Question
Got a question, maybe for a chemist: I'm thinking that the Shadow Guild Assassins write their contracts in the same mere ink that renders their cloth and skin invisible. What, then, makes the invisible ink reappear? I'm thinking that it might be a water based solution of iron/blood, but don't know how plausible this is.
Also, LJ tells me that my automatic payments to LJ have failed and they need more info. This sounds both plausible and suspicious. Has anyone else gotten such emails?
Also a snippet from novel 10, hoping I haven't sent this out before:
Summer was almost over. The Riverland’s Minor Harvest had come and gone, and with it the Knorth cadets from Tentir who had helped to bring in the hay. It had been a good crop, all the more so because no one had come down with the dreaded hay cough.
So far, so good.
Then the rains had stopped.
Torisen Blacklord stood on the cracked clay of the water meadow amid rows of stunted oat, rye, and wheat. Morosely, he scuffed up dust with the heel of his boot. The upcoming Major Harvest at summer’s end looked all but doomed even if now, at last, it should rain.
At this season, as usual, last year’s provisions were running low. Bread was down to dense, dark loaves made of buckwheat. The cows, usually bred in the fall, had run dry. So, in its way, had the last cracked wheels of cheese. Last year’s field vegetables, down to wizened relics, were only good after long soaking, the same for such left-over pulses as beans and peas. The garrison was growing heartily sick of soup. How many cows, pigs, and sheep must be slaughtered in the fall, for meat, to preserve the fodder? Some even spoke of the horses.
On the other hand, there were still some ripening vegetables in the inner ward’s garden, painfully watered by hand, also bushels of fruit. Apples in particular had been plentiful to feed man, beast, and the busy cider press.
“Two more weeks for the first batch to ferment,” said the harvest master at Torisen’s elbow, as if reading his mind. Then again, he might have been considering the jug hanging at his waist which he had just emptied.
“Well, that’s something.”
“And those mysterious supplies keep coming from your sister’s keep, in season and out. I know, I know: we aren’t supposed to talk about that. Rush might have told us more, if only to boast, but he’s gone.”
“Where?”
“No one is quite sure. He took a post horse. I hear that he turned right on the River Road at the Silver and rode north. There isn’t enough from Tagmeth, anyway, to see us through the winter. When can we expect shipments from Bashti?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Huh.”
All of the contracts had specified that the first delivery be made by Autumn’s Day. Wagons full of provisions from the other Central Lands had already begun to pass Gothregor on the way to the northern keeps. Presumably others had stopped in the south.
Autumn’s Eve was near.
Torisen didn’t feel that he could complain until that was past, in the meantime hoping for the best. Was his instinct that Mordaunt meant to shirk his duty as paymaster true? Torisen had thought himself worldly-wise after dealing with Kothifir as the Host’s commander, but had he really been? It came hard to think of anyone foreswearing his word. After all, besides the question of honor, what lasting good would it do Mordaunt? What other factors might be involved, and did the king even think along such lines? Torisen was experienced enough to recognize a potential, perhaps congenital manipulator. The main thing was that pertinent shipments should arrive before winter closed the Riverland’s roads.
Time enough, he thought, but with a twinge of unease.
Was Harn keeping all of this in mind? Torisen had received a post letter from Jame announcing her arrival in High Bashti, but about Harn she had only written that he continued to be preoccupied. Also, the Bashtiri garrison hadn’t yet been paid. That was to have been according to the half season, with the first payment due on the arrival of the troops, back-dated to midsummer in consideration of the time spent getting there. It wasn’t like Harn to let such a thing slip. What sort of trouble was he in?
What, for that matter, about Jame? Knowing his sister’s knack for mischief, by now there had to be something.
“Ask questions,” she had said.
Trudging back to the keep through dry grass singing with crickets, he considered this. More and more, he found himself restless, his own attention divided. Was this what it meant, to become That-Which-Creates? If so, it made him profoundly uncomfortable. Since when, though, had his comfort been important? He was responsible for his people, for the entire Kencyrath. Now it required something of him, but what?
When he started to open the door to his drum tower study, Burr’s voice spoke within:
“Careful.”
Books slid out, like a papery tongue extending to envelope him. The room beyond was awash with them, and with scrolls piled on every flat surface. Stiff, dry, and musty, their odor likewise rolled out. Burr stood up to his shins in chaos, glowering.
“More arrived today,” he said. “You can’t read all of these.” Himself a traditional Kendar, he couldn’t read at all, but it seemed to be primarily the disorder that offended him.
Torisen stepped in cautiously, groping for the floor.
“Sorry. I got carried away.”
His servant snorted.
The Highlord slung his coat over the stack on his chair, which consequently took on the appearance of a headless, hunched figure with flaccid arms. That was much how he currently felt.
“The scrollsmen claim that they have the answer to everything, if one only asks the right question.”
”Let them sort out tomorrow’s dinner, then,” said Burr.
“We aren’t that desperate yet. Questions, though - those are hard.”
He waded gingerly to the window, perched on the ledge, and bent to pick up a book. Its pages were vellum, crisply inscribed with elegant text. Tiny, vivid figures danced up the margins. Here a hunter scrambled after a hare that jeered back at him over its shoulder; there stood a cook white up to the elbows with flour in the midst energetically of making a pie. They seemed almost to move. He blinked, then closed the book carefully.
“I’m a fool,” he said. “These are treasures, not to be scattered underfoot. I thought, though, that the more I had, the more I would know. Well, I do know more - about hares, about pies - but it’s the wrong knowledge.”
Burr grunted. “This I can tell you: more books won’t help.”
Torisen wished that Harn were there. Admittedly, as a boy he had listened more to the big randon than talked, but he had learned much.
Then he had become highlord and, to his regret, his relationship with all Kendar had changed.
Then the Riverland had become a closed book to him during the year during which he had been so deathly ill.
His sense was that each house, likewise, had shut up within itself to face a changing world. Divided … weakened?
To whom would he talk now, if he could? The Kendar would help him and often did, but they didn’t share the same burdens. Among the Highborn Brant, Lord Brandan, was his closest neighbor, a steady, honorable man with a deep regard for the welfare of those dependent upon him. From the beginning, he had been a Knorth ally. He was also old enough to be Torisen’s father.
That gave Torisen pause. Would consulting him now be like seeking a father’s approval? The thought made him cringe. Both Ganth and Adric had called him “son,” but they had tried mostly to manipulate him. He would have turned to neither of them now. Brant was unrelated and was therefore (Ancestors, please) different.
Absentmindedly, he reopened the book, on the same page that he had closed it. The hare had scampered off. The pie had been baked and eaten, its cook grinning widely, replete. Torisen returned the volume to the floor, which rustled to receive it.
“Pack up,” he said to Burr, rising, his mind already on new details. “We’re going to pay Falkirr a visit.”
Burr looked dubious. “That last trip to Omiroth didn’t work out so well.”
“My sister was with us then.”
But Jame had suggested that the Tyr-ridden might manifest themselves across all three faces of their god before the end. Dari slain by Torisen’s own sword, Adric on his pyre …
“Oh, cheer up,” he said, bracing himself.
“If I had stopped to think too much,” his sister had said, with that rueful, lop-sided smile of hers, “might I have done nothing at all, for good or ill?”
There was an urgency in her that pushed him, as it always had. Did he resent it? Yes. But that didn’t mean that she was wrong.
Across the room, on the chair, his empty coat shivered as if with anticipation, but could not raise its arms.
“Brant is my oldest friend, now that Adric is dead,” he said to Burr. “What could go wrong?”
Also, LJ tells me that my automatic payments to LJ have failed and they need more info. This sounds both plausible and suspicious. Has anyone else gotten such emails?
Also a snippet from novel 10, hoping I haven't sent this out before:
Summer was almost over. The Riverland’s Minor Harvest had come and gone, and with it the Knorth cadets from Tentir who had helped to bring in the hay. It had been a good crop, all the more so because no one had come down with the dreaded hay cough.
So far, so good.
Then the rains had stopped.
Torisen Blacklord stood on the cracked clay of the water meadow amid rows of stunted oat, rye, and wheat. Morosely, he scuffed up dust with the heel of his boot. The upcoming Major Harvest at summer’s end looked all but doomed even if now, at last, it should rain.
At this season, as usual, last year’s provisions were running low. Bread was down to dense, dark loaves made of buckwheat. The cows, usually bred in the fall, had run dry. So, in its way, had the last cracked wheels of cheese. Last year’s field vegetables, down to wizened relics, were only good after long soaking, the same for such left-over pulses as beans and peas. The garrison was growing heartily sick of soup. How many cows, pigs, and sheep must be slaughtered in the fall, for meat, to preserve the fodder? Some even spoke of the horses.
On the other hand, there were still some ripening vegetables in the inner ward’s garden, painfully watered by hand, also bushels of fruit. Apples in particular had been plentiful to feed man, beast, and the busy cider press.
“Two more weeks for the first batch to ferment,” said the harvest master at Torisen’s elbow, as if reading his mind. Then again, he might have been considering the jug hanging at his waist which he had just emptied.
“Well, that’s something.”
“And those mysterious supplies keep coming from your sister’s keep, in season and out. I know, I know: we aren’t supposed to talk about that. Rush might have told us more, if only to boast, but he’s gone.”
“Where?”
“No one is quite sure. He took a post horse. I hear that he turned right on the River Road at the Silver and rode north. There isn’t enough from Tagmeth, anyway, to see us through the winter. When can we expect shipments from Bashti?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Huh.”
All of the contracts had specified that the first delivery be made by Autumn’s Day. Wagons full of provisions from the other Central Lands had already begun to pass Gothregor on the way to the northern keeps. Presumably others had stopped in the south.
Autumn’s Eve was near.
Torisen didn’t feel that he could complain until that was past, in the meantime hoping for the best. Was his instinct that Mordaunt meant to shirk his duty as paymaster true? Torisen had thought himself worldly-wise after dealing with Kothifir as the Host’s commander, but had he really been? It came hard to think of anyone foreswearing his word. After all, besides the question of honor, what lasting good would it do Mordaunt? What other factors might be involved, and did the king even think along such lines? Torisen was experienced enough to recognize a potential, perhaps congenital manipulator. The main thing was that pertinent shipments should arrive before winter closed the Riverland’s roads.
Time enough, he thought, but with a twinge of unease.
Was Harn keeping all of this in mind? Torisen had received a post letter from Jame announcing her arrival in High Bashti, but about Harn she had only written that he continued to be preoccupied. Also, the Bashtiri garrison hadn’t yet been paid. That was to have been according to the half season, with the first payment due on the arrival of the troops, back-dated to midsummer in consideration of the time spent getting there. It wasn’t like Harn to let such a thing slip. What sort of trouble was he in?
What, for that matter, about Jame? Knowing his sister’s knack for mischief, by now there had to be something.
“Ask questions,” she had said.
Trudging back to the keep through dry grass singing with crickets, he considered this. More and more, he found himself restless, his own attention divided. Was this what it meant, to become That-Which-Creates? If so, it made him profoundly uncomfortable. Since when, though, had his comfort been important? He was responsible for his people, for the entire Kencyrath. Now it required something of him, but what?
When he started to open the door to his drum tower study, Burr’s voice spoke within:
“Careful.”
Books slid out, like a papery tongue extending to envelope him. The room beyond was awash with them, and with scrolls piled on every flat surface. Stiff, dry, and musty, their odor likewise rolled out. Burr stood up to his shins in chaos, glowering.
“More arrived today,” he said. “You can’t read all of these.” Himself a traditional Kendar, he couldn’t read at all, but it seemed to be primarily the disorder that offended him.
Torisen stepped in cautiously, groping for the floor.
“Sorry. I got carried away.”
His servant snorted.
The Highlord slung his coat over the stack on his chair, which consequently took on the appearance of a headless, hunched figure with flaccid arms. That was much how he currently felt.
“The scrollsmen claim that they have the answer to everything, if one only asks the right question.”
”Let them sort out tomorrow’s dinner, then,” said Burr.
“We aren’t that desperate yet. Questions, though - those are hard.”
He waded gingerly to the window, perched on the ledge, and bent to pick up a book. Its pages were vellum, crisply inscribed with elegant text. Tiny, vivid figures danced up the margins. Here a hunter scrambled after a hare that jeered back at him over its shoulder; there stood a cook white up to the elbows with flour in the midst energetically of making a pie. They seemed almost to move. He blinked, then closed the book carefully.
“I’m a fool,” he said. “These are treasures, not to be scattered underfoot. I thought, though, that the more I had, the more I would know. Well, I do know more - about hares, about pies - but it’s the wrong knowledge.”
Burr grunted. “This I can tell you: more books won’t help.”
Torisen wished that Harn were there. Admittedly, as a boy he had listened more to the big randon than talked, but he had learned much.
Then he had become highlord and, to his regret, his relationship with all Kendar had changed.
Then the Riverland had become a closed book to him during the year during which he had been so deathly ill.
His sense was that each house, likewise, had shut up within itself to face a changing world. Divided … weakened?
To whom would he talk now, if he could? The Kendar would help him and often did, but they didn’t share the same burdens. Among the Highborn Brant, Lord Brandan, was his closest neighbor, a steady, honorable man with a deep regard for the welfare of those dependent upon him. From the beginning, he had been a Knorth ally. He was also old enough to be Torisen’s father.
That gave Torisen pause. Would consulting him now be like seeking a father’s approval? The thought made him cringe. Both Ganth and Adric had called him “son,” but they had tried mostly to manipulate him. He would have turned to neither of them now. Brant was unrelated and was therefore (Ancestors, please) different.
Absentmindedly, he reopened the book, on the same page that he had closed it. The hare had scampered off. The pie had been baked and eaten, its cook grinning widely, replete. Torisen returned the volume to the floor, which rustled to receive it.
“Pack up,” he said to Burr, rising, his mind already on new details. “We’re going to pay Falkirr a visit.”
Burr looked dubious. “That last trip to Omiroth didn’t work out so well.”
“My sister was with us then.”
But Jame had suggested that the Tyr-ridden might manifest themselves across all three faces of their god before the end. Dari slain by Torisen’s own sword, Adric on his pyre …
“Oh, cheer up,” he said, bracing himself.
“If I had stopped to think too much,” his sister had said, with that rueful, lop-sided smile of hers, “might I have done nothing at all, for good or ill?”
There was an urgency in her that pushed him, as it always had. Did he resent it? Yes. But that didn’t mean that she was wrong.
Across the room, on the chair, his empty coat shivered as if with anticipation, but could not raise its arms.
“Brant is my oldest friend, now that Adric is dead,” he said to Burr. “What could go wrong?”