roadworks span

 As above… So below.

BOOK π

When I wrote these next pages back in 2020 I had reached a point in my tinfoil where I could nearly count up to eight. 8 Cities, 8 Chandrian, 8 Angels and 8 Amyr… there might even be 8 Sithe, too, but they are not important here…yet. But if we are going to uncover the true shape of the world then we are going to need somewhere to stand. So it's finally time to go to The University.

The Archives is one of the cornerstones of civilization which in another world (ours) would be regarded as one of the seven wonders, a dominant feat of engineering to dwarf all others. Sod Tinuë, all modern roads should lead to the Archives and so I think we had better start to begin drawing a few of my strings back together again for tangling together before knotting off at the present day. This is probably going to get a bit messy since I will, in part, be working backwards again, but this is also a real time deconstruction being built right now as I prepare to map the insides of the Archive out from top to bottom and back to front.

This isn’t actually all that hard, but my plans towards this end have needed to become further enlarged to provide the necessary viewpoint, that is should we first learn about the building or the builder? and so will require a better understanding of the whole University complex in it’s entirity. That looks a bit harder, but furthermore that fix has, invariably, has led to the need for something more to link them both together, and that calls for us to inspect the knotted mass that makes up the underthing, too.

Then we can finally start talking about Lanre.

 

1 ~ Tangles Dictum

‘Seven. You can hold to that with some certainty. It’s part of their name, actually. Chaen means Seven. Chaen-dian means “Seven of them”.Chandrian.

Now Ben is university educated, and that is where he has learned a bit of ancient Temic, a language that predates ‘the old Tema that only priests know’ by a thousand years. But we should also remember that the university is Amyr run, and that they are at least as old as Thelu’s first priests and would also speak the old language of the world. Furthermore, nothing Amyr influenced should be taken at face value in these books, or indeed in their own books, and Dian is not Drian just as Chaen is not Chan. Inconsistancies indicate errors and given that Pat has stated that he poured an awful lot of time and thought into creating names for this language, and since Names Are Important, it is only fair that I do the same in order to decipher it back again, and I would expect things to be error free.

The Chaendrian are a groupe of various number. (Likely seven, given their name.)

Our folk history author writes his words to show an oddly spelt old Vintish dialect where lots of quainte olde wordes are given an extra letter ‘e’ for some rustic reason. Since the writing was from two hundred years ago, and Caudicus tells us that spelling wasn’t considered so important in ‘those days’ it may indicate spelling alterations were a common occurrence, which may or may not be important, but the author only assumes that the number and their name are connected.

‘You would do better to call them the Seven though. ‘Chandrian’ has so much folklore hanging off it after all these years. The names used to be interchangable, but nowadays if you say Chandrian people think of ogres and rendlings and scaven. Such Silliness.’

The Cthaeh cannot lie. And he all but 100% confirms that Yes there are Seven of them, and his word is always true. But that doesn’t mean that the whole word ‘Chandrian’ translates exactly into ‘seven-of-them’, He doesn’t actually confirm that as being a fact, and so it might not be so after all.

My beef with Ben lies with the structure of the words. If ‘dian’ means of them, then what does ‘drian’ mean? Adding a letter for unknown reason is grating as I cannot translate that part well enough myself to argue my case. But ignoring Ben’s assertion that ‘Dian-Drian’ both translate as ‘of-them’ for now, the numerical indicator spellings Chan- and Chaen- are quite obviously not the same thing. There is a whole extra letter ‘e’ written in the ‘older’ spelling which looks as though it has been ‘cut away’ from the shorter and more commonly known version and therefore is clearly a more recently adapted spelling. The Cthaeh, who knows all, gives us a tip as to the preferred faen way of naming procedure when different spellings may needlessly complicate matters. It suggests that the easiest way to avoid confusion is to simply don’t use either spelling and just abbreviate the whole meaning down to it’s most salient part, and then to use actual numbering instead and just call them ‘The 7.’ But I don’t want to blindly do what he says, I want to know more about such things.

Seven words

Now The Chaendrian are a world famous phenomena, and so the chances on everyone in every country and in every language all coming up with the exact same way of spelling are going to be slim, narrative septagy shouldn’t apply to proper names so why didn’t folk just stick with Chaendian once and for all in every language where they were known? The description should always be the same unchanging combination in every language. As far as the number 7 goes, we have it on good authority that in Siaru the old term ‘Chan Vaen edan Kote’ spells the number 7 as ‘chan’ which is only four letters long, not five as it is in the Temic ‘Chaen’. Even the Ademic have a word in their secret language for the Seven, which is another Old language from the days before the chaen-dian were first… created? That word which is indeed talking about the same ‘handful’ of powerful bad things is ‘Rhinta’ which bears no resemblance to any of our seven words so far, but that is a better word to use than chandrian, apparently, and there are other words quite similar too rhinta which do make appearances elsewhere.

In the Commonwealth, where they generally speak Aturan, we have a Big clue from Pat, but only in the 10AE spelling. In the original printing, Trapis tells us

‘But on the Seventh day, Tehlu drew near before Encanis could bring his power to bear and the seventh city was saved. That is why Seven is a lucky number and why we celebrate on Caenin.

This gives us the modern Aturan spelling for the seventh day, and it sort of looks a little bit like our other 7 words. ‘Caenin’ is also what much travelled and knowledgable Arliden probably uses himself in life and so it isn’t surprising that he didn’t know the archaic name for the seventh day of the week too, although Laurian did have a good ear for such things. HOWEVER, in the 10AE the word Caenin has been deliberately replaced by Pat with the equivalent word in Temic, ‘Chaen’ which is the old word for the seventh day in the old language which would have been spoken by the people like Perial who were actually living in the story at this time. Deliberate changes to the text for no obvious reason are signposts from Pat telling us that we are following the correct path and investigating the correct things with our lucky 7 words. Without such clues, the puzzle is possibly too difficult to solve, but with them… we can continue with confidence, and perhaps a bit of a smirk on our faces.

Chaen is counted a lucky number from ancient times which remembers the seventh wondrous city of the old world, of which everything else, including it’s name, is now long forgotten. Every story we have tells us that the name given to the seventh day is based around the word for lucky Seven to celebrate the day on which the seventh city was spared from destruction. The Tehlin Church then arrived on the scene and promptly gave its own names to the next four days. Now these are proper words with deep religious undertones. Felling replaced 8-day. Reaving replaced 9-day. 10-day was changed to Cendling and the last day of the span, the old 11-day, was completely hijacked and turned into Mourning, which has become a general day of abstinence and religious reflection and is the new focal point of the entire span which only helps draw common folks attention away from the significance of the number seven buried away in the middle. But the practice of counting the first seven days has been deeply engrained in the very fabric of Temerant life since the lost days of Ergen, Perial’s villagers came for her son on the first day of the seventh span. Collectively, the days one to six might also represent the six cities which did later fall. But the church was not instantly all-powerful and change was slow in the coming to the far reaches of the four corners and it was many years before the iron law and the book of the path finally forced the world to change it’s calender to fit with their holy ideals. Even Trapis corrects himself when he remembers ‘No, wait, there wasn’t any Mourning yet’ and so it seems that instead of the rather sweeping change of completely renaming everything, they simply incorporated the old traditions in so much as they even used the old numbering system in their own spans and furthermore introduced the ‘seven days of high mourning’ where they meddled with the countings of such things to their own satisfaction.

And so logically, and rhetorically, if follows that if Chaen means the seventh say, the first 6 days names will reflect the previous six numbers, too, and if that is true then this tells us that Luten. Shuden. Theden. Feochen. Orden. & Hepten are representative of the phonetic equivalents of the first six numbers the original language of the Egren empire, Temic.

Rosetta Stone

If we can take the calendar as an approved key, we should be able to confidently take one huge step towards translating some further pieces of Temic we are given. Writing our list of days down next to each other reveals a running theme throughout in that the numbernames all end with the same suffix. ‘-en’. Putting on my tinfoil helmet once again makes me think it quite probable that this suffix is an addition to the root numbering structure and that it is likely going to be something that has been added to the root seperately to indicate what exactly we are counting, (like one potato, two potato,) and so the whole is officially something that is ‘other’ than the real number itself. One good thought is that it acts like a pronunciation indicator fir-st. (1st) Seco-nd. (2nd) Thi-rd. (3rd) Four-th. (4th) Etc whilst another thought suggests that ‘-en’ is the suffix used when counting days specifically which indicates that they correct translation of our list is actually 1-day. 2-day. 3-day. 4-day. Since I like both theories I am going to propose that they are both correct and the construction is actually a two-part binding, a lot like those used in Sygaldry and Sympathy both.

If we assume that all the ‘-En’ part always means ‘-Day’ in it’s meaning, and if we were counting something other than days then this suffix would need not apply. Without it the root numbers will be

Lut = 1. Shud = 2. Thed = 3. Feoch = 4. Ord = 5. Hept = 6. Cha = 7.

This is now sounding, to me, a lot like the phonetic names that we give to our musical notes, namely Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti. Music knows how to follow a meter. Language too has a structure and numbers will always follow set rules when they are combined. It is not expected that this is going to be like a tally score, one scratch for each letter in each number, which would make one a one letter word, two a 2, three a 3, and although 4 actually is four letters, but there are limits to such an infinite scale as the last digit on any list, the number nine, would have a name that was nine letters long! and that is going to prove very unwieldly when we reach the upper levels of unlikely mathematics that will involve doing multiplication sums to combine two different word numbers together to make even more complex numberwords later on in this study.

In a perfect world, all things would be equally allotted the exact same amount of letters so that they could all display their long names equally, a triangle of three parts in the simplest form, one letter for each bit of their three part name. But this is not a perfect world, alas, perhaps, and Our assorted number/letter count is all different where we really deserved to see everything laid down in apple pi order. Since everything I have seen up until now indicates that any name is really a three part name, and considering we are going to need all the luck we can get, when it comes to breaking these numbers down into names again, I believe that we should use a maximum of three letters in our counting words to ascertain each of our true seven day-relating number words. Applying this 3-part thinking to the word Feochen for example will allow us to split it into three syllables, fe+och+en. We have already accounted the ‘-en’ part to indicate that we are counting a number of days, but Fe-och meaning 4 still looks far too complex to me.

Sticky Stuff

Remembering our other lessons in Pat magic though might help us to put everything together in a way that will satisfy our understanding of the universal laws that apply to all things Temerant. Ben begins teaching sympathy by using pitch pine as a sort of placebo glue to help things fit easier together. It wasn’t strictly necessary, only a glue for the mind, but once you understand the principals at that level of magic it helped supplying a basic yet familiar understanding of unfamiliar concepts when it comes to unfamiliar practices, a lot like Kvothe has to explain to both Marten and Denna about ‘invisible string’ where a technical explanation would be out of the quiestion. This magic glue also makes an appearance in sygaldry lessons when Kvothe explains that when you are working with runes, some runes for different things fit nicely together, whilst others do not. It is a universal rule that some things, like numbers, just fit better than others do, such is the way of things. Kvothe explains the complicated process of how to stick two runes together with the use of ‘linking runes’ such as ‘Ule and Doch are both for binding’ and so when it comes to unfamiliar concepts we do at least have a grasp of accepted practice on what might be possible in our entry level Temerant language construction class too.

It appears to me as though the ‘Fe-‘ part in Feochen may be an example of how two pieces of our puzzle simply do not fit very well, at least not without an extra linking rune in between, and if that is so then we can recognize the magic glue for what it is. Fe-en alone might not create a satisfactory combination of ‘4-day’ by itself, and so to make it work at such a desired level the universe has declared that it was necessary to use the linking rune ‘doch’ between them which has the right linkage to fit with both edges at once. This would create the new word Fe-Doch-En to mean Four (th) day. Yes, I am aware that Doch is not Och, but there are 197 different runes in the sygaldry alphabet and we do not know them all. Just enough to make some educated guesses. So when looking back at our original calender I will predict that the correct constructions are as follows.

Lu (t) en , Shu (d) en , The (d) en , Fe (och) en , Ord-en , Hep (t) en , Cha-en.

We will note that five and seven are similar in that they do happen to fit nicely without any magic glue, but the general trend is to break up the vowels and consonants in a way that doesn’t need to use any added accents, such as ‘Ë’ to do the dirty work when it comes to pronouncing diphthongs.

There is indeed some evidence that what I am suggesting is in all actuality the correct method for the construction of converting numbers into names when we look to the language of Siaru. In Pat’s most famous example we are given four words by Kilvin that translate into a five word sentence!

‘Chan Vaen edan Kote‘ , we are told on good authority, means ‘Expect Disaster Every Seven Years.’ This will clearly mean that in that ancient and secret language, One of these words is going to have to do double-duty and represent two words at some point. Those who may disagree with my reasoning might possibly suggest that this will simply be a case similar to our own worlds words ‘century’, ‘decade’ or ‘lustrum’ which mean a period of ‘100 years, 10 years and 5 years’ respectively, and it is true that such terran language tricks might well be the answer here in Temerant too. But in the case for my methods defence, I will point out that if ‘Cha’ is the universal base for ‘7’ then it can act in a similar vein to our adding ‘-en’ to mean 7-day, so adding ‘-n’ might turn it into ‘7-year’ instead, which gives me two examples that both follow the same pattern. This translation would also leave the three remaining words ‘Vaen edan Kote’ to cover ‘every, expect and disaster.’ which would simplify a much easier basic word substitution for the rest of the saying into 1-2-3 order.

Breakdown

Since I have arrived at this conclusion using the lucky numbers 3 & 7, again. Now I always like to check my working to it’s limits and so to do that we should always try to break these things apart in a test of destruction.

In my answers, I have arrived at Lu = 1 and The = 3. Now! Trapis tale of Tehlu and the demon lord now has some interesting visual aspects as Teh-Lu now clearly uses the rune for One in his own name, and you could argue that he represents 1/3 part of Aleph’s holy trinity of ‘three-in-one’ which is all sounding rather good. In further stories about ancient things we can see ‘Lu’ everywhere as it occurs not only in Teh-Lu, but also in Lu-dis and even in Fe-Lu-rian giving us more reasons to believe in my numbers. Mixing numbers into actual names has thus opened up many new areas for further interpretation, but for now let’s just see what happens when we try to reach for the luckiest of numbers, 21 which is best represented by solving the sum Three multiplied by Seven. Or using this new key, ‘The’ times ‘Cha’. Now multiplication is complicated, but it is clear to me that the most obvious answer might well turn out to be a very interesting anagram of the letters that form it’s numbered parts, suggesting that ‘lucky 3’ times ‘lucky 7’ might just equal unlucky ‘Cthaeh.’

2 ~ The Old Stone Road

The Great Stone Road

This road is the elephant in the room. It dominates the map yet is rarely spoken of.

It is straight as a nail, flat as a table and older than God.

It runs from Imre to the Stormwal mountains, never deviating from it’s course. It doesn’t appear to actually go anywhere, the towns it does get close to were built because of it, not the other way around. It’s builders were even mindless of all the trees in the Eld, perhaps it was there before them. Our Earliest mention of it is in Hespe’s tale The Broken Road. Jax follows it westwards to Tinuë, where we are told all roads lead, before travelling onwards into the mountains in search of the moon. At face value this tells us that it was there before the creation war and thus predates Lanre and the Blak of Drossen Tor, which is coincidentally very nearly an anagram. The Free City of Tinuë is Not on the road itself, however this can be altered to fit by putting the name to the ancient area of land around the roads end as Tinuë proper and the free city being one small part of the whole, like saying that the capital of Mexico is Mexico City, but you dont have to be in Mexico City to be in Mexico. Ancient Tinuë also used to be part of the Lackless estates, which were a full earldom at the time until the bloodless rebellion, a very interesting term indeed as it also Pat’s original name for the series, Kvothe the Bloodless and to Master Namer Elodin’s choice of name for the arrowcatch.

So the road runs from Tinuë to Imre, but Imre is a modern city which has grown around the useful roads end purely because of it’s usefulness. The real end of the road is some two miles west of town after the road spans the Omethi river as it approaches its final destination. Also of note is a random standing stone which we are told marks Old roads which sort of dates it as older than they.

The Omethi bridge, called Stonebridge by the locals, is our only glimpse of the road itself. It is described as ‘Ancient, mammoth and part of the landscape with not a soul wondering who built it or why.’ …until I came along that is, although we are later informed that it has more stories and legends surrounding it than any other University landmark, such as the term ‘spit for luck’. Wide enough for two wagons to pass and sporting a waist high parapet Stonebridge is part of the Stone Road and crosses the canyon for two hundred feet clearing the river five stories below until, with the last natural obstacle now behind it, it reaches its true terminus at the University itself.

The Aturan Empire expanded around it, they even renamed it the Great Imperial Road for a while but they didn’t build it. There can be little doubt that its construction was by a highly skilled civilization and it’s very stones have withstood the ravages of time with remarkable ease, the endless trees of the Eld bearing witness to this fact. Only by employing a power at least as great as the Name of Stone would be acceptable for contemplating it’s construction since the bridge still stands and the stone has refused to crack, crumble or collapse even after all this time. It is quite obviously a road built by a race of master builders whom history has long since forgotten, such as the Ergen Empire who’s inhabitants built their wonderous cities over five thousand years before.

The Archives is the centre of the University, it’s oldest part which itself stands upon the ruins of a former university telling us it too was at the roads terminus and therefore marks a previous connection. The courtyard where Kvothe received his whipping at the pennant pole is called the Quoyan Hayal, or House of Wind and still remains where it always has, outside the Archives only door, above which are carved the words of old in their forgotten language Vorfelan Rhinata Morie. Apart from housing books, the archives is the location of our greatest mystery, that of the four-plate door. Expert craftsmanship has again been employed in its design, seamlessly built from a single piece of stone in a frame, you can run your hand across it’s face and barely feel it’s outline. Neither hinge nor handle mars it’s face, it’s only ornament are the four copper plates with their mysterious holes flush against it’s face and carved with the unknown word VALARITAS. Like the unerring road, it too could have been engineered using the name of stone and I am convinced the Door and the Road are indeed inexorably linked. It is a door which holds secrets that are not for others to know and whilst it calls strongly to Kvothe,and indeed to Elodin, like no other secret does this is actually a door for staying shut.

So what might lie at the far end of this enigmatic road? We haven’t actually seen it but we do hear from historians that the lands around Tinuë were once controlled by the Lockless family meaning that they, historically, have always controlled their end of the road. It is another private and secret place and we have the historian Caudicus’ self investigatory rumour that…

‘In the oldest parts of the Lackless lands, in the oldest part of their ancestral estate,there is a secret door. A door without a handle or hinges. There is no way of opening it. It is locked but at the same time lockless.’

It should also be noted that the type of key Meluan used to unwrap the Loeclos box is of a shape and design that would fit the four holes in the four plate door at the University end of the road. This is not concrete evidence, but we don’t believe in coincidence here and so it might as well be carved in stone for all to see that here is a link. We have a huge stone road made for unknown purpose, most probably created by using the name of stone. At each end of the road are mysteriously individual yet uncannily identical sounding individual locked doors, standing like a pair of bookends which, together, make up the working title for KKC3.

The Doors of Stone.

 Great Stone Road

3 ~ Myr T

Myr Tariniel is an awkward name in my head, and translating it alongside Denna's Mirinitel mangling is on a par with Imre Amary. It is difficult. It's got too many bits going on, too many syllables, too many edges, too many parts. Too many possibilities and not enough clues. I prefer to abbreviate anyways for ease of typing. The city itself might well bear it own 3 part name. But Myr Tariniel clearly means something specific, obviously, we just don't know what. 

It could very well be a direct translation of the Shining city, which isn't a bad guess as that's a phrase Skarpi uses as though it has a calling name as well as an official name. But my jot is going on the correct answer being White Tower.

We don't really need to map out Myr T itself, Skarpi does enough for a general image, but we can perhaps use any info gleaned make a bigger picture as we try to map the Empire of Ergen into a more visual format. A skyline as it were.

'Sit and listen for I will speak of the shining city as it once was, years and miles away...'

That is an odd introduction. An announcement that almost sounds like an invocation, or legally binding declaration. He has chosen to offer his Talent bet to the unknown owner of the voice who called for a story about Myr Tariniel, but has also acknowledged that Kvothe would get his own answers, too.

We can take much from Skarpi's tale, since we now know who he really is, and thus can treat his words with respect. He was as good as present himself, after all almost certainly having heard Selitos' account of how things turned out first hand.

The basic image we need though is that Myr T was built of white stone and it's Lord lived in a tall tower.

We can also assume the ruling towers location to be the highest point in the known world , and thus technically closest to the moon by a few degrees if that is important, maybe that was part of why it was deemed to be superior to all of the other cities who were subordinate to it. 

'Eight cities remained. They were Belen, Antus, Vaeret, Tinusa, Emlen, and the twin cities of Murella and Murella. Last was Myr Tariniel, greatest of them all.'

The order in which Skarpi lists them is deliberate. It is not alphabetical but neither is it random.

Why should the greatest come last? Because that statement clearly implies that it was at the end of the line, the terminus of a great chain of other cities that started far away with Belen at #1, then Antus at position #2 etc etc. Now Occam's Razor suggests that instead of being scattered like the notable 4Corners cities are, Ergen cities were actually built all in a row. A straight line of cities running right across the world like a scar, or maybe even a zip? Each one with their own less powerful version of rulers in their own lesser towers we can imagine. That line of thinking suggests they would actually have followed the exact same line of longitude that is now the province of the Old Stone Road, quite possibly this line of cities was called the Drossen Tor back then, making the famous battle of the same name 'the Blak' the battle of control of this line. Occam would also suggest that each city along the way might well be strung out equidistantly along the path in Apple pi order from Imre to Tinüe like so many fairy lights before heading up the mountainside to the big White Tower of Lord Selitos at the top.

/Diagram tak

Now ee can best represent this information in the form of a grid on a board of 8x8. Write the numbers 1-8 in the first line, and their translation in the second row. City names can fill up line three. Any problems, guess./

Selitos' A-myr are named in memory of the shining city and they would likely hope to emulate the same lofty ideal that was white Myr-T before it's very stones turned to black. Their order's symbol is also depicted as a tower, and If the game we are playing were chess then I suppose that would make the Amyr to represent the white rook, but they don't play chess in the 4Corners, (unless they call it Tirani over there) but they do play Tak!

5π ~ Tak

The rules of Tak are simple and easily learnt and so readers having some small understanding of this game will be useful. Boards are available in the gift shop but even a nicice can hopefully still grasp the gist of this trichapter without them.

Quite how gods really play their beautiful games is beyond mortal ken.

You need an abstract mind to play a beautiful game. One man's love is another man's lust. 

Imagine, if you can, two Gods or rather the two Aleu playing cosmic tak. One is the god of day and the other the god of night. Between them they watch over the whole world, one half at a time, and never the twain shall meet. Their world in question is also their gameboard and it has many squares for many stones to be placed Their actual board is infinite and thus has Far too many components for the numbers to make any sense to us mere mortals. But for all the difference it is all the same, it's just a question of scaling and focus, and it Is only a game after all.

Now games have goals and in Tak the objective is to create a pathway of stones that will run right across the board. Now it occurs to me that if our two gods were also playing Tak, which is the assumption upon with this whole πece now rests, then there are some interesting opportunities to apply the same rules of Tak to the shape of the world that was Ergen by

Superimposing a giant Tak board over the Map of 4Corners.

The size of a tak board can vary but the largest suggested size in the rulebook is 8x8. Earth people are comfortable with this number of squares as that is the same size board used in chess. Odd fact, chequers only utilises half a board.

If we line our board up along the length of the old stone road we might then imagine this stone line to show the winning combination of a completed path and thus the endgame position, but who won? When Myr T still stood, it was white and so white must have won. But on Lanre Day, if fell under shadow and it's walls were blackened, and so Black must have won. But The stone of this road today is neither black nor white but is ... well, Stone colour, a nice neutral grey implying the position of this game board since Tehlu Day to be a draw. 

Now there are of course rules about draws which come down to the judge counting the amount of flat stones used in in the paths construction and our road today is declared to be 'straight as a nail, flat as a table, older than god'

So it it looks like the final move on this Aleu game table was to flatten all the standing Waystones into horizontal Laystones , domino toppling perhaps from points to goats.

Now, alongsides normal stones, which may be played either standing like way stones or lying like lay stones Tak also has capstones. Very Powerful pieces that can flatten upright stones and may also form part of the winning path themselves. In this recreation I am going to give a name to the white Capstone as being Selitos and place him in his white tower at position#8 since Myr T's location dictates it was the last stone in the road. The seven stones that proceed it will have their own given names, namely Murella 7, Murilla 6, Emlen 5, Tinusa 4, Vaeret 3, Antus 2 right down the line to Belen at #1 giving us a pre Lanre Day Ergen skyline of seven single standing white Waystones all in a line with the big white capstone on the endmaking eight.

In the days of Ergen, Myr T was a city famously carved out of special white stone which absorbed by day and still shone after dark, solar stone I suppose, sort of. But then came Lanre Day when the light went out and the white tower fell! it fell beneath the shadow of darkness and it's burnt walls turned to black. 

Back on the cosmic Tak board this would be when the black Aleu player made his move which was designed to turn all of the white stones into black ones. And that would mean total victory for black and the end of the world as we know it. The black capstone overthrew the White Capatone and the white castle was replaced with a Black Castle. You with me?

Across the lands below six more white stones were also flattened and burned, and followed suit , so inverting the colour of the road as they toppled.

But one White stone city did Not topple and did not turn to darkness. One tower did not fall because one ruler remembered the lethani and successfully resisted the enemy plan and thus a total victory for the black Aleu was averted.

The only white stone still stood on a black road of ruin was the lucky seventh stone, and that city of stone was named Murella. Giving us a new landscape of six black Laystones , one white Waystones and black Mirinitel, (Myr Tariniel that was) still last in line as usual. 

3 reprise ~ Belen

Stone #1 was named Belen and that is the third important city in our board map. All the rest are just so much decoration really. But Belen is a city which we Can cartographicly flesh out in detail with a map or several. 

There is a good argument that Belen was also a Capstone.

If Iax followed the Line of the road ever eastwards towards its mountainous end that means that when Jax first crossed over into Ergen to begin his moonquest then it was through a doorway found somewhere in the far west. The site of this first stone city seems entirely logical suggesting that Iax the gamepiece likely stepped onto the board at one edge through some mysterious black door between realms, a door left open by the departing Tinker Aleph somewhere in the city of Belen. He may have done some trading here but then departed on his quest and eventually crossed the whole game board.

But Belen of Ergen is where we will now turn our attention as we bypass Atur and follow the road to it's western terminus. It's time to visit The University. 

Ancient Belen of Ergen was the home to a ruler of its own, and her name was Lady Lyra. She was married to Lanre, the captain of her guard, and Skarpi reports that between them

"They defended Belen from a surprise attack, saving the city from a foe that should have overwhelmed them. They gathered armies and made the cities recognise the need for allegiance." 

Unpacking that sentence tells us that since it was a surprise attack, Lyra and Lanre must have been already in Belen when it happened in order for them to defend against it. Only afterwards did the cities band together in unity meaning that at the time of this attack Belen was still defending itself independently. That tells us it was a problem dealt with by the local defence militia, ie Lanre and Lyra. 

The Lord and Lady of Belen.

Lyra is actually a contender for being awarded Capstone status like Selitos was since they were of an equal power. Rather conveniently for tinfoil purposes the rules of Tak played on an 8x8 board do actually accommodate this scenario for a game with two capstones and fifty smaller stones.

We might then assume that when Lord Lanre left Capstone Belen to go and confront Lord Selitos at Capstone Myr T then his path would have actually had him following in Iax own footsteps, ever Eastwards down the line of stone cities. Perhaps Lanre was collecting his 'Chandrian to be' along the way, until he reached the eighth stone, the White Capstone of Myr Tariniel just in time for Lanre Day.

Seven lights went out that day, never to rekindle, but one lighthouse still shone whilst the others became dark houses.

7 lighthouses upright stones , equals the pure white light of Myr T.if you break light, you get a spectrum giving each lighthouse a colour. Roygbiv. 

Seventh lighthouse remained, = Murella, city of violet, city of Felurian, the ultraviolet queen of twilight. Her light no longer exists in mortal. God took it and created the Fae by lighting a candle in the darkness. Moon link is extra.

7-1=6. Colours in a Temerant rainbow. One person Chandrian.

If Lyra was from Belen and was equal in power to Selitos in his Capstone tower, she should have one, too. The archives. Or dark tower.

This gives us a tower at each end.

When Lanre arrived in Myr T he must have travelled the road. Like a domino toppling the towers .

Upright domino towers become horizontal domino road. Lay stones and way stones. 

The wedge in the road shunted each ruin one move to the east, closing the gap of Murella but shortening the road length by one colour. No more UV, Musical scald also affected. Earth moved and sky changed. 

archives.

The tower that stands there now is a library. 

4 ~ Tall Stories

The Omethi river is a pretty big river which over time has cut a gorge so deep that an ancient and mammoth bridge was necessary to cross over it. Stonebridge, as it is known, is 200ft across and carries the Great Stone Road 100ft above the water, a drop that is also reported as being five stories deep. Playing about with these numbers a bit might just reveal exactly how tall a story Kvothe is actually telling here. He tells us that from the crest of Stonebridge he can, for the first time, spy the top of the archives building to the West, rising up above the trees like some immense greystone.

‘Featureless, grey and square as a block. Larger than four granaries stacked together. No windows, no decorations, and only one set of great stone doors.

Now, having such a monolith as it’s obvious target and having crossed the world to get this far, one would naturally expect that the great stone roadwould run straight up to these great stone doors which would therefore open outwards in welcome towards the great line of stone that is approaching it from the East… but they don’t. When Kvothe did finally arrive at the terminus of the long road from Tinuë he found a wall standing before him and he still had to circle around the block in order to find the way (stone) inn, and so whether he circled around to the North or to the South is rather irrelevant as this circling action means that the doors to the archives are going to be found on the far side of the structure and will therefore face West. Whilst this might seem a strange design there is probably a good reason for it. It would, for example, be an offense splitting obstacle towards anyone or thing dangerous that might come storming up the road to cause trouble… such as the worthy locals of Imre if they ever decided to come up to the castle one night with their flaming torches and their pitchforks to play a game of ‘burn the arcanist at the stake’! Whatever the reason was behind the architects thinking, this is the correct orientation of the archives. The building itself has a square footprint, and a very large square at that. We aren’t told the size of the square edge exactly, but we are told something about the buildings height from looking at it’s insides.

‘I found stairwells leading down as well as up. The archives was six stories tall but I hadn’t know it extended underground as well. How deep did it go?’

Ignoring that question for now, we can use the information given here to make an estimate at a height since Kvothe had already measured the drop for us at Stonebridge as being 100ft above the river and he later gives us a very useful comparison yardstick by also calling this height five stories, and 100ft/5 = 20ft each which should make our six storied archives 120ft tall. Kvothe also compares the building to a giant greystone which are actually much taller than they are wide, but this building has also described as being ‘square as a block’, which means that it is actually going to be a cube! and since we now know it’s height, we should know all of it’s other dimensions, too, giving us a working archive size of 120 x 120 x 120 cubic ft which is enough room for an awful lot of books.

Granaries.

We can check this best by examining Kvothe’s use of a granary as a scale when judging the size of things. Whilst his revelations are likely true, they are rather unhelpful since we don’t have any context to compare it with like we would have with some our commonly visualised units of earthly measuring units for the height or length of things such as an Eiffel tower, or a double-decker bus. However Kvothe does know exactly how big a standard Temerant granary is and he actually uses this as a unit of measurement for us twice.

The inside of the Artificiary is also described as being as big as the insides of a granary and the height of the Fishery should therefore be found to be one quarter the height of the archives which we were earlier told is ‘as big as four granaries stacked together.’

If you look up from the floor of the large open work space we can see Master Kilvin’s ever burning lamps hanging high in the rafters. These lamps can be accessed from an iron walkway which is measured at about 25 ft high. So if we add enough room to stand up we can concur that the ceiling itself will be about 30ft high, and through knowing the height of our granary we can now simply multiply that by four which gives us the same 120ft answer to tally up nicely enough with the estimate we arrived at from our earlier bridgework.

That’s probably enough trigonometry now since whilst such numbers are good enough to visualise scaling when making maps or models they aren’t really among the important things to have to know. It’s location is slightly more important in the grand scheme of things but the most important thing to know about the archives is that such an impressively designed feat of engineering actually exists at all.

First Glimpses

So now we can begin to put pencil to paper by drawing a large square base incorporating a factor of 12 units to an edge and leaving a largeish gap on the Western edge for the pair ‘massive stone doors.’ This opening, which is possibly a match for the unknown thickness of the walls themselves, leads into a small ante-room where a more normal sized pair of wooden doors grant access to the front desk which is itself positioned in front of a single door marked Scriv’s Only.

Twice we get to go behind this door, the second time is when Kvothe goes to see Lorren in order to buy back his book Wilem tells us that his office is the door at the end, implying that there are others along the sides, but there must also be a down staircase around here, too because on the other occasion, Master Lorren leads us through the same scriv’s door and then down one flight before showing us into a private reading room in which they can discuss the Order Amyr in secret, as is only right and proper.

Since we haven’t turned any corners, we are now passing towards/through the very centre of the grey block and it would seem rather likely that the Master Archivist’s office is going to be situated at the exact centrepoint of the ground floor. It would also seem to me that if he so desired, he could order all the doors before him to be thrown open and so he could watch the sun set in the west along the length of the passageway from the comfort of his own half-moon shaped desk.

Two other sets of double doors lead away from the front desk. The entrances to Tomes and Stacks.

‘Using both hands, she tugged one of the heavy wooden doors open, revealing a large, high-ceilinged room filled with long tables.

This is the main reading room and the dark stone is well lit by sympathy lamps and at least one wall is covered with ‘all the necessary tomes used for the most basic classes’…such as the mating habits of the common draccus! There is also the requests desk where the scrivs operate from and since we know that the scriv’s only corridor has other doors than that of Master Lorren’s office we can assume that one of them will give access from there to here making the staff areas an island. Not much else to say about it really except that the high ceilings that are described are in keeping with our guess at 20ft to a story.

Tomes is just one room but Stacks is a bigger puzzle to solve which may require us to read Corridors: Their Form and Function and that is therefore a study for another time. A small peek through this door, though, reveals the start of the bookshelves proper, but given that we have used up a lot of our allocated ground floor space already on our explorations through the other doors then we are clearly going to need to find some staircases in order to access the other levels. When caught with a candle by the 4-plate door it is mentioned that he was ‘found by the south-east stairwell.’ which indicates the presence of others, perhaps there will be four similar stairwells in the other four corners?

5 ~ The Amyr

We know that the Amyr are not human, none of them ever were, and Bast tells us that there are no such things as demons, only ‘my kind,’ Only mortals and fae.

In The Lightning Tree Bast also tells us a secret…

‘The fae folk look nearly like we do, but nor exactly. Most have something that makes them different. Their Eyes, their Ears, the colour of their hair or skin. Sometimes they are taller than normal, or shorter, or stronger, or more beautiful.’

Lorren is exceptionally tall and as unblinking as a pillar of marble, (although Kvothe manages to make him do this twice!) he certainly has something suspicious about him. He has long hands, long fingers and a long face. Ten Gold marks if you can make him laugh, Manet calls him ‘Old Lore!’ When Kvothe asks a scriv for a book on the chandrian, one is provided quickly (well found that scriv!) but finding information on the Order Amyr takes the scriv much longer, why? Probably because there isn’t any as we are to discover for ourselves. Books on the Amyr have been removed by persons unknown. So what does our scriv do?

He asks for help and eventually Lorren gets involved. An Amyr in the library would need to discourage such investigations at the source which he does by telling kvothe the basic lie package of the church amyr. But this is not proof, Master Lorren may well be simply a strange teacher who is ignorant of the truth. To uncover real proof, we need to look at the 10th anniverasry edition, and especially to some corrections to the original print which I carefully uncovered.

The alterations were made by Pat, to tidy up small discrepancies in the tale. The answer to master Brandeur’s triangle question is one example. (see Maps of Temerant) But a few pages later, some dates have been changed. Hard, solid changes that leave their mark. We are also given a calendar to help us count.

Pat’s world has eight months, and they all have forty-four days. They are, in order, Thaw, Caitelyn, Equis, Solace, Lannis, Fallow, Reaping and Dearth. Each term is two months long. A month is four span of eleven days each. Luten, Shuden, Theden, Feochen, Orden, Hepten, Chaen, Felling, Reaving, Cendling and Mourning. (Trapis tale also has a change in the new edition. Chaen has replaced Caenin as the lucky seventh day. I suspect this may be a tema/temic alteration.) Earlier we proposed a theory that Mourning is a day of rest much like our Sunday. A quote from the Broken Binding in Seaward Square further tells us…

‘What day is it?’ “Shuden. The Thirty-fifth.”‘I had fallen out of the habit of keeping track of the date. On the streets, one day is largely the same as the next, save that people are a little more drunk on Hepten and a little more generous on Mourning. But if it was the Thirty-Fifth then I only had five days to get to the University. I knew from Ben that admissions only lasted until Cendling. If I missed them I would have to wait two months for the next term to start.

There is something wrong here, 35 plus 5 = 40. Cendling is the 43rd so in order to arrive on the correct date the line should read ‘Orden. The thirty-eighth.’ In the new edition this is now exactly what is printed. An honest mistake has been rectified. Well done to the proofreaders.

. Our next information comes from Roent, the cealdish merchant. Tarbean to Imre takes four days by wagon train, six if it’s raining. It doesnt rain so Kvothe makes his original journey in four days. Later, when Kvothe returns to Tarbean he hires a two horse fetter cart. This faster transport still takes a whole day, nearly all of Reaving. Keth-Selhan might make the trip faster but only in the most exceptional circumstances. It is not a short trip.

He arrives just in time for the final slot for Spring term admissions on Cendling and this is recorded as the forty-third of Equis. Here is an alteration, and an incorrect one. The original printing stated the month, correctly, as Caitelyn. Proof readers are not infallible. His acceptance is reliant on master Lorren collecting Kvothe’s book from Tarbean, but this is not a problem as the master archivist already has a trip planned and informs the Chancellor that ‘I will be leaving for Tarbean tomorrow to fetch necessary materials for the coming term. If it is there, I will bring it back.’ A journey we know will take at least two days if he hurries, the first day being Mourning, a day of rest, when it seems unlikely that the bookshop would be open. The earliest we can expect him to do his business would be the next morning before heading back making his earliest time of arrival to be late on Luten, the first day of Equis and the first day of the new term. He could have sent one of his gillers, but he didn’t. He said that had already arranged to go himself.

Kvothe has his first lesson of term with master Hemme which lasts two and a half hours, then goes straight to the archives and asks for books. Before the day is out, Master Lorren speaks with him in his office about his book requests concerning the chandrian and the Amyr. But master Lorren should not be at the university today, he has gone to Tarbean and cannot make it back much before nightfall. He claims that he was ‘assisting one of the newer scriv’s with his duties and noticed Kvothe’s request’ before he disuaded him from any further searches.

The next day Kvothe’s lesson with Hemme lands him on the horns later that same night. The date of this is also recorded …

‘On the second of Caitelyn, Hemme called the masters together.’

This is another alteration. The original reads…

‘On the fourth of Caitelyn, Hemme called the masters together.’

A correct correction that is also incorrect at the same time. It is actually the second of Equis. The same mistake that was altered before has also been incorrectly re-corrected. It’s not easy being a proof reader sometimes. Unklike the Amyr, we are only human !

There were no unnecessary alterations. In the whole reissue I only found four. This was deliberately done by Pat, who felt it important enough to change the date backwards by two days. The month, whilst also incorrect, has remained unaltered in this instance.

A proofreaders error? That would account for the month, but the physical changing of the date means it was Not an error. The date is the second day of term and Pat wanted us to know this.

This has a knock on effect of telling us that not only that lessons did indeed start on the first day of the month, it also confirms that master Lorren should not have been in his office when he was.

Under the old printing, four days is not anything especial. But this alteration proves that at best he might have made if halfway back from Tarbean with his supplies when he spoke to Kvothe. Master Lorren does not come across as the sort of man who would ride a horse into the ground as part of an organised trip to collect necessary materials, especially not straight after a hard week of admissions. Master Lorren would not have been helping a scriv with his duties upon his immediate return. Even in an emergency situation, he should not have been on campus to be summoned. Perhaps this newer scriv was having trouble searching the archives for books on the Amyr, Good luck with that one mate. Maybe there are standing instructions among the older scrivs to report anything unusual to Master Lorren’s office immediately as we see during the candle scene. But if master Lorren was to be available for duty on the first day of term, something that would be expected of any master, with all his necessary supplies in place then he would have already dispatched someone else to fetch his supplies prior to kvothe’s interview. But he didn’t, he went himself. With Kvothe’s admission depending upon this mission, this did happen Proving that he made his trip to Tarbean and back in a day!

Master Lorren is either a liar or a time traveler.

This one day in question would also have been the infamous Mourning, when we suspect no bar is allowed to open. Although a bookshop isn’t a bar, we can assume the buying of supplies would add time to the mission too, and some form of rest for the master in the city. Options on how exactly alerting him that his presence is required has been explained elsewhere. Possibly a bit of sygaldry may have alerted him like a bell made to ring, or sympathy, a broken twig in his pocket is a one method we know of. But none of these things would alter the fact he couldn’t have gone any faster if the building was on fire. So how did he do it? I don’t know. But it would take an act of some power to achieve, the kind of power I would normally associate with someone like Selitos and his ilk.

 Ivare Enim Euge.

6 ~ The Unseen University

Cthaeh tells Kvothe the masters at the university may have some answers about matters Chandrian and Amyr which is as good as a statement of fact that they do. It is my belief that this clue is pointing directly towards asking Selitos one-eye and his Amyr who have made the University their HQ. At least one master is suspect. I don’t think master Lorren is actually Lord Selitos in disguise, no, But he does fit the bill for being one of the Amyr. Librarians always know more than they let on and If Selitos and his Amyr have any connection to the University then it would be to it’s most original and oldest part. If he still lives then our one eyed mutant has disguised himself and is hiding somewhere…

Just like Kote is doing right now in newarre…

To answer the question of what Selitos might be calling himself now, I suggest we look at another character who hides behind another name. His exact words when pressed on the subject are ‘That would be telling, I suspect.’ which I like to read as telling being meaningful and suspect meaning not to be trusted. We seek answers, so we shall go to where Kvothe went in search of answers. We need to go to the heart of the archives and see another see-er. We need to see puppet.

The Secret Lives of Librarians.

The University is situated at one extreme end of the Great Stone Road, a road which leads here by design, and the archives are the oldest part of the University. Before then we are informed there was an older university on the very same site. This earlier campus was also centred around this self-same building. The Quoyan Hayal or ‘house of wind’ still exists from bygone times, indeed careful clue chasing reveals this to be the self-same courtyard where we find the pennant pole where Kvothe was whipped. It still stands in place to this day, and it lies before the archives only door.

The building itself is a windowless block of grey stone, four stories tall and with at least three levels underground. It resembles a giant greystone dominating the landscape. Puppet lives deep in the archives in his own chambers on the level sub-three. This is the floor below the four-plate door which is itself underground. Sub-two is where the Tehlin court records live, 

‘a thousand years of court documents from a hundred different cities squirrelled away down in sub-two, whole rooms full…’ 

That is a thousand years of collected history, a collection begun a century ago. The stairs down to Puppet are worn by centuries of use, meaning that Puppets lair is in the oldest parts of the heart of the university. This level is also where the room with the Yllish knots are kept, ancient, obsolete, forgotten and covered with the dust of time since the day were first allocated space in the building. The deeper we go beneath the archives, the older things are and the closer we get to some answers.

His room has candles, a most unwelcome item to be used in a library as we all now know. How can this be acceptable? The most likely excuse for this exception to the rule is that Puppet must know the name of fire and therefore have complete control over any possible accident for him to be allowed them, anything less would be unthinkable for Master Lorren to accept to letting him live there with naked flame among his precious books instead of stringing him up by the thumbs or dispatching him to the hospitality of Haven. So Puppet must then be a namer, which makes him Re’lar and he has the trust of the masters, indeed our first sight of him shows him wearing a black robe like the masters wear (albeit too big for him). He doesn’t leave his rooms very much and you need to be a member of the arcanum to see him. Puppet’s most obvious skill is that he has a vast knowledge of the archives. He can direct you to an obscure book by level, row, shelf and spine colour as shown when he pointed out the exact location of Renfalques Dictum, a book Kvothe didn’t know. The enormity of this task is best summed up by Wil, who dabbles (dapples) a bit with puppet in his work as a scriv…

‘There are so many books in the archives… that merely reading all the titles would take you a full span. Eleven full days without pause for food or sleep. I worked it out a year ago.’

Which makes puppet a very impressive librarian indeed. The contents of the archives have been badly mismanaged over the years, various archivists have had their own method of cataloguing, we are told of Tolem, Larkin and Gilden, but it appears that no matter which of the libraries cataloguing systems we use, puppet knows the answer. But his skill goes much deeper than that. When the boys are searching for books about greystones to settle their bets, Sim cheats, he asked Puppet.

But he didn’t investigate the recommendations himself or else he would have found that one of the books on the list he was given didn’t support his own argument. Puppet not only directed him accurately towards various books, he also told him the very page numbers on which the information he wanted could be found. 

/Master Elodin must have consulted Puppet for his list of twenty books for his naming class to find, he checked they weren’t in Tomes but also said he had never read them himself, he even included En Temerant Voistra, a book whose presence he couldn’t confirm and might not even be there at all. /

Puppet not only knows the location of all the books in the archives, and all their titles, he also knows their contents, and can recall every little detail inside them down to the page number for greystones on demand. Here we see the difference between reading a book’s title and reading a book. Puppet has read them all.

Master Lorren couldn’t do that, nobody could. It would take thousands of years of reading and an extraordinarily powerful mind to reach that level of understanding. But Puppet can do this.

To be allowed access Puppet must be at least Lorren’s giller, maybe even an ex-master Archivist retired to advance his studies, his real name may even be Tolem, or Larkin or Gilden.

He is older than he first appears to kvothe, his face is smooth and unlined but his hair is pure white. He is also taller than any of the boys, despite his robes being sized for someone even taller, like a child playing dress-up in his parents clothes. Perhaps they once were master Lorren’s who is described as being exceptionally tall. We only get to meet Puppet once and aren’t told too much about his eyes, except when one eye was hidden by his hood when if fell over his face. Later they were described as ‘serious and clear’, but he is Very aware of his surroundings. He declares himself to be a See’er and there is no reason to disbelieve this given how he looks at kvothe ‘like I was an interesting stone or a type of leaf he’d never seen before.’ He doesn’t need to look directly at you, he described Kvothe’s exact facial expression without even looking up and likewise reads Wilem’s discomfort. He also catches Kvothe’s face perfectly when carving his latest puppet, or should that be mommet? He may be cracked at first appearance, but he is a true See’er with true power.

It is my conclusion that Master Lorren isn’t the true Master Archivist. Puppet is.

7 ~ Teccam

Masters and Puppets

The Archives are the very heart of the University, and the exact place where the Great Stone Road ends. It is also the location of the mysterious four-plate door, so named by puppet which he admonishes ‘shouldn’t be of any concern to a student’. Clearly Masters only stuff lies beyond . Whoever founded the University did so at this exact location for a very specific reason, so who did originally found it?

The current masters live in their chambers in Masters Hall above the entrance of which is a stained glass window depicting Teccam in a classic pose, barefoot in front of his cave teaching students. Who else would occupy such a revered place other than a famous alumnus, a former master and quite probably arch-chancellor. A figure of note from the buildings past history for sure, probably it’s founding father. No other name in academia is so celebrated and revered as Teccam’s, the most educated man of which we hear in all the history of the world. Teccam himself is all over these books like a rash. Elodin makes Kvothe read his classic work The Theophony from cover to cover whist drunk on applejack, and its not a small book to absorb. He is mentioned in Elxa Dal’s story of the ignorant edema and was also an architect, lending his name to a superior kind of winch. All the best quotes in these books come from Teccam, even the actual words ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ are his. Kvothe quotes heavily from The Theophany in the chapter Blood and Ink…

‘Mysteries…are not secrets. Neither are little known facts or forgotten truths. A secret, Teccam explains, is true knowledge actively hidden.’

This sounds exactly like what Kvothe has discovered in his search for books about the Amyr. Someone, with access, has pruned the archives for any record of them, and as Kvothe concluded…

‘Who would benefit most from the destruction of the information on the Amyr?

‘Who else but the Amyr themselves?

True knowledge has been actively hidden. Books have been altered or removed. Teccam’s words are uncannily accurate in this instance, the Amyr may have learnt a thing or two from his observations.

We are also told of Teccam that ‘philosophers have quibbled over his definition for centuries’, giving us a vague idea of when he lived, a long time ago when old men taught barefoot in front of caves, just like the old man of the mountains in Hespe’s story The Broken Road. That old man was a powerful listener who refused point blank to give his name when pressed, and his cave was high in the stormwal mountains which, coincidently, are situated at the other end of The Great Stone Road.

At This end of the road are the archives and deep underground lie Puppets chambers which could also be described as a cave. In a nice parallel, this old man declares himself a See’er and also avoids revealing his true name. Kvothe interestingly notices a pair of curtains on one wall suggesting a window despite them being so far underground, we also hear the bell tower chime which seems strange, there must be sygaldry at work for the sound to carry so far underground. The curtains make little sense as the other walls are crowded to overflowing with books, candles and puppets, so why leave one wall blank? There must be something behind this curtains, something hidden yet accessible, his bed room perhaps? Some private and hidden extension of his chambers no doubt.

Puppet is a See’er and kindly gives us the translation of the word and also tells of its origins. It was a university title awarded of old, in a langauage of old, and Puppet gives the boys a prediction from a master of the art by regarding Kvothe and surmising that he ‘shall never see what is in front of him.’ which I take as meaning the secret truth that lies hidden within the walls of his search. He also gives various deep looks of the kind we associate with the power of naming and indeed witness ourselves from various interactions with Skarpi, Elodin and Magwyn et al. Puppet knows names.

As well as being a namer, Selitos was also a see’er, the greatest see’er the world has ever seen.

If Skarpi did speak with Selitos and Tehlu, then extreme old age can be discounted as a barrier for some people. Haliax may not be the only name-knower from the creation war still alive, it may apply to all namers, or maybe to all of the Ruach, or the Order Amyr or it could just be Selitos himself, still out confounding Lanre and his chandrian after all this time. Which of these, if any, is true shall come later, but 5000 years of living would give Selitos a view of the world like no other, which brings us back to Master Teccam…

‘Modern Philosophers scorn Teccam, but they are vultures picking at the bones of a giant.

Quibble all you like, Teccam understood the shape of the world.

It is also worth noting that Felurian, who knows little of the mortal realm, pretty much quotes Teccam when talking of the moon when she speaks the line ‘a wise man views a moonless night with fear.’ maybe she has a copy of his theophony hidden in a tree somewhere, or perhaps she and Teccam just both share the same beliefs in the way things really are.

I believe that there is a lot more to Teccam than meets the eye. Too many clues show him as either the greatest mortal thinker ever to have existed, or that he is not actually mortal and has had a few centuries to polish his ideas and pass them on to all those who are, all the time hiding his true name. Similar to Skarpi with his recording of history, he has moved quietly about the world since Myr Tariniel fell and has been teaching others to think. He is another of the Ruach who was present before Aleph, but his fame has made him need to hide his own, unnatual immortality.

It is my belief that the Teccam of old is still alive and well, still in front of his cave, still teaching students, and still knowing more about the shape of the world than any one else. He is calling himself puppet now and the Archives belong to him. He has made his home at the very heart of the university which has sprung up around him. The preservation of Knowledge is his domain now, but only certain knowledge of certain things. He is the guardian of all it’s secrets. He ordered it’s construction and oversaw the project from within, like a spider in his web. He wrote Vorfelan Rhiata Morie above it’s door in a language now removed from the curriculum which would only aid the secrecy. It’s meaning is significant only to him and his ilk.

The road and the archive were possibly built by the same architect for the same reason. The 4-plate door. Anything less would be too coincidental, and we don’t believe in coincidences here.

He is one of the Amyr and he is moreso. He is their leader. He is Selitos himself. He changed his name from Selitos to Teccam and from Teccam to Puppet. He was probably many other names in between, Tolem perhaps? We don’t know. But he has slowly been dissapearing from the pages of history as he wrote them and is now continuing his work from out of sight, buried in the archives where only select members of the arcanum even know that he exists. Teccam is the Real Head Master of the University. A university that He founded for his own reasons, long ago, when he used another name. Every master throughout history has answered to him directly, from day one right up to the present moment, and they call him Puppet.

riddles

‘They call me Puppet.’

‘ Who is they? Who are they?’

‘Who are they then? Who were they then?’

‘Who are they now?’

‘You know, them. People.’

Puppet is very clever with words, very correct and very truthful.

Students call him puppet, and non-students have no reason to know of him at all, he doesn’t get out much which means these people he cites must be members of the Arcanum. Ex-students like Devi and Sleat could well know of him but he basically only interacts with scrivs. Manet was also a scriv once but whether Chronicler and Ben have also met him is unknown.

The first couplet puts the focus in the present tense ‘Who were they then?’ is Puppet correcting Kvothe’s question to make it gramatically correct. It is still asking who calls him puppet in a way that would fit the correct answer. Turning it to past tense also makes the answer historical and so we are talking about past members of the arcanum too, a historical group of people with whom he was aquainted. As well as former scrivs, gillers and masters, the ancient Order Amyr would also fit the demograph since his real work benefits them personally. But when Kvothe changes the original question to a present tense equivalent, which in this case would include a modern day equivalent of the amyr, Puppet stops playing word games and dismisses their clever badinage off-handedly with a non-answer. Kvothe has actually outmanouvered him here.

The evidence is building up now to a level where it cannot be dismissed so easily and each new argument adds a little more weight and sheds a little more light on our exposure.

Kvothe is being watched

8 ~ Big Brother

Deeper and Deeper

The University is Old. Elodin tells us of it being built on the site of a previous university, and even hints at a university before then. This site has always been a seat of learning, maybe even as far back as the days of Lady Lyra of Belen who once learnt the name of the wind and walked these streets like a tiny god. Belen is where Teccam has built the current university around the four plate door and the archives are the walls that keep this secret hidden. the archives themselves were built by the university’s secret amyr members , probably by using the name of stone since naming is the basis of all power and this is an edifice to their prowess. It is the most impressive building in the world, Caluptena excepted…perhaps. We hear nothing of it’s construction but it has a purpose and it is perfect at it’s job. No windows, Only one door* it is a fortress to the preservation of knowledge and none are allowed in who’s names aren’t in the book. Dangerous things lie within these windowless stone walls and that is where they will stay, inside, safe as anywhere can be from the likes of Devi who longs to find a way back in to poke about in it’s secrets. It is basically a prison.

It rather sounds like the place that Taborlin the Great was imprisoned in, long ago in a solid stone room that no man had ever escaped from, until he told the stone to BREAK, and the stone broke. But this stone is not broken because being shaped for purpose it is as unbreakable as all perfect things are and you couldn’t damage it if you tried. Nothing can get in, and nothing can get out, well that’s the theory anyway.

This would all make Selitos the warden and the amyr his prison guards in a nice parallel to the Sithe. He once was, and indeed still is, the most powerful See’er in the land. Many of the current masters are also namers in their own right, indeed it might almost be expected that they would all have a name tucked away in their heads to achieve their rank, part of the pecking order among the ciridae so to speak. Elxa Dal and Elodin admit they are namers in their own right, Kilvin too, perhaps, although it is not something you really talk about, back in the older times your enemy could guess your strengths and weaknesses if such things were widely known, and the Amyr have a particular enemy that they wish to confound. We also know that the ex-pupils Abenthy and Chronicler learnt their names here and they have since gone out into the world with this invisible protection always close at hand…literally, since Ben must have owned a ring of wind if you think about it. [But chroniclers iron pendant was not a gram ] But of the current masters, they must be considered to be the most powerful men in all the world today. Tiny Gods who can do wonderful and terrible things and rule the world if they so desired. but instead… they choose to teach. Why they do not exercise such power only God knows, and I’ll ask him about that later. But other powers come with naming and before they discovered how to speak names and became Re’lar, they were first E’lir, and that means that they had already gone beyond mere looking and had learnt how to see the true shape of certain things.

Just by looking at a thing Selitos could see it’s hidden name and understand it. In those days there were many who could do such things but Selitos was the most powerful namer of anyone alive in that age. Such was the power of his sight that he could read the hearts of men like heavy lettered books.

Now a man is not an object, that much is explained, yet fire would also appear to be an object beyond mortal ken, I mean where do you start? fire is an exothermic chemical reaction, but is it a thing? it undoubtedly has something lifelike about it but you couldn’t look into it’s eyes and read it’s heart it doesn’t have eyes, it doesn’t have a heart, but knowing the name of fire will bend it to your will and this is what can be done with the right power. The hearts of men are different though, man is a complex creature of many parts but sometimes common people can read the tell tale signs and know what is going on behind the eyes. shifty looks are the least of it, facial expressions can be read quite easily, there are signs that show secrets if you know how to look.

Puppet on a string

‘Oh dear me, See what I see. The head bows slightly. The jaw clenches, but the eyes aren’t fixed on anything, aiming the irritation inward. If I were the sort of person who judged by looking, I’d guess Wilem has just lost a bet.’

Puppet is not a looker, he is a See’er and doesn’t need his eyes to see the truth. Keeping your emotions under control is where power begins, The Adem are masters at this and thus their thoughts cannot be read by their enemies giving them an advantage in battle, Why do they do this? do they have something else to hide? is there something secret about them that makes them so? Powerful people keep knowledge hidden, mind reading is possible and gives you power over lesser men, If you can see someone’s inner thoughts and secrets then you could read their long names and then you would have power over them.

And as for one of the fae… well, the complexity in knowing their names is such that if you knew how difficult it was you would never have stood a chance of doing it!

During the battle with Felurian Kvothe sees her name written in her twilight eyes, ‘four clear lines of song’, the name of Felurian herself is not merely written to be read, it is a song to be sung! an endless eternal infinite song cycle which sounds throughout her very being for those with the power to see it (Just Kvothe then, basically, the master wind namer superior) and at that moment, if he had so desired, Kvothe could have splashed about in her thoughts and memories like a child in a muddy puddle. She was his to command, he saw the name behind the eyes and sang this song of power. The eyes are the windows to the soul it is said and so this is therefore an example of Kvothe reading the heart of Felurian ‘like a heavy lettered book’, he instantly knew her and everything about her, or rather his sleeping mind did and thus he had power over her and could have learnt all her secrets and made her dance helpless to his desire, a puppet on a string.

It gets worse than that thoug, Bast tells us of the skin dancers who once inside you can make you Bite.Out.Your.Own.Tongue! Kvothe could have done this to her but the thought sickened him, something about this was wrong, the lethani stopped him from wrong action. He could have thrown her to the wind like a sheet of paper but that would be like breaking Illien’s lute, or burning down a library. He was remined of ‘ripping the wings from a butterfly’ and that is the province of another…

 Back in mortal, we are told that Selitos wasn’t the only one who could do this, many could do such things, anyone who knows any names is on the right path to understanding the complex issues of reading the hearts of people. Earlier I hypothesised that this is how long lived Skarpi must have known Kvothe’s name without it ever being mentioned, and for lack of any further reason, I surmise that five thousand tears of practice would only improve anyone’s skill in mastering this upper level of understanding short lived barbarians. Those in the know about such things would include any other survivors from that era, be they singer, or Amyr or Sithe… or Chandrian! Kvothe may have been ‘read’ by Cinder during their encounter, it sort of feels a bit the same before Haliax intervenes… if you want it to… perhaps, perhaps not. Think about that one for homework.

What’s in a name?

We do get a few more guaranteed examples of name knowing to compare though, Elodin could look at kvothe ‘as if you were a book he was idly thumbing through’, that is stated when he receives his Adem name, and Magwyn gets deliberately put in this same unique category of powerful people when she looks Kvothe fully in the eye for his name reading. For the barest of moments he was worried she may be startled by what she saw, indeed Vashet seems very dismayed at hearing what his inner and secret name means. Magwyn looked at Kvothe and saw his true inner name, just like he saw Felurian’s true name earlier…I wonder if it was/is felanua? hmmm. more homework.

His name is not Kvothe, which we are told means ‘to know’, but the true ‘long’ name which is written inside him is Maedre which means ‘flame’, and ‘thunder’ and ‘broken tree’ and that is his name using not only the ancient language but of the universe.

‘Do you know what you have been, what you are not, and what you will be?’

Selitos said that and he knows about such things. It is not a riddle, it is a fact and therefore a prediction. Kvothe is the flame, he is not the thunder… and he will become the broken tree.

Such is the way of things, and Kote has become the broken tree , one of his hands doesn’t work properly anymore. That prediction is what shocked Vashet, to hear of another’s broken fate. Her own destination for those who like a happy ending is ‘the spinning wheel’, she gets to go around again and again, like a windmill but Kvothe will not, his circle is doomed to be broken. He is now experiencing Maedre#3 in all it’s glory and this story is going to end in tragedy. He is now called Kote which may mean expect or equally likely could mean disaster in Siaru, another of the old languages of Ergen…. which might mean that in changing his name, Kvothe has become… Cealdish!

Telling Tales.

Elodin is master Namer and he has the surest grasp of such things of anyone we know. He is so in tune with the world that it bubbles out of his every pore. Elodin can ask the right kind of questions any time he wants,one could say that he has this gift in spades. He can see things perfectly at all times. He is a see’er. He gives us the most curious of unanswered questions during admissions, a question that Manet has already predicted will come to pass.

Elodin gave me a wicked, knowing grin and I was suddenly struck with the fear that he might reveal my part of what we had done in Hemme’s rooms that morning.’

But instead of that we get another secret that the masters should not know anything about, his poor card playing with Manet had previously led to the eternal E’lir stating

‘Here’s a primer for admissions, you have three spades in your hand and there have been five played, how many spades is that?’

It sounds like a joke but come admissions and that is exactly what Elodin asked. Verbatim. The general conclusion? collusion? possiblyit’s as simple as that, but why? and for what purpose? Manet has been around the masters for a long, long time. He used to be a trusted scriv and is more trusted than many of the gillers despite never advancing his official lowly status. He probably knows this trick well and usually keeps his mouth shut, except when he has been drinking. Given what I have just explained I think that knowledgeable Manet deliberately left this exact thought inside Kvothe’s sleeping mind knowing that master Namer could pluck it back out again like a plum, as if Kvothe’s mind was a book with a dog eared corner telling him exactly where to look for such a thing. That is what see’ers can do if they are skilled enough, and if they have the desire, they can completely control your thoughts and actions, they can play games with your mind like hypnotists, they can read the hearts of men like heavy lettered books they can make you bite.out.your.own.tongue. This is what Bast says the dancers can do, this is what all the fae can do, this is what accomplished Namers can do. Yes, this is far fetched theory at first, but the evidence is there to be denied. Some of the masters at the university are on the shortlist of current Namers abroad in the world and the Namers once walked the streets like tiny gods. Elxa Dal knows two names. Elodin knows more! do all the masters have this power? does Kilvin know any names? would they all have to know names to reach the level of master and therefore potentially could all be mind-readers too? These are interesting questions, and there are a few interesting questions asked during admissions. And so it is time to investigate the masters themselves since the undeniable Cthaeh suggested they might know some secret things about the chandrian, if you Kvothe was to ask, which he won’t, so we shall do it on his behalf. 

We are introduced to them in Hollows, between the maple trees, beneath the stained glass window of Teccam in a classic pose, barefoot in front of his cave, teaching students. The action takes place in a room under the spotlight of a window shaped like the Iron Wheel of Atur, if the 10Æ artwork and all the little clues in them are to be believed. The masters asking the questions are deemed to all be potential members of the ancient and powerful order Amyr, and they give some revealing clues about themselves in doing so.

I’m out on the edge of things now, I will admit that, but if it were easy to do this then someone else would have been done it by now, this is deep level tinfoil. The masters are very, very astute if nothing else, Puppet has already displayed his understanding of things, that is what defines a master of any craft, but the masters own questions reveal intimate little details about the individual speakers true motives and so deserve a second look through tinfoil spectacles. Two main admissions are featured, one in each book, so first and foremost we shall look again at the infamous, less three talents.

9 ~ Admissions of Guilt

Less 3 Talents

Talented individuals

This is a study of the University admissions process. It is a follow up piece on to the chapter Big brother and should not be read without that primer for admissions tucked away somewhere in your head already.

First up, Chancellor Herma asks Kvothe what he thinks he already knows and the list is extensive, Ben has taught his student well. He claims to know the first ninety sympathetic bindings which are necessary to answer Elxa Dal’s questions. He can double distill, perform titration, calcify sublimate and precipitate solution…which tells us he knows quite a lot about chemistry, which is master Mandrag’s bailwick. He also adds History (Lorren) argument (Hemme) grammar (Herma) medicine (Arwyll) and geometry (Brandeur). But he mentions nothing about artifice and nothing at all about naming, meaning that masters Kilvin and Elodin cannot expect him to answer questions about their own personal area of expertise. Kilvin notices this and thus realises that it would be unfair to expect poor Kvothe to prove himself in a subject he has not claimed to have studied. His question is therefore very fair as he is asking a personal opinion on his pet project and gets a surprisingly good guess. Kilvin automatically sees the potential and wants him to be admitted the most. Kilvin is his champion.

Master Elodin would not normally expect any new student to know the first thing about naming, which makes you wonder why he bothers turning up at all really, but he is obviously curious about the limits of Kvothe’s remarkable display of talents thus far and his questions are more about lateral thinking. Elodin asking any student anything at all seems very out of character going by the other masters reactions, and if Elodin was curious to know Kvothe’s potential then that should, and indeed does, disturb all the other masters.

Security guard sort of position. Master Namer taking an interest in this child prodigy would indicate that the most powerful among them has seen something potentially powerful in this applicant and indicates that Kvothe may just have what it takes to become more powerful than they are themselves, which would be rather a disturbing thought to master or Amyr both.

Master Elodin has already taken control of the meeting with his own dominating voice, he then looks at Kvothe who actually feels his strange look, hypnotism cannot be discounted here and my ‘mind reading’ suspicion appears a little more plausible. His first question is a statement about translation (something he also touches on in his naming classes later!), and so I

 shall translate it further. What he actually means is ‘without being told anything of the sort, I can see that you can speak in an old and secret language, how well?’ His next question is a trick question,it translates as ‘Can you think outside the box? or are you afraid to try?’ and yes he can and no he isn’t, which gets a smile from the master. His third question is more serious, he asks what he knows about special words, words that have some kind of power? do you know the first thing about naming? but he gets a simple answer. ‘No’ which is also correct, because he doesn’t. It should also be noted that at no time does Kvothe ever mention the Edema Ruh, yet on his second meeting with master namer this fact is used as a reason not to teach him naming, a small thing, but a verifiably odd one.

We should run through the other masters whilst we are here. not having any reason not to treat him like any other applicant Brandeur asks for a fact, and then for some complicated conversion thinking, both of which get answered correctly. His third question involves complex thinking and square roots… and also of secret knowledge. this is dealt with elsewhere in the chapter triangles of temerant and reveals master Brandeur to be suspiciously Amyr in his geometry.

Kvothe has already stated he is versed in medicine and all of master physicians questions are standard, except possibly the last which is more advanced and diagnostic in nature. But the further we go, the more the masters start to take notice. Lorren comes next and he is prime suspect Amyr, specialist subject being History of the world. If he was also ‘flicking through the book of Kvothe’ he has found a globally aware and well educated book to choose from, hence the scope of his second question, how much exactly does this kid actually know? is the translation here, answer…a lot. But his final question gets a Very surprising answer. It is unlikely that he has blinked all week but Kvothe achieves this in three. The name Illien is very significant in the great shape of the world and important enough to concern one of the ancient order Amyr deeply.

Mandrag has been told Kvothe knows all about chemistry, and tests him fully on this subject, possibly expecting him to sign up for his own classes given his earlier statement. The only thing I can glean about Mandrag is his hands are stained, not a million miles away from pointing towards the bloody handed Amyr, but only if you are scraping the barrel for such things.

Kilvin we have mentioned, he sees genuine potential and is immediately on Kvothe’s side, as is Elxa Dal who’s appearance is described as being exactly like the classic Aturan magician in all the old plays, a possible Amyr link there too since they are also associated with the early days of Atur. His most curious question was regarding the moon, which seems to be of major importance to the underlying story of the world, and hence to matters which the Order take a very active interest in.

Then there is Hemme, Kvothe actively dislikes Rhetoric and Logic, despite this being his one and only book, but he has read it grudgingly and can hold his own in argument. Kvothe has already noticed a cruel streak in this master and Hemme (also called Jasom, possibly a calling/true name comparison here) is quite possibly aware of his own shortcomings and realises this boy is already better than him at everything. Hemme is not popular with the other masters, Elodin hates him especially.

Herma, the Chancellor, doesn’t ask any real questions but seems ‘unsettled’ at the level of Kvothe’s potential. After all, anyone who graduates from the university training program could become a force in the University themselves one day. When he does ask ‘why do you want to attend the University?’ Kvothe thinks about many things including knowledge of the chandrian, as Cthaeh also suggests the university masters do. Perhaps this one thought bubbles to the visible surface for any who are looking and that is what caused his concern, who knows? I’m not a mind reader after all. His most interesting line is when Kvothe quickly gains full arcanum acceptance. The Chancellor’s vote decides the motion and after confirming the new status to the world he quietly adds ‘Tehlu shelter us, fools and children all.’ as if he wonder if he may have just made a terrible mistake.

Nine and Five

There are other admissions to pass but these are glossed over without insight, you can have too much information sometimes, so round two appears at the start of book two and Kvothe has made Re’lar by now. Higher tuition fees generally apply now as the masters ask deeper questions and Manet predicts a tuition of not less than Ten Talents. He also offers up his ‘primer for admissions’, the eight spades question. This Time around everything seems normal…which it most certainly is not. All the questions appear irrelevent except for master Elodin’s. Having seen Arwyll testing his own students capabilities, Brandeur,in cahoots with Hemmeand therefore an enemy, deliberately offers up pre-written double-edged questions which is quite petty. Our question about Spades is just the entree, however. The questions are immaterial, the masters want to know what’s going on behind those green eyes and Elodin is in this room for just that reason. The room wants him to look inside Kvothe’s head in order to know if they can trust him not to be secretly working against them. His own inner understanding that he isn’t is not enough proof for Hemme to accept and the ‘song and dance’ of what most people think admissions are about is exposed as theatre. the real reason Elodin is in the room is to read minds. Elodin then gets angry with the room and gives them the proof they desire with a display of his true E’lir power.

‘Elodin scowled at them. ‘What?’ he demanded, his voice going hard around the edges, ‘You want me to take this song and dance more seriously? You want me to ask him questions only a namer can answer? Fine.’ Elodin said turning back to me, His eyes were dark, and his voice had a strange resonance to it. It wasn’t loud but when he spoke it seemed to fill the entire hall. It left no space left over for any other sound. “Where does the moon go,” Elodin asked grimly, “when it is no longer in our sky?”. The room seemed unnaturally quiet when he stopped speaking. As if his voice had left a hole in the world. I waited to see it there was any more to the question. “I haven’t the slightest,” I admitted.’

This is deep stuff. Who would know the answer to such a question? a namer apparently? or someone who knew about such great matters, matters that are important to the secret Order Amyr. Matters of the moon!

The style of presentation implies to me that we are seeing True see’ing in action here, Elodin is as serious and dominating as we ever see him, and Kvothe is already under examination conditions. But this is moreso. I believe that when master Namer wants to he can literally compel someone to answer, and to answer truthfully at that. If Kvothe had any inkling about how serious the question was to be taken then it would have been revealed to all the room, this was a test. ‘What do you know about secret things?’ was the underlying question, but it was the wrong question, Kvothe knows and cares nothing about the moon or her movements… but Haliax does. The moon in all her phases is clearly depicted on the Mauthern pot and is deliberately placed above him.The Moon is the secret at the heart of everything. The moon is important to Haliax and to ‘any who follow him.’ and so the Moon is important to the Order Amyr. Kvothe is none of these and so he passes the test by failing it without even realising he has been tested. 24 carat tinfoil, but I know what I know. It’s all about the Moon.

After this important question is out of the way, the rest of the time is just small talk to get the unpleasantness of what has just happened over and done as quickly as possible. Master Sympathist gives Kvothe ‘a bit of a sympathetic look’…Ha Ha Ha!’ and then throws Kvothe some easy questions. Master Mandrag, who doesn’t actually teach Kvothe personally and therefore has no real reason to have a say in his tuition, decides to abstain. Elodin is back in his ‘normal’ mode again and breaks the tension further whilst Lorren asks the bare minimum required with a minor reminder thrown in for good luck and Kilvin follows Dal’s lead and lobs Kvothe some more easy questions. Only Hemme is still angry and loses his temper, but the Chancellor slaps him down rather forcefully and warns him of ‘official censure’ which i can only imagine as the master being on the horns before lord Selitos. He tells Hemme to ‘stint thy clep’, a quite ‘lovely’ archaic phrase, and takes back control of the whole situation. But not before calling Hemme by another name. His proper name, not his calling name. Chancellor Herma knows Master Hemme’s hidden secrets.

All that is left is how much to pay,and the bill was Nine and Five. Elodin at work again I think, His job is to gauge the said applicants ability to pay, if he knows about the spades, then there is no reason why he should not know about Manet’s prediction that he would be lucky to get out for less than ten talents. Manet knows things, that’s one of his jobs. He even admits that the interview is ‘just a piece of the game’ and it is a game. just like the game Devi plays. Elodin doesn’t usually ask students questions, but his powers are useful if he can pluck thoughts from someones head without them knowing, or rather using our old favourite line ‘read the hearts of men like heavy lettered books.’

The Amyr have a job to do and must always know what they need to know ‘for the greater good’. Elodin is the most powerful among them and it is his task to uncover any treacherous plots that may need confounding. That is what they do, remember? Kvothe has been noticed poking about where he shouldn’t and has aroused the masters suspicions. This was more like a trial than an interview really, and he has been found to be innocent, although Hemme is still not convinced. The other masters all are though, he even has some friends among them. Kvothe is a clever student and nothing more. Elodin has seen inside his mind and asked him what he knows about the moon, that is important because the correct answer involves ‘the fae’, of which our boy knows nothing as yet and so there is nothing to worry about, yet... The masters are assured that Kvothe is not some undercover tool being used in the hand of the real enemy who remains the same as he ever was. The modern day masters are still doing the task of the Amyr who Selitos formed ‘to confound the plots of Lanre and all who follow him.’

However, we can now see their modus operandi coming into a better light here, an ever burning light that never goes out. The masters are clearly asking about the moon, That appears to be their number one priority, what do you know about the moon? is the recurring theme and is the key to the whole puzzle, as it has been ever since the creation war was lost and the moon was stolen by the enemy.

10 ~ Framework 

For this exercise we are going to build some framework for our theory. Scaffolding. 

Our current Tak board has 64 squares in eight ranks and eight files. Now that we can count upto Seven we can begin by writing this information into the first line of squares. However we needs must leave the 8th square blank for now as it an unknown. The second row can give Ergen city names to these numbers in Skarpi order travelling from Belen to Myr T.

We can then place an angel below these two end cities, namely Fair Geisa and Tall Kirel. Then we can add Andan and Ordal at squares six and seven although that's about as far as we can go with that one.

The winning Tak position before Lanre Day should be entered at line four in skyline pictogram form. Seven white standing stones and a big White capstone on the end. Lyra fans may argue that the first stone should also be a Capstone.

Beneath this we can draw the stones showing the full effect of Lanre Day.

Six flat black stones. A singleupright white at seven and a black capstone on the end.

The Chandrian who each betrayed a city each can come next in Adem order. 1-6 then a gap at lucky seven with Alaxel sited beneath the Black Capstone tower.

Opposing the7 we might then write out the Order Amyr. However, listing the masters in admissions order doesn't seem right when we have names like Gibea and Sir Savian to play with, not to mention 'the eight paths of Atreyon!' We also have insufficient data to do anything much about filling in their positions in this lucky line, and even less if we then wished to allocate the final line to the Sithe octet. So I suppose we shall just have to pencil those loose titles in for now and maybe come back later to complete this 8x8 framework.

X ~ Watching

Angels watch, watchers watch ,those who did not wish to get involved watch. But who watches the Watchmen?