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Sun, Dec. 18th, 2005, 06:27 pm
circa mile marker 68 someone told you once "romance is a rate of acceleration." shot as if from a catapult down the Mass Pike, denuded cocoa-colored hills laced with powder-sugar-snow ever looming in the foreground you almost believe it. zooming by walls of stone, ice frozen waterfalls of translucent ivory ending in daggers pointed at your heart (- for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ultra_lilac) Thu, Jan. 13th, 2005, 08:44 am
Office haiku :)
I call this one, "PC Load Letter." Heavy the ozone Hangs like grey, low-lying clouds Around Mt. Fuji. :)
Sun, Jan. 9th, 2005, 08:03 am
Rubies
Small rubies glow, as if from within
Strewn across a cold stone floor
They give warmth, somehow.
Warmth of color.
A treasure not sought, not found
But rather, situated on their own
And not forgotten, either
Merely waiting patiently
If I put them in my hand
The color inside bursts forward
Lighting the way out of the cold halls
And into the sunlight of morning.
Which itself is the red of small, faceted gems.
Driving home today, listening to Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, I got the idea for a new novella. Who knows how it'll turn out. Weirdly enough, it's influenced by Changeling: the Dreaming. I swore to myself I would not "pollute" this journal with gaming-related or genre fiction, but the pull of using the Changeling concept of Glamour was too strong. I know a lot about Sarah McLachlan's early career. She was a real wunderkind, much like her fellow Canadian female musicians Celine Dion, Alanis Morrisette, Shania Twain, etc. Must be something in the water. Recorded her first album at 18. She (and these other female Canadian musicians) are obviously the influence for the Katie character here. Paul's a bit trickier. He seems to me to be initially influenced by the Sweet William character in the movie The Hanging Garden. Secret infatuation, the dark secrets of a hidden heart undergoing a Chrysalis. And yeah, he's a troll, Changeling-style. That will probably become more evident later. Maybe not. Whether he is Seelie or Unseelie, well, we've yet to see. I want to tell this story without the Changeling stuff getting in the way, but yet I want that element to remain. Apologies to any Canadians reading. I don't know if there was a "Community Auditions" type show on in Halifax in '87, but it seems likely. All cultural mistakes are despite my extensive experience within the bosom of Canadian culture. ( Lifesong, Chapter 1 )
From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler
Everyone knows that the Inquistorites started the damn war. I mean, how has that ever been up for debate? I don't have a lot of love lost for them or the Knights of Intabulum, really, but everyone knows we were all poorer for how that whole affair turned out. I wish someone could have warned us about the Thirsty Sunspots back then.
There have been a lot of books bearing the title History of the New Sun. Most take a maudlin tone, bemoaning all the death, destruction, and ruthless questioning that went on during that time. Some even go so far as to blame Crepuscule for starting the whole mess by dividing things up as it did. Crepuscule had to be done, though; you don't know how many people went out in the thick black night and never came home. Unless you've seen your best friend flung up into the sky to spend eternity as a star just because he didn't know any better than to go out in the Serious Night, well, you'll never know why.
Even the "New Sun" of the title is sometimes confused. Some think it refers to the multicolored sun that we were given during this time. Others who lean to the metaphorical state that the New Sun is the focused intensity of these last days of our Age. I have to laugh when I hear these brutally stupid observers when they say that an Ending is coming; don't they know that we've been bestowed infinity? These days will never end, just like the sun will never burn out in the sky.
Most of your Histories of the New Sun have a substantial portion that takes place in the courtroom. There are trials, adjournments, motions and countermotions. Every time a gavel struck in the Inquistorites' kangaroo courts, an eclipse occurred. Every time a pursued Knight or even an innocent bystander was sentenced to death, the New Sun wept sundogs. It seems like every one of the court reporters there wrote their own History of the New Sun. Me, I'm glad to relegate this to an appendix, as I am now. Good riddance.
See also: Crepuscule, Inquistorites, Thirsty Sunspots
It's a small inn, on the road to somewhere feet have never trod. One of those poetical-type places in a tiny grove of trees, a modest chimney sending out black clouds of thick, sweet-smelling smoke, a signal to all travelers that Yes, you are welcome here.
Into this inn, in the mid-afternoon of a day like any other, strides a confident young man. He appears to be slightly-built, a bit jaunty by the look of this haphazard clothes. He's got a small tri-corner cap on, and in this part of the world that signifies he is an Apprentice Bard.
The Bardic Colleges were outlawed many years ago, their existence deemed unnecessary by the ruling classes, but their insignia and uniforms stil live on, in snatches of cloth and secret signs learned in the first weeks of training. The young man, Genun, knows these signs, and much more, from his days in the ?Workshops of Xad Dunlop. Xad was a kind teacher, much the opposite of the cynical, drained taskmasters who took young Apprentice Bards under their wings. Sometimes literally, it must be added. In the workshops and conservatories, the young Apprentice Bards would learn rhetoric and music, mostly, although all the pursuits of all the Original Muses were at least covered tangentially.
When the young Genun walks into the inn, he is greeted by a few lonesome drunks who don't know him from Adam, but the barkeep and owner is more wary. He's seen Bards, Apprentice and Master, come to this inn before. The crowd, not usually unruly, has done everything from shout them down from the stage to curse them and their kin unto the thirteenth generation. They don't like singers, they don't like jongleurs, and they don't like entertainment outside of the bottom of a beer stein around these parts.
Genun quickly negotiates the fee; this skill is taught in the first year in a Bardic Apprenticeship. He promises to return this evening with his band. The barkeep, a slight smile playing across his face, nods sagely and starts mentally preparing the mops and buckets needed to clean up the young boy's blood and teeth likely to be on the floor after tonight's performance.
The inn, in a friendly and open manner, greets the boy-Bard that night, as he walks in, sans band. "Where the Hells is your group?" the barkeep asks. Genun opens his set on a bone flute, playing a melancholy tune that settles the audience in their seats, their hands on their mug-handles, ready to fling them.
And then something strange happens, as it never does in this part of the world. Those brass, wood, and tin mugs start to grow arms. And legs. And lutes. And little drums. And they all march to the stage, a symphony of hollow little homunculi. They break into a cheapened, corrupted version of the Battle Hymns Of Melek Taus, and act out a little play battle for the entertainment of the rabble. For once, the drunkards are speechless at a performance.
This didn't stop Genun from getting beaten up, of course. But every one of them was sure to tip generously.
See also: Battle Hymns Of Melek Taus, Original Muses, Xad Dunlop
From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler
There were wars in those days; don't let any old-timer or reincarnated so-and-so tell you otherwise. And, as we all know, the first folks to be recruited in a war aren't soldiers or sailors, but makers. The people and entities who can make the instruments of war. After all, you can't make an omelette without first making a few pans.
Gnymon wasn't a pacifist, by any means. He had qualms about crafting the Boat of Precious Jade, but they were mostly aesthetic and not in any way related to what it might be used for in the upcoming war against the Unknown Benefactors, whose generosity and patience had damned them in the eyes of a vast majority to complete annihilation.
No, his qualms rather rested in the actions of a few of his apprentices at his island Campus. Now, I will say that echoes of this myth can be seen in every story about men pursuing dangerous knowledge in a remote location. You can only see the echoes now because this was the first time that anyone pursued Prometheanism in this fashion. (Ed.: Refer to myths of Faustus, Prospero, Oppenheimer, Gilligan for more information)
Anyway, the island was secure, and the pupils cut off from all communication with the outside. Some recall that this was done by simply canceling all the ships scheduled to depart from the island Campus. Others believe that those who hired Gnymon killed all the families and friends of the pupils instead. They were both equally easy (or difficult, depending on your point of view) to do, so your guess is as good as mine.
I'm rambling now, so I'll get to the point. It's Anaphora again, of course. Back then all you had to do was misplace a couple of parentheses to really get in trouble. And that's exactly what one of Gnymon's students did. Was it out of malice? Or did he do it because he wanted to see what happened, like a Noble focusing a Markov Lens on his pet mortals and watching them fry? At any rate, yes, you can imagine what happened: the prototype got multiplied n∞-1 times (well, that's just an estimate; talk to a mathemistorian for the real deal), only smaller, so this swarm of tiny jade boats, equipped with tiny jade golems who'd kept their original strength, sailed off over the Second Horizon and killed anything in their path. Which, yes, included the Unknown Benefactors, but also a whole lot of other beings who didn't deserve their fate nearly as much.
See also: Anaphora, Gnymon, Unknown Benefactors
ACT II, SCENE GIMEL. A GARDEN IN PERFECTION'S CHANCELETTE.
PERFECTION, stage upwards, is levitating down to stage. Three PETITIONERS and the Power of Pi are kneeling, eyes averted, stage left. Set decoration indicated: representations of trees from perfect circles and squares. The stage must be unsullied by mortal feet.
PERFECTION: Thus in this time of strife
In the seventy-first emanation of Our Power
We tread the ground of our sanctum whole
A senseless, tasteless, sightless bower.
We ask thee, petitioners three,
What is the boon thy mortal kings
Have fixed to thee, in thy finite love?
PETITIONER THE FIRST: My Lord, there is, in the lands of mortals
A concern, however so small, that thy Estate is troubled.
We have noted the rain, far from being uniform in every fall.
In some storms is halved, and in some is doubled.
What may we do, mortals three?
To attend to thy bidding, and...
Set direction: GIANT FOOT from stage upwards crushes all three PETITIONERS in a messy squall of blood and guts.
PERFECTION: Never ask me that again. Awful people.
Enter INVISIBLE ONE, invisible.
INVISIBLE ONE: Perfection! You have committed an act of...
PERFECTION: Oh, I know.
PERFECTION sighs deeply.
PERFECTION: I'm ready.
INVISIBLE ONE points invisibly to PERFECTION, disintegrating him.
Exeunt Omnes, pursued by giant foot and the ?Power of Pi, silent as a mime. Chorus sing to Anthrosia.
See also: Power of Pi, Invisible One, Anthrosia
All things evolve, all things change. That is the First Order.
Those things which record other things must also change. That is the Second Order.
The pattern that forms when these two overlap is the Third Order. That is our Order.
-- creed of the Order of Diachronic Librarians
Twelve times our Library burned. Twelve times an Age's knowledge was lost. No longer.
-- attributed to Wayn'aup, founder of the Lexicographer-Assassins
From the Gazeteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler
The Diachronic Library, as its name suggests, charts the changes of the multiverse with as much success as might be expected. Its beginnings are shrouded in the mysteries of the First Age, a time when any petty Power could stake a claim and hope to hold their Domain thusly.
The Lords and Ladies of the Library took on a hereditary monarchy in the First Age, and protected the protean knowledge stored within their books, scrolls, and memory-records with an elite order of Lexicographer-Assassins, now known as legends throughout the worlds of the Ash.
The Diachronic Library now stands as a testament to the unceasing and slightly annoying tendency of every relationship between Nobles, Imperators, Gods and other assorted Beings of Great and Impressive Power to be recorded dutifully for some unknown Reader. They're Professionals, you see. Fully trained and licensed. But their records are always missing some crucial bit of interest for me, personally.
I visited there, as a child, you know. My predecessor took me there to meet the Librarians and the Lexicographer-Assassins, as he faded into oblivion and I took over the Estate of Onyx. My predecessor wanted me to continue his hobby of writing histories. I was a whelp, a brat, and as is common in these situations, it was my prerogative to ask the really troublesome questions.
"If everything is infinite, and everything changes, then that means the number of changes in infinity is a second-order infinity, right? You don't fear Anaphora?"
"Does it bother you that taking down histories is a creative act, and killing people is a destructive one?"
"Why does your King never leave his throne room? Isn't he a historian too?"
"How do you file everything? Monkeys?"
Precocious, wasn't I? Oh, youth really is wasted on the newly-Ennobled.
See also: Anaphora, Monkey Paradox, Wayn'aup
From the Gazeteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler:
Why is peace so hard to live in, so boring to confront with each dawn? The bare petals and leaves of the Flower-Chancel of Caltha are testament of the essential evil of banality.
Caltha's Imperator was Uesther, the Lady of Peace, Catalogs, Cotton, and Marigolds. The Marigold was chosen as the perception/shape-template for the Chancel in its Sixth Iteration.
Oh yes, those petals, dipping and exquisitely curved, luscious in their deep yellow-orange, were a treat for the Infants of Inscience who manifested there, sliding and crying with joy at the texture of the peacful, soft petals and leaves. The whole place was a terror to behold for those of us with... rarer tastes.
In fact, the joy and pleasure and light became too much even for the Powers who held this Grand Marigold. Eventually, you tire even of the screams of joy the I.'s of I. bring as they bounce, slide, and gambol among the leaves. It's not surprising. Beauty and joy aren't everything.
So when the wild beetles of the Boreal Cicatrix came and ate up both Caltha's wondrous stalk and all of those inane Infants, some said that Uesther Herself was pleased.
SEE ALSO: Boreal Cicatrix, Uesther and Infants of Inscience |
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