was a grey walled city, broad and squat.
“Whoever painted this was good,” said Uncle, “though I don’t think much of his choice of subject.”
“It’s not a painting,” said Yindrath. “Somewhere, there’s another mirror just like this one, and what we’re seeing is what that mirror is looking at.”
“Ridiculous,” Uncle snorted. “Where would you find somewhere with white ground and white hills?”
“Far to the south,” said Yindrath, “or farther to the north. That white stuff is called ‘snow.’ It falls out of the sky instead of rain in very cold places.”
“And how would you know? You told me you’d never been further than Seltrakht.”
“Do you believe in the existence of dragons?”
“Of course,” said Uncle.
“Even though you’ve never seen one?”
I could see where this was heading, and grinned.
“Yes...” said Uncle.
“Then is it so hard to believe in the existence of something you’ve seen only in a magic mirror?”
Uncle scratched his beard. “I suppose not.”
“So,” I said, shifting from one foot to the other, “if we can see whatever that other mirror is looking at, does that mean that someone who looks into the other mirror can see us?”
“Yes,” said Yindrath. “At least, according to the legends.”
“How do we stop it, then?”
“The same way you started it.”
I took the mirror from Uncle. I’d expected it to be warm from his hands, but it still produced no sensation in my fingers, other than its weight. I touched the rubies in the same sequence I’d used to bring forth the picture, and it vanished as suddenly as if someone had slammed a door on it. I gazed again on my own reflection.
Uncle rubbed his chin and stared into the distance. I knew that look well — he was planning something. I just hoped this scheme wouldn’t end with us in court. “How much do I owe you?” he asked Yindrath.
“Five svara.”
“Five?!”
“If you can find another antiquary who even knows what that thing is, I’ll refund my fee,” Yindrath said.
Muttering, Uncle reached into his purse and handed over the coins.
When we got home, Mara, our maid, came out of the front door to greet us, worry creasing her face.
“Something wrong?” Uncle asked.
She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced over her shoulder. “Shanu is here.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth as my stomach flipped. I’d completely forgotten I was supposed to be having dinner with Shanu and her family today.
Uncle gave a wry grin as Mara stood aside to let me enter the porch. “Good luck,” he said.
Shanu was waiting in the visiting room. Uncle used to tell me that was how we knew we were well-to-do, that we had a room specifically for receiving guests, not used for anything else. Except that now it was being used to store all the stuff we’d salvaged from Dyareg’s house — all the stuff we hadn’t thrown out immediately, anyway. Shanu sat on the edge of the couch, prim and upright, partly because she was a young lady and that’s how young ladies sat, but mostly because the rest of the couch was occupied by a stack of dented saucepans, a parasol stand, and a stuffed bear’s head. She gave me a smile that could’ve drawn blood.
“Raltarn. How delightful to see you. I’m so glad you found room for me in your busy social calendar.”
I held up my hands. “Shanu, I’m sorry, I got caught up in something and —”
She cut me off with, “Rather like I found room for myself in here amid all the clutter.” She stood and hitched up her skirt. I averted my eyes from her ankles and put the mirror where she’d been sitting. She went to the door, picking her way like a sandpiper over and among the obstacles Uncle had strewn in her path. Hand on the doorknob, she turned and asked, “What are you waiting for?”
“I’m sorry, I thought —”
“Well don’t think. Not as much, anyway.” She held out her other hand. I took it — that I didn’t have to think about. My stomach flipped again, but in a good way this time.
In the hall, we manoeuvred around Uncle and Mara, Shanu and Uncle exchanging pleasant greetings.
Outside, Shanu said with a little sigh, “You have a lot to recommend you, sweetness. I just wish I didn’t have to run after you all the time.”
“I said I was sorry,” I said.
“Well don’t. A gentleman never apologises.”
Because he never does anything he has to apologise for. My old schoolmaster’s words echoed in my head. I guessed that meant I wasn’t a gentleman.
I looked around for a taxi, not seeing one. Shanu tugged gently on my hand, leading me along the footpath.
“Do you want to walk?” I said.
“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s only ten minutes. Quicker than waiting for a taxi at this time of day.” Walking between our houses was quicker than a taxi at just about any time of day, but that wasn’t the point.
“How late am I?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
“About a quarter of an hour.”
That wasn’t as bad as I feared, but still half an hour later than I’d have liked to be. At the junction of Coopers’ Street and Vintners’ Street, we had to wait while a column of soldiers marched across our route. They looked to be raw recruits, some of them younger than me. Many hadn’t quite got the hang of keeping step with their comrades, and kept bumping into the man behind or in front of them.
One soldier, older and with a more certain pace than most, grinned and waved at Shanu. “I’ll kill a dragon for you, Miss!”
I gripped her hand tighter and forced myself not to scowl. How dare he be so familiar with a lady he didn’t know?
She returned a little smile and wave. “I very much doubt that,” she murmured when the column had passed.
“They’ll be doing well if they manage to kill one dragon between them,” I said.
She nodded sadly. “They joined of their own free will, of course, but it can’t be right that we send them with swords and spears to fight men who ride dragons.”
“If it wasn’t for them and men like them, the dragons would’ve been here a long time ago.”
“I know.” She sighed. “My cousin sold his horse to the Army the other day.”
“But it was on its last legs,” I said.
“She, not it. They didn’t seem to care, and they gave him a third more than the knackers were offering.”
“No wonder you have to wait so long for a taxi these days.”
As we turned the corner of the street where Shanu lived, I slipped my hand out of hers — it wouldn’t do to be so affectionate where her parents might see us. Their house stood at the end of the street, a quiet cul-de-sac. It stood on about an eighth of an acre, most of which was at the front, the better to impress the neighbours. The house was larger than ours — Uncle could probably have told you by how many square feet. When he’d first met her parents, he’d offered to redecorate their visitors’ room, which had gone down about as well as a dancing troupe at a Mazorean vigil. In spite of that, they’d agreed to our engagement, though they didn’t invite Uncle to dine with them any more than protocol deemed necessary.
“Relax,” whispered Shanu as she pushed open the gate.
I noticed my fists were clenched, and swallowed to moisten my throat. This never got any easier.
We walked up the path. It took a broad arc rather than going straight. That was a trick to make the garden seem bigger, Uncle had told me, by making you take longer to traverse it than if it was straight. They still had their shrubs and flower beds. Most of the people of Symeera had switched to growing vegetables, but Shanu’s parents were rich enough not to need to bother. I sometimes wondered if they’d noticed there was a war going on.
Shanu put her hand on the lock of the front door and whispered the spell to open it. A tingly warmth passed over me, almost like when we held hands. I loved seeing her do magic. Inside the porch, I cast a light spell while she locked the door. That was one concession to the war — since tallow had become more expensive, her family had stopped leaving lanterns burning in unoccupied rooms. I moved the light over my head to let her lead the way to the dining room at the back of the house. I held my breath as she opened its door.
Her parents sat at the far side of the dining table, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun that streamed in over the river and the west side of the city. Every time I ate dinner here, I wondered why they chose to turn their backs on this view — a thousand years of history spread before them.
“Sir, Lady,” I said, “I must apologise for our lateness. It was my fault —”
Shanu’s father cut me off with a shake of his head. He wasn’t interested in excuses. A gentleman never apologises. With a barely perceptible wave of his hand, he indicated that we should sit. We stood next to our chairs as the butler drew them out for us. As we sat, Father nodded to the butler, who pulled a rope hanging in the corner. Somewhere in the depths of the house, a bell rang.
Sweat trickled down my back as we waited. The door opened, and the butler — I’d never learned his name, in all the time I’d been calling here — distributed the first course — lark tongue soup. I ate, barely tasting it. We didn’t speak during the meal — that, I’d learned early on, was another distinction between rich people and the rest of us. They could afford to concentrate on doing one thing at a time.
The meal went on long enough that by the time the butler was serving the dessert, he had to cast a light spell to see what he was doing. Rich people didn’t perform magic, as a rule — they had servants to do it for them. The dessert was something cold and crunchy that tasted faintly of lemons. I would’ve preferred to skip it, as it made my teeth hurt, but that would’ve been even ruder than arriving late.
Finally, the butler brought in a bottle of sweet wine and poured us all a glass — Father got more than the rest, I couldn’t help noticing. The butler placed the bottle at Father’s elbow, then lit a candle in the middle of the table and left the room.
We sipped at our wine, and then Father said, “So, young Sir, it’s nearly a year since you first proposed marriage to our daughter.”
My head swam, as if I’d downed the entire glass. “Yes, Sir — a fortnight tomorrow. I was thinking perhaps a little celebration — with your permission of course — perhaps a boating trip on the lake —?”
“Before Shanu, the longest engagement in our family was ten months.”
Oh. I tried not to bite my lip.
“We were curious to know how much longer you intend to keep our daughter waiting.”
I glanced at Shanu, who appeared to be clenching her teeth. “I, I realise, Sir, it is inappropriate to, to test a lady’s patience, but I wish to ensure that I can provide Shanu with the type of living she is — to which she is accustomed.”
Father leaned back and drank some more of his wine. “Very wise, young Sir. But surely you recall that you said almost exactly the same words to me when you first requested my leave to promise yourself to her?”
I sipped at my own wine, willing my hand not to tremble as I put the glass back down. “I did, Sir.”
“And what progress have you made towards that end in the eleven and a half months since?”
“I’ve accumulated about four hundred svara from investments and working in my uncle’s business.” To be honest, it was mostly from investments: Uncle got away with paying me a lot less than he would’ve anyone else, because he let me live rent-free and paid for most of what we ate.
Mother tittered. “Do you think you’ll be living in a stable in Darmath?”
Father gave her a brief scowl. “I would have hoped to hear two or three times that sum. I cannot help but wonder whether your intentions towards our daughter are entirely serious — that is to say, whether you’ve been wasting our time.” He lifted his glass.
I gulped. “Quite serious, Sir. I — I love Shanu with all my heart. I would —”
He set his glass down with a loud clink. “Love, young Sir, is a luxury you cannot afford. I want you to double your fortune in the next three months, or we will cancel the engagement.”
I felt as though I was falling, and grabbed the edge of the table. I let go before I pulled the cloth off.
“Father, please,” said Shanu.
“You’ve had more than enough time already, young Sir. I’m only giving you fair warning.”
“He’s a good man, Father,” said Shanu. “I don’t mind living somewhere... smaller and more remote.” She glanced at me, as though hopeful she wouldn’t have to make good on the promise.
“Three months,” said Father. “No more.” He stood, signalling that the conversation was over, and left the room, Mother following him. The butler spent a minute or two clearing the table. I handed my glass to him, still half-full of wine. That was rude, but I had no stomach for the stuff now.
Once the butler had gone, Shanu moved her chair closer and laid her hand on mine. My breath caught in my throat at the thought someone might come in and see us.
“I’m sorry, sweetness,” she whispered. Her eyes glistened. Evidently it was all right for a lady to apologise — even for things that weren’t her fault.
For a moment, I pressed my lips together to stop them trembling. “Did you know?”
With the tiniest shake of her head, she replied, “He told me this morning. It was horrible of him to put you down like that in front of Mother and me.” She sniffed. “I’ll try to persuade him to give you more time —”
I cut her off with, “Do you think I won’t manage it?” and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Shanu withdrew her hand and looked down, blinking. “If — if it was my decision alone — if it was just a matter of love...”
But it wasn’t, and it wasn’t. “The other day, my uncle said with summer nearly over, the action at the front should be picking up again soon. He was talking about buying a stake in some supply contracts for the army.”
Her body stiffened, and she stared at me. “Don’t say that to Father if he asks about your plans.”
I stared back. “Why not?”
“He’s just lost a lot of money on one of those contracts.”
“How?” I’d thought they were as certain as anything could be in these uncertain times.
“The White Dragons ambushed the wagon train.”
“Those traitors?” I said. “Why hasn’t the army hung them yet?”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “I suppose they have to catch them first. But they’re getting bolder. The train was only two days out of the city.”
I shuddered. That might mean an attack on Symeera itself was imminent — though I’d never heard of the White Dragons striking at settlements. Weak and cowardly, they’d stuck to stealing and destroying supplies that were en route to the front line.
“The insurance should cover his losses, though?” I said.
She sighed. “He expects so, but it could be months before they pay. And that’s not really the point, is it? These attacks could cost us the war.”
We talked of inconsequential things after that. Soon it was time for me to leave, to be sure of reaching home before curfew. We stood, sharing a brief, delicate embrace, and kissed one another on the cheeks.
“Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to be quite so well-mannered,” she whispered as she let go of me. “You look as though you need a bigger hug than it would be polite to give you.”
My eyes stung. “I’ll be fine,” I said, though I could’ve done with a hug like that. I bade her farewell and left the building.
“Goddess-damned idiot,” Uncle growled, moving towards me. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the floor — a priceless object, ruined by my carelessness. From the corner of my eye, I saw him bend to pick it up. He gasped.
“Look at this,” he said, taking the mirror to Yindrath. It still glowed with a white light, stronger than the light from the fire.
Yindrath gasped and muttered what sounded like, “Mazor guard us.” I hadn’t marked him as the religious type. He motioned me to join them.
Curiosity overcoming shame and fear, I came over to them. Now it was my turn to gasp. The mirror no longer showed a reflection. What I’d thought was a simple white glow was a picture — a landscape, but none like I’d ever seen. The ground was a sweeping white plain, with jagged hills to the left, also white. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. On the right, cut off by the edge of the mirror, was a grey walled city, broad and squat.
“Whoever painted this was good,” said Uncle, “though I don’t think much of his choice of subject.”
“It’s not a painting,” said Yindrath. “Somewhere, there’s another mirror just like this one, and what we’re seeing is what that mirror is looking at.”
“Ridiculous,” Uncle snorted. “Where would you find somewhere with white ground and white hills?”
“Far to the south,” said Yindrath, “or farther to the north. That white stuff is called ‘snow.’ It falls out of the sky instead of rain in very cold places.”
“And how would you know? You told me you’d never been further than Seltrakht.”
“Do you believe in the existence of dragons?”
“Of course,” said Uncle.
“Even though you’ve never seen one?”
I could see where this was heading, and grinned.
“Yes...” said Uncle.
“Then is it so hard to believe in the existence of something you’ve seen only in a magic mirror?”
Uncle scratched his beard. “I suppose not.”
“So,” I said, shifting from one foot to the other, “if we can see whatever that other mirror is looking at, does that mean that someone who looks into the other mirror can see us?”
“Yes,” said Yindrath. “At least, according to the legends.”
“How do we stop it, then?”
“The same way you started it.”
I took the mirror from Uncle. I’d expected it to be warm from his hands, but it still produced no sensation in my fingers, other than its weight. I touched the rubies in the same sequence I’d used to bring forth the picture, and it vanished as suddenly as if someone had slammed a door on it. I gazed again on my own reflection.
Uncle rubbed his chin and stared into the distance. I knew that look well — he was planning something. I just hoped this scheme wouldn’t end with us in court. “How much do I owe you?” he asked Yindrath.
“Five svara.”
“Five?!”
“If you can find another antiquary who even knows what that thing is, I’ll refund my fee,” Yindrath said.
Muttering, Uncle reached into his purse and handed over the coins.
When we got home, Mara, our maid, came out of the front door to greet us, worry creasing her face.
“Something wrong?” Uncle asked.
She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced over her shoulder. “Shanu is here.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth as my stomach flipped. I’d completely forgotten I was supposed to be having dinner with Shanu and her family today.
Uncle gave a wry grin as Mara stood aside to let me enter the porch. “Good luck,” he said.
Shanu was waiting in the visiting room. Uncle used to tell me that was how we knew we were well-to-do, that we had a room specifically for receiving guests, not used for anything else. Except that now it was being used to store all the stuff we’d salvaged from Dyareg’s house — all the stuff we hadn’t thrown out immediately, anyway. Shanu sat on the edge of the couch, prim and upright, partly because she was a young lady and that’s how young ladies sat, but mostly because the rest of the couch was occupied by a stack of dented saucepans, a parasol stand, and a stuffed bear’s head. She gave me a smile that could’ve drawn blood.
“Raltarn. How delightful to see you. I’m so glad you found room for me in your busy social calendar.”
I held up my hands. “Shanu, I’m sorry, I got caught up in something and —”
She cut me off with, “Rather like I found room for myself in here amid all the clutter.” She stood and hitched up her skirt. I averted my eyes from her ankles and put the mirror where she’d been sitting. She went to the door, picking her way like a sandpiper over and among the obstacles Uncle had strewn in her path. Hand on the doorknob, she turned and asked, “What are you waiting for?”
“I’m sorry, I thought —”
“Well don’t think. Not as much, anyway.” She held out her other hand. I took it — that I didn’t have to think about. My stomach flipped again, but in a good way this time.
In the hall, we manoeuvred around Uncle and Mara, Shanu and Uncle exchanging pleasant greetings.
Outside, Shanu said with a little sigh, “You have a lot to recommend you, sweetness. I just wish I didn’t have to run after you all the time.”
“I said I was sorry,” I said.
“Well don’t. A gentleman never apologises.”
Because he never does anything he has to apologise for. My old schoolmaster’s words echoed in my head. I guessed that meant I wasn’t a gentleman.
I looked around for a taxi, not seeing one. Shanu tugged gently on my hand, leading me along the footpath.
“Do you want to walk?” I said.
“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s only ten minutes. Quicker than waiting for a taxi at this time of day.” Walking between our houses was quicker than a taxi at just about any time of day, but that wasn’t the point.
“How late am I?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
“About a quarter of an hour.”
That wasn’t as bad as I feared, but still half an hour later than I’d have liked to be. At the junction of Coopers’ Street and Vintners’ Street, we had to wait while a column of soldiers marched across our route. They looked to be raw recruits, some of them younger than me. Many hadn’t quite got the hang of keeping step with their comrades, and kept bumping into the man behind or in front of them.
One soldier, older and with a more certain pace than most, grinned and waved at Shanu. “I’ll kill a dragon for you, Miss!”
I gripped her hand tighter and forced myself not to scowl. How dare he be so familiar with a lady he didn’t know?
She returned a little smile and wave. “I very much doubt that,” she murmured when the column had passed.
“They’ll be doing well if they manage to kill one dragon between them,” I said.
She nodded sadly. “They joined of their own free will, of course, but it can’t be right that we send them with swords and spears to fight men who ride dragons.”
“If it wasn’t for them and men like them, the dragons would’ve been here a long time ago.”
“I know.” She sighed. “My cousin sold his horse to the Army the other day.”
“But it was on its last legs,” I said.
“She, not it. They didn’t seem to care, and they gave him a third more than the knackers were offering.”
“No wonder you have to wait so long for a taxi these days.”
As we turned the corner of the street where Shanu lived, I slipped my hand out of hers — it wouldn’t do to be so affectionate where her parents might see us. Their house stood at the end of the street, a quiet cul-de-sac. It stood on about an eighth of an acre, most of which was at the front, the better to impress the neighbours. The house was larger than ours — Uncle could probably have told you by how many square feet. When he’d first met her parents, he’d offered to redecorate their visitors’ room, which had gone down about as well as a dancing troupe at a Mazorean vigil. In spite of that, they’d agreed to our engagement, though they didn’t invite Uncle to dine with them any more than protocol deemed necessary.
“Relax,” whispered Shanu as she pushed open the gate.
I noticed my fists were clenched, and swallowed to moisten my throat. This never got any easier.
We walked up the path. It took a broad arc rather than going straight. That was a trick to make the garden seem bigger, Uncle had told me, by making you take longer to traverse it than if it was straight. They still had their shrubs and flower beds. Most of the people of Symeera had switched to growing vegetables, but Shanu’s parents were rich enough not to need to bother. I sometimes wondered if they’d noticed there was a war going on.
Shanu put her hand on the lock of the front door and whispered the spell to open it. A tingly warmth passed over me, almost like when we held hands. I loved seeing her do magic. Inside the porch, I cast a light spell while she locked the door. That was one concession to the war — since tallow had become more expensive, her family had stopped leaving lanterns burning in unoccupied rooms. I moved the light over my head to let her lead the way to the dining room at the back of the house. I held my breath as she opened its door.
Her parents sat at the far side of the dining table, silhouetted by the late afternoon sun that streamed in over the river and the west side of the city. Every time I ate dinner here, I wondered why they chose to turn their backs on this view — a thousand years of history spread before them.
“Sir, Lady,” I said, “I must apologise for our lateness. It was my fault —”
Shanu’s father cut me off with a shake of his head. He wasn’t interested in excuses. A gentleman never apologises. With a barely perceptible wave of his hand, he indicated that we should sit. We stood next to our chairs as the butler drew them out for us. As we sat, Father nodded to the butler, who pulled a rope hanging in the corner. Somewhere in the depths of the house, a bell rang.
Sweat trickled down my back as we waited. The door opened, and the butler — I’d never learned his name, in all the time I’d been calling here — distributed the first course — lark tongue soup. I ate, barely tasting it. We didn’t speak during the meal — that, I’d learned early on, was another distinction between rich people and the rest of us. They could afford to concentrate on doing one thing at a time.
The meal went on long enough that by the time the butler was serving the dessert, he had to cast a light spell to see what he was doing. Rich people didn’t perform magic, as a rule — they had servants to do it for them. The dessert was something cold and crunchy that tasted faintly of lemons. I would’ve preferred to skip it, as it made my teeth hurt, but that would’ve been even ruder than arriving late.
Finally, the butler brought in a bottle of sweet wine and poured us all a glass — Father got more than the rest, I couldn’t help noticing. The butler placed the bottle at Father’s elbow, then lit a candle in the middle of the table and left the room.
We sipped at our wine, and then Father said, “So, young Sir, it’s nearly a year since you first proposed marriage to our daughter.”
My head swam, as if I’d downed the entire glass. “Yes, Sir — a fortnight tomorrow. I was thinking perhaps a little celebration — with your permission of course — perhaps a boating trip on the lake —?”
“Before Shanu, the longest engagement in our family was ten months.”
Oh. I tried not to bite my lip.
“We were curious to know how much longer you intend to keep our daughter waiting.”
I glanced at Shanu, who appeared to be clenching her teeth. “I, I realise, Sir, it is inappropriate to, to test a lady’s patience, but I wish to ensure that I can provide Shanu with the type of living she is — to which she is accustomed.”
Father leaned back and drank some more of his wine. “Very wise, young Sir. But surely you recall that you said almost exactly the same words to me when you first requested my leave to promise yourself to her?”
I sipped at my own wine, willing my hand not to tremble as I put the glass back down. “I did, Sir.”
“And what progress have you made towards that end in the eleven and a half months since?”
“I’ve accumulated about four hundred svara from investments and working in my uncle’s business.” To be honest, it was mostly from investments: Uncle got away with paying me a lot less than he would’ve anyone else, because he let me live rent-free and paid for most of what we ate.
Mother tittered. “Do you think you’ll be living in a stable in Darmath?”
Father gave her a brief scowl. “I would have hoped to hear two or three times that sum. I cannot help but wonder whether your intentions towards our daughter are entirely serious — that is to say, whether you’ve been wasting our time.” He lifted his glass.
I gulped. “Quite serious, Sir. I — I love Shanu with all my heart. I would —”
He set his glass down with a loud clink. “Love, young Sir, is a luxury you cannot afford. I want you to double your fortune in the next three months, or we will cancel the engagement.”
I felt as though I was falling, and grabbed the edge of the table. I let go before I pulled the cloth off.
“Father, please,” said Shanu.
“You’ve had more than enough time already, young Sir. I’m only giving you fair warning.”
“He’s a good man, Father,” said Shanu. “I don’t mind living somewhere... smaller and more remote.” She glanced at me, as though hopeful she wouldn’t have to make good on the promise.
“Three months,” said Father. “No more.” He stood, signalling that the conversation was over, and left the room, Mother following him. The butler spent a minute or two clearing the table. I handed my glass to him, still half-full of wine. That was rude, but I had no stomach for the stuff now.
Once the butler had gone, Shanu moved her chair closer and laid her hand on mine. My breath caught in my throat at the thought someone might come in and see us.
“I’m sorry, sweetness,” she whispered. Her eyes glistened. Evidently it was all right for a lady to apologise — even for things that weren’t her fault.
For a moment, I pressed my lips together to stop them trembling. “Did you know?”
With the tiniest shake of her head, she replied, “He told me this morning. It was horrible of him to put you down like that in front of Mother and me.” She sniffed. “I’ll try to persuade him to give you more time —”
I cut her off with, “Do you think I won’t manage it?” and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Shanu withdrew her hand and looked down, blinking. “If — if it was my decision alone — if it was just a matter of love...”
But it wasn’t, and it wasn’t. “The other day, my uncle said with summer nearly over, the action at the front should be picking up again soon. He was talking about buying a stake in some supply contracts for the army.”
Her body stiffened, and she stared at me. “Don’t say that to Father if he asks about your plans.”
I stared back. “Why not?”
“He’s just lost a lot of money on one of those contracts.”
“How?” I’d thought they were as certain as anything could be in these uncertain times.
“The White Dragons ambushed the wagon train.”
“Those traitors?” I said. “Why hasn’t the army hung them yet?”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “I suppose they have to catch them first. But they’re getting bolder. The train was only two days out of the city.”
I shuddered. That might mean an attack on Symeera itself was imminent — though I’d never heard of the White Dragons striking at settlements. Weak and cowardly, they’d stuck to stealing and destroying supplies that were en route to the front line.
“The insurance should cover his losses, though?” I said.
She sighed. “He expects so, but it could be months before they pay. And that’s not really the point, is it? These attacks could cost us the war.”
We talked of inconsequential things after that. Soon it was time for me to leave, to be sure of reaching home before curfew. We stood, sharing a brief, delicate embrace, and kissed one another on the cheeks.
“Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to be quite so well-mannered,” she whispered as she let go of me. “You look as though you need a bigger hug than it would be polite to give you.”
My eyes stung. “I’ll be fine,” I said, though I could’ve done with a hug like that. I bade her farewell and left the building.
March 15, 2014
Collider (as in Large Hadron)
This is another exhibition that I should've visited sooner, as it closes in a couple of months.
Collider
is a temporary exhibition at the Science Museum in London, all about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It explores the science, the engineering, and what it's like to actually work at CERN. It concentrates on the second and third of these, as a true understanding of the science is probably beyond most of us.
As physicists have probed deeper and deeper into the structure of matter and energy, on smaller and smaller scales, the experiments have become larger and more expensive. The electron was discovered by two men working in a lab the size of a typical living room. Confirming the existence of the Higgs boson required a machine the size of a city, built and operated by 10,000 people from all over the world, and cost £10 billion. (As a side note, it amazes me that this particle was predicted 50 years ago, long before any instrument existed that could produce or detect it.)
The exhibition is in two parts. The first is about the history of particle physics before the LHC. The second is a reconstruction of parts of the LHC and CERN. It's built in a curving, branching structure, reminiscent of the swirls and circles of the tunnels that house the LHC itself. Watch out for a walk-on from Professor Brian Cox in the introductory video.
There were some objects where it wasn't clear to me whether they were the real thing or scale models. (Everything about the LHC is absurdly large or absurdly small. The two beams of protons that circle inside it before being smashed together have as much energy in total as 173 kilograms of TNT, and yet a cylinder of hydrogen the size of a fire extinguisher can supply the beams for several months. The process of steering the beams to make them hit one another is likened to shooting two knitting needles from opposite sides of the Atlantic and ensuring they meet in the middle.)
Overall I found the exhibition interesting and enjoyable, if a little short considering the price of admission. It's difficult to say what might have been added to it that wouldn't have been padding, though. Collider is open until 5 May 2014. Tickets are £10 for adults and £7 for concessions, which includes an optional £1 donation to the museum.
As physicists have probed deeper and deeper into the structure of matter and energy, on smaller and smaller scales, the experiments have become larger and more expensive. The electron was discovered by two men working in a lab the size of a typical living room. Confirming the existence of the Higgs boson required a machine the size of a city, built and operated by 10,000 people from all over the world, and cost £10 billion. (As a side note, it amazes me that this particle was predicted 50 years ago, long before any instrument existed that could produce or detect it.)
The exhibition is in two parts. The first is about the history of particle physics before the LHC. The second is a reconstruction of parts of the LHC and CERN. It's built in a curving, branching structure, reminiscent of the swirls and circles of the tunnels that house the LHC itself. Watch out for a walk-on from Professor Brian Cox in the introductory video.
There were some objects where it wasn't clear to me whether they were the real thing or scale models. (Everything about the LHC is absurdly large or absurdly small. The two beams of protons that circle inside it before being smashed together have as much energy in total as 173 kilograms of TNT, and yet a cylinder of hydrogen the size of a fire extinguisher can supply the beams for several months. The process of steering the beams to make them hit one another is likened to shooting two knitting needles from opposite sides of the Atlantic and ensuring they meet in the middle.)
Overall I found the exhibition interesting and enjoyable, if a little short considering the price of admission. It's difficult to say what might have been added to it that wouldn't have been padding, though. Collider is open until 5 May 2014. Tickets are £10 for adults and £7 for concessions, which includes an optional £1 donation to the museum.
January 1, 2014
Promises, promises
This is what I want to achieve in 2014:
Edit and polish my current novel (working title: The Mirrors of Elangir) and put it on sale by the end of June. You can read the first chapter of it here.
Plan and start writing the fourth and final book of The Barefoot Healer series (currently untitled). If I meet my deadline for The Mirrors of Elangir and keep to my usual rate of writing, I should have about 45,000 words by the end of the year, which is about a third to a half of a novel.
Third time lucky - visit Dublin with Breda.
Upload at least ten minutes of edited video, not including any videos that promote my books.
Reduce the size of the TBR pile. As of today, I have 155 unread books on my Kindle. Looking at it another way, I'm currently reading books I bought in July 2012, so the queue is 19 months long. If either of those numbers is smaller this time next year, I'll be happy.
Come back in twelve months to see how I got on...
Edit and polish my current novel (working title: The Mirrors of Elangir) and put it on sale by the end of June. You can read the first chapter of it here.
Plan and start writing the fourth and final book of The Barefoot Healer series (currently untitled). If I meet my deadline for The Mirrors of Elangir and keep to my usual rate of writing, I should have about 45,000 words by the end of the year, which is about a third to a half of a novel.
Third time lucky - visit Dublin with Breda.
Upload at least ten minutes of edited video, not including any videos that promote my books.
Reduce the size of the TBR pile. As of today, I have 155 unread books on my Kindle. Looking at it another way, I'm currently reading books I bought in July 2012, so the queue is 19 months long. If either of those numbers is smaller this time next year, I'll be happy.
Come back in twelve months to see how I got on...
December 29, 2013
Keeping myself honest
It's time to see how well I did at keeping my New Year's resolutions for 2013...
Finish Dust & Water and put it on sale. (Done - I published it on 30 March.)
Finish the short story about dragons that I was working on around the end of 2011. (Not done, but I wrote another 2,000 words of it over the holidays. This means that it's no longer a short story, but a novelette, at least according to SFWA's categories for the Nebula Awards.)
Visit Dublin with Breda. (Not done. Maybe next year...)
Write more than 13 blog posts. (Not done. I wrote 11, or 8 if you don't count the ones about my books. I think I'm going to have to give up on any goals to write a specific number of posts, and just blog as and when I have something to say. My everyday life just isn't that interesting - or I'm not egotistical enough to think it's that interesting, anyway. I could say a lot about my books or about writing in general, but I don't want this to turn into yet another writer's blog that appeals only to other writers. Plus which, I already dispense plenty of writing advice on Yahoo! Answers and Wattpad.)
Upload at least ten minutes of edited video, not including any videos that promote my books. (Done. I uploaded about 22 minutes of non-book videos in total, though about 12 minutes of that was videos I made in previous years. You can watch them here.)
Publish another novel. I have an unfinished one that I put aside a few years ago to concentrate on the Barefoot Healer series. (Not done, though I finished the first draft of it a few weeks ago. It's the one whose first chapter is in my previous post. When I said I wanted to have it on sale this year, I thought it would be shorter than it turned out. I should know by now that brevity doesn't come naturally to me...)
So in terms of number of goals met, that doesn't look too impressive, but in terms of what I achieved, it's been a pretty good year. Come back in a few days to see what I want to do in 2014!
Finish Dust & Water and put it on sale. (Done - I published it on 30 March.)
Finish the short story about dragons that I was working on around the end of 2011. (Not done, but I wrote another 2,000 words of it over the holidays. This means that it's no longer a short story, but a novelette, at least according to SFWA's categories for the Nebula Awards.)
Visit Dublin with Breda. (Not done. Maybe next year...)
Write more than 13 blog posts. (Not done. I wrote 11, or 8 if you don't count the ones about my books. I think I'm going to have to give up on any goals to write a specific number of posts, and just blog as and when I have something to say. My everyday life just isn't that interesting - or I'm not egotistical enough to think it's that interesting, anyway. I could say a lot about my books or about writing in general, but I don't want this to turn into yet another writer's blog that appeals only to other writers. Plus which, I already dispense plenty of writing advice on Yahoo! Answers and Wattpad.)
Upload at least ten minutes of edited video, not including any videos that promote my books. (Done. I uploaded about 22 minutes of non-book videos in total, though about 12 minutes of that was videos I made in previous years. You can watch them here.)
Publish another novel. I have an unfinished one that I put aside a few years ago to concentrate on the Barefoot Healer series. (Not done, though I finished the first draft of it a few weeks ago. It's the one whose first chapter is in my previous post. When I said I wanted to have it on sale this year, I thought it would be shorter than it turned out. I should know by now that brevity doesn't come naturally to me...)
So in terms of number of goals met, that doesn't look too impressive, but in terms of what I achieved, it's been a pretty good year. Come back in a few days to see what I want to do in 2014!
December 24, 2013
A (slightly) early Christmas present
This is the first chapter of a new fantasy novel I've been working on, whose first draft I finished a couple of weeks ago. I'm about to start editing it, and if my record holds, it should be on sale around the middle of 2014. It's set in a different world from The Barefoot Healer - having spent the better part of the last five years writing about Adramal, I fancied a change after finishing Dust & Water. A key difference is that the ability to use magic is more widespread - the main character is reasonably good at it, but this doesn't make him in any way special.
The book's working title is The Mirrors of Elangir, which will probably stick unless I think of something I like better. Once it's on sale, I'll return to The Barefoot Healer for the fourth and final volume of that series.
***
The old man lit his pipe with a taper from the fire. He sucked on it a few times until the glow in the bowl had faded, and then blew a long stream of sweet-smelling, blue-grey smoke between Uncle Tomaz and me. He smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth. “Of course, you know I have to report this.”
I tensed, bracing for my uncle to signal that we should run. He just smiled back, unperturbed. “But you’re not going to, are you, Yindrath?”
“I might yet, just to see the look on your face.” He sucked on his pipe again and blew a ring that ambled over Uncle’s head. “But the Peace might start poking their noses into my business, and that would never do. And if they confiscate this trinket, I won’t find out the truth behind it.”
“You don’t know what it is, then?” said Uncle, as though the man had insulted his mother.
Yindrath chuckled and sat back in his chair, adjusting his robe. Uncle leaned forward. I glanced at him, hoping he wouldn’t lose his temper or — worse — demand that the old man refund his fee. That was one of his biggest failings, thinking that mistakes didn’t matter, because they could be undone and the world put back the way it was.
“I have a good idea,” Yindrath said. “I just don’t believe your account of how you came by it.”
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Dyareg’s sons asked us to clear out his house, and they said we could keep half what we made.”
Uncle scowled at me — he didn’t like it when I tried to help him tell his stories.
Yindrath tutted, though apparently more because his pipe had gone out. He relit it with the taper. Uncle’s jaw clenched, but we both knew there was no hurrying the fellow when he was doing this “smoking,” as he called it. When I’d first heard the term as a boy, I’d thought he was setting himself on fire. The war had made the leaves that he burned hard to come by, so he made them last. After a few more puffs, he set the pipe on the little table by his chair and picked up the object we’d brought him.
It was a circular mirror, about a foot across. The size alone made it valuable, but Uncle was convinced there was much more to it than that. Yindrath held it with the back to us, which was made of metal so blue that it was almost black. The colour was perfectly even, with no variations I could see, making it look more like a hole than anything solid. When we’d found the mirror, I’d touched the back and felt nothing — it was neither hot nor cold, rough nor smooth. Yindrath tilted the mirror this way and that, causing the firelight to play over his face. The shifting shadows and highlights made him look like a monster from my nightmares, and I repressed a shudder.
He laid the mirror on his lap. The glass and the silver — if it was silver — were smoother than any mirror I’d seen before. It had a surround of the same dark blue metal as the back, with six small rubies spaced equally. Between the rubies were inlays of gold lettering — at least, I assumed it was lettering. I could read Asdanundish, of course, and make sense of Brothric and had even started learning the Nuhysean alphabet, but these curling symbols were wholly strange to me. They also gave the only clue that the mirror might be the work of mortal hands, instead of having fallen out of Kashalbe’s boudoir — a few of the curves had flecks of gold missing.
Yindrath took several slow, shallow breaths and cupped his hands together a foot above the mirror. His eyelids fluttered. I’d known he was good, but hadn’t realised he didn’t need words. He opened his hands.
Nothing was there. The old man frowned and cupped his hands again.
“I told you it screws with magic,” said Uncle.
Yindrath lowered his hands and gave a smirk. “The wind blowing the wrong way screws with your magic.”
Uncle snatched the mirror and stood up, carrying it to the other end of the room. “Try it now.”
The old man shrugged and cast his spell again. When he opened his hands, the light that he revealed was weaker than a candle, and only the size of a pea. He gazed at it in mild annoyance, and then clapped his hands together, extinguishing it. “So there’s a lot of magic bound up in that thing. That should make it easy for the Peace to find it. Which makes me wonder how it lay undetected in Dyareg’s attic for so many years.”
“I don’t like being called a liar,” said Uncle. He would never deny being a liar, just say he didn’t like to be called one.
Yindrath sighed. To me, he said, “Fetch me the Elangic dictionary from the middle bookcase, third shelf.”
Elangic? The mirror was in too good a condition to be that old, surely. I levered myself out of the chair’s numerous cushions and went to the indicated spot. Several other dictionaries and glossaries were on that shelf, fat volumes that might break your toes if carelessly dropped. The Elangic dictionary was a pamphlet by comparison, barely the thickness of my finger. I took it back to him. Uncle had propped the mirror against a vase on the table. Yindrath had found a slate and chalk from somewhere and had transcribed the inscription around the mirror’s edge. He accepted the dictionary and started flipping through it.
Ten minutes passed, with the silence broken only by the sounds of Yindrath writing and turning pages, and the occasional pop from the fire.
“Can’t we leave him to it and come back later?” I whispered.
“Come back tomorrow and I should’ve learned all its secrets,” Yindrath said, not looking up.
“We don’t mind waiting,” said Uncle, grinding his teeth.
“Don’t you trust me?” said Yindrath.
“I trust you like my own brother,” said Uncle.
“Didn’t he cheat you out of four thousand svara?”
“Three thousand four hundred,” Uncle shot back. He recovered six hundred of it, but to my way of thinking, it’s the initial size of the swindle that counts in that sort of situation, not how much of it you get to keep.
So we waited, as the fire burned low. At Yindrath’s suggestion, I rebuilt it and set some red tea brewing. I preferred black, but most people couldn’t afford to be choosy these days. When I’d poured it, Yindrath said, “I have a rough translation — nothing helpful, I’m afraid. It just identifies the mirror as the property of some long-dead person from some faraway place.” He frowned. “Then again, he could’ve lived next door, seeing as hardly any of their place names survive. Fetch me the green box from the top of the right-hand bookcase.”
The box was leather-bound, about a foot square, and much heavier than it looked — it nearly slipped from my hands as I lifted it from its place. Yindrath unlocked it with a key from his pocket and leafed through a sheaf of loose papers. He pulled out a sheet with twelve circles drawn on it, in three columns of four. Each circle had the numbers one to six written around it in a different order. “If I’m right about what this thing is, one of these will unlock it.”
I held my breath as Yindrath picked up the mirror and touched the rubies in the sequence indicated by the numbers around the top left circle.
Nothing happened.
He tried the next sequence. Still nothing happened. He muttered something that sounded rude and tried the next one. Still nothing. He tried all the rest, with the same result. He shrugged and offered the mirror back to Uncle. “Either it’s broken, or it needs a sequence that we don’t know about.”
“What’s supposed to happen when you have the right sequence?” said Uncle.
Yindrath shrugged.
“Couldn’t you just try all possible sequences?” I said.
Yindrath scowled at me. “It’d take weeks. D’you think I’ve nothing better to do?”
I quailed. “A few hours, at the most. There are seven hundred and twenty possible ways of arranging six objects — seven hundred and eight, now that you’ve tried twelve that don’t work.”
Uncle held the mirror out to me. “Don’t let me stop you.”
It was much lighter than something with that much metal and glass had any right to be. I still found it unnerving how bright and detailed the reflection of myself was, and how closely it mimicked every detail of my expression. I could count the flecks in my irises, and the short hairs under my chin, where I didn’t shave as thoroughly as I should. The rubies seemed to glow with a light not of the room, inviting my touch. Seven hundred and eight possible sequences might not take very long to test — but how would I be sure I’d tried all of them, and wasn’t repeating myself? Or maybe...
I showed the mirror to both of them. “Would you say one of these rubies is bigger than the others?”
“The one on the left,” said Uncle, “but there isn’t much to choose between them.” Yindrath agreed.
That was what I’d thought, but hadn’t been sure. “Then if it’s the biggest, perhaps it’s the most important, and should be at the top.” I rotated the mirror accordingly. I asked Uncle to hold up the piece of paper and tried the first sequence again. The rubies seemed to yield slightly under my touch. I got the impression this was deliberate, not a sign of age. Nothing happened. I tried the second sequence. Still nothing. I hesitated before trying the third.
A faint, high-pitched note came from the mirror, like a girl singing, and it vibrated like a beaten drum.
“Put it down,” said Uncle, fear lining his face.
Before I could obey, a blinding white light sprang from the mirror’s surface. The mirror slipped from my shaking hands and crashed to the floor.
The book's working title is The Mirrors of Elangir, which will probably stick unless I think of something I like better. Once it's on sale, I'll return to The Barefoot Healer for the fourth and final volume of that series.
***
The old man lit his pipe with a taper from the fire. He sucked on it a few times until the glow in the bowl had faded, and then blew a long stream of sweet-smelling, blue-grey smoke between Uncle Tomaz and me. He smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth. “Of course, you know I have to report this.”
I tensed, bracing for my uncle to signal that we should run. He just smiled back, unperturbed. “But you’re not going to, are you, Yindrath?”
“I might yet, just to see the look on your face.” He sucked on his pipe again and blew a ring that ambled over Uncle’s head. “But the Peace might start poking their noses into my business, and that would never do. And if they confiscate this trinket, I won’t find out the truth behind it.”
“You don’t know what it is, then?” said Uncle, as though the man had insulted his mother.
Yindrath chuckled and sat back in his chair, adjusting his robe. Uncle leaned forward. I glanced at him, hoping he wouldn’t lose his temper or — worse — demand that the old man refund his fee. That was one of his biggest failings, thinking that mistakes didn’t matter, because they could be undone and the world put back the way it was.
“I have a good idea,” Yindrath said. “I just don’t believe your account of how you came by it.”
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Dyareg’s sons asked us to clear out his house, and they said we could keep half what we made.”
Uncle scowled at me — he didn’t like it when I tried to help him tell his stories.
Yindrath tutted, though apparently more because his pipe had gone out. He relit it with the taper. Uncle’s jaw clenched, but we both knew there was no hurrying the fellow when he was doing this “smoking,” as he called it. When I’d first heard the term as a boy, I’d thought he was setting himself on fire. The war had made the leaves that he burned hard to come by, so he made them last. After a few more puffs, he set the pipe on the little table by his chair and picked up the object we’d brought him.
It was a circular mirror, about a foot across. The size alone made it valuable, but Uncle was convinced there was much more to it than that. Yindrath held it with the back to us, which was made of metal so blue that it was almost black. The colour was perfectly even, with no variations I could see, making it look more like a hole than anything solid. When we’d found the mirror, I’d touched the back and felt nothing — it was neither hot nor cold, rough nor smooth. Yindrath tilted the mirror this way and that, causing the firelight to play over his face. The shifting shadows and highlights made him look like a monster from my nightmares, and I repressed a shudder.
He laid the mirror on his lap. The glass and the silver — if it was silver — were smoother than any mirror I’d seen before. It had a surround of the same dark blue metal as the back, with six small rubies spaced equally. Between the rubies were inlays of gold lettering — at least, I assumed it was lettering. I could read Asdanundish, of course, and make sense of Brothric and had even started learning the Nuhysean alphabet, but these curling symbols were wholly strange to me. They also gave the only clue that the mirror might be the work of mortal hands, instead of having fallen out of Kashalbe’s boudoir — a few of the curves had flecks of gold missing.
Yindrath took several slow, shallow breaths and cupped his hands together a foot above the mirror. His eyelids fluttered. I’d known he was good, but hadn’t realised he didn’t need words. He opened his hands.
Nothing was there. The old man frowned and cupped his hands again.
“I told you it screws with magic,” said Uncle.
Yindrath lowered his hands and gave a smirk. “The wind blowing the wrong way screws with your magic.”
Uncle snatched the mirror and stood up, carrying it to the other end of the room. “Try it now.”
The old man shrugged and cast his spell again. When he opened his hands, the light that he revealed was weaker than a candle, and only the size of a pea. He gazed at it in mild annoyance, and then clapped his hands together, extinguishing it. “So there’s a lot of magic bound up in that thing. That should make it easy for the Peace to find it. Which makes me wonder how it lay undetected in Dyareg’s attic for so many years.”
“I don’t like being called a liar,” said Uncle. He would never deny being a liar, just say he didn’t like to be called one.
Yindrath sighed. To me, he said, “Fetch me the Elangic dictionary from the middle bookcase, third shelf.”
Elangic? The mirror was in too good a condition to be that old, surely. I levered myself out of the chair’s numerous cushions and went to the indicated spot. Several other dictionaries and glossaries were on that shelf, fat volumes that might break your toes if carelessly dropped. The Elangic dictionary was a pamphlet by comparison, barely the thickness of my finger. I took it back to him. Uncle had propped the mirror against a vase on the table. Yindrath had found a slate and chalk from somewhere and had transcribed the inscription around the mirror’s edge. He accepted the dictionary and started flipping through it.
Ten minutes passed, with the silence broken only by the sounds of Yindrath writing and turning pages, and the occasional pop from the fire.
“Can’t we leave him to it and come back later?” I whispered.
“Come back tomorrow and I should’ve learned all its secrets,” Yindrath said, not looking up.
“We don’t mind waiting,” said Uncle, grinding his teeth.
“Don’t you trust me?” said Yindrath.
“I trust you like my own brother,” said Uncle.
“Didn’t he cheat you out of four thousand svara?”
“Three thousand four hundred,” Uncle shot back. He recovered six hundred of it, but to my way of thinking, it’s the initial size of the swindle that counts in that sort of situation, not how much of it you get to keep.
So we waited, as the fire burned low. At Yindrath’s suggestion, I rebuilt it and set some red tea brewing. I preferred black, but most people couldn’t afford to be choosy these days. When I’d poured it, Yindrath said, “I have a rough translation — nothing helpful, I’m afraid. It just identifies the mirror as the property of some long-dead person from some faraway place.” He frowned. “Then again, he could’ve lived next door, seeing as hardly any of their place names survive. Fetch me the green box from the top of the right-hand bookcase.”
The box was leather-bound, about a foot square, and much heavier than it looked — it nearly slipped from my hands as I lifted it from its place. Yindrath unlocked it with a key from his pocket and leafed through a sheaf of loose papers. He pulled out a sheet with twelve circles drawn on it, in three columns of four. Each circle had the numbers one to six written around it in a different order. “If I’m right about what this thing is, one of these will unlock it.”
I held my breath as Yindrath picked up the mirror and touched the rubies in the sequence indicated by the numbers around the top left circle.
Nothing happened.
He tried the next sequence. Still nothing happened. He muttered something that sounded rude and tried the next one. Still nothing. He tried all the rest, with the same result. He shrugged and offered the mirror back to Uncle. “Either it’s broken, or it needs a sequence that we don’t know about.”
“What’s supposed to happen when you have the right sequence?” said Uncle.
Yindrath shrugged.
“Couldn’t you just try all possible sequences?” I said.
Yindrath scowled at me. “It’d take weeks. D’you think I’ve nothing better to do?”
I quailed. “A few hours, at the most. There are seven hundred and twenty possible ways of arranging six objects — seven hundred and eight, now that you’ve tried twelve that don’t work.”
Uncle held the mirror out to me. “Don’t let me stop you.”
It was much lighter than something with that much metal and glass had any right to be. I still found it unnerving how bright and detailed the reflection of myself was, and how closely it mimicked every detail of my expression. I could count the flecks in my irises, and the short hairs under my chin, where I didn’t shave as thoroughly as I should. The rubies seemed to glow with a light not of the room, inviting my touch. Seven hundred and eight possible sequences might not take very long to test — but how would I be sure I’d tried all of them, and wasn’t repeating myself? Or maybe...
I showed the mirror to both of them. “Would you say one of these rubies is bigger than the others?”
“The one on the left,” said Uncle, “but there isn’t much to choose between them.” Yindrath agreed.
That was what I’d thought, but hadn’t been sure. “Then if it’s the biggest, perhaps it’s the most important, and should be at the top.” I rotated the mirror accordingly. I asked Uncle to hold up the piece of paper and tried the first sequence again. The rubies seemed to yield slightly under my touch. I got the impression this was deliberate, not a sign of age. Nothing happened. I tried the second sequence. Still nothing. I hesitated before trying the third.
A faint, high-pitched note came from the mirror, like a girl singing, and it vibrated like a beaten drum.
“Put it down,” said Uncle, fear lining his face.
Before I could obey, a blinding white light sprang from the mirror’s surface. The mirror slipped from my shaking hands and crashed to the floor.
December 4, 2013
Harry Potter studio tour
A friend bought tickets for Breda and me to see The Making of Harry Potter exhibition at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. The publicity material calls the location "Warner Brothers Studio Tour London," which is only slightly more accurate than calling Luton Airport "London Luton" - it's in Leavesden in Hertfordshire, which is about four miles from the edge of London and more like fifteen from the centre.
We went on a Wednesday, thinking it would be quiet, and it was - by their standards. It was like a Saturday at any other exhibition I've been to.
There are two soundstages, each the size of a large warehouse, full of sets, props and costumes from the movies. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but it was only after seeing it all that I realised it was only a fraction of what had been built. What's remarkable isn't just the attention to detail - you'd have to touch most of the things to know they're not real, except you're not allowed to - but the amount of attention to detail. Every box in Ollivander's wand shop was individually made, and every bottle on the shelves of the potions classroom has a different object in it.
Much of the detail was never seen on screen, and the people making the props and sets knew that. But they built it anyway, in case they needed it. Big-budget, effects-heavy films are planned to the millimetre and the millisecond, but sometimes you don't know whether something is going to work until you actually try to film it. If the storyboard calls for the camera to move from A to B, and the director decides it doesn't look right, he might want to try moving from C to D instead. He's not going to be very happy if it's obvious that the castle wall at C is made of duct tape and plywood because the set builder thought the camera wasn't going to get within fifty feet of C...
Although the finished sets and props are great to ooh and ah over, what I found more interesting were the plans and models that came before them - and which also have a ridiculous amount of detail. Some of them were instructions for building the real thing, while others were for figuring out camera positions and movements. It's surprising how often film makers will build multiple versions of a prop or even a set, each of which does one of the things they need it to do, or which works well for one type of shot. For instance, there were eighteen versions of the flying Ford Anglia in Chamber of Secrets. Many of the big creatures had an animatronic version (sometimes just the head) for closeups and a computer-generated version for distant or faster-moving shots. There were even two versions of the Knight Bus in Prisoner of Azkaban, one for exterior shots, the other for interiors.
Unusually for an attraction based on a franchise, you're allowed (and encouraged) to take photos and video - though you'll have to be patient if you don't want lots of Muggles in your foregrounds.
The staff say you should allow three hours to see everything, which was quite accurate in our case. That's not including the time you spend queueing for butterbeer at the stall between the two soundstages.
I'd recommend the tour to anyone who enjoyed the movies and wants to know more about the making of them, and to anyone who's interested in what goes on behind the scenes of a modern effects-laden movie. My only slight grumble is that the tickets are quite pricey, though they're comparable to similar attractions in London.
We went on a Wednesday, thinking it would be quiet, and it was - by their standards. It was like a Saturday at any other exhibition I've been to.
There are two soundstages, each the size of a large warehouse, full of sets, props and costumes from the movies. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but it was only after seeing it all that I realised it was only a fraction of what had been built. What's remarkable isn't just the attention to detail - you'd have to touch most of the things to know they're not real, except you're not allowed to - but the amount of attention to detail. Every box in Ollivander's wand shop was individually made, and every bottle on the shelves of the potions classroom has a different object in it.
Much of the detail was never seen on screen, and the people making the props and sets knew that. But they built it anyway, in case they needed it. Big-budget, effects-heavy films are planned to the millimetre and the millisecond, but sometimes you don't know whether something is going to work until you actually try to film it. If the storyboard calls for the camera to move from A to B, and the director decides it doesn't look right, he might want to try moving from C to D instead. He's not going to be very happy if it's obvious that the castle wall at C is made of duct tape and plywood because the set builder thought the camera wasn't going to get within fifty feet of C...
Although the finished sets and props are great to ooh and ah over, what I found more interesting were the plans and models that came before them - and which also have a ridiculous amount of detail. Some of them were instructions for building the real thing, while others were for figuring out camera positions and movements. It's surprising how often film makers will build multiple versions of a prop or even a set, each of which does one of the things they need it to do, or which works well for one type of shot. For instance, there were eighteen versions of the flying Ford Anglia in Chamber of Secrets. Many of the big creatures had an animatronic version (sometimes just the head) for closeups and a computer-generated version for distant or faster-moving shots. There were even two versions of the Knight Bus in Prisoner of Azkaban, one for exterior shots, the other for interiors.
Unusually for an attraction based on a franchise, you're allowed (and encouraged) to take photos and video - though you'll have to be patient if you don't want lots of Muggles in your foregrounds.
The staff say you should allow three hours to see everything, which was quite accurate in our case. That's not including the time you spend queueing for butterbeer at the stall between the two soundstages.
I'd recommend the tour to anyone who enjoyed the movies and wants to know more about the making of them, and to anyone who's interested in what goes on behind the scenes of a modern effects-laden movie. My only slight grumble is that the tickets are quite pricey, though they're comparable to similar attractions in London.
September 17, 2013
Apsley House
Apsley House stands at a corner of Hyde Park in London, and is one of the residences of the Dukes of Wellington. The first Duke bought it in 1817, two years after he defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. In 1947, the seventh Duke gave the house and its contents to the nation, on condition that he and his family would be allowed to continue living in it.
I'm not a big fan of stately homes, finding them mostly rather samey. Apsley House is unusual in that one of its owners was someone the casual visitor has probably already heard of, which offers an opportunity to build a story around him. The house has little to say about the Duke's military career, as that was largely over by the time he bought it (though he remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death in 1852). After Waterloo, he went into politics and established a reputation as an art collector, and most of the rooms show off the works that he bought (or in some cases was given).
Most of the works are paintings, and I'm not sufficiently well-versed in art history to be able to appreciate them fully. Most of the rest is sculpture, mainly busts. The centrepiece of the whole exhibition is a 10-foot high marble statue of Napoleon, naked except for a figleaf. It portrays him as the Roman god Mars - apparently this was a common thing for the Roman emperors to do. Clothing evidently being a human invention, the Roman gods were usually naked. I'm not sure which is more bizarre - that Napoleon thought it would be a good idea to commission the statue (though he reportedly wasn't so keen on it by the time it was finished) or that the Duke actually bought it after defeating Napoleon and put it on display in his home. He paid £3,000 for it - nearly a quarter of a million today.
The price of admission includes the audio tour, which was a pleasant surprise. I don't normally bother with them, as I read much faster than I listen, so I don't know how this one compares with those at other attractions, but I found it clear, informative and well-produced.
The only slight disappointment is that the house doesn't have a café, but it's small enough that (unless you really, really like old paintings and sculptures) you probably won't spend long enough there to get hungry or thirsty - plus which, it's in the middle of London, so you have dozens if not hundreds of places to eat within walking distance.
I'm not a big fan of stately homes, finding them mostly rather samey. Apsley House is unusual in that one of its owners was someone the casual visitor has probably already heard of, which offers an opportunity to build a story around him. The house has little to say about the Duke's military career, as that was largely over by the time he bought it (though he remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death in 1852). After Waterloo, he went into politics and established a reputation as an art collector, and most of the rooms show off the works that he bought (or in some cases was given).
Most of the works are paintings, and I'm not sufficiently well-versed in art history to be able to appreciate them fully. Most of the rest is sculpture, mainly busts. The centrepiece of the whole exhibition is a 10-foot high marble statue of Napoleon, naked except for a figleaf. It portrays him as the Roman god Mars - apparently this was a common thing for the Roman emperors to do. Clothing evidently being a human invention, the Roman gods were usually naked. I'm not sure which is more bizarre - that Napoleon thought it would be a good idea to commission the statue (though he reportedly wasn't so keen on it by the time it was finished) or that the Duke actually bought it after defeating Napoleon and put it on display in his home. He paid £3,000 for it - nearly a quarter of a million today.
The price of admission includes the audio tour, which was a pleasant surprise. I don't normally bother with them, as I read much faster than I listen, so I don't know how this one compares with those at other attractions, but I found it clear, informative and well-produced.
The only slight disappointment is that the house doesn't have a café, but it's small enough that (unless you really, really like old paintings and sculptures) you probably won't spend long enough there to get hungry or thirsty - plus which, it's in the middle of London, so you have dozens if not hundreds of places to eat within walking distance.
September 14, 2013
Money at the British Museum: The Citi Gallery
Had things gone according to plan, this post would've been about the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition at the British Museum. But that's proven much more popular than I expected - I didn't book in advance, and when I got there, tickets had sold out for the day. So instead I wandered around, looking at anything that took my fancy, and spent a while in the Citi Gallery in room 68, which is all about money.
Most of the museum's rooms and galleries are organised around a particular culture or place, but a few, such as this one, are about themes. Room 68 packs several thousand years of the history of money into a relatively small space, without ever feeling cramped. It starts with objects that people used before coins, such as cowrie shells and blocks of jade, and goes all the way to credit cards and payments via mobile phones. There's nothing about Bitcoin, though perhaps the curators are waiting to see whether it becomes useful for anything other than buying illegal drugs.
In ancient times, as well as facilitating commerce, rulers found coins useful for spreading political or religious messages. The Romans produced coins celebrating military victories. In the Arab world during the rise of Islam, portraits of rulers gradually disappeared from coins, replaced with quotations from the Qur'an.
Coins, being durable and (usually) produced in large numbers, are useful to historians for dating finds and for mapping the ebb and flow of cultures and empires. There are kings and queens whose existence we know of solely because of coins bearing their names.
The Chinese made coins with holes in the middle, so they could be threaded onto a cord for easier transportation and counting. One of the standard "stacks" contained a thousand coins and weighed about four kilograms, so people must have been relieved when banknotes were invented. Next to one of these stacks is an early banknote (about the size of an A4 page), which in the middle has a picture of the stack of coins whose value it represents. I'd like to say this is one of the first examples of skeumorphism, but I'm not convinced it fits the definition.
Overall, this is a good overview of money and how it's done much more than just allow people to buy and sell things. I'd allow maybe half an hour to get a good look at everything, or nearer to an hour if, like me, you feel compelled to read all the labels. It's a permanent exhibition, and admission is free.
Most of the museum's rooms and galleries are organised around a particular culture or place, but a few, such as this one, are about themes. Room 68 packs several thousand years of the history of money into a relatively small space, without ever feeling cramped. It starts with objects that people used before coins, such as cowrie shells and blocks of jade, and goes all the way to credit cards and payments via mobile phones. There's nothing about Bitcoin, though perhaps the curators are waiting to see whether it becomes useful for anything other than buying illegal drugs.
In ancient times, as well as facilitating commerce, rulers found coins useful for spreading political or religious messages. The Romans produced coins celebrating military victories. In the Arab world during the rise of Islam, portraits of rulers gradually disappeared from coins, replaced with quotations from the Qur'an.
Coins, being durable and (usually) produced in large numbers, are useful to historians for dating finds and for mapping the ebb and flow of cultures and empires. There are kings and queens whose existence we know of solely because of coins bearing their names.
The Chinese made coins with holes in the middle, so they could be threaded onto a cord for easier transportation and counting. One of the standard "stacks" contained a thousand coins and weighed about four kilograms, so people must have been relieved when banknotes were invented. Next to one of these stacks is an early banknote (about the size of an A4 page), which in the middle has a picture of the stack of coins whose value it represents. I'd like to say this is one of the first examples of skeumorphism, but I'm not convinced it fits the definition.
Overall, this is a good overview of money and how it's done much more than just allow people to buy and sell things. I'd allow maybe half an hour to get a good look at everything, or nearer to an hour if, like me, you feel compelled to read all the labels. It's a permanent exhibition, and admission is free.
September 3, 2013
Propaganda: Power and Persuasion
Today I went to an exhibition at the British Library called Propaganda: Power and Persuasion. I would've liked to see it sooner, mainly because it finishes on 17 September 2013, meaning that this blog post won't stay relevant very long.
As you might expect, the exhibition concentrates mainly on the two world wars, but propaganda as a concept goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks - Alexander the Great had coins minted that identified him with Herakles.
There's a fairly even mix of British, American, German, Soviet and Chinese output. It's almost entirely the work of governments, but there are a few pieces from trade unions (Solidarity in Poland) and wartime resistance movements.
Most propaganda is mass media such as posters, leaflets, films and radio broadcasts, but there are more unusual forms like stamps and board games.
A quote by Aldous Huxley stands near the start of the exhibition - a propagandist "canalises an existing stream" - that is, amplifies existing perceptions and prejudices. In a dry land, Huxley says, he digs for water in vain. It might be interesting for the exhibition to highlight examples of propaganda that failed to achieve the desired intent. (Actually, there was a rather macabre one - a poster that showed a superhero warning children in a former war zone not to play with unexploded munitions had to be withdrawn after kids started going into minefields in the hope of meeting him...)
We think of "propaganda" as being mainly for military or political purposes - there are quite a few Soviet posters criticising the American form of government and way of life, for example. So I had to wonder why there was a video segment about the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. Yes, it was promoting Britain, but it wasn't portraying us as being better than any other country. By contrast, a poster from East Germany criticising the 60-odd countries that boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow arguably does count as propaganda.
The word "propaganda" carries connotations of being underhanded - of lying, or of presenting the truth selectively. If you direct propaganda at someone, you want him to do something that benefits you, possibly at his expense. So why is there a section about public health campaigns near the end of the exhibition? I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that eradicating disease or reducing infant mortality is a bad thing. (Admittedly they could lead to overpopulation, but that's better dealt with by reducing the birth rate.)
There's a lot of material packed into this exhibition - possibly too much for the available space, which is fairly small. The gallery was quite crowded, possibly because I went on the only weekday when they stay open into the evening. It probably didn't help that I was wearing my work rucksack, so people kept pushing past me. The lighting is rather uneven - dim to protect fragile artefacts, but too harsh on captions next to them.
Despite my criticisms, I enjoyed the exhibition and found it a good overview of how governments and others persuade people to think and act as they want.
As you might expect, the exhibition concentrates mainly on the two world wars, but propaganda as a concept goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks - Alexander the Great had coins minted that identified him with Herakles.
There's a fairly even mix of British, American, German, Soviet and Chinese output. It's almost entirely the work of governments, but there are a few pieces from trade unions (Solidarity in Poland) and wartime resistance movements.
Most propaganda is mass media such as posters, leaflets, films and radio broadcasts, but there are more unusual forms like stamps and board games.
A quote by Aldous Huxley stands near the start of the exhibition - a propagandist "canalises an existing stream" - that is, amplifies existing perceptions and prejudices. In a dry land, Huxley says, he digs for water in vain. It might be interesting for the exhibition to highlight examples of propaganda that failed to achieve the desired intent. (Actually, there was a rather macabre one - a poster that showed a superhero warning children in a former war zone not to play with unexploded munitions had to be withdrawn after kids started going into minefields in the hope of meeting him...)
We think of "propaganda" as being mainly for military or political purposes - there are quite a few Soviet posters criticising the American form of government and way of life, for example. So I had to wonder why there was a video segment about the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. Yes, it was promoting Britain, but it wasn't portraying us as being better than any other country. By contrast, a poster from East Germany criticising the 60-odd countries that boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow arguably does count as propaganda.
The word "propaganda" carries connotations of being underhanded - of lying, or of presenting the truth selectively. If you direct propaganda at someone, you want him to do something that benefits you, possibly at his expense. So why is there a section about public health campaigns near the end of the exhibition? I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that eradicating disease or reducing infant mortality is a bad thing. (Admittedly they could lead to overpopulation, but that's better dealt with by reducing the birth rate.)
There's a lot of material packed into this exhibition - possibly too much for the available space, which is fairly small. The gallery was quite crowded, possibly because I went on the only weekday when they stay open into the evening. It probably didn't help that I was wearing my work rucksack, so people kept pushing past me. The lighting is rather uneven - dim to protect fragile artefacts, but too harsh on captions next to them.
Despite my criticisms, I enjoyed the exhibition and found it a good overview of how governments and others persuade people to think and act as they want.
