tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73137013056975266692024-03-05T19:09:05.187-08:00Neddeth's BedUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-85784707806969591362009-05-13T13:17:00.000-07:002012-09-24T14:46:46.351-07:00Editor's NoteTo those readers who have enjoyed Neddeth's Bed:<br />
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I have not forgotten Neddeth, who started me on a journey which I'm not yet seeing the end of. Inspired by her and her world, I went off-line (and onto NaNoWriMo) to write another novel which takes place in this same place, if not this time. I'm working on getting that novel critiqued and edited, and will be submitting it to publishers soon. Wish me luck!<br />
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In the meantime, now that I have finished the other novel I have decided NOT to go on with Neddeth's adventures in blog format, because I'd like to take what I've written here, hone it and make sense of it and complete it, and then submit THAT to publishers. So I'm not abandoning Neddeth, but quietly trying to groom her a little for a new life in paper pages.<br />
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<i>EDITOR'S UPDATE:</i><br />
<i>That novel, Songs for a Machine Age, was accepted by Hadley Rille Books, and will be coming out online and in stores on November 29th, 2012. Check out my <a href="http://www.heathermcdougal.com/">website</a> and my <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/machine-age?c=home&a=1187161">Indiegogo Campaign</a> to find out more!</i><br />
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In the meantime, this is the place where you have been able to read the first draft version (at least part of it). Maybe someday other people will read the paper version, and wonder what the first draft actually looked like. And they'll be able to go see!<br />
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My thanks to readers, be they one person or five hundred.<br />
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-- Heather McDougalUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-51141305434330014222008-05-23T06:17:00.000-07:002008-06-05T06:22:34.601-07:00FearMy father is sick, again. Once again, it is the figs. I fear for him.<br /><br />Hieram is still here. I do not know who to talk to. He is not who I -<br /><br />Oh -Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-5561039561605592552008-05-20T04:56:00.000-07:002008-06-05T06:14:17.938-07:00Hieram, AgainHieram is here again. My life feels as if one of the Four Lords of the Deep Dark had taken hold of it and steered it toward misery. There is no place the cretin cannot find me, save the Labyrinth! One years' growth has brought him neither wisdom nor selflessness. He has set his desires on conquering me - and there is no Ennis now to help me foil him.<br /><br />Today I was helping Asta wash out the great, round, copper dye-tubs in which we dye our wool, for it is the season to pick arpe, the flower-buds of the canper plant, and they must be brewed immediately into dye or the lovely blue color is lost. The dye-tubs must be immaculately clean or the dye will be ruined. I was in the courtyard with my old green leggings and short tunic, bent and scrubbing, when he came - as he is certain to do when I am unable to defend myself. Asta watched in disapproval while he laughingly tried to grasp my legs. I moved away around the tub, unable to scrub as I avoided him, yet knowing that the harvesters would be bringing the buds in at any moment. The cobbles were running with dirty water and I flicked my dripping metal-fleece at him irritably to make him go away, but he only laughed and moved closer, his lavish tunic stippled with dark water-spots. I could see his crooked teeth as he smiled.<br /><br />Luckily, my mother happened to look out her window at that moment.<br /><br />"Hieram!" she called sharply, "For shame! Neddeth will be Curator someday - she is not a silly chambermaid for you to ravish. You overstep your place, and it will not do to anger the Gods."<br /><br />Hieram stood back, bowing sarcastically to my mother. "As you wish, Madam," he replied, pretending gallantry. But as she nodded curtly and went back to her writing, he lifted an eyebrow at me. "Until later, my love," he said, and grinned when I reddened. Then he turned and went back toward the Palace, stepping carefully through the water with his stupid, heavy gait, like an overstuffed rooster. My love, indeed!<br /><br />Asta shook her head when he had gone. "That young man is a horror, just like his uncle," she said, "Don't let yourself be alone with him for a moment." <br /><br />She had an odd look on her face, and I wondered at it. Hieram is a bother and rather stupid, but I can't think of him as dangerous. Still, I would not choose to be alone with him in any case. He makes me uncomfortable and angry, and -<br /><br />Oh - someone is aking I m ..Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-71831194055627866492008-05-15T03:22:00.000-07:002008-06-05T06:05:58.749-07:00News From a Quiet TimeEleanor has a companion.<br /><br />The last three times I have come to her in my dreams, she has been speaking with someone - a man, I think, though I cannot see what his relation is to her - and I have had to be content to sit within her mind, and listen. The conversations were rich and varied, and I learned many things about this strange world you live in. Your arts are strange to me: there are no Mechanisms, no Gear Tourniers. I wonder how a civilization can be filled with machines, and no-one reaches for the art in them? I shudder at the number of machines I have seen which are created solely to do the work which should rightfully be done by people. How different our worlds are!<br /><br />The man she speaks to is awkward; there is no Body-knowledge in him. He does not use his hands much. I wonder at that: how can someone so far-reaching in his speaking be so silent with the Gods? Perhaps the Gods themselves are silent, here.<br /><br />In my world, things are moving slowly. I made, with less effort than I would have thought, a small set of leaping Clowns for the Spring Festival, which is supposed to be about joy and life. Our traditional Clown Engine was to be there, as usual, spinning and falling over and making great silly rollie-pollies and hand-stands to delight the audience; but I decided to make it an entourage. I carefully crafted the gears, enamelling them with many colors so they would match the Clown Engine, and housing them in elegant cut-brass carapaces. It was great fun working to make them wobbly and silly, instead of the other way round, and the leaping mechanism is quite cunning. I am proud of that.<br /><br />So when the Clown Engine came out, surrounded by six leaping, tumbling children, a great roar went up from the crowd. Even I, who had seen it a hundred times before the Festival, was laughing at their antics. It buoyed my heart, and I determined to write to Ennis to tell him about it. I have heard no word from him since he went off to the University in Wurzen, though my father tells me he is well, and I have been thinking of how to write him in sisterly affection without seeming too stupid.<br /><br />In two days' time, Hieram comes again, to stay for a fortnight or more. I heard this from Asta, who is close to the Greenswoman at the Palace - the person in charge of vegetables and fruits for the King's tables. This Greenswoman despises Hieram because he comes through the pantry and squeezes the fruit, looking for the best ones. Sometimes, she says, he takes bites to sample them, and then puts them back with the bites hidden. Once he did this to a bowl of fruit destined for the King's study, and the Greenswoman only found out at the last second. When Hieram is around, she locks the Pantry, but he is stealthy. It is like a war between them. What a childish mind he has! I don't look forward to his visit.<br /><br />There was a great uproar last week at the College of Art and Metallurgical Philosophy, in the Western part of the city. They had a fire - not a large fire, and quickly put out, but it burned throughUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-38652445537904338842008-04-07T05:53:00.000-07:002008-04-08T13:25:28.686-07:00My Mother and Her Mathematical BooksThings are difficult. My mother has been arguing with a small round man, by the name of Eggfeld, who publishes her books. And as always after these rows, she stays in her room sulking. This happens every time she has a book ready to publish: she gives the finished work to this man Eggfeld, he tells her which parts need to be changed, and she sulks for a week or more. <br /><br />And we all bear the brunt of her misery.<br /><br />Eventually, she relents, realizing that Eggfeld is not as stupid as she hoped, and begins to make small changes, eventually becoming obsessed. She locks herself in her room all day until we worry she will starve. After a week or more, she emerges with glowing face and gives the changed text to Eggfeld, who goes away for a day or so and then comes back all smiles, with a bottle of wine for her. She makes a special meal and we all celebrate; Eggfeld merrily tells us stories of his travels in the East, his dealings with writers, and all types of gossip. We all go happily to bed with our heads buzzing, relieved to be done with the whole thing.<br /><br />For awhile my mother is a changed woman, smiling and helpful and everywhere about the house and town (perhaps too much) for about a month. We all hold our breaths, and try to remain patient with her meddling, as we have come to depend on our freedoms and her inattention, and when she begins to get a look about her eyes - I cannot describe this look, except to say it is not the look of someone listening to what you say - we try not to fidget, while my mother becomes increasingly irritable. One day she goes up to her room, leaving the bread to burn or the laundry to cook dry, and does not come down until dinnertime. At which we all sigh, close our eyes, and thank our Gods, for things are normal once again.<br /><br />My father laughs and says her Creating is hampered by her leaping and twisting mind, which climbs ideas like ladders and will not be still enough to settle properly into her hands and her movements. We can not all naturally be easy in our bodies, my father says, and he is grateful my mother puts her (very capable) hands to the world at all. <br /><br />So here we are in the sulking phase, trooping dolefully around and wishing she would make up with Mr. Eggfeld. We miss her beautiful cakes and soups and the wonderful way she doctors the animals. My father, too, misses speaking to her of his work, for she is very perceptive, and can offer him great insight sometimes.<br /><br />All this, and the Spring Festival preparations have begun. I try to fill my mind with thoughts of my new work, my mother's mood infects me and I move through the days curled around a strange ache. <span style="font-style:italic;">Ennis must be far along the way to Wurzen by now</span>, I think. Later, I think: <span style="font-style:italic;">now he has arrived at the university</span>. I imagine him making new friends, listening to his masters' explanations, watching the some of the best Gear Tourniers in the Greater Lands at work. <br /><br />I want to be there, with him, learning what he is learning, talking to him about what we are seeing and hearing. I feel left behind, too young, useless. Father says -Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-61584334321078562472008-03-18T05:50:00.000-07:002008-04-07T05:53:46.642-07:00Eleanor ChangingEleanor grows much better. The last visit I saw that she was seeing more clearly, and her fingers were eager to spell my words. I am pleased that she has passed through her ordeal and is here again with me.<br /><br />She seems to be packing. I do not know if she is going away, or moving from one house to another. All the many things that lay around her household are cleared away, and there are no less than three boxes packed neatly in the corner by the bed. Perhaps she is simply ridding herself of the useless things which have collected around her. Where do you go, my Eleanor, my Hands, my only and best company?<br /><br />The streets outside seem softer, somehow, though the snow still comes down tonight. I wonderUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-49865307457807999002008-03-07T02:52:00.000-08:002008-04-08T13:06:26.074-07:00Learning My WorkWe are preparing for the Spring Festival, and the King appears to be unruffled by my father's requests, so we all move a bit easier. I am of the feeling that the King holds my father's word to be be truer than the Duke's. However, the Duke has far more power and influence among the Blood than my father, so the King does not protect my father as much as he could.<br /><br />Which my father understands. He is not only a great Gear Tournier, but a high authority on spiritual and educational matters, bound to uphold not only the Creating of machines, but motion and beauty and the importance of the human body. To move is to live. Economy of motion, the use of our hands, and Creating things are what we live by; therefore, my father stands as the King's closest advisor and the keeper of our History. His sphere of influence is within the universities, with teachers and Gear Tourniers from all around the country. They work to keep these traditions and tenets alive, and keep the citizens educated in these things and in everything else. He works very hard at it.<br /><br />And because his position is in benefit to the general populace, he is... well, popular. It is this, I think, which the Duke despises or envies in him. The world loves the Curator, or at the least they love my father - to hear stories of the Curator before him, a man to whom he came through his natural ability rather than heredity, he sounds a cold and prickly man, though my father loved him. I suppose, then, that the Curator is as influential as his abilities with people, though he always deserves immense respect.<br /><br />I have set to work with a will, learning as best I can from my father. Bereft, I see with new eyes. If I am to be Curator in his stead, I must use all the knowledge I have soaked up as a Palace brat, all the many hours of my father explaining things as I grew. I realize now he has been training me, all my life, without my knowledge: working it into the edges of things, into my lessons, into our discussions around the kitchen table.<br /><br />I always knew I was likely to be the next Curator, as my sister was never of a mind for it. Yet somehow I resisted it, did not like the idea of doing it, simply because it was hoped-for. I felt somehow that everyone was telling me who I must be, what direction I must follow. But since Ennis has left me I see beyond myself: there are greater distances inside me. I see that my father, who was not the son of the previous Curator but one who came to the task naturally, is a different person than the Curator before him.<br /><br />So may I be a different person, a different Curator than my father. I hope, when the time comes, that I will be as good at the work as he.<br /><br />This Feast-day I hope toUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-72514204074864350062008-02-03T01:17:00.000-08:002008-04-07T02:48:24.538-07:00ImmobilizedI stood in that room for an hour or more, afraid to move, to disturb the beauty of that moment; if I moved, perhaps the air would change, the the ray of sunshine leave me. I looked around at the tools lined up so carefully, the worn wood of the workbench, the boxes of machine-parts laid so carefully on the shelves, laid there by his hands. I saw them all with new eyes, with clean eyes. In every place there, I saw his hands, his fingers, working. Cutting the gears with the same care, that surety, which I myself had just felt as he took my arms.<br /><br />The moment hung there, fresh and shining, the fulfilment of so much longing, so much watching. My skin still marked with his touch, I stood, afraid to move, not wanting life to begin again and sweep it away, push the minutes forward again. Push me away from this.<br /><br />It seemed to me that I would never be able to breathe again, to sleep, to eat; instead I would be all on end, waiting. Standing on the edge, holding myself still for this moment to come again. <br /><br />And yet, the moment was an accident, a strange fluke. My skin might be marked by his hands, but he remained unmarked, he was the same Ennis he had always been, the laughing young man, the angry man, the unseen, unwanted journeyman Gear Tournier; he didn’t know me the way I now knew him. How was I to see him out there, being his untouched self, knowing he did not see it or feel it, that one true, shining moment? I could have wept, if I were not filled with such impossible joy.<br /><br />It was as if I had suddenly seen something in myself that had always been there, unknown and unseen by me; as if I had discovered my own true nature. I could not go back; I could not go forward; I could only stand and look at all the places his hand had touched. Everything in that room had been placed by those hands, with care and precision. Those hands, those long fingers and strong wrists: the same hands which had left the traces of truth on my skin.<br /><br />I didn’t want to go, be woken from my dream. I went to the wall and touched the shelves, the drawers, the places he had touched, and it seemed to me the wood breathed to me of his reverence, his care. I stood still again, on the verge of weeping or laughing, my hand out, feeling I would die happily right then.<br /><br />And gradually, as I moved again and went around the room, the feeling faded: the things became merely things again, arranged carefully. Looking at them made me happy, because he had made them that way; but that was all. It was gone, and I was left only with the sense of truth, the certainty: there would be no one for me, ever, but Ennis. It was there in my body, in the way he laid down his tools, in the last traces of sunlight from that moment. I was doomed, and joyful in it.<br /><br />I walked back through the passages of the Labyrinth, absently trailing my hand along the smooth stone of the wall, climbing stairs as if I were floating, opening the door into the courtyard, stepping out into the late light as if emerging from a wonderous dream. The facade of the Museum seemed so ordinary, so full of details that I had never looked at before. I saw every stone underfoot with new eyes, and when I went into the kitchen my mother seemed to me different, beautiful, strange. I knew, looking at her, that she had been here, in this strange afterglow, and survived it.<br /><br />And this revived me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-72463424982673446372008-01-02T17:22:00.000-08:002008-01-03T09:18:23.829-08:00GoodbyeWhile my father was at the Palace, I was back at our compound behind the Museum, pretending that life was going on as it always did. My mother was uncharacteristically edgy, peering vacantly out her window instead of working, coming downstairs to fidget with the kettle. <br /><br />I think my father going to visit the King over one of his own transgressions made her nervous: we lived a life of small transgressions, my father flexing the power he had as Curator in ways that would benefit the art; but we were always careful not to point this out to anyone at the Palace. This was a new thing, this discussion with the King. It might be the end of a comfortable existence.<br /><br />After a time, I got tired of making the motions of work and crept away to the Labyrinth, going through the small door and down the many stairs, choosing my turnings without thought, with only the determination to get away from the world above.<br /><br />The high sunlight trickled into those passages as a soft glow, only now touching the sills of the occasional small light-wells which came down from ground level. The walls of the many interlocking passages swept along, the sandy stone cool to my touch, as I counted out the turns to the workspaces. Along the sides, small chambers opened out which stored old Devices; old tools leaned against dusty corners, the remains of ancient Gear Tourniers and their methods.<br /><br />As I came into the room with the Steam Beast, the light followed me, the sun poking into the gloom, touching the mirrors that ran along the far wall and illuminating it. I stopped, curious: it had already begun its change. Several parts and small mechanisms lay around its feet, and one of the tiny Devices that seemed to live in its room came up to explore my foot, which made me smile. I had no fear of the Steam Beast any longer - nothing which made such delicate pets need frighten me.<br /><br />As I stood in my workroom looking around, I heard a step along the corridor, and a bright head of hair moved past the doorway to the next room. My chest collapsed on itself, my heart seeming to labor under a press, and I stepped over the little Device to follow.<br /><br />I heard a sound in Ennis’ workroom and tiptoed toward it, almost unable to breathe. Who had found their way down the confusing flights of stairs to this part of the Labyrinth? I was terrified, and confused, and curious, and a little outraged, so I rounded the corner quickly to confront whoever it was.<br /><br />And came face to face with Ennis, putting tools in a bag.<br /><br />I must have looked stunned, for he laughed, glancing over as he reached for another of his precious tools. He looked more relaxed than I have seen him in a long time.<br /><br />I am forced to admit, I could think of nothing to say. He went on laying tools gently in their places in his bag, and then tied it up and turned toward me, smiling. I had not seen him smile like that since he was burned, all those many months - nay, more than a year - ago. It brought him back to me, all in a rush. I saw him as he had been, as he was, as he would be: the boy who made me laugh, the angry youth who would not speak to me, the person who helped me.<br /><br />“I have been saved,” he said to me, nearly serious. “Your father was my salvation. He took himself to the King and brokered for my freedom. I am to be allowed to pursue this Gear Tournier life, but I must do it properly, and am being sent to a college in Wurzen to learn my trade. By the time I get back, the Duke will have forgotten about me, and I will have a legitimate degree to allow me to work.”<br /><br />I tried to smile at him, but I could feel the edges of it wavering. “In Wurzen? For five years? But - but there are colleges here in the Capital! Must you be gone so long?”<br /><br />I was so intent on my distress that I did not see him looking at me kindly, nor notice that he walked over and put his bag down; but the next thing I knew, his hands were clasped warmly on my arms.<br /><br />“It won’t be so long,” he said gently, “I have already learned so much, la? Maybe a year, or a little longer.” He looked down at me, and I could see the small traces of his scarring along one cheek and down the edge of his mouth. “I will miss you, and your wild ways.”<br /><br />I stood confused, while a long finger of sunlight found its way into the little room, touching the boxes on the shelves behind him, catching the top of his head in a flicker of gold. Wild ways? Me? But when I looked up, he was leaning down to kiss my cheek, like a sweet older brother. His hands were there on my arms, and then not. He picked up his bag and smiled again. “I will come and see you, when my time is up,” he said, and touched my hand. “You watch over your Da for me.”<br /><br />And with that he was gone, and I was left there with the little shaft of sunlight, struck by my own ignorance, and his.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-54319651352557017712008-01-02T15:30:00.000-08:002008-01-02T17:22:50.563-08:00MeanwhileWhile Eleanor was sick I had plenty of time to think of the many things which had happened to me. I feel a thousand years older than the girl who worked so hard to make the Beetles for the Midsummer Festival.<br /><br />My father was gone for the better part of the day at the constabulary, trying to convince them to let Ennis go. At the end of the day, he came home to find us sitting around the kitchen table drinking cups of late cha with Ennis' mother and father, who sat stiffly at the table and stood up quickly as my father walked in.<br /><br />He shook his head tiredly. "They will not hear reason," he said. "There is someone of consequence who has insisted on this, and they cannot go against it, though they are very polite."<br /><br />"Did you see Ennis?" asked his mother Elsa, a short, lined, impatient woman with a mad sort of humor who had had Ennis later than most.<br /><br />My father sat down, while my mother brought him a cup of cha.<br /><br />"I did," he said. "He was doing well enough. They are very kind to him there, treating him with great respect. They told me they had never seen a Festival Device like his."<br /><br />Ennis' father Mokul, a tall man from the far Eastern mountains, looked as if he did not know whether to look proud or stern. "Yes, well," he said, his face going redder, "I don't know where he got the makings for that. It were, indeed, a wonderous effort. But I'd just as soon that he stayed in the stables, if he's gon' to go and get himself in gaol."<br /><br />My father cleared his throat. "Well, hmm, I'd meant to talk to you about that. I gave him the tools and the makings for that Device. I saw in him the makings of a great Gear Tournier, and I suppose I became carried away. I apologize for that," he said.<br /><br />Ennis' father and mother both stared at him with their mouths open, and I saw my father blush, for the first time in my life.<br /><br />"He did so seem to need it..." he faltered. "In any case, I felt it was my duty to try to get this cleared up."<br /><br />Mokul stood up, looming over my father, a slow flush spreading across his face, and I was somewhat amused to see a fleeting look of anxiety cross my father's face. But the big man simply seized his hand and pumped it up and down. "Always looking out for him, you was," he said, smiling, his sharp nose wrinkling with glee. "I do have much to thank you for."<br /><br />My father, looking bewildered now, smiled back. "Well, let us see if I can winkle him out of jail first, shall we?" he said kindly, returning the man's clasp.<br /><br />"I have no fear for that, sir, no I don't," said the stableman, and with a bow he took his wife and left.<br /><br />We were all left looking at one another doubtfully.<br /><br />The next day, my father went to the Palace. Once again, he was gone for most of the day, and we waited fretfully, for it is rare for my father to ask for an audience with the King, though we live so near and my father works so closely with him on the Festivals. This time (I had from him later) he waited a long while, an unusual circumstance. He spent most of it sitting in a small lounge outside the King's personal study while the King met with someone inside. <br /><br />My father said he heard raised voices inside the room, speaking back and forth for awhile; and then the door opened, the guards stood smartly to attention, and out came his old enemy the Duke of Aneth. He looked at my father with dislike and swept out, leaving a strong smell of fennel behind him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-15691188010253615592007-12-23T08:00:00.000-08:002008-01-02T15:30:26.588-08:00Eleanor's IllnessSo many months since Eleanor has been able to write! All this time I have visited her, and she has not been near her Machine, and cannot tell more about me. In my visits I have seen - oh, horrible things. A huge machine with a gaping mouth through which incurious people fed her, despite her fear and trembling. Terrible places, full of boxy machines that controlled her heartbeat or put their transparent, pointed snouts into her bloodstream, doing I know not what. For much of it she was in pain, and sometime early on I came to her just as she was lying on a hard cot, staring at a harsh light overhead with the silhouettes of people looking down all around. Just after that, she spiralled down into the dark and I lost her.<br /><br />I have been frightened for her, watching this.<br /><br />When she finally came home she was so sick that she vomited and lost her hair. Once I came when she sat, trembling, by the window, and watched your strange machines crawling by below - so like my Beetles! - too tired to do anything else. I saw her phantom in the glass of the window, pale and shadowed and too thin.<br /><br />Then, for awhile when I came, she would be outside in the darkness, walking through the autumn evening: walking and walking, a warm hat pulled over her naked head. Her hair began to grow back, and she grew stronger, but still she did not go near her writing Machine.<br /><br />Tonight, for the first time, I find her here, staring at the Machine. Outside, there are colored lights everywhere - some kind of Midwinter Festival? - and it is snowing. The hard streets of this place drizzle with light and movement, and there is a feeling in the airUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-48547430262317289422007-08-20T07:07:00.000-07:002007-10-28T08:00:03.557-07:00WaitingAll that day, I wandered the house and yards, until my mother leaned out her window and told me irritably that she could not write with me mooning about so. I moved on to the Museum, trailing my hands over the cases and peering in at the familiar old Machines, but found no comfort there. <br /><br />At noontime, I was not hungry, and pushed my food around until my mother said, "Tsk" and sent me outside again. Then she leaned out her window again and told me to go put away my Beetles in the Labyrinth.<br /><br />Glad of the orders - for staying busy was better than the endless hanging minutes - I went downstairs with the first Beetle in my hand. The evening of the Midsummer Festival, when all the feasting had done, my father had taken me aside and pressed the key to the many sections of the Labyrinth into my hand, saying that with the Beetles I had become a true Curator-to-be. He was proud of me, he told me smilingly, and looked forward to teaching me all the arts of Curatorship. I held the large key in my hand, warm from his pocket, and thanked him with all my heart, for I could not imagine a better thing than to be like my father at that moment.<br /><br />Now, however, the key was cold, hanging in its place on my belt. My innards felt much the same way, as if they had been hanging somewhere cold all day; and the dark stairwell of the Labyrinth did not warm me. Cautiously, I walked to the bottom and opened the first door. All was silent; dim corridors stretched away in three angling directions as if waiting for my presence.<br /><br />I have always wandered the Labyrinth, at first with my father and then later alone, and yet have still not reached all its parts. The near parts are familiar to me, never before causing fear or hesitation, only curiosity; yet today, with the coldness in my belly, the corridors seemed too aware of me. I moved into the first one with a sense of dread.<br /><br />My father, when he presented me with the key, had brought me down here ceremonially, both of us yawning from the feasting and the lateness of the hour. He had twinkled his eyes at me, gesturing for me to open the first door myself, with my own key. I thought that was the whole of the thing, but in silent glee he had taken me further in.<br /><br />"I remember when I made my first festival Creations," he said. "My father brought me here afterwards. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I am pleased to do the same with you." He linked his arm with mine, patting my hand as we walked along between the clean, dry stones. The Labyrinth, being under the Museum and the Palace itself, is never cold or damp, only cool and quiet. The perfect place to work and to keep Machines safe. It is much more than that, of course; but the near parts we use daily, with no thought of those other uses.<br /><br />We walked toward my father's work-room, a place I had always loved: large and spacious, with many shelves around the walls full of odd and interesting things. That night, however, we walked on from there, past Ennis's small work-room, which was designed to look like an annex of my father's, in case we were found out. On the far side of this space was another large space, unused and unkempt for many years. Tonight, however, it was transformed. The wide floor was swept and polished and the walls whitewashed. The single tiny window, looking up through a thickness of stone to the ground, above, was clean and bright. Tools hung along one wall above a workbench, and shelves hung on two other walls in the same manner as my father's space. The ceiling was high and clean. It waited for me to come and Create.<br /><br />"Oh, Da!" I cried, and hugged him awkwardly. I was nearly as tall as my mother now, and did not know how to fit my grown body to his so well.<br /><br />He kissed me and chuckled. "I hope you come down here often," he said. "I am very proud of you."<br /><br />I swore to him with tears in my eyes that I knew of no better place than this one he had made for me.<br /><br />But this day - only one day later, though my joy seemed years away now - it seemed to me that something waited there, in the corridors. I did not want to be there, and brought my Beetles down hurriedly, dumping them on a high shelf in my silent and empty work-room. I had left the last one on the bench and was coming swiftly past Ennis' work-room, when I stopped. I wanted to see where he had worked.<br /><br />Ah, I feel the sun comiUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-22166213273207384932007-08-13T14:45:00.000-07:002007-10-28T07:13:36.359-07:00BackstepAll the things which have been happening since the Festival are now crowding in my head to be told.<br /><br />To start with, Ennis was sent to gaol.<br /><br />It is impossible to express the outrage that I felt when he was sent for, very nicely indeed, by the constables. My mother came in looking unusually flustered and told my father that Ennis was being marched away. I ran outside before she had spoken four words, and just saw them turning the corner farther down the street, the constable gesturing politely for Ennis to go first. I must have looked quite stupid, standing with my mouth open as I did, my breath coming in disbelieving little gasps.<br /><br />Whirling around to get my father, I nearly collided with him. He was standing behind me with an identical expression on his face. We looked at each other in horror: had we not given him the space to work, he would not have been sent off like this.<br /><br />Seeing my emotion, he composed himself and spoke gently to me. "I cannot believe that our King is so cruel as to imprison a young man for Creating such a wonderous a thing. It may be that he merely wishes to speak with him. Have faith, my little Ned; have faith," he said to me, holding me by the arms and giving me a gentle shake. Then he held me in his arms and stroked my hair, a thing he did less nowadays than before. "Nevertheless, I will go and see what I can discover."<br /><br />When I clamored to come with him, he shook his head, smiling sadly. "You will be more hinderance than help with me in the Palace," he declared. "Better to stay here and wait."<br /><br />So, with beating heart and tears in my eyes, I stood by as my father came out in his best clothes and his most ceremonial Curator's girdle, his Curator's staff in hand, and kissed me goodbye before walking briskly off the same way the constables had done.<br /><br />When I wentUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-59078740616037919192007-08-06T13:59:00.000-07:002007-09-13T14:45:09.417-07:00The Annual MiracleNow that my telling of the Midsummers' Festival is done, I can write of what has been happening since.<br /><br />Oh! But before that, I must tell you about the Steam Beast's appearance at the Festival. I had not been in the Labyrinth for many weeks before then, and so had not seen its last changes. Father had told me that I would be surprised, and so I was: for the Steam Beast did not make its appearance until the sun had set that evening. The entry of the Steam Beast into the Festival is not done by men, but by the Beast itself, which has a telling of the hours and seasons within it; and so its arrival is heralded each year as a miracle. My father's job is only to unlock the door of the Labyrinth and leave it open, so that the Steam Beast can come out when it is ready.<br /><br />We were all feasting, and the musicians (and music-machines) tuning up for the dancing, when a great and melodious sound was heard from the direction of the Museum, and everyone went quiet and turned to look. The sound came again, a long questioning cry, like a song or a fanfare. There was muttering in the crowd, but quiet descended as we waited, for all of us expect miracles on Midsummers' Eve. It is the time for miracles.<br /><br />As we watched, a lick of flame showed between the buildings. There was the sound of some large Thing treading toward us, and around the corner came a thing so large and yet so delicate, so brilliant and frightening, that there were gasps from the crowd. It was the Steam Beast.<br /><br />It approached us, a thing of silver and fire. Puffs of smoke and steam wreathed the many long, dancing pipes that stood from its body. Each pipe had what looked like a brazier at the end, from which billowed occasional tongues of flame. It looked like a Dragon with many necks, each one spouting flame and singing as its necks wove intricate patterns which made the flames leave images on our eyeballs from their trailing fire. The song changed from deep, vibrating into our bones, to trilling, depending upon the different tongue of flame that pushed the sound from its throat. It was magnificent, and people stood back as it passed around the square, nodding a blessing on people as it passed. The song went on, with stirring, lilting notes; we stood unmoving, listening and watching, until it had gone on, moving down the North Street and disappearing. Its song went on, skirling in the distance with flashes of brightness, then was silent.<br /><br />We all sighed for awhile, before the dancing commenced again. The arrival of the Steam Beast every year is like a visitation from the Gods, and we all take it as a yearly miracle when it comes. For who knows what makes it wake every year, and re-make itself? The mechanics of the ancient Brilliants will always be a mystery; only the Gods know when the Steam Beast will cease to make the journey.<br /><br />Ennis was praised mightily, clapped on the back and given drinks all round. My father, beaming all over his face, embraced me for my Beetles, as he called them, and shook Ennis' hand with nearly enough joy. I was afire with pleasure that he had finally Created.<br /><br />Especially because my father and I had worked so long on our secret together, before I was swept off in the Creation of my Beetles. Our secret, which we set like bait in the trap: a workshop, set partway inside the Labyrinth, which we led Ennis to by a series of breadcrumbs. He took the bait, and built what is considered one of the finest Machines for a hundred years - all in the place my father and I made for him! To say I was proud, of him and my father and myself, is only part of the joy of that day.<br /><br />Since then, however, there has been uproar among those of the Blood, for a simple stable-boy should not be able to Create such a thing. It is so stupid!!! I cannot ee m as - o dear -Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-536307238560812732007-07-30T12:04:00.000-07:002007-09-10T12:44:25.538-07:00Midsummers' Festival, Day of the FeastI see Eleanor's hands shaking tonight. I cannot see why, but she seems ill. I will finish this, and let her rest.<br /><br />...At midday the parade began, the royal caravan coming from the castle to the North, along the Wide Road and into town. People shouted and called, and the Machines arrived from the Museum road, rolling or stalking or creeping, waving downy tendrils and colored flags, their interiors alight with fire and gleaming metal, beads of color jumping and leaping, and every manner of lovely movement. Soon the King's caravan was surrounded by a gleaming, dancing battalion of beautiful machines. It was wonderful to see.<br /><br />I stood on the roof of the Museum stables, looking over the back wall, where the Wide Street went by. My machines stood around me, waiting to be released, while I watched for the right moment. It came, finally, after all the machines had been brought forth, and the oohing and aahing had gone down a little. I knew that at any moment the great cheer might go up which signalled the start of the Festival, so <i>that</i> was when I set the little ones going.<br /><br />Over the side they went, a gleaming blue wave of beetle-like carapaces. Quickly I climbed down the ladder and ran into the street, in time to catch the gasp of amazement as the crowd caught sight of the effect. It did look wondrous: the twelve little machines ran along the wall in a curling dance, their color shifting on cue from deep blue to green to red and yellow. They moved, spiralling, across the wall and down along the street, climbing other walls in ones and threes, spreading color around the street.<br /><br />The King, speaking with my father, saw me and called me over.<br /><br />"You did this?" he asked, his white beard fine and crisp against the crimson of his suit.<br /><br />I bowed. "With many people helping me, I did, Sire," I said, hardly more than a whisper. The King had never spoken to me before - had never even noticed me before.<br /><br />He craned his head to look at the swirling motes on the buildings around. "Then you will make a fine Curator, perhaps even a Master Machinist," he said. His sharp blue eyes held me for a moment, then moved away. I knew I was dismissed, and walked away hardly able to breathe. I wanted to jump and scream.<br /><br />I walked that way for awhile, following the caravan, but seeing very little around me. Then we came to the square.<br /><br />In the middle of the square, standing on a plinth, stood a glass woman, glowingly white, as if made of mist. Within her misty limbs darker things moved, as she raised her arms to the sun. The parade, tumbling into the square in a hurdy-gurdy tangle of color and shouting, stilled, all the sounds dying away save the snapping of the flags in the quiet breeze.<br /><br />The woman stood, her arms to the sun, and opened her mouth and sang, with a voice like a water bird, like warm honey. It was echoing and sweet and made the hairs stand on my arms. I do not know what she sang, but as the liquid notes dropped down, the people sighed. It was wonderful.<br /><br />And when she was done, out from the crowd stepped Ennis, and bowed low before the King.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-69938188312771814532007-07-23T11:15:00.000-07:002007-09-10T12:32:08.495-07:00Midsummers' Festival, 5I must finish this, things are changing quickly here.<br /><br />Suffice to say that Ennis did help me. <br /><br />Oh, by the Gods, I must speak more elaborately than that. I see that.<br /><br />I told him of my failure, and he sat with me and spoke of it for awhile. After a time, I am not certain how long, I began to feel hope, for he showed me that the thing missing in my formulae was the pressing of the folded areas of the feet into the inequalities in the walls. The ideas flew between us, and we found ourselves standing at the table, trying different things, as the torches burned lower and the stars wheeled round above, his hands working next to mine.<br /><br />Finally we discovered what seemed to be a way. By altering the feet so as to incorporate a plunger-style mechanism which pushed a viscous liquid into the folds of the foot-coverings I had fashioned, the feet actually did cling to things. By working well past the double bells, we had finished one of the machines and started the mechanism up.<br /><br />IT WORKED!!! With only two days to go, Ennis and I had solved the riddle of walking on walls. The thing skittered across the ground and up a stone wall, crossing around the courtyard with ease, the colors on its back changing faster as it crept. It was only as it tried to creep up onto the ceiling of the portico that disaster struck: the thing lost its footing and fell, breaking its carapace on the floor below. It seems that the hairs in the Gycko's feet serve some function, after all.<br /><br />He said goodnight, kindly and as near his old self as I have seen, and I went to bed, my head whirling with ideas and with his nearness, which had a strange effect on me.<br /><br />The next two days were a flurry, trying to fix the broken machine and tan enough stomach-leather for all the feet on all the machines - as well as fashioning the feet themselves. I was up til all hours both nights running, though Ennis came only once, to help me stitch feet the last night. He was silent then, and did not sit near to me, his face turned away; but he seemed only thoughtful, not angry. I wondered, then, for the first time, if he had his own machine for the Festival. I remembered the fallen bits of machine-metal on that day so many weeks ago, and wanted to ask him of them; he seemed so thoughtful, however, that I could not bring myself to interrupt his ruminations.<br /><br />The day of the Festival dawned bright and warm. The flags were all up, all around the town, and many hundreds of strange people came and went from the inns and the camping-places by the river. Brightly-colored carts made their way into the square, setting up around the edges with much hustle and bustle. A whole city within the city, of carts and stands and cloth-covered booths, had bloomed in the night.<br /><br />I stood on aUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-75925050427196649772007-07-16T10:38:00.000-07:002007-09-10T11:56:55.857-07:00Midsummers' Festival, 4Ah, my Eleanor, my Hands, how I have itched to finish this story of the Festival! Things are happening now that I would tell you of.<br /><br />So: let me speak quickly.<br /><br />My father's idea about the cow's stomach did indeed seem valuable. I looked at one through the Vial, and found that he was right about its deep structures. I experimented feverishly with the tanner's caustic, and found that the stomach must be half-dried for the caustic to work; fully-dried and it lost its pliability. Then it was a matter of how to apply the caustic, as it seemed to shrink with the direction of the brush-strokes. But these details are of little interest.<br /><br />Ennis came and watched me work, but went away without saying anything. I longed, now my eyes were opened to the clarity and learning of his mind, to speak with him of all the things I wondered about; but his face, though gentler, was still closed to me, and I dared not. So I worked on with little sleep, and at length, but four days before the festival, I had something that I deemed might work. It lacked the infinitesimal hairs of the Gycko's feet, so I could only hope that this would not hinder it.<br /><br />After some experimentation, I was able to attach some of the material to one of the machine's feet, but the experiment was a complete failure! I was devastated, unable even to come down to dinner. My father came upstairs to comfort me in my room, but could not; all he could do was love me and insist that I not give up. I still had more than three days.<br /><br />So I sat, the dutiful daughter, in the courtyard and stared at nothing in the evening light. Nothing came into my head, no further plans or ideas. It grew dark, and the women lit the lamps, and still I sat. Most people went to bed; my father came and looked at me and went away again, leaving me alone. I sat and let the tears trickle down my cheeks, until a rough, long-fingered hand touched my arm, making me start.<br /><br />It was Ennis, his tea-colored hair falling over his eyes, looking down at me with surprising tenderness, which of course made me cry all the harder. I threw my sleeve over my face and bawled, and he put his strong hand on my back, of which I know not what I felt.<br /><br />At the end, I was reduced to hiccups and trying to recover my dignity, which was likely ruined anyway. I looked up to find him sitting next to me, looking at the mess of my labors. We sat in silence for awhile. <br /><br />Oh, I can feel -Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-20816044909832380202007-07-09T08:48:00.000-07:002007-09-10T10:37:57.767-07:00Midsummers' Festival, 3Ah, me, all the interruptions. This telling takes so long to tell, while the rest of my life slips away untold...luckily these weeks are dull ones, for me. This year the summer is hot, and we stay inside during the heat of the day, coming out like forest animals in the early hours and the late ones. So there is plenty of time to think, and dream, but not much happens; it is a drowsy time, with long, full days of harvesting, eating the harvest, fixing buildings, cleaning, and so on. There is always much to be done, when the days are long; it is a time of creation and repair.<br /><br />In any case, my trip to the tanners was quite enlightening. Ennis showed me how the drum-makers paint their hides with caustic to shrink them. The drum-makers kindly showed us how, if the hide is not stretched, the caustic will make it ruck up as it shrinks, into folds very like the ones on the Gycko's feet. Examining the crumples in the hide, I asked Ennis if he thought it would do.<br /><br />"Probably not," he said, in that stiff way he has. "Look at it under the Lense Vial first, and see. It may only be a start."<br /><br />A start! When there were only five days left until the festival? My anxiety knew no bounds.<br /><br />But I thanked the drum-makers and walked back with a silent Ennis, who bid goodbye as soon as he could. Then I unlocked the case with my father's Lense Vial in it and set to work.<br /><br />Ennis was right. The folds were of the right type, but the surface of the hide was much too pitted and full of pores to be of use. What good did it do? I threw away the bit of hide in despair, and went to help my father in the Museum.<br /><br />My father was busy directing the white-washing of the Museum rooms, showing the men what to do, directing ladders and getting out cloths to cover the machines with. I helped to spread the cloths, fetching water for the white-washing and trying to note to how my father conducted his business. He took time to explain things to me, as he always does, since I will be the Curator when he is passed; but eventually he looked at me, and took me by the shoulders into another room.<br /><br />"My dear," he said, "You have been looking strained recently. Is it your machines for the Festival? I do worry you have looked large in that department. When I was your age, I simply created a sort of cart with a fan that opened and closed. It's not necessary, you know, to create the universe again."<br /><br /> I smiled at him, for I love my father. He is a kind and generous man, as well as being brilliant with machines. I am not supposed to ask the Curator for help in my first Festival presentation, but I am allowed to ask my father for advice.<br /><br />"Perhaps you might suggest something for me then, Father, as I am struggling so to re-create Nature's wonders! I am working with smoothed hide, but even that is too rough for what I need. I need a skin of some sort that is absolutely smooth, even under your own Lense Vial."<br /><br />He looked at me strangely, but I could see his thoughts at work, behind his dark brows. "What is it that you are trying to accomplish?"<br /><br />I explained to him about the pleats, and his eyebrows went up. "That is indeed ambitious for a first project. Are you certain you wouldn't prefer to simplify it?"<br /><br />"I will, Father, if that is what is required. But I wish to try." I tried to keep the stubbornness off my face, but he still saw it and laughed.<br /><br />"Let me think about this. I do not know of a hide that is so smooth as to be able to fit against the imperfections of glass! What you need is something already pleated, something complex and soft..." here a faraway look came into his eyes, as always happens when he is imagining the workings of things. Then his brow cleared, and he said to me, "What of the inside of stomachs? Have you looked to see? They are much like the surface of tongues, with flower upon flower, down too small to see. You could even, if you wished, use the tanner's caustic to shrink it further. Try these things, and see if they will help you."<br /><br />Did I not say my father is brilliant?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-59733222002735569872007-07-02T00:05:00.000-07:002007-09-09T21:58:32.068-07:00Midsummers' Festival, 2So many things to describe! It is difficult, during my limited time with Eleanor-of-the-Hands, to put down all that happens. I try, and then just at an important moment I find myself receding, falling away from her and her small screen, and I know the last part of what I say is lost.<br /><br />I believe I was writing of Ennis' willingness to help me, of how I called out to him to ask his help.<br /><br />When I told him what it was I needed to discover, and of the discoveries I had made about the Gycko's feet, he scratched his head, frowning. I watched him, thinking how his frown was so much less fierce these days.<br /><br />"The problem is," I told him, "I understand how the Gycko's feet look, but not what they mean. I don't see how they allow the creature to stick to the walls. It is not simple suction, for my father says they can run across coarse surfaces as well as smooth."<br /><br />Ennis was silent for awhile, while I tried hard not to fidget. "I believe it is an effect I heard spoken of once," he said finally, "discovered by a man from the Low Country. He said that all things are attracted to each other, but that various other forces intervene, so that we do not always see the effect of this force."<br /><br />I stared at Ennis, astonished, for he had never said such a thing to me. Our conversation had always been joking and friendly, or sad and brief; never one of deep philosophy, or the arts and sciences. Listening to him speak, I saw suddenly that I had been thinking solely about what he was able to <i>do</i>, not how he <i>thought</i>. I felt, as he said these few sentences, that my sense of myself was shaken, for if I could be so little understanding what was in Ennis' mind, then what else had I got wrong in my world?<br /><br />But Ennis was unaware of my shock, and went on. "The reason that you and I are not able to walk up walls is mostly because the surface of the wall is rough, and therefore little of our foot or hand can really touch it. Instead, the points and lumps that are in even the smoothest surface - even glass - offer us only minor contact. It seems to me that these Gyckos, with those pleats upon pleats on the soles of their feet, must be able to settle the surface of their feet so well into the roughness of the surface that they can use the Lowlander's force - the attraction of their feet to the wall - to keep them aloft."<br /><br />At this point he stopped, as if suddenly aware of how much he had spoken, and how much I gaped at him. I watched his face shut up like a shutter, and the grim line came back to his mouth, which had before been curving beautifully. <br /><br />Finding my own mouth open, I closed it. "Many thanks," I stuttered, completely undone. "I - I do not know that I would have thought of that."<br /><br />In the face of my consternation, he relented a bit. "You would not know," he said, "unless you had read every book in your father's library."<br /><br />And with that, he turned on his heel and walked away. I watched him go, and wondered that I had never seen this man, so young and so harsh, in the light of his mind before. I felt I had opened a door through which a wind had come, and blown away all I knew.<br /><br />It was a late hour of the day, so I went back to my mother to help with the evening meal as if my eyes, indeed all my senses, were flayed. The whole world seemed to come rushing in at me with a new sharpness, a painful awareness. I saw that my mother's eyesight was worsening; I saw the worry lines in my father's face; I saw how the scrubbed table in our dining-place was much larger than we needed; and I wondered how many other things that spoke of secrets, of unknowable changes or unspoken realities, there were in my life. It seemed that I was surrounded by doors that opened to places I had never imagined. Every person I knew had a head full of unknown knowledge, unspoken longings, unwritten histories. It made me want to weep.<br /><br />In the night, as I lay awake in my bed, I wondered at his remark about my father's library. Had he read all the books therein? It was all of two hundred books, full of knowledge I had never thought to learn. Had he? If so, it must be one of the best-kept secrets in the kingdom. And once again, I felt that wind whistle through the newly-opened doors of my mind.<br /><br />But by the next morning I was somewhat righted, as if I had learned to walk in this new and unexplored world, and I went through my chores and learning-sessions with my eyes open and the Gycko's foot in the back of my mind. There were but a few days left until the Festival, and I was worried. I even began plans for what I would do if I could not make the color-machines walk up the walls, though it made me feel terrible.<br /><br />I did not see Ennis that day or the next, for he had tasks of his own to accomplish for the Midsummers' Festival. I struggled with the problem of the gycko's feet all alone, never questioning that it was the answer to my need. On the third morning, Ennis was waiting for me in the courtyard, standing like a prisoner next to my work-table, staring apparently at nothing. <br /><br />I approached cautiously, wondering at the set of his shoulders, and the look he had of wishing to be elsewhere.<br /><br />"Come with me, " he said brusquely, so I followed him. We walked out of the Museum compound and past the stables, down the river-path toward the foundries and the dyers' house. He did not stop here, but continued onward toward the tannery, where he turned into the gate. <br /><br />Several apprentices looked up in surprise, bending quickly back to work at Ennis' glance. Bewildered, I followed him toward the side-yard where the drum-makers work.<br /><br />"There," he said, and pointed. "That's what you need, I reckon."<br /><br />I couldn't see what he was speaking of at first, but then as li jfos nsUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-91772234541490320542007-06-25T22:41:00.000-07:002007-09-10T12:33:37.105-07:00The Midsummers' FestivalWhere to begin? So many things have been happening!!!<br /><br />I am glad, for Eleanor is in fine form tonight. The sun is setting outside her window, and her hands feel nimble and ready to tell my story. Thank you, Eleanor, my Hands, my friend.<br /><br />I will start where I left off.<br /><br />As I went to the Labyrinth to find my father, the day after my last dream of this place, I saw Ennis coming up the stairs from the rooms below. I stood back in the shadows of the colonnade and watched him emerge. He was dusting something off his trousers and he looked - not happy, but - less grim than he has since the fire. His sleeves were rolled away up his arms and I could hardly see the scars there; and as he rolled his sleeves down a small thing fell out and rolled away. He did not appear to notice, so when he had gone I went quickly over and picked it up.<br /><br />At first I could hardly see what it was. Then I saw: a tiny spring, no larger than my little fingernail in all, worked in the finest brass. I was staring at it in wonder, trying to fathom how it came to be rolled in his sleeve, when I heard a small sound, like a footfall. It was Ennis, come back for the thing, I suppose. I could feel my face go very red as I held it out to him, and he stared at me a moment without expression before taking it, putting his finger to his lips as if to silence me, and then turning away. I simply stood there among the stone columns and watched him go, wishing that I could fall through the floor.<br /><br />When I came to the top of the stairs I bent to see what he had been brushing away, and what I found was many small crumbs of brass, tiny shavings. such as those the blade of a gear-turnier's tool makes, carving the teeth into small brass gears.<br /><br />I think Ennis is Creating again!!!!<br /><br />The next day, I was out in the courtyard as usual after lunch and my noontime chores, trying to understand how to adjust the balance of my machines. I had taken the covering off one the feet and was examining it, trying to see why the tiny hooks had not grasped at the crucial moment, when my mother called me into the kitchen. There was a package for me, she said.<br /><br />On the table was a strange package, a small wooden box tied all round with string, and an envelope hanging off it. I tore the envelope open and found it was from Master Ravenor! The note said, "Please examine these feet. Perhaps it will help you to find your way with your own Creation."<br /><br />Inside the box, when I nervously opened it, was a jar with what looked like a small lizard floating suspended inside. The thing looked terrible, pale and strange; but the flesh was as soft-looking and pliable as in life. I looked at its feet, and saw only wide, squashed-looking toes with pleated bottoms, and wondered what he wanted me to see. I could not fathom it; but then my father came into the kitchen, looking for something, and exclaimed over the jar and the package, reading the note and giving me the rather odd look he has been turning my way recently. He told me it is a gycko, a creature that can walk up walls and across ceilings. He was greatly astonished that Master Ravenor should send me one of his prized jars, and went away upstairs muttering.<br /><br />Armed with this information I went to my father's study and found his Lense Vial, and removing the thing from its bath trained the armature on its feet. Much to my astonishment, I found the feet looked much the same, no matter how closely I looked: the pleats were pleated into smaller pleats, moving crosswise; and these pleats were in turn pleated crosswise again, and so on for as deep as the Vial could look. It looked, at the smallest levels, as though there might be tiny, miniscule hairs, though I could hardly see them through the glass.<br /><br />That night I couldn't sleep, thinking of ways to make feet like that for my machine. I lay for hours, trying fruitlessly to imagine it. Finally, exhausted, I fell into dreams of Master Ravenor sitting on the bed, pleating my linens, trying to show me something that I could not see.<br /><br />The next morning, I moved stupidly through my chores, dropping hot water on the cobbles of the front court, which led my mother to scold me for the noise from the high window of her work-space. Giving up, I went and had a cup of tea in the side portico, drawing and drawing different ways to make Gycko feet but getting nowhere. I spied Ennis coming along the outer wall - just his head bobbing past as it does with tall people - and nearly turned away, my scalp tingling with embarrassment. <br /><br />But I thought, suddenly: what if I should approach him directly? Speak to him of the help I needed? Since that day I saw him coming up the stairs, I had been shy of him, but not so feared of his fierceness. Watching him go by, it was such a joy to think of him making machines again, I forgot my own feelings and called out to him.<br /><br />His head, above the wall, swiveled to see me, then came on around the corner, the rest of him appearing by degrees and approaching me cautiously. When I told him I needed help, I saw his eyebrows go up.<br /><br />"Help from me? I will certainly offer any aid I am able," he said formally. I had to suppress a feeling of irritation. I explained what I was trying to do, and showed him one of my machines, which made him nod against his will.<br /><br />"I've been watching you work with these," he said much less formally, with an unexpected candor that took me aback.<br /><br />I told him about the Gycko and he sked ould tak ook at arUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-3222471174082157012007-06-18T22:21:00.000-07:002007-07-04T22:49:56.221-07:00A ConversationThank the stars, Master Ravenor is gone! I do not think I could have stood his scrutiny any longer.<br /><br />Two days ago he came on me working on my colour-making machines. They are nearly ready; I have put together twelve of them, and am only having difficulty with the attachment for the feet, which will allow them to go up walls without falling over backwards. I cannot make them climb any higher than my shoulder before they peel away from the wall. Something about their balance, I think, and a difference between their front feet and their back.<br /><br />I was pulling a foot apart when he came and stood over me, I know not for how long, for he stood quietly, watching me work. After a bit I reached for a tool and saw his shadow, which sent me starting up, knocking my stool over behind me. I do not know why I was taken this way, though the suddenness of my awareness startled me.<br /><br />He apologized, and turned away to walk in the portico along the Eastern wall, but I stood for awhile after he rounded the corner, my heart pounding. <br /><br />Later, I saw him speaking with my father in the great room at the back of the Museum we call the Whisper Chamber, for it is used for nothing that I know of, and the sound inside is very strange. You can hear a person across the room from you, but not the person standing beside you. There is not a stick of furniture in this room; not a hanging nor a candle. At night it is spooky, with odd sounds coming out of the darkness. My mother says it was designed so that people could speak to the spirit world, but my father scoffs at that.<br /><br />They stood slightly to one side of the center of the room, in the safest spot, for no-one can hear you when you stand there, unless you stand directly beside the person you are speaking to. Master Ravenor was gesturing, touching my father's arm and speaking urgently, and my father looked puzzled and surprised. I stood behind a pillar for the best part of a half-hour, trying to construct what they were saying from the gestures, and finally had to conceal myself as they walked past me and outside. I still don't know what they were speaking of, though I have seen my father looking at me with an odd expression on his face once or twice since.<br /><br />Now Master Ravenor has packed his many trunks, full of the specimens he took of the bones and rocks and stones around the town. They have been loaded on the waggon, and we have all stood politely out in the forecourt and waved goodbye. At last, I can relax.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-62325386511816203722007-06-11T22:02:00.000-07:002007-07-04T22:20:54.656-07:00Master RavenorMy father's old teacher, Master Ravenor, is visiting this sevenday. He is a strange old man, given to flights of speech, but he always has something interesting to say. I find him fascinating, and a little frightening. He <i>looks</i> at me as if he wanted to take me apart and examine all the pieces, and I am conscious of his gaze; it makes me uncomfortable. I do not look at him much, but stay in the background and listen.<br /><br />My mother tells me this is because he is a Natural Philosopher, always interested in the <i>why</i> of things. She says he finds it interesting how like my father I am, yet in a female body. She assures me he has no prurient interest, but is simply like that. I suppose she should know, she has known him for two and twenty years and more, but being scrutinized by a man, even in the best of intentions, still makes me feel odd.<br /><br />My sister told me, before she left, that he has a whole room full of glass jars in his home, each full of some natural monstrosity: two-headed babes, and giant worms from the belly of a woman who starved to death, though she ate and ate; a severed arm and a strange monster from the deeps of the sea. And more; though my sister did not know what else.<br /><br />This seems so unnatural to me that I am doubly disturbed when he stares at me: I do not want to be one of his displays!!! <br /><br />I saw him speaking quietly to Ennis outside the stables three days ago, and did not see Ennis again until today, when he was very thoughtful. He hardly noticed me standing so obviously at my machines, and did not help me. I wonder what Master Ravenor said to him?<br /><br />My project is moving apace. I asked young Asker, the jeweler's apprentice, about the coloring of metals, and he was very helpful. He hadn't learned all the techniques yet but he introduced me to Ailen, one of the journeywomen, and she is a fountain of knowledge! She sat with me for two days, trying to see a way to what I was attempting to do, and finally we uncovered a very neat solution. I was very pleased. However, now I am working on the machines' mode of travel, and in this I could use Ennis' help. It is too bad he is so distracted. If I could onlyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-71020600907941054092007-06-04T13:39:00.001-07:002007-07-04T22:02:28.907-07:00Working and PlayingThis has been a really difficult week.<br /><br />I am learning so much about what it means to be a Machine Artist, but every time I think I understand, I find I cannot make anything work. I am thrashing about in my own ignorance.<br /><br />Ennis has silently come and helped me twice now, with no sign of satisfaction on his scarred face. I always thank him politely, and he always puts down the tools and stalks away, as if I have offended him. I wish I could help him! And I wish I didn't feel so that I am the cause of his misery.<br /><br />I know that it was the fire and the pain of his flesh that hurt him, along with the loss of his lovely creations, but still, the way he behaves toward me - it's as if he wants to do something to me, I can't think what. He appears as if he is unwilling, and helps me as if I am an ignorant fool, and then goes off as if he can't wait to get away. Why doesn't he just stay away, if that's how he feels!!!!!<br /><br />My sister came back again with her new daughter. Everyone is fawning over the baby, which looks a bit like a side of beef, and my sister hardly has time to talk to me. No matter: I am always outside, in wind and in sun, trying to get my blessed machinery working. I told my father that I didn't think I had the right mind for this work, but he just smiled and patted my shoulder and said not to worry, I was ages ahead of where he had been at my age. I don't believe it at all!<br /><br />This Thor's day we went to the Meadows for a picnic, my only break in the misery of my learning. My mother packed an enormous lunch into the back of the waggon and we all walked or rode the five miles to the great stone tables cut there from the living rock. We spread out cloths and dishes and sat, feasting, for hours in the gentle sunlight under the vines which cross from tree to tree, a natural arbor. Ennis sat across and a little down from me and did not look at me once, though he did speak with my father some. I could not help staring at him. It seems to me that his scars are fading, becoming less thick and red: or am I becoming used to him? I could not stop looking at his rolled up sleeves, and the marks on his forearms. They did not seem bad to me at all. Why is he so unhappy?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-69897398614310010082007-05-14T13:51:00.000-07:002007-05-16T14:05:32.748-07:00CreatingI have begun working on my Machine project, and it is far more interesting than I bargained for. I had a sort of idea of a machine that would change color, and climb about on buildings. It seems to me that most of the machines stay close to the place they are designed to work - in the street for a parade, or around the feasting-tables, or in the throne-room of the King - but it seems to me they should be all around, like flags flying. Think how it would look, with these colorful machines clinging to the buildings, changing colors! The whole village, the whole palace could look as if it had put on feast-clothes!<br /><br />The tricky part, for now, is understanding how to create a carapace with a changing color. It's a new idea, putting a carapace on the machine. It goes against tradition, and may be greeted with horror. I'm not certain what the reception will be like. I think perhaps the Hands - my fine writing friend Eleanor - are to blame for this idea of mine, for I had never conceived of machines with clothes on before I came to your world.<br /><br />In any case, not only am I imagining a sort of shell, or flag, or banner on the back of this Machine-creature, but I want it to be able to change colors. Do I make it change at a signal from me? Or change according to something around it? Or is it simply a decision the Machine makes, a random thing? And how do I effect the change?<br /><br />So I have been sketching and reading about this.<br /><br />Yesterday morning, as I was deep in the midst of temperature and color-changes in metals, I felt a presence behind me. It was Ennis. He was looking at what I was reading, and I caught, for the first time in months, a look of interest on his face. But immediately afterward his expression closed up like a fan and he turned away, the angry set back in his shoulders.<br /><br />Since then, he has walked through the courtyard where I work far more often than usual, but I have not caught him looking. Still, I think my plan is making progress.<br /><br />The King has returned from a trip to Alyr.. 7 .. SORRY I'M ..xbUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7313701305697526669.post-23607324690220694002007-05-07T13:18:00.000-07:002007-09-13T14:02:33.065-07:00In the LabyrinthI am so happy to see Eleanor, my excellent Hands. I have been thinking of you, and wondering.<br /><br />For the past three days I have been in the Labyrinth with my father, working on our secret. Each day, on the way to where we are working, I stop at the Steam Beast's lair and marvel at how it changes. I cannot see how it is done. My father has the only keys to the Labyrinth, and I have been with him all the time recently.<br /><br />He claims the Steam Beast does it itself. I know the Great Machines are capable of many things, but I cannot see how a machine could recreate itself. My father, who has faith that I seem to lack, says that the Great Machines have their own minds, built long ago by the great craftsmen, and that they sit in their places, dreaming of what they will be next. They live, he told me, for their yearly unveiling. To me, this seems a form of sorcery, but my father says it is not, only a very great skill that has mostly been lost.<br /><br />He is already drawing up plans and setting out his workshop for the next great festival, the Midsummer's Feast, planning a new version of his Fireflower Machines. This new secret, the project we are working on, will only take up his time for a little longer, and then he wants to spend his free time in the workshop. The Curator always gets a good place in the Festival Machines, but they are not always as skillful as my father.<br /><br />So: now I have to think of a Machine-project I want to work on. It will be my first, as I am only just through my Passing Ceremony, and I will need help with it. Plenty of drawing out plans in public places, I think, and some judicious, obvious cursing - and perhaps a little poor work with the cogs and gears ought to do it; a certain someone is bound to try and help me. I'm excited to see what happens.<br /><br />But more of that later. Let us see if I'm successful before I disclose any further.<br /><br />Hieram has, thankfully, gone back to his family's manor, three days' ride to the West. I hope they will keep him busy enough to stop him interfering. I was heartily glad to see him go! Any longer, and I feared someone would offer me to him in marriage, he was so persistent. And yet I cannot see him wanting a Curator for a wife. <br /><br />But then, I think it is not perhaps a wife he wants. I wish I knew more about men!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0