Game pieces

1 ~ A-Gender

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Welcome back, we have now pretty much mapped out the first Corner , but our storylines are starting to pull apart now, we have our Lockless family tree rooted in Newarre and our trunk rises from Vintas but now the choice of paths before us want to branch off in different directions at once, but we can only follow one path at a time and the wise student will follow The path of the Book before them.

That is of the Lethani.

We shall follow Kvothe's journey a little further then and investigate the Adem. They are probably the strangest of all the races of man that we encounter and they hold their secrets tightly. Stillness and silence are the heart of Ademre, something no barbarian could understand. Still, we can but try.

Man Mothers

When approaching a puzzle that goes against the grain, it is natural to adopt a guilty until proven innocent stance. But you must always remember that this is Fantasy Fiction, not Fantasy Fact. That's a whole different ball game.

Therefore I have a rule. Since this is Not Planet Earth, nothing from our unique Terran culture should be relied upon as a tool to crack open Temerant. Pat can do what he wants in his world. If you don't believe in God that doesn't matter. It's just a story, If Pat wants sex faeries in his stories, that's fine too, it's his story and if his story calls for one race of mankind to be a biologically different species from all the others that is absolutely fine with me. It might even be the silver key we need to unlock a bigger secret...

However, this is High fantasy fiction, a broad subject which includes Science fiction and the unique science aspect of Temerant is a tool in our hands than can be used if needed. So we shall put the plans of Gods aside for a few chapters while and focus on the actions of humans and rhinta instead. There will be a biology lesson at π time from guest speaker Snail. The rest of this anthology of all things Temerant is all of my own creation. And I am Not a robot.  The branching ink before you might seem a bit harder to hold together sometimes , there are a lot of subjects to follow, but as your alar reaches for secondary bindings, your inner eyes will open wider, you should start to see further and you will soon begin to juggle my ideas around in your own head. I will suggest that if my observations from corner one were considered to be Elir level thinking, some of corner two might require Relar thinking. 

Good luck, and don't stray from too far from the path!

A-Women

Given that Kvothe has studied plenty of four corners medicine and since he has also never found any rumour of this strange 'A-Women employ parthenogenetic reproduction' phenomenon occurring anywhere else in the world to make him doubt his barbarian belief, then we can be pretty sure that this Adem secret is just that, a secret . A-women are then a brand new scientific discovery to his knowledge making them exclusive throughout Temerant in their ability to reproduce asexually, (House Lockless excepted)

Since they believe that they can make babies without the need for a man mother, why would an A-women ever bother to give birth to any A-men babies at all? What use are they if they have no part in advancing Adem ? Why don’t they just become a race of self replicating A-women instead? A more complete half race without the need or desire for any male input whatsoever. 

Well for a start, that would shout very loudly to the other races that the Adem are a mutant race of women warriors and to a barbarian that means there is something wrong with them, and to simple folk that means they are probably demons. Having some men along for the ride will naturally help all Ademre to blend in better with a barbarian civilization. Furthermore, while the A-Women may, or might not, be able to flower alone, surely no woman can conciously pre-order the sex of their next baby and then nine (6*) months later simply ‘make it so’ any more than any other female could. Its called natural selection and life simply doesn’t work that way. You put in your penny and you get what you are given in this world and God alone knows the real reasons behind such things.

A-Men

As far as their part in making babies goes, all the A-men in the world are an empty branch on the family tree, pretty to look at but essentially rather useless. A fact which in a lesser society might act like a wedge splitting the whole race into two distinct categories: The A-women, who are necessary and the A-men who are not!

However, because they are a civilized peoples the women do not slaughter the boy babies in the crib but raise them alongside the girls , even though they are considered to be inferior stock. Both adem sexes have been bought up with some level of understanding of the lethani and so it is that all of A-men are raised to know their allotted place in life and they accept it.

 At one point on their travels to Haert Tempi makes a fist to indicate the whole of Ademre, five fingers in concert of which, in his mind, he represents only the littlest finger. His other three (more superior) fingers he nominates as ‘friend, brother and mother. Sheyehn is the thumb to complete the fist but at no point in his description does he use the word ‘father’ because there is no Ademic concept of fatherhood and he knows that man-mothers simply do not exist. Tempi further reveals that he understands the lowly position of A-men in his society in relation to the more superior A-women when he reveals to Kvothe that

‘Barbarians have no women to teach them civilization.’

a statement which implies that the more civilized A-men do have women teachers and this is the accepted hierarchy arrangement of women on top that leads to full M/W co-operation in a society where nobody shits in the well. 

/Kvothe did note that there were more women and children than he expected and this could indicate an unequel gender distribution to this mainly female society with the occasional manchild being the odd exception among all the young girls. I noted that it was always the young boys we saw being used as goatherds, an essential but undemanding task. A-Men are also lesser fighters meaning that the far superior skills of A-Women can better be concealed in a mixed group when out among the barbarians this hiding another secret. /

 When it comes to fighting, A-Women are always superior and everyone in Ademre knows that. Why? Might have something to do with balance I suppose, or testicles, but it really ought to be something genetic for all A-men to never to be ranked as good as the A-women are despite the exact same opportunities and training they have to be considered their equals, not to mention their greater strength and reach. The closest we get to a written answer is that men naturally have more 'anger' inside them than they know what to do with which leads to rash decisions which are then made with less self control compared to those of an A-women who are naturally more balanced. Unbalanced males are not deemed to be anywhere near as important to Ademre society although A-Men do have their uses, not least when it comes to sex where the female’s milking of a fine male anger (Vaevin) is a mutually desirable thing, and sex is a healthy and pleasurable pastime when both halves of the union know that a heart is not a penis and that man mothers simply don't apply in Ademre.  At worst these A-men are on a par with the largely useless and quite likely diseased barbarian men with all of their own strange sex customs, except that the A-men have all had better teachers.

A-Lar

Kvothe and Penthe cover the whole man mother argument about as far as it can go and digging any further will descend into someone trying to prove a negative, and that's faulty logic. I think the main difference between an A-Women and an A-Man ultimately comes down to control, something that their women simply have more of than men do. And a woman in perfect control can achieve Anything. Kvothe might know that he is correct but Penthe believes that she is right and belief will win that argument every time. Kvothe's own powerful Alar is built upon his trained ability to believe that any given contradictory possibilities can be exactly as he desires them to be and he can hold, at best ,a 99% control over his binding thoughts.  But in this argument simply by not being a woman himself he can never definitely believe his own answer in this final 1% for sure. Thus a tiny seed of doubt naturally exists to be exploited in his argument and 1% belief can make all the difference in a fight. Just ask Tehlu.  If you always hold to the lethani, you can never lose a fight.

Now it could well be that Tempi, who showed sexual interest in a barbarian barmaid at the Pennysworth Inn, might well be biologically capable of obliviously putting a grey eyed baby inside her in the usual barbarian manner, just because an A-Woman doesn't require his seed doesn't make him automatically sterile. So is it possible that Penthe's first child might be born with Kvothe's distinctive and decidedly non-adem colouring? Well in her mind Penthe believes 100% not, and so I'm inclined to agree with her since she always exhibits perfect control. And then there is the Silphium debate. I wonder if A-Women have periods?

Did Kvothe ever consider that in all of his frolicking he might have gotten Felurian pregnant? No, I very much doubt he did, but would Felurian need a man mother in order to create a new Bastard? Who can say? 

The only way anyone might definitively answer this whole man-mother y/n question to any educated level of satisfaction would be through medical disection to see whether the A-Women really are actually built differently insides. 

Fortunately we are given the foremost authority on Anatomy Temeranti to investigate in the form of the Duke of Gibea who wrote 24 volumes detailing his findings.

So, question #1 should be 'Did Gibea ever experiment on the Adem?' and I'm pretty sure the answer is Yes.

During his first admissions, Kvothe gives us a brief history of the collapse of the Aturan Empire and one thing he considered a well known fact was that Atur did indeed  'antagonise the Adem' and given Tempi's beliefs concerning the touching of dead people I think that would most certainly qualify. At the time we were told the Empire were fighting wars of conquest on three fronts against unnamed peoples but the Adem are singled out specifically here and so it appears to me that this was more of a pogrom than a land grab and that there was something more personal going on between the Empire, or rather their strong right arm that was the Amyr, and the race of the Adem than simply seizing possession of their land. Antagonise is a word my Terran dictionary defines as 'To struggle violently against' which is then exactly what we assume went on between them, but it also means 'To counteract the actions of.' and that secondary meaning sounds an awful lot like 'confound the plots of' to me,  a phrase used by the the Lord of the Amyr when speaking about what he wanted to do to Lanre and 'any who follow him'. Which might mean that the Amyr's own justification for this Adem antagonism then was that it was considered to be all 'for the greater good.'

Our own (Terran) understanding of the science behind human reproduction follows the same Woman + Man = Baby equation (WoMB) that is practiced across the four corners and this method of reproduction is believed wholeheartedly by Kvothe as being the only sort because he has been taught so by the masters at the University medica. He has also studied the works of the Duke of Gibea, who lay down the foundations of modern physic and who rather famously did all his own human anatomical research very thoroughly indeed. Simmon says that 20.000 bodies bear witness to this fact. But did he ever experiment on the Adem to investigate their reproduction technique? Well probability factoring will say that he certainly must have done but there is clearly no record of any unusual Adem exception findings in his surviving journals. 

A-myr

Of course, as a secret member of Selitos’ Amyr, a group of men which Felurian avers never had any human members themselves , Gibea should have already known the real truth that the Adem were in fact, like him and his colleagues, a secret race of rhinta mutants hiding in plain sight among the barbarian multitudes of Temerant and this would be exactly the sort of secret thing that any non-human Amyr would be very keen to keep quiet about for the greater good of preserving their own skin. To keep this knowledge from any future human students Gibea would certainly not have written it down anywhere since any such rumours would of course soon lead to bigger rumours followed by scenes of angry villagers with pitch forks and flaming torches storming the castle. Secrets have a habit of sneaking out and that may lead to uncomfortable rumours further down the line of there ever being any ‘alternative species’ to mankind living within the 4Corners to discuss. This inconvenient truth would, then, needs must be supressed at source to better protect both Gibea's skin and his fellow Amyr mutants own genetic secrets from ever reaching the general population.  I don't imagine the Tehlin church would be too pleased either if Tehlu's immaculate conception was known to be common practice among mutants so if Gibea had discovered that it was true that A-Women were reproductively especial and reported this fact to his Amyr masters then I would think their preferred reaction would probably lean towards an Ademic genocide. 

Of the Amyr's actions in pursuit of their ideal we are specifically told that it was always deemed 'for the greater good' if they strangled a pregnant woman but were they after the mother or the child I wonder?  Everyone seems to agree that 'they did some pretty terrible things near the end. ' and genocide would fit that particular bill all too well.

The Aturan Empire collapsed over 300 years ago which would finally have put an end to its Adem antagonistic behaviour and so that is probably a good enough pin in the ground to suggest for being Founders Day to the modern Adem, when their Amyr antagonism was over and they could finally stop wandering and put down some proper roots. 

Except for those who liked the wandering life. The Aedema Ruh.

Founders Day might also mark the day when they planted their holy Latantha tree since clearly this unique and special holy tree being exactly where it was just waiting for the wanderers to discover clearly wasn't just a coincidence. The surviving Adem carried their swords by their sides and kept their Atas in their heads but someone among them must have also carried a very special seed out of their distant past that would be necessary for growing a special tree for their future. Perhaps it was Magwyn...

A-ethe and R-ethe.

This tale I would now place as  being from somewhere around this Ademic Founders day. We hear that the Adem were still being 'much set upon by our enemies ' but they had clearly not yet reached the Ademre united stage that they are today and this is the story then of their unification. In the tale we are told that these Adem types often fought between themselves out of pride or from an argument which is very un-lethani behaviour. The root of the argument seems to have been about who was best equipped to lead all of Ademre into the future. Aethe was the finest archer they had since he could read the name of the wind. But Rethe was his best student. They were a man and a woman who each thought they knew the best path to follow. Aethe has founded a school which although 'long years and distant miles' from Haert, where they eventually ended up, was still the first time we hear of this wandering Adem nation putting down any sort of roots implying that their Amyr antagonism had now run it's course and they were free to be themselves again suggesting a date to their tale of some 300 years ago. When they first met the man assumed men naturally made better archers than women because of their greater reach and strength, but Rethe soon showed him the error in his thinking. In Aethe's defence, he didn't really mean to set himself up as king, he just happened to be the best of the Adem men still standing when the opportunity first arose to stop running in fear and to build the first real base for their nation. And he clearly liked Rethe who had even given him a bowstring woven from her own hair which to me hints strongly at them being lovers.

  But men and women will always have different ideas about how to do things and Rethe, who was regarded as being the best of the A-Women thought that she was best qualified to light their way forward. One day the two spoke, disagreed, argued, shouted, and finally challenged each other to a duel. Very barbarian behaviour indeed. 

It was agreed that whichever of them won the duel would be given control over this important first school of teaching and therefore the leadership of all the A-Men and A-Women combined rested upon the outcome. And the man won.

'I won the only duel I ever lost'

This is the sad part.

Aethe was first to the blade and that is Not of the lethani. 

If Aethe knew the name of the Wind, then Rethe knew the shape of it. 

She won by losing because she who holds to the lethani in all things can never lose.

You cannot take by forced that which is freely offered.

Her choice of path for the Adem would therefore have been the correct one and so she would have been the best option to lead the school, and Aethe only realised that now that it's too late. Aethe's anger led to his rash actions but Rethe had the greater control of the outcome. She fought without an excess of anger, because she was an A-woman and so wasn't as influenced by an excess of Vaevin as all of the A-Men are and so remained in perfect control.  Her balance was better, therefore her stance was better and so her overall position was better. 

'First you must have control of yourself. Then you can gain control of your surroundings. Then you gain control of whoever stands against you. That is the Lethani.'

Not 'of' the lethani...

This is the Lethani. Capital L. It is All about keeping control and this is the one true path that all Ademre now aspire to follow.

Still exhibiting perfect control Rethe spoke her wisdom at 33 stories per day for three days straight before choosing to die when it had the most impact. Underlining the underlying principal that without an A-Women an A-Man is nothing. Aethe immediately gave all of the decision making prize over to all of the A-Women because he understood that they were best suited to it. But these wise women did not rule the men as queens, but instead created an inclusive nation where it is known that all Adem are One Adem. And that is also of the lethani.

In the end, the whole nation did not settle at this first schools location. The disbanded Amyr might be no longer a threat to them but by now all of the other 4-Corners nations had become established and already divided all of the available land up between themselves and so eventually a unified Adem chose to leave the 4Corners behind them all together in order to find a more peacful home on which to establish and grow their own little nation of grey eyed mutant ninja sex freaks. 

A-pendix

When Kvothe travelled to Haert he covered 300 miles in fifteen days of fast going. However, when he leaves Haert the next chapter begins with the line

 'Five days later I was walking through... The low hills of eastern Vintas'

Now that maths is clearly not possible and his orientation is also way off which means there is a hole in our books here which will need packing out with a bit of Tinfoil. One thought is that on his journey back he hugged the west of the mountains heading south on a journey that would have taken him through the Lackless estates, stopping for a good gawk at their infamous door along the way no doubt.  Something seriously disrupting to his original route plan must have happened on the road to Tinüe to make him end up exactly where he did 'five days later.'

There is a far more direct path to Eastern Vintas from Haert however which would involve our hero exploring down the Eastern side of the mountains instead, and having his own unwritten Tahl adventure before it conclusion sees him crossing the Stormwal back again far to the south, emerging into Eastern Vintas again... Five days later!

Regarding the Adem own relationship with the mysterious people of the Tahl one final image that I can conjour in my tinfoil imagination, tho obviously without a lick of corroboration from the books, might add another act to our budding House Lockless play. Now what if, some of these oppressed wandering pregnant Adem ladies turned up at Lady Perial's door seeking, and being granted, sanctuary from their Amyr antagonists. That's a nice thought.

Saint Perial and her Husband kindly taking them down to their special door where, Swords in hand and ever burning candles lit, they went underground into the darkness and made their way out of the 4-Corners altogether, beneath the stormwal mountains and onwards to the desert lands of the Tahl beyond, where the hope of future Ademre would remain in exile until it was deemed safe for some of them to return. In my book, Illian will have led them through and as a reward they gave him a candle of his own to bear, or maybe they just re-lit his own exinguished candle from their own in thanks so that he could bear his own light suitable for making his longway back again through such a dark and dangerous place . Second chance Illian. Meanwhile Perial told the Amyr antagonists that she had cast him out and that she had no Adem refugees anywhere on her lands, and, outwitted, the Amyr had no choice but to believe her. Because a pontifex always ranks under a queen, you know.

Art

2 ~ Tongue Twister

So children of both Adem sexes are born and grew up to become Adem-re. Which probably means something like 'All Adem are one Adem .' As the nation grew into their new home they branched out and founded other towns which may have held different interpretations of the lethani path but at heart they are all one tightly knit race. We shall leave them up in their corner of the world now and shall doubtless cross their path again later but now we need to ask more about where they originated from and that means searching out their ancestors since the Adem of today are actually a second incarnation of Ergen.

"Once there was a great realm peopled by great people. They were not Ademre. They were what Ademre was before we became ourselves."

Now the Cthaeh mentioned that Lanre has been around for 5000 years which is a pretty good indicator as to the rough date of Lanre Day when Ergen fell to his actions and, likely as not, that day marked the beginning of the end for this first generation Adem of which Sheyehn speaks. These Adem ancestors , some of whom fought at the Drossen Tor, must then be considered as being the original inhabitants of one the the 7 great cities of the realm of Ergen and the theme of these next few chapters will be to work out which city that actually was.

Polyglots

Speaking in Tongues.

Given that we have as many languages today as there were once cities makes the case for the next revelation that each seperate group of Ergen citizens also had their own primary language a very strong one. The best evidence that all of today’s diverse nations of mankind once each abided in their own seperate cities instead of exhibiting the cosmopolitan atmosphere that we see at the University today is through the evolution of language. Today, everyone speaks Aturan and Pat expands upon it’s origins nicely in the appendices of the 10Æ by explaining how Aturan is a modern language, invented as a tool to forge a fractured nation into a new empire under one universal tongue. However, the older languages still persist to this day across the 4Corners and so for many people, such as Wilem, this newfangled universal language is only really a second language, deemed unnescessary for Cealds to learn in their homeland until it was considered practical for them to do so. Whilst it may be possible that the eight peoples who populated the eight cities all spoke every one of these eight languages when they dealt with other this was never going to be the case. Some of them, such as Lord Selitos and his ilk may have been able ‘to read the hearts of men like heavy lettered books’ which would qualify them to be properly considered as multi-lingual, but this would not have been the Ergen norm. Kvothe may have learned to speak Tema in a day but he is far cleverer than Wilem is and language is fundamentally a complex creature which takes a long time to master to any degree and so, as Pat concurs, it will have taken many generations for Aturan to become the dominant force in linguistics that it is today. But the wiping out any rival language in the process is an impossible task to achieve and even a dead language will still persist somewhere in the far flung corners of mankind. Even the eldest of our known written languages, Yllish, has survived (albeit in a much diminished form) despite all the attentions of the Aturan empire's might and desire to eradicate it. A written language as opposed to a spoken one might survive the passing centuries in a book form, or on a clay tablet, or perhaps even preserved in stories on a knotted string (and what stories could they tell?). The very presence of these languages in history makes it obvious to me that the empire of Ergen could never have operated as one peoples all speaking one tongue but rather must be seen as an eightfold union of diverse peoples and languages who all shared one common enemy.

‘they gathered armies and made the cities recognise the need for allegiance.’

This single line in the books seems to back up this statement as it clearly indicates that up until Lanre and Lyra united them all together under one banner such allegiance was not common Ergen policy. Unifying the eight pieces into one point was therefore a crucial turning point in the battle against the enemy, a policy which perhaps should have been innovated by wise lord Selitos long before the thought came to Lanre and Lyra, but then Selitos was not really a soldier and obviously did not consider this radical approach to have any merit to the defence of his own beloved city.

If anyone could see into the hearts of all men and understand their thoughts and words then it was he, although Lyra and Lanre must have overcome this hurdle between them. Selitos own first choice of language, and therefore that of his own city,  was apparently Temic as he later reveals to us when he used this language to coin the phrase Ivare Enim Euge to be the motto of his own personal Amyr army. But this does not make Temic the go-to language of all Ergen. Ademic was obviously also present at Drossen Tor since it’s events have been recorded in Magwyn’s books and so clearly it will also have had its own place in both worlds which opens the door for Tema, Modegan, Siaru, Eld Vintic, Yllish and even perhaps the language of the fae to be regarded in the same Ergen light. The overly coincidental numbering across these emergent groups becomes a powerful indicator that these were all languages whose roots can be traced back to match the cultural make up of old Ergen leading us to the conclusion that each city was actually a seperate nation unto itself, with its own capital city where it’s own unique language was spoken.

Seven Nation Army

But after God and Encanis had left the scene on Tehlu Day, did all of these ‘ruach’ survivors all then just agree to work together, forget their lingual inequalities and xenophobia? happily proceed to assimilate themselves into a new collective? One nation under one flag with a shared desire to ‘build back better’? Accepting all racial stereotypes as equally valid in their society in order to build one great new multicoloured interracial utopia? One for all and all for one? with liberty and fraternity for all? Selitos One Eye and his Tema speaking Aturans tried the heavy Empire approach to enforcing such a unity upon the world but that plan ultimately failed leaving us to a four corners viewpoint today which is still a much divided land. The era of empire has affected all of the races in it’s path towards today’s more tolerant society a bit moreso than the four-quartering inference that the name might suggest, in fact doubly so with as many different races of man around today as Ergen once had cities. Love thy neighbour is not always considered the norm, as witnessed by such derogatory terms as ‘filfthy shim bastards’ and ‘ravel ruh’ the general antagonising of the Adem and not to mention the eternal strife which is the default setting in the Small Kingdoms.

All of Temerant’s peoples and their exagerated sterotypes are caught in a snapshot in Kvothe’s Faeriniel story and the one thing which holds the story together is the assorted levels of casual Xenophobia shown by each race towards outsiders. If you remove the possibility of Sceop being a polyglot then we must assume that everyone in that tale must have by then been speaking the one uniting language of modern Aturan and that will place the setting in the early days of the 4Corners era. This is a mirror image of how things must have once also been back in the last days of Ergen with each campfire acting as a miniature outpost from each citynation for the night.

/Compiling a full head count of all the various kinds of 4Corner peoples and then comparing that to the number of Ergen cities gives us some rather too coincidental numbers to be ignored. Inter race relations might happen but half castes are not explored. Perhaps that's part of different species argument and that line of thinking will further suggest that the situation that we see today will then mirror that of what will have came before with two similarly populated landscapes where each seperate race has its own defining physical features or traits, speak their own unique languages, and are still to be found sheltering within their own clearly defined borders, just like their ancestors before them./

So the question now becomes can we prove beyond reasonable doubt that each of these diverse races of man that we witness today, or have heard about at faeriniel, would likewise have each ruled their own specific city back in ancient Ergen? No, we cannot. Easy to say, much, much harder to convince to everyone’s satisfaction. But that’s just the way our world works, not everyone will need such things proven to the Nth degree for to them to be convinced because some things are just more obvious to some minds than to others, and it’s not something most folk will have even bothered to think about that much anyway because it’s surely not going to be all that much of an important detail compared to the myriad of more exciting things to be considered in the rest of Pat’s rich tapestry.

But it is important, because if were  the case for each particular city of Ergen to be claimed by a different race of man, one each for all of their descendants in the modern day four corners, (the city of the Cealds, the city of the Yllish, the city of the Adem etc…etc…) then That line of thinking would mean that each ancient city was acting more like an island with each one housing a separate nation of people all unto itself, safely ensconced behind their own walls. This then was the situation which Lanre and Lyra did face before they successfully united the armies of Ergen together under one flag into a Seven nation army to better take the fight to their common enemy. This is the shape of the world of Ergen that Pat has built for us with all of his clever hints and clues which just need to be gathered together in one place in order to see the bigger picture. I think I am all argued out on this point now and so to take the next steps you will need to Believe this to be the case for yourself and then we can move this thing onwards.

Reflections

And so, with that unifying thought being firmly accepted by our collective alar, we can now take a look at the next logical step and mix this new knowledge together with the memories that we gain from the Adem. The stories we hear inform us that each ancient city also housed it’s own ‘rhinta to be’ somewhere in their midst who personally betrayed their city to the common enemy, meaning that it was clearly someone who was once held to be trustworthy, someone like Lanre who was ‘considered beyond reproach’ and who must also have held the rank and power necessary for them to have been able to achieve any such betrayal in the first place marking them all as one of their people’s top brass. So, if each city was populated by a different race, and each city had it’s own betrayer hidden in it’s midst, then it must be true to say that each of these ‘rhinta to be’ will have hailed from a different city, and therefore each one of them will have been born into a separate culture. Collectively the seven chandrain who are still abroad today must then, on inspection, mirror the surviving races from these seven cities of old which will also mean that the7 which Kvothe encountered will, of course, also have sported such an international make-up of having one representative from each of these self-same races of man, too! (all races except one, that is!)

3 ~ Trees

Trees are important things in the shape of Pats universe but If we are going to look closer at the trees of Temerant we first need to distance ourselves from a few things. This is Not Planet Earth and everything that you think you may know does not apply here, unless Pat tells you that it does. And if he tells you things that don't make any sense, that just means that you are applying Terran ideals into Temerant which makes you wrong, not him. Pat can do what Pat wants in his puzzle, so long as he is consistent about it.

Our first odd example occurs just after Chronicler has been robbed and, because it is obviously necessary to forwarding his important storyline, we get to hear all about him going off to have a shit in the woods.

'Feeling an urgent call of nature, Chronicler pushed his way through the bloodred Sumac at the side of the road.'

Nothing wrong with that description, in our world the whole of the Sumac tree does indeed turn a noteworthy blood red in Autumn, which indicates that we are talking about the exact same tree. But Earth Sumac also has a quite unique characteristic in that every red part of it, be it leaf, branch, trunk or root, is poisonous to the touch. They call it poison Sumac for a reason, Toxicodendron Vernix sometimes referred to as the poison dogwood since it's bark is as bad as it's bite. Simply put it leaves a Very nasty rash and so it is Not something that you would ever want to bare your bum to!

But Sumac trees in Pats world are apparently different as we see Chronicler re-buttoning his pants before pushing his way back through the Sumac for a second time and showing no ill effect except for a feeling of 'remarkable lightheadedness'

True scholars should give these few paragraphs a closer look as they are our first steps down the rabbit hole that leads to the Cheshire cat. They also contain a clearly important encounter with spiders and crows and the foreshadowing possibilities across this whole 'lets waste some ink decorating a shit in the woods' scene runs very deep. It adds nothing to the storyline and even detracts from it a little, but the one thing we do learn here is that a tree of Temerant has clearly not behaved as it's Terran equivalent does. This is one example of why we can take nothing for granted as we begin a study of the Flora Temeranti.

π ~ Flora Temeranti

In Patrick Rothfuss’s books, ‘The Name of the Wind’ and ‘Wise Man’s Fear’, a large number of plants, including fruit, vegetables, crops and medicinal herbs, are mentioned by name.  In the tradition of many fantasy writers, the foods eaten by the characters in the novels are called by names familiar to us and used for the same purposes.  Good examples would be potatoes, carrots and apples, used by both Tolkien and Rothfuss.  Both authors use some anomalous species of their own invention; Tolkien has invented the mallorn trees and kingsfoil, Rothfuss names selas flowers and denner trees. 

Given that this is a fantasy work, the authors are at liberty to use whatever species of plants they desire, real or imagined.  For a work to have internal cohesion, it is necessary for the science of a book to have its own internal logic, thus the rules of sympathy and sygaldry are explained within the book and these follow their own internal logic throughout the work.  It thus follows that the flora of this world would similarly follow normal rules, a plant would not produce seed without first being pollinated and so on.  

As I have horticultural training it is not surprising that I am inclined to muse on the botanical characteristics of the plants mentioned in fantasy or science fiction books.  There are many books where the author clearly has no botanical knowledge and the invented flora is impossible using our current understanding of plant structure nor fits within the internal logic of the story.  This makes for uncomfortable reading.  Rothfuss, Tolkien and others are clever enough to give the reader just enough information about the plant so that it can be seen to conform to the rules but not enough that we either dismiss it as impossible nor are able to pinpoint it to an exact genus of existing Earth plants but with an alternative name.

To first discuss the plants that are already familiar to us, of which Rothfuss names many, we might consider their origins.  These include common vegetables, fruits and herbs as well as crops.  We know that these plants are used in much the same way as their Earth counterpoints from the description of the meals.  Barley and wheat are used to make bread, potatoes and carrots are added to a stew and strawberries can be eaten fresh or made into a delicious sweet wine.  Willow not only grows in the same habitat as our willow and has the same type of leaves, but the cambium layer has the same mild analgesic properties as Terran willow. There is even a named variety of apple, Red Jenny, which implies the cultivation of numerous types of some fruits and follows the naming rules set down by the International Commission for Botanical Nomenclature.  Is this a coincidence?  It seems unlikely that Pat didn’t think about it.  The question arises, are they the same plants?  Temerant is clearly not Earth (as we know it, Jim), as the calendar shows us.  We cannot know when in relation to our calendar the events in the novel take place.  Are they in the distant past and took place while Earthmen were discovering fire? Is Temerant a version of earth in the far distant future, with altered continents and calendar but largely the same flora? Or is it so far into the future that humans have colonised other planets, established some, indeed many, Terran species, cultivated some native ones and had time for empires to rise and fall?   The first scenario is impossible, because the same plants could not have evolved on Temerant at this time and been cultivated to this extent. The second suggestion is perhaps most plausible, although it does not sit well because of the vast ages that must have passed.  If it is the last then this would account for the presence of plants used on Earth, but not the preponderance of them.  To establish an entire flora bar a small percentage would seem unlikely and impractical for any colonists no matter how far advanced.  Additionally; genetic drift, especially with cultivated plants, would make it likely that even in small ways the plants recognised as common plants on our world are not identical to those on Pat’s world.  This applies to both the second and third suggestions.  Alternatively Temerant could be how Earth developed in a parallel universe, which makes sense of the recognisable and the unknown.  

Another option is to assume that all the plants named on Temerant are not the Terran plants we are familiar with, even though they fit the bill.  There are many examples of convergent evolution on this planet.  Species evolve which fall into the same ecological niche, have similar characteristics, the same kinds of pollinator and even the same medicinal properties.  The most classic example is that of Aloe and Agave. Both are succulents which form a large rosette of sword shaped leaves with spiny points, they inhabit arid areas and have small bell shaped, nectar rich pendulous flowers, pollinated by moths or birds.  One is native to South Africa, one to South America; the Aloe will flower every year, but the Agave is monocarpic, flowering once at maturity and then dying.  A significant difference, but a layman would probably not recognise the difference between the plants in their vegetative state.  It is therefore plausible that on Pat’s world all the species with Earth names are not our known species, but something which fills the same niche. Using names like apple, potato, willow and barley give us a clear idea of what sorts of plants they are without having to either describe them at length or to invent new names or indeed new plants.  It is a convenient handle on which to hang something, a shorthand for ‘analogous native fruit similar in appearance to the drupe fruit produced by the genus Prunus, with a similar taste, a large single seed, the flesh eaten fresh or cooked and used as an ingredient for wine making’.  This would be clumsy and inefficient writing, of which Rothfuss is not guilty. 

The plants named in the book are many and varied, some are mentioned only in passing, some are relatively important in the story.  The majority of the plants growing in the Four Corners would indicate a temperate climate, although Vintas is presumably a bit more like the Mediterranean.  There are a number of tropical plants also mentioned, such as coffee, cocoa and mahogany which presumably have been shipped to Tarbean from somewhere off the map.  

It’s worth drawing attention to a few particularly interesting plants.  When Kvothe is suggesting flowers that might suit Denna, he briefly mentions Trillium.  Although Denna is unfamiliar with his ultimate choice of selas flower, she does not question this one, which is interesting because it’s not very well known.  It occurs in dappled shade in woodlands and has a three distinct leaves with a pointed flower bud in the centre, red, purple or white, depending on the species, eventually opening to a three pointed star shaped flower.  The common name is Wake Robin or Birthroot, and it has numerous medicinal properties and considered by some to be a sacred female herb. In another conversation with Denna, Kvothe says ash and willow leaves are not easily confused and this is true, most obviously because ash has a compound leaf.   Bracken, so far as I know, is the only plant mentioned in the book as part of an oath: ‘blood, bracken and bone’.  We know that blood and bone are important and that the runes for them are only for El’the level and above, so why would a fern that grows as a weed be included in this trio?  Bracken is found throughout the world, and has a number of uses, despite the fact that it is mostly considered invasive. These uses include food, medicine, dyes and glass and soap making.  However what really interests me and is the most likely reason for it to be singled out is that when the stem is sliced, the vessels spell out the letters ‘GOD’, ‘JC’ or ‘IHS’.  Who knows what runes they might resemble in Aturan? Tehlu, perhaps, or a rune that links blood and bone?  Poppy, is never actually mentioned in the books, although laudanum, a derivative of opium, is.  Yet when Penthe takes Kvothe to a secluded dell of wild ‘papavler’, they are described as having “loose, blood-red petals”, which certainly makes them sound like poppies.  One can’t help but wonder why Pat did not use Papaver, the botanical name for poppies if this is what they were.  Perhaps it was a typo that he decided to leave in.  The final plant I want to draw attention to is Silphium, which Kvothe says he uses to prevent unwanted pregnancy.  Silphium laciniatum, a plant of North American prairies, is known as the compass flower because of the way its petals point.  But it is more likely that the plant Kvothe is referring to is an almost legendary herb of ancient Mesopotamia. It was already in decline when Pliny the Elder wrote about it, but it was important enough that it was depicted on coins of the region.  Regarded as a panacea, but more specifically was used to prevent pregnancy and increase virility, it was common and widely used but had not been seen for 2000 years.  It was thought to possibly have been a cross between asafoetida and wild fennel (Ferula), but only this year (2022) it has been rediscovered and identified as Ferula drudeana.  It’s mythic qualities make it ideal for inclusion in the list of herbs which Kvothe the Arcane would know about.

The invented plants are far more interesting.  Why are they so significant that Pat needed to invent them and name them?   Aside of course, from the obvious fact that names are important. Possibly he lacks the botanical knowledge to know a plant with the same qualities or knows the plant and not the name. Given the vast array of plants and their properties cited, for example Kvothe’s admissions exam includes a detailed description of the medicinal qualities of hellebore, we can disallow this theory.  There is also a possibility that some plants are named so that people do not seek out the genuine article because it is poisonous, but the same example serves here. Mostly I think it is because no Terran equivalent exists with the exact properties that he describes, and the properties are very exact.  The other option is that Pat is playing games; can you spot the one example from the Laclith’s woodlore that exists here on earth, apart from the obvious willow?  Of course, common names change over time and region by region, so that one plant may have many different common names and despite extensive research I do not know every vernacular name of the entire world flora, so it may well be that in Wisconsin Motherleaf grows abundantly. 

Temerant Plants

Roah  - we hear quite a lot about roah as a wood, but not much as a plant.  It sounds somewhat like ebony, it is described as ‘rare and heavy, dark as coal and smooth as polished glass’.  It has both herbal and aromatic properties which make it valuable, but Kote has a chest made of it and furthermore he has enough left to make a mounting board for his sword. We learn that it comes from Aryen (off the map), that it has grey wood and black grain, a smell of citrus (and possibly iron, although that may be just the chest) and of leather and clover when you try to burn it.  It is extremely hard, heavy and difficult to burn. The Loeclos box is described as ‘dark enough to be roah, but with a deep red grain’, a citrus type scent and some other similarities, but is never actually identified.

NB the loeclos box is shaped for purpose out of both roah wood and [metal]

Motherleaf - gets a couple of mentions, a peddler sells it, the sap from the stems eases cuts and sores, it is used in poultices, in an emergency the stems can be eaten.

Nightmane - sedative

Devil root (Mhenka) – sedative, unknown but serious side effects. It is mentioned more than once but it is only on the second mention that we find out both names and the reason for Bast’s raised eyebrow. 

Sweet nettle – the white dead nettle flowers can be harvested for sugary nectar but it is not normally known as this.  Kvothe’s mother would certainly have been familiar with the more common name of dead nettle, but is possible she was sending him off on a wild goose chase.

Sagebeard - this is the first of several plants identified by Laclith for Kvothe, although it is in a semi-dream state that he remembers it.  The edges of the leaves are bearded, providing its common name.

Itchroot – as above, identified by Laclith with a warning not to touch.

Pateroot – edible but tastes bad

Straightrod – not edible

Orangestripe – not edible

Burrum – has little knobs on it, purgative

Nahlrout – used by Kvothe to both prevent bleeding and dull pain without causing drowsiness.  Used as a powder which tastes bitter and chalky.  It is an anaesthetic, a stimulant and a vascular constrictor and has no real side effects.  

Tennasin – painkiller which has side effects of delirium or fainting.

Lacillium – painkiller which is also poisonous.

Ophalum (Denner) – Highly addictive painkiller derived from denner tree resin. The trees are large and probably similar to maple, with the bitter resin being a dark colour with a tar like texture. The process of refining it presumably removes the bitter qualities.  The effects are euphoria, mania, delirium and exhaustion.

Rennel tree – This tree can be quite tall and bears fruit, although no further details are known, one can guess that the fruit is succulent and sweet.  Most of the mentions it gets in the book refer to the wood which burns hot with no smoke or smell, so presumably it is rich in oils.  It seems to have a common presence in many woodlands although it’s property as a smokeless fuel seems to be mostly known by the Edema Ruh and a few others who are wise in woodlore.

Selas – A climbing vine with red trumpet shaped flowers and a dissected leaf.  It is not fully hardy in cold climates, grows best in shade although the flowers open in sunlight.  It is said to be difficult to cultivate. The description fits exactly the Trumpet Vine, Campsis radicans. Kvothe chooses this bloom as the ones he would present to Denna, although it is hard to say what inspired his choice. On the first page of The Wise Man’s Fear we learn the Kote is cultivating it in his garden, and later we observe it in The Maer’s garden.

Bannerbyre – grows in woodland clumps, probably deciduous, perhaps similar to brambles

Brownbur – the seedheads of a burr forming plant, with small hooks to catch onto fur or skin.

Ashberry – grows in clumps, possibly with edible fruits, one imagines a shrubby version of the tree but with olive-like fruits only sweet tasting. 

Sweet melon – referred to several times, there may be little difference between a sweet melon and a honeydew melon on our planet.

Verian (Verainia?) – Kvothe describes verian as a tiny red flower, perhaps similar to the scarlet pimpernel (Anagalis avensis), although without more description it is impossible to tell. It is only mentioned when we get Verainia’s name, although why Kvothe then speaks about verian is a mystery, especially as she is known mostly as Nina and not either of these names.  Perhaps they are both names for the same plant as are Verbena (botanical name) and vervain in our flora.

Keveral – green foliage that smells like onion but is not, used in poultices. Possibly similar to hedge garlic which is a member of the cabbage family. 

Featherbite – used in herbal tea for respiratory disorders, possibly relaxant or purgative.

Lohatm – as above

Cinnas – A fruit with a sweet and sharp smell, and a distinctive skin, probably yellow or golden, with a hard flesh. Presumably tropical, certainly not local to Tarbean or Imre, and expensive to buy although Elodin just happens to have one in his pocket.  In Fae the gift of a single cinnas fruit to one of the Beladari is considered an insult. It is implied that it may be a plant brought from the Fae to be cultivated on Temerant.

NB. Perhaps there are always two Beladarai. Twin Fae, hence one fruit between them is deemed insulting!

Stitchroot – a herb used to prevent vomiting.

Mannum – as above

Bitefew – herb of uncertain properties, although presumably dangerous in incorrect doses or addictive

An’s Blade – a tall, sprawling fernlike plant. If touched or in contact with human secretions, it will turn red and the affected part will drop off; the dessication and death of the plant follows. Subsequently only found in places uninhabited by men (so possibly another Fae crossover). 

Rhinna (Cthaeh tree) – The name Rhinna may refer only to the flowers of the tree and not the tree in which the Cthaeh resides, which is not actually named.  It is Bast who uses the name and given his reluctance to speak of the Cthaeh is can be inferred that this is the plant and not the oracle. It is a very large tree, said to resemble a vast spreading willow with broader leaves of a darker green.  The foliage hangs scattered with powder-blue blossoms.  It has a compelling scent, said to resemble smoke, spice, leather and lemon.  

Latantha (Sword tree) – a tall tree with arching branches ‘like an oak’ but with broad, flat leaves that spin in circles and are sharp enough to cut skin.  Kvothe also states that it reminds him of the Cthaeh tree, although nothing in the descriptions of either tree are similar, but amongst the offerings at his trial there is a bunch of blue flowers.  Given Kvothe’s botanical knowledge and Pat’s propensity to give names to insignificant plants, one assumes that they are a flower not recognised by Kvothe (unusual in itself).  It is entirely possible they are the almost legendary Rhinna flowers or that they are Latantha flowers. Blue is one of the rarest colours among flowers in our world, and the majority of trees are wind pollinated so that makes the occurrence doubly unusual (Jacaranda and Paulonia are two notable exceptions). To find two trees with this colour flower in Temerant seems particularly unusual and begs the question that they may be related, even the same species exhibiting sexual dimorphism.  This might account for why the two trees seem similar to Kvothe, as he may be picking up on not easily discernible characteristic similarities, but the broad spreading tree would catch the pollen shed from the taller tree if standard botany applies. Incidentally the trembling aspen has so called quaking leaves, due to the uneven development of the petiole and subsequent twisting of top and bottom of the leaf in the breeze. One would imagine a similar development to cause the sword tree’s leaves to twist, and cuts from several sorts of plants are not unheard of.

Longbeans – a vegetable, presumably similar to runner, French or string beans.

Papavler – a loose petalled red flower, grown for the cultivation of its petals which produce a red dye. 

Velia – a countertoxin 

Bessamy – a herb used as an antiseptic, in combination with arrowroot

Ramsburr - antiseptic

Redblade - antiseptic

Saltbine – unknown use, possibly antiseptic

Mourning Fire – a deciduous shrub or tree, with strong autumn colours. 

Finally there is one fruit which is mentioned in the books which has no name and does not fit the botanical rules of our world, presumably because in Fae, anything is possible.  It is the fruit which Kvothe and Felurian eat after his visit to the Cthaeah tree.  Described as bigger than his head, it has a thin, leathery green skin with orange flesh, separating in spiral segments. The nut inside this is dark brown and slightly bigger than an egg, with a dry, edible interior, and inside this a white seed the size of a marble, also edible and sweet and sticky.  Terran plants always have fruits which consist of three parts, pericarp, mesocarp and endocarp i.e. skin, flesh and seed, reminding us that these books are after all, just fiction.  Or magic. 

J E Rudd

November 2022

3 ~ part 2. woodwork 

The two unique trees that interest me the most are the Cthaeh's butterfly tree and the Adem's sword tree. Kvothe, who is probably the only person in either world to have seen both trees says that one reminds him of the other although there isn't a lot in his quite detailed descriptions of them that supports a theory that they are are somehow related. Unless of course he has subconsciously touched upon a more intrinsic elemental secret in that both of these two unique trees were once deliberately shaped into creation by some unknown power for an unknown purpose. The exact location of the Faen tree is very striking and deliberate. It was clearly grown in this landscaped spot for reasons beyond our ken. The same might apply to the sword tree since it clearly wasn't just growing wild beyond the Stormwal just waiting to be found by the wandering Adem. It's special seed was therefore carried for many long years of wandering before it was eventually planted with ceremony to establish their new home.

Everything in the Fae has been shaped and created and that includes every tree and every butterfly which makes the case for cthaeh tree as being a shapers special tree easy to accept, all we need to do now is to work who actually shaped this tree out of which whole cloth and for what purpose.

The shaping of trees also has some history in Murella, over in the mortal realm, where in the early days of time, shapers were starting to develop their art into physical creations and it was in this city that one of them once shaped a new kind of silver tree with magical fruit that did strange things to the eater. Did that mean they shaped the fruit first and grew the tree or shaped the tree first which grew the fruit? That's a bit chicken and egg really and therefore unsolvable.

However, Murella is an interesting destination for us to go and investigate next in that it is a city that has a twin, and if One twin city definitely did have one special shapen tree then could we dare to suggest that both cities might then have housed two different Shapers trees, one tree of each tree-sex perhaps, and might we even go so far as to imagine that once upon a time, a rainbow bridge of butterflies flittered between them to help make exotic blue fruits?  

Perhaps the strange fruit that Felurian gave to Kvothe was shaped especially for him by Felurian's own hand, a present to make him happy again, a bit like baking him a birthday cake but not understanding the concept. I also wonder what might  have grown if he had planted the nut instead of eating it? Once you have the magical seeds of a shapers imagination in your head you can come up with all sorts of clever ideas as to potential purpose and desire, but only the Gardeners know the difference between truth and lies.

One final comment to add before we close is that pat's world is a non smoking house. Not even an old man with a pipe is ever spotted because smoking is bad for you. Nicotine is a no no but I wonder if they have marijuana in Modeg?

4 ~ Twins 

A Tale of Twin Cities

Twins is a interesting concept to consider in these books and there is no good reason to assume that they don’t exist in Pat’s work… But if I were to ask you to name any instance of twins occurring, then I bet that you would fail. However, they do exist, which is nice to know as that’s enough proof to validate investigation, although I only found one pair mentioned specifically: the twin sisters who made candles and taught strange dance steps in Haert. Most of you should have come up with another clear use of the word though and point out that Skarpi in his tale of the Ergen empire spoke of the twin-cities of Murilla and Murella. But cities are not siblings and so they probably don’t share the same maternal root. So what exactly makes them twin-cities? well we simply don’t know. 'History books that might have mentioned Ergen as an unlikely myth have long since crumbled into dust' meaning that’s about it as far as we can go on our quest for ancient written knowledge. However, these twin-cities do continue to live in the memories of some few truly ancient folk that we encounter who actually spent some time in them, such as Felurian.

‘Was Murella in the Fae?’

‘No. I have said. This was before. there was but one sky. one moon. one world. and in it was murella. and the fruit. and myself. eating it. eyes shining in the dark.’

She also tells us that murella (no capital, of course) was a walled city, a wall on which she sat and ate of the shaper’s fruit from their silver tree, obviously under the light of the eternal moon which was always round and full every night in those days. MurElla was also one of the last seven great cities that were still holding out against the enemy of Ergen and although Felurian never mentions it, Skarpi states that Murella had a twin-city whose name was Murilla which shares a virtually identical spelling to underline their closeness to each other. We can confidently assume that both of these cities would have always united together against the common enemy which assaulted their respective city walls, not just in the wake of Lanre and Lyra’s unifying actions, and worked as a team implying that the two of them were not completely cut off from each other…yet. Perhaps their link was geographical and each piece controlled one side of a bridge? Perhaps they were like Severen high and Sevren low, two distinct halfs with a cliff-edge relationship? We can only speculate on this but any such guesswork, whilst entertaining, is not really that necessary because we already know enough to proceed. Perhaps both places might best be regarded like two single half-pennies might be but they are also in other ways deemed still connected like a whole penny would be. Their names mean that they have always shared a unique bond of some sort that still unites them and marks them as perennial allies against the common foe and neither of them had fallen to the enemy at the gate…yet.

Fixed Odds

One thing that we can say for sure is at least one of our twin-cities definitely fell as part of Lanre’s betrayal. Myr T (no relation) also burned that night and six further pyres of smoke marked the fate of the fallen.

‘Selitos looked out over the land below and felt a small spark of hope. Six plumes of smoke rose from the land below. Myr Tariniel was gone and six cities destroyed. But that meant all was not lost. One city still remained.’

Pooling together all our vast knowledge of the great betrayal tells us… not a lot. We start off, luckily enough, with Seven cities to choose from. There was also the One city but we can strike Myr Tariniel off the list as even the Adem concur that the ‘one city’, (however it was named), did fall. We can put a cross through Belen, too as when Skarpi#2 speaks of Fair Geisa he mentions Belen’s fallen city walls, but that’s about as much as we can state as being fact. Mixing our various stories up together, however, provides us with one possible tinfoil connection. Skarpi lists the cities for us in a specific ordering of his own odd reasoning and in his list these twin-cities are the last two to be named. If we line this up next to Trapis tale, he tells us that the cities fell one per day and it was only the final city which was saved by Tehlu on the seventh day, which would equate in Skarpi’s list as being MurElla. Since the other six would have already fallen, this would also indicate MurIlla as being the final casualty. Tying seperate stories together to prove a point is, I agree, rather thin foil to rely too heavily upon but one more line of thinking might give it some added strength because Trapis also said that although Encanis succeeded with his task on the first six days, on the final day Tehlu ‘drew near’ before the demon lord could bring his power to bear and so the seventh city was saved. My reasoning here is that given the Empire being described as vast, many miles should lie between any two given cities for Tehlu to walk each day. Except, that is, for the distance between our twin-cities which must surely count as being ‘near’ to each other. If relative distance was an influencing issue in Tehlu’s walking journey then our twin-cities would share an obvious closeness and that factor may well have denied Encanis the necessary time that he may have required in order to summon enough power for him to bring down the walls of this second twin. All told it’s definitely starting to look quite promising for Murella.

With Myr T a definite goner, Seven cities will now remain in the game. The fall of Belen has reduced the field further but still only one of the remaining six will get to see the new dawn. This makes our in-play scenario currently look a lot like a game of Russian roulette where each city will now share the same 6/1 odds of it being the last man standing. But Team M’s twin connection means that between them they cover two chances and are, for betting purposes, to be viewed as the 3/1 co-favourites for one half of their dual domain to outlast all the others. Luck seems to be on our side as just like MurElla’s original winning chances of one in seven, so does it’s new odds of one in three also contain a lucky number, too. Factoring in Skarpi’s unreasonable counting system means that the smart money is now being placed on MurElla as being the mystery last city of hope.

If it was the worst of times, both MurIlla and MurElla have already fallen to betrayal which makes any further investigations into them seem rather pointless, but that gloomy thought can wait in the wings for now.

If it was the very best of times, however, One of our lucky numbers has come in, meaning that one of our twin-cities still stands… Huzzah! but that is as good as it ever gets because the other twin, by default, cannot also survive since there can be Only One! Whichever way things may have fallen out, one thing is for certain. Any historical link that ever existed between the twin-cities has most definitely now been severed because the one remaining city of hope must stand alone.

We can imagine the nameless lethani remembering ruler of this last undefeated place of Ergen standing on their own city walls as they watched the dawn break and, just as Selitos was doing far away on his mountain, they were looking out to see the seven self same plumes of smoke rising. One for Myr T, high in it’s mountain fastness. Five for the other diverse cities that formed Ergen’s other powers, and finally, nearest of all the ruins, and in their eyes by far the worst sight of all to them personally lay their own fallen twin. These smoking ruins represented the other half of what once made them a whole. On the plus side help and safety would have been close by for aid to be given to the refugees more swiftly than could be offered to any other city since first come is first served. Twins have a special relationship that goes far beyond what my ink can describe, but that link is broken now and for the first time since these twin-cities were co-founded, one twin will find itself alone as all that remains of Ergen following the fall of empire.

Myrillian

Putting a name to this ruler and/or their one time other half might just be possible thanks to the Adem’s rhinta story. 

‘Six of them betrayed the cities that trusted them. Six cities fell. One of them remembered the Lethani and did not betray a city. That city did not fall

This clearly puts these chandrian down as being six influential and important people in Ergen, Lords and Ladies whom each city once trusted with their security. It is not unreasonable to imagine that when the enemy ‘moved like a worm through fruit’ it would have aimed at subverting these topmost eight rulers of the empire, people who who were in a suitable position to betray the Empire and this enemy would have fully intended for all eight Lords and Ladies to forget the lethani on that fateful night and to cross over to the dark side. One of them, however, stayed true to their lethani path.

If the last hope for Ergen was indeed once one of our twin rulers, then in our best of times scenario they would now also know that their original and staunchest ally will now be counted among the chandrian to be. Alternatively, if this rule were now applied to the worst case scenario this would mean that among the chandrian’s ranks would now be found both of our original pair of twin city rulers, both of them together now united in their new service to Lord Haliax. That one rather notable situation of there being two 'twin-linked' Chandrian is not even remotely hinted anywhere as being true. Not through obviously related signs, not as unfounded folk rumour or in the silliest of our children’s songs or stories making it almost certainly not going to be the case in point and so all but confirm the survival of one twin-city. Besides, if the puzzle Pat has given us can be solved, then this is the only answer with any traction. The single fallen member of their twin relationship will however be found among those listed in the Adem story and will also have been painted onto the Mauthern pot which gives us an opportunity to line up some names and faces with our seven other cities the better to work out exactly Who’s Who.

 

5 ~ Who’s Who?

Who are the Chandrian?

‘Nobody knows, though every half wit claims he knows.’

Putting all the names to faces and signs is one of Pat’s trickier puzzle problems and you have probably tried to work them out yourself. If so, you may have come to the conclusion that we don’t have enough information to work with, but actually, we have too much. Ben gives us his list list of Seven signs, namely blue flame, one having eyes like a goat, or no eyes, or black eyes. Plants die, metal rusts, brick crumbles, fires dim, they are also, apparently cold to the touch, and one is yoked to shadow or shadow hamed, or maybe it is all their shadows that all point the wrong way…he doesn’t know.

Arliden doesn’t let on much about his own research but he does give us a big piece of the puzzle when he twice mentions reports of animals going crazy or mad around them.

Our author of Vintish Folke Tales has also gathered a list of seven signs blue flame, wine goes sour, blindness, crops withering, unseasonable storms, miscarriage and the sun going dark in the sky.

The Adem list, which ought to be definitive… isn’t because it doesn’t mention anything about their sexes and the words used for descriptions are…confusing but then this is an ancient story translated into Aturan from an archaic language by Sheyen. Isolating the women among them is an important step. We know there are some because when Kvothe actually sees them himself he tells us that they were ‘several unfamiliar men and women’. He doesn’t tell us the exact split although both of these words are plurals. The Cthaeh sticks his oar in too, when it also tells us that they have a lot of experience in hiding those tell-tale signs, which is therefore going to be true but the images on the Mauthern pot won’t be fooled by that and it will, we can be sure, represent them and their signs accurately in their proper form.

 So we have seven assorted men and women, each with a specific sign, a tree is in the distance representing the Cthaeh’s involvement and to cap it off we have an eighth figure in the shape of an Amyr getting in the way, too. Sorting out just the names and signs isn’t enough we need to be adding a description of them which will give us a chance as the puzzle then becomes merely tricky, but not impossible. Getting all the pieces to triangulate correctly into seven piles of three can best be achieved by using logic and rhetoric.

Logic and Rhetoric

1/2 Wits

There are Eight pictures on the Mauthern pot and the first half of the puzzle is quite easy going. Since we are dealing with the chandrian here, the Amyr can sit this game out and instantly we bring the Eight of them down to a lucky Seven. We can just as easily remove Lord Haliax from the equation, too, so that we can focus on his six chandrian proper. This is quite a simple step to take since he is pretty easy to spot and we know the most about him from our stories.

Sex > Male. Sign > No face and Shadow cloak. Adem story line > Alaxel bears the Shadow’s Hame. I think we can all agree on that part and this firm answer will cut through a lot of un-necessary ink and also eliminate many of the ‘double-up’ possibilities that occur in the words which Pat purposefully chose when he wrote our clues. They exist, lots of them, and are put there to trip you in your quest. They raise questions such as ‘are no face and no eyes and black eyes and blindness all the same thing?’ and, well, I suppose that they could be… but they are not. No face is always Lanre and the one with the funny eyes is called Cinder.

Black-Eyed Peas

We have met Cinder up close and personal and his appearance is hard to miss. His eyes have no whites to them, like those of the un-glamoured fae, but his are famously a solid black like a goat’s, or a crow’s. Kvothe is now suspecting for the first time that all of these painted people may be representations of the seven chandrian themselves and so he asks her for guaranteed confirmation by drawing on his own scant knowledge of the 7’s physical appearance and asks specifically if one of these pot people had white hair and black eyes. As the urn will clearly show, these are his stand out features, and are exactly what Nina would have picked up on herself, his eyes are the most important sign and the water and snow are something to do with his also being described as ‘chill.’ Kvothe having any knowledge of her secret at all makes Nina go wide eyed at the thought but she confirms this mans presence with a nod adding that Cinder’s portrait ‘gave me the all-overs’. This is a true depiction, and it is also accurately captured on the Mauthern pot along with a drift of snow to portray the word ‘chill’ which gives provenance to the urn as a reliable source of information and putting it on a par with the Adem story for accuracy. The appearance of snow has nothing to do with one of the7 being described as ‘pale as snow’, that’s another little pat-fall to avoid. Using the reliable Adem story as our key will reveal his true name. And Kvothe’s own eyes can confirm his sex giving him a finished pattern of Name > Ferule. Sex > Male. Sign > Chill and dark of eye. He might also carry a sword with him, but that detail is not a part of his actual sign.

We have now removed an awful lot of cluttering from our lists of possible signs and avoided a few overlaps which makes what is left a bit more manageable. These three were also the ones which Nina painted in detail on Kvothes picture and so we can assume that the unseen images would be of a similar quality. The five people that remain should each have their own sign just as prominantly displayed to leave no doubt as to that pictures most salient point. These other images are now only to be found in Nina’s memory and we are going to be now working blindfolded, a lot like the young girl from Newarre is when she acts along to the childrens chant that in the game that they play beside the tinker at the Waystone Inn, and so our game becomes harder, too.

Flambe

‘When your hearthfire turns to blue, What to do? What to do? Run outside, Run and hide.’

Our next target is to identify the blue flames as this is the most famous of all the signs reported, indeed it’s line in the kid’s song is the first one that Kvothe comes up with when he is with Denna at the Mauthern farm. The Adem Key is clear and tells us that Cyphus bears the blue flame. Now, Old Cob’s version of Taborlin the Great also tells us of blue flames burning and this has a three way link to Martens version where he speaks of ‘Syphus the sorcerer-king’ which is rather difficult evidence to argue with once you have seen it, and so I won’t. I will simply suggest that the spelling is a Vintish dialect used to describe quainte olde folke legends and it is still a nicely placed Pat shaped clue for the sharp eyed to notice and is also the correct answer. But this is clearly now becoming a progressively harder puzzle to solve, the clues are getting smaller and the steps are becoming trickier to climb. Marten’s story also gives us a sex for Scyphus to tick the last piece of his triangle as King Scyphus is revealed as our third man. Name : Cyphus. Sex : Male. Sign : Blue Flame.

1/4 Wits

‘Think now, what does or story need?what is it lacking?

‘Women, Reshi. There is a real paucity of women.’

So four names to go and given kvothe’s earlier plurals we can say that at least half of these should be women. We have less clues in our pile to work with now and we need to rely heavily upon Nina’s memories of what she only briefly saw just once. She describes those that she didn’t paint and brings them to light in trios.

‘People, mostly people. There was a woman holding a broken sword, and a man next to a dead tree, and another man with a dog biting his leg.

Three specific people depicting their three unique signs and we finally have our first woman in sight but also two more men and which only leaves one space to fill and we really need it to be another female just to make them plural, too. A bit more gentle pressing from Kvothe and she remembers ‘one with no face, just a hood with nothing inside it.’ This image is rather striking, too and confirms that these paintings are definitely what Kvothe suspected but one last image is then remembered and she gives us what we were hoping for with her final blushing recall that ‘there was a woman with some of her clothes off ‘ giving us seven different descriptions of five men and two women.

When she later arrives at the University she is asked again what she recalls of the Urn’s backsides and she tidies up a few things for us with her final triad of clues.

‘There was a woman with no clothes on, and a broken sword , and a fire.’

So we have a list of names and a gallery of pictures, We just need a song to go with them now.

‘They formed a circle with a boy in the middle and started to clap, keeping the beat with a children’s song that had been ages old when their grandparents had chanted it.’

The kids of Newarre play their games whilst the tinker… tinkers. Their communal game has a specific song with specific words that they all know and the song also has a specific beat, much like the Lady Lackless hop-skip song does. The meter of that song keeps up a steady beat of Eight counts to the line which is apparently good for skipping practice. The Chandrian song differs in that it’s syllable count is 7/3/3. with an occasional doubling up of the refrain to make it 7/7/3/3, lucky numbers everywhere Again!. Rhythm is more than just lucky, it is also important as it teaches small children how to count and so every syllable is equally important. Songs also hold their shape better as they spread and so you can be sure that the same words have been remembered perfectly down through untold generations.

We hear six verses in total, three during the Inn-terludes and three more in the story proper when Kvothe and Denna are up at the Mauthern farm. One verse is repeated in both scenes just so that we know this is still the exact same song. I have refrained from brining it up so far because we simply didn’t need it, we already know enough about a man whose eyes are ‘black as crow’ or ‘a man without a face’ from personal experiences without any need for a song, too but these verses further confirm this songs veracity. Our repeated line is the one about flames turning blue and that is another sign that we have already dealt with. It also tallies up with Nina’s second memories of there being ‘a fire’ on the Mauthern pot artwork. By-passing these three leaves us with a pair of verses that give us two new pieces of trustworthy information to add to our mix.

Red Oxide

‘When your bright sword turns to rust’ is a perfect line for tying together Nina’s memories of ‘a broken sword’ and ‘a woman holding a broken sword ‘. There is some justification for possibly thinking of the sign decay here instead but that is ultimately going to be a losing argument and so following it further would be folly. We could also spend a while disecting the ‘in thrall of’ part as well but the fact is that the sword can only really be seen as the sign for Stercus who we are informed is in thrall of ‘iron’ which lets us know the pictured sword is not forged of copper or silver but of the same stuff that the fae dread. The sign is not about the blade itself which is simply symbolic of it’s iron content. That ticks all the necessary boxes for our fourth chandrian and also gives us our first woman. Name > Stercus. Sign > In thrall of Iron. Sex > Female.

The Froth

On madness being a possible sign we have only one voice. Arliden’s who talks of animals going crazy though later he uses the term mad instead. He even paints us a picture to explain his point featuring Black eyes, Blue flame and Mad dog. Rather conveniently for us this scene is repeated in the flesh exactly. Black eyes is there, as must be Blue flame so sitting besides the fire really should be Mad dog. The Man at the fire had a bald head and a grey beard. He chuckles and says

‘looks like we missesd a little rabbit Cinder, be careful, his teeth may be sharp.’

which just reeks of being a signpost to his sign somehow involving animals and teeth, just like the picture on the Mauthern Pot. Most importantly we hear him speak which means that whilst his beard may be grey his Adem name is not Grey Dalcenti.

But going back to the subject of crazy/mad animals being a sign makes me think of rabies. Now rabies is a thing in Temerant, Kvothe worries that the draccus may have it and calls it ‘The Froth’ which sounds like a colloquialism. This makes me suspect that a more antiquated version of this might be ‘The Blight’ purely so that this would tally with the Adem Key and it sounds a lot better than ‘Pale Alenta brings the froth!’ In our world the word rabies comes from the latin for madness. This thinking puts grey beard in sync with dog man and therefore both as being Pale Alenta. This also allows us to remove any thoughs of her being pale as snow. That is still to come. We hear no verse in the song for DogMan, Rabies is not a nice image and also a difficult rhyme, but there really ought to be one so I will offer up my own.

‘When your Dog has Caught the Froth jus Blame it All on Patrick Roth fus.’

Name > Pale Alenta. Sex > Male. Sign > brings the blight (Rabies)

Nude Not Naked

Our puzzle pieces are now down to two and we are left with a boy/girl situation. In the childrens game we also see a boy and a girl at play when they were both currently ‘it’ but there appear to be two kinds of rules to the game. First we have the boy who is trying to escape the circle but is being pushed back inwards by the others as they chant the lines about the blue flames. When the girl takes her turn in the middle she covers her eyes with her hand and then tries to catch the others by the sounds they make as they run away chanting the lines about cinder and his crow eyes. Both Cinder and Cyphus are male but Denna also remembers a verse for us, one which the children don’t perform that speaks of our one remaining woman. Curiously, it’s 7/7/3/3 meter matches that of Lord No Face’s verse with a doubling up of the refrain.

‘See a woman pale as snow, silent come and silent go.

What’s their plan? what’s their plan? Chandrian Chandrian.’

Nina also has two goes at remembering the unpainted sides of the pot and on both occasions the image of a nude/naked woman makes her blush a bit. If you want to argue the differnces between being naked and being nude then I suggest that you go and speak to Elodin. At the end of the day these two lines are both talking about Grey Dalcenti who never speaks and so always comes and goes silently. Like Felurian, she apparently also doesn’t much care for clothes.

Name > Grey Dalcenti. Sex > Female. Sign > Uncertain, but silent and naked are part of it.

DeadWood

The most important reason why pale must equal grey comes from the other image on the Mauthern pot, the man by the dead tree. By a process of elimination we arrive at this being Usnea, a man, who lives in nothing but decay. The wood that rots at the farm was new and the troupe’s wagons were all in good condition as recently as Harrowfell. Decay is another classic sign that might also cover a wide range of assorted chandrian sign rumours, brick crumbles (I wonder if these bricks were mixed with iron?) metal rusts (only iron actually rusts) … these are all forms of decay, yes, but Usnea’s sign is most likely specifically aimed towards wood just as Stercus’ sign is aimed only towards iron. The bottom line though is this is the only chandrian we have left and so must be therefore fill the last space. Name >Usnea, Sex > Male. Sign > Decay (Wood Rot’s)

Tree-Angles

‘I wish that you creatures had the wit to appreciate me’

But Usnea’s image is not the only one that contains a tree. There is one on Nina’s painting, too. Behind Haliax there is an image of another tree that is described as ‘bare’, and bare does not mean dead.

Placing such an image in the background is a plot device used in faen plays to warn the audience that things will not end well. This Faen custom dictates that the artist, and therefore the person who actually created this urn, was influenced by the Faen traditions and was more than likely a fae themselves suggesting this urn will be a work of grammarie. I believe that this tree is the real reason why the pot is so important in the first place. The oracle is meant to be a secret. The Sithe are nothing Kvothe had heard of before, he had no reason to have any knowledge of faen phenomena. Their task is to prevent anyone from gaining access to this secret oracle, which means that they only ever deal with faen trespassers and mortals are not even supposed to know of it’s existence. Kvothe found nothing in his library search to warn him exactly what he might be facing except for possibly one obscure reference to an oracle. Stories of a winning a leaf from a magical singing wishing tree over the stormwal in the Tahl might offer a hint but really they would only deflect any idle curiosity about this most secret of secrets… although of course all stories Do have a grain of truth in them. Our Vintish historian may have mentioned this tree oracle rumour in his book, Three chapters on faeries he wrote, one of them all about Felurian. We also have songs about white riders and that means the Sithe, and songs of grey ladies could possibly be about Grey Dalcenti, yes, but there was clearly no explicit mention of any talking trees. Nobody in fae talks about it, ever! It would be like someone spitting poison in your ear. So Kvothe’s picture of the Mauthern pot is probably the only image of it in existance, and some important folk would want to keep any such things a secret. The only thing left to add is that this urn could just possibly be a funeral urn and so contain someones ancient ashes which could provide a sympathetic link to some past persons power, but that's just an idle thought so I shall wind this piece up instead with a rundown of our completed and definitive Chandrian list.

Haliax-Alaxel > Shadow hamed > Male

Cinder-Ferule > Chill and dark of eye > Male

Cyphus > Blue flames > Male

Stercus > In thrall of iron > Female

Pale Alenta > Brings the blight > Male

Grey Dalcenti > Never speaks > Female

Usnea > Lives in nothing but Decay > Male

6 ~  Angels

It's time to stay collecting individual character stories together now by putting things into bigger piles. The Chandrian are the bad guys and they have a plan but they also have enemies who are clearly then going to be the good guys and so we should focus on them next. We are slowly inching towards Tehlu Day when all the pieces will come into play like so many counters on a board game in a Tak battle played between two Gods. One playing black and one playing white.

Murillish Knots

The tale of Skarpi#2 concerns Lord Aleph and the survivors of the fall of Ergen who are now collectively called the Ruach.

With Seven cities falling, we might assume that these Ruach were then similarly divided by their city of origin. It should also be noted that the city which was saved will make up the clear majority of Ruach since that city lost no-one to the fighting and was quite probably hosting this great event as it was the only safe place left to them after Lanre Day. 

Lord Aleph clearly had a masterplan and its implementation called for Ruach volunteers to become angels to watch over the aftermath of his world changing plan as his future justice department. We know from the Adem that each of the individual chandrian betrayed one city each. Now If there was a city of Cealdish ancestry, that city would naturally have been betrayed by one of their own kind, likewise for a city of the red-heads, or for the city of the grey eyed mutants etc etc. making the Chandrian a truly cosmopolitan septet. So if each of the7 had their own unique citylink to cover the 7 races of Ergen then it might very well be the case that in order for Aleph’s Angelic counter plan to work properly in opposition to them then having a direct genetic blood line to each of these old cities might be deemed a requirement to becoming an angel rather than an affectation. Taking that thought further might also suggest that the Amyr could also follow this one Ciridae per fallen city maths, too, but the Amyr are too secretive a subject for today and they were never a part of Alephs original plan so we are instead going to be looking at the angels. 

.

Clue#1 ~ Ordal’s Ordeals

The Ruach were all survivors of the fall of Ergen. Those Ruach who chose to follow Selitos all remembered the burning of Myr T and those who chose to follow Aleph appear to have had similar experiences in their own cities.

Skarpi gives us a few brief lines about each of these ruach who stepped forwards to become angels in much the same way as the Adem recorded each sword bearer in Caesura’s atas. Of course on the Adem list the owners had all died in nasty ways making it read more like a very long winded obituary whilst all of those Ruach that we hear about were, against all odds, still alive for Skarpi to tell us of their life changing tales.  Eight of them are featured in Skarpi’s angelic pen portraits and, Tehlu excepted, he paints a picture of them all as stubborn survivors and refugees from assorted backgrounds who had just emerged from a great ordeal of death and destruction as all of their diverse cities fell. All except for Ordal that is.

‘Ordal, the youngest of them all who had never seen a thing die, stood bravely before Aleph, her golden hair bright with ribbon.

This is not a description of someone who has just lived through an exodus from a fallen city, this is a tale of youth and innocence showing bravery above her years. The fact that we are specifically told that she had never seen a thing die can only mean that Ordal could not have born witness to any of the recent destruction that has just visited the rest of Ergen. This means, as closely as Pat will admit, that the city from which Ordal hailed must then have been the one city which did Not fall and therefore had no deaths for her to witness in the first place.

Clue#2 ~ Andan other thing

With this first clue as our starting point means that sorting out which of the remaining angels might be paired with which city now becomes pretty immaterial since by default they were all among those which fell, however the last name on the list provides a hidden clue

‘…And beside her came Andan whose face was a mask with burning eyes whose name meant anger.’

Andan certainly seems to have seen his fair share of woes but that is not the key observation to make here. It isn’t obvious unless you are looking for it but Pat writes it down in black and white for all to see and then ignore. ‘Beside’ her means exactly that and nothing else, Ordal and Andan both stood together before Aleph, side by side. Now according to Skarpi’s list, Tehlu , being the son of God, was the greatest of them all and so it is to be expected that he came forward, first and foremost as the leader and orchestrator and after that his non-Titan followers… followed, in one to eight format, just like Skarpi tells us, occasionally dropping in a city name for extra reference. But despite being the last name on the list Andan was not spoken of, as might be expected as being ‘the last to come forwards…’ or ‘finally came…’ or perhaps even ‘the Eight among them was…’ but instead he was quite deliberately placed in a position which elevates him up from that ultimate 8th position to a universally recognized joint 7th place instead. Meaning that nobody came plum last, not in this game.

That Skarpi even mentions the words ‘beside her’ at all suggests to everyone reading between the lines that Pat wanted us to imagine them stepping forwards together before Aleph as one, equal before his eyes, and in doing so he is deliberately showing us that there was no order of precedence in placing either one of them above the other, regardless of age or sex. In the eyes of the world they are marked as equal for a specific reason, as if he was telling us that they are always meant to be though of as a pair. Pat, like Trip, has just thrown us a pair of lucky 7’s.

‘Praise Tehlu and all his angels’ is a line from Ambrose which implies that as far as the 4Corners is concerned, other angels are indeed accepted as available, but it must be noted that these two particular angels are the only names from Skarpi’s list which ever crop up in our books again. Denna, when under the influence of denner resin, cries 'Sweet angel Ordal above' in her delirium. The Aturan church doesn’t hold at all with some part of Skarpi’s heretical tale of the holy angels being the last survivors from some other empire which preceded their’s, and yet as far as names go, this pair of self-same angels are definitely acknowledged since they appear written in their own version of the beginnings of all things religous. These two names in particular are shown to us as being written down in the ‘The Book of the Path’, a page of which Nina stole to draw the image of the Mauthern pot upon. She took great care never to erase Tehlu’s name, or that of any of the other angels, and the convenient proof of this is that Pat draws our attention to the fact that the names Andan and Ordal are found written next to each other, one on each of the Amyr’s shoulders which tells us about their physical proximity to each on the written page meaning that even in the eyes of the Aturan Church their names are expected to be found together, although it is also worth noting that in this instance, the boy’s name comes before the girl’s!

Vintish Marten, who clearly knows this holy Aturan book quite well also prefer’s to go with Skarpi's lead and names Ordal before Andan when he was praying for divine intervention to guide his arrow at the bandits camp. We hear him praying to every holy name that he knows and out of all the angels to choose from, Pat uses this opportunity to hammer home the point that these two names, the most famous and popular pair of angels in all of Temerant, should always be kept together.

The unknown yet deliberate relationship which Pat is emphasizing here might suggest many ways to connect them, husband and wife might be an answer although given Ordal’s young age the idea of them being a married couple is highly unlikely. A more plausible line of thinking is that they might well have been siblings, where a younger sister and her elder brother are being shown to still have a bond to share together whatever happens. But that thought would surely mean that they came from the same city when clearly they did not. Therefore the only plausible answer is that these two would-be angels  are the representatives of the twin cities of Murilla and Murella and that they are still exhibiting this special link between them. They might even be twins themselves.

If we take another glance at the Adem and then factor in Skarpi’s lines about Ordal and Andan we will have an opportunity to identify their racial origins. 

'There were fifty sandy heads in the room, a few darker, a few lighter or grey with age…'

This is Kvothe telling us how all Adem are blondes and so Skarpi’s description of the angel Ordal's  golden hair colour tells us that whilst Ordal most certainly wasn’t a Ceald child she did at least have the correct colouring for her to pass the basic profile test for her being a young Adem girl since she has a very similar appearance to Celean. We aren’t told the colour of Ordal's eyes but my Jot says that they were going to be Adem grey.

‘And beside her came Andan whose face was a mask with burning eyes, who’s name meant anger.’

Every part of Andan’s Pat portrait also has an Adem element to it. His face being described as a mask is another classic Adem trait which can be compared to Pat’s general description of all Adem. His name meaning anger also tallies up nicely since all Adem names mean something deep and meaningful and part of Tempi’s name is said to mean Angry which is a pretty good match to Anger being a word commonly used for describing all Adem boys middle names. Whilst that is only the least of these coincidences it is true that and so we can put on the table to support the theory of Andan the Adem.

Obviously Andan didn’t really wear a mask, that is just descriptive of a deadpan expression. He was in fact acting just like the modern Adem do to keep their feelings from their faces and modern Adem keep their faces as blank as if they were wearing a mask. Andan didn’t really have actual burning eyes either but they were the only part of the man beneath that this facial mask allowed him to show. Nor did he have eyes actually made of fire (yet) he is just extremely angry at the world but with enough restraint not to let it show upon his face. This is another tick in the box to help show that in my opinion Andan’s eyes were also grey, just like Carceret’s really are.

‘ Then I saw her eyes. I’d thought she’d been angry before, but it was nothing compared to now…Those angers were like pale candles compared to the forge fires burning in Carceret’s eyes.’

Every tiny clue we have been given  implied that whilst each race of Ergen supplied one volunteer to Alephs plan, the Adem ancestors sent a pair of them and my conclusion is that their boy represented the stock of fallen Murilla whilst their girl hailed from Murella, the city which survived. 

Now it seems increasingly likely to me then that sex was going to be the real difference between the two half-cities and the underlying fact in my theory is that one half was the twin city where all the A-Men lived and the other half was the twin city of the A-Women and between them was the wall upon which a female Felurian once sat in the female half eating the silver fruit that made your eyes glow like silver.

If this theoryline is correct that will mean that whichever of the Chandrian betrayed Murilla should also sport grey eyes and have sandy hair and they will most definitely be an Adem male because in my plan it was the female of their species who remembered the lethani and thus saved Ergen. And that's the real reason why the Adem women are correctly regarded as being better than their menfolk neighbours.

That scrubs both of my females, Stercus and Grey Dalcenti, out of the running for the Murilla Chandrian as that field is reduced to four. Ferule, Cyphus, Pale Alenta and Usnea. My money is on Pale Alenta brings the froth, if for no other reason than his name appears in the same 6th position in the Adem roll-call as Murilla was in Skarpi's concise list of Ergen cities.

Aka Grey Beard.

7 ~ Skarpi.

We have been relying on Pat's side stories quite heavily on our path forwards and since this is a story about stories, it's probably time to investigate the master storyteller himself. This is not Kvothe, or Kote or even The Chronicler, but rather the one link that binds all these three together. Skarpi, who professes to know the one true great story of the world.

Skarpi is an old man who tells stories to children in The Half-Mast pub in Dockside, Tarbean. Every day at sixth bell, every day except Mourning. Why not Mourning? This would appear to be a religious thing. The days of the week are named from the time of the tehlin church’s founding. Mourning commemorates the final day of Tehlu’s victory over Encanis and is remembered as a holy day, like our Sunday, and we are told that ‘folk are a little more generous on Mourning.’ The church frowns upon many things, including strong drink. Trapis talks of a man who drank ‘even on Mourning’ and Kvothe avoids a Tehlin priest because he recently drank a pint of strong beer on Mourning, a pint he obtained from the back door of an inn which sounds a bit surreptitious and could mean that inns are not meant to be open on Mourning because of a church edict? Perhaps, perhaps not, but it is quite a plausible theory and a good example of what can be deduced from minimal clues.

What we do know is that Skarpi tells stories on all the other days and if he didn’t know the story that you asked for, he would give you a whole silver talent. Kvothe asks about Lanre and Skarpi obliges. But not only does he tell us the story of Lanre, a story which Arliden would have loved, but in doing so goes into huge detail where Arliden struggled to find many hard facts in two years of searching. Denna also encountered similar troubles with ancient names in her version of Lanre. Skarpi , however is a treasure trove for true names. He teaches much more than ancient history though as he later tells Kvothe about geographic names and places from points on the compass that could be described generously as being the ends of the known world.

‘I only know one story, but oftentimes small pieces seem to be stories themselves. It is growing all around us. In the manor houses of the Cealdim and in the workshops of the Cealdar, over the Stormwal in the great sand sea. In the low stone houses of the Adem, full of silent conversation.’ ‘And sometimes’ he smiled, ‘Sometimes the story is growing in squalid backstreet bars, Dockside in Tarbean.’

Basically, Skarpi is saying that he knows all the history of the world which is why he can claim that there is no story he doesn’t know.

Firstly, we must remember that he himself is currently speaking from... a backstreet bar, Dockside bar in Tarbean, which the original map shows us this is in the Commonwealth, a part of The Four Corners of Civilization and once part of the Aturan Empire. Skarpi is telling us that He himself is part of the bigger story, even Kvothe is a part of this one great story just by dint of him meeting him. 

He mentions the Cealds in two different ways, Cealdar and Cealdim, differentiating between artisans and moneylenders. The capital of Ceald is Ralien and this is where the manor houses and workshops are, deep in the Shalda mountains in their own corner of the world. The Cealds are different from the other nations. They have their own language, their own religion, their own laundry customs, and they have a profoundly unique appearance. If anyone can be said to be a wholly different peoples from the norm then it is the Cealds. They are also wary of outsiders and simply treat them as customers. Skarpi may have been welcomed there but Kvothe says that his troupe never went that far North.

Skarpi also speaks of the far side of the Stormwal being a great sea of sand. We know little else about it, but we know where its is meant to be… It is off the edge of the map! Has Skarpi travelled there himself ? maybe, anything is possible I suppose. There are rumours of a nomadic race of singers and healers living out there, and the Adem acknowledge their existence, but we know little more about it than that. It seems likely that Skarpi knows all about it and has told Tahl stories on earlier occasions. The other children are obviously treated to stories about this inhospitable place, one young girl in particular, who couldn’t possibly have any other source of information asks for specific stories about things from the dry lands over the Stormwal. He also speaks of the Adem, another race who live outside of the four corners, secretive and aloof all sharing the same grey eyes. They are a rarely seen race apart who don’t welcome many barbarians. Despite them being such a secretive people, Skarpi knows, accurately, about their ‘low stone houses full of silent conversation’. How? Even if he had also traveled there to see for himself, these are the inner parts of their school and the Adem are a secret people who would not have allowed him inside their low stone houses or taught him of their silent language . Emphatic Absolute Denial. Yet he is somehow exact and correct in his description. Skarpi is not one of the grey eyed Adem, his eyes are diamond blue, yet he certainly knows what he is talking about.

Looking at the 10th anniversary maps also reveals something else about Skarpi’s words. The Cealds were Not part of the Aturan empire, they never were having always remained independent of its influence. The same is true of the Ademre and of everything beyond the Stormwal. Only Tarbean, where they currently sitting can be said to be within the inner four corners of civilization and thus subject to the language, law and religion of the Aturan Empire, which he is about to fall foul of when he tells his next story.

So in summary, Skarpi is worldly wise and knowledgeable about far too many supposedly secretive things than anyone has a right to be. He is Not a simple storyteller.

Kvothe asks Skarpi if his story of Lanre was true and he is told that…

‘All stories are true, but this one really happened, if that’s what you mean. More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.’

That is quite a lot to take in, and raises the question how do we know Skarpi isn’t lying about everything? The answer to that question is hidden within his own words. Arliden was also trying to find the story of Lanre. We know that he found something, a historical basis for his song, but with nothing like the information Skarpi gives us. To give his story credence we have to pick a few important words out. Skarpi lists names to seven cities and one city, and also speaks of the Blak of Drossen Tor. The Adem have written records painstakingly copied and accurately recorded in all their swords atas, and kvothe’s sword was recorded as once being carried at Drossen Tor, corroborating the ancient name. /However an Adem story of this time names Tariniel as the one city, (missing out Skarpi’s ‘Myr’ part) and admits the other names of the cities have been forgotten for they fell ‘long ago, before the land was broken and the sky changed.’ If any of the Adem fought and died in any of city but there own it would be recorded in their swords atas and so their lost names would not have been forgotten. and could be cross referenced to their story giving it the Adem a name to ponder, but it is not implying they had their own city to defend. /

Skarpi tells us that ‘even books that recorded the war as doubtful rumour have long since crumbled into dust.’ however he not only names Myr Tariniel in full but also rattles off a long lost list of seven exact Names. Belen, Antus, Vaeret, Tinusa, Emlen, and the twin cities of Murilla & Murella.

Felurian herself talks of Murella not being in the fae and of and herself sitting upon its walls eating a fruit. She says this was long ago. ‘before. there was but one sky, one moon, one world, and in it was murella. and the fruit. and myself…’

This is all we need to corroborate accuracy in Skarpi’s tale, an eye witness whose word we cannot deny.

Talking of eyes, as we often do, Kvothe tells us during his conversation with Skarpi

‘His bright eyes looked deep into me, as if I were a book that he could read.’

This line is very similar to his description of how Magwyn and Elodin could look at him. And, to a lesser degree, Cinder and Puppet! Skarpi’s own description of Selitos in his tale also tells us that…

‘Just by looking at a thing Selitos could see its 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.’

When Felurian and kvothe clash in a struggle of wills. Each trying to dominate the other, Kvothe emerges the stronger and Elodin believes that he actually spoke the true name of Felurian. During their battle…

‘Felurian reached up to touch my face, her eyes intent as if trying to read something written deep inside of me.’

Felurian was attempting to read Kvothe’s true name and thus have power over him. This is a repeated description of how namers use their power, they literally read you like a book. Selitos was a namer and is described doing exactly this, but he wasn't the only one which means that Skarpi could well be one, too, and that he has also been reading the name of Kvothe, so to speak, using the power of his own sight. Is Skarpi like the ‘many who could do such things’? he certainly knows about the due process of naming. Skarpi being a Namer would also neatly answer the oft asked question of how Skarpi learnt Kvothe’s name without it being mentioned. Answer: He read it.

From the other examples we are shown of actual naming in action, Elxa Dal gives us the best one when he says the name of ‘fire’ and that is what Kvothe hears although the master says that is not what he actually said and that he is surprised Kvothe heard anything at all. In another example Elodin whispers the name ‘aerlevsedi’ to Kvothe which clearly is a true name, but Simmon only hears the word ‘wind’.

Chronicler’s transcription process is approved by Kote as faithful and is therefore beyond reproach.

My point here is we are told what young Kvothe heard in Tarbean verbatim. ‘Silanxi, Aeruh, and Selitos’ Are these just random words made up by an old storyteller for dramatic effect? Or is that what was actually said on the mountainside 5000 years ago?, the long names of stone and air, phonetically reproduced (with a capital letter!) If so, this would mean that Skarpi either knows the shape of these long Names himself, or that he has been told them personally at some point by someone else who did.

Since he was not himself present on the mountainside to hear them spoken in person, and it is unlikely that Haliax told him the tale afterwards, this leaves the only plausible answer being that Selitos once told Skarpi the details of this true story personally. Somehow their life spans have crossed which means that at least one of these two people is also over five thousand years old. I would suggest that if one of them definitly is, then both of them most probably are. Two very old and important men who once spoke to God and are both still at large in the world today. Incidently, whilst Skarpi did not actually call and wind or stone during his story, he accurately knew the sound that their names make. Furthermore it could be argued that by naming Selitos he would also have spoken aloud his true name which might have made this ancient listener suddenly aware that someone, somewhere, was speaking their true Name. And two days later, someone came to investigate.

Haliax is still abroad in the world, we have met him, so it is not unthinkable to accept Selitos still knocking around as well in order to continue his sworn mission of confounding him whilst his curse still holds.

In Skarpi’s dealings with what may well turn out to be one of old Lord one-eyes Amyr minions, Skarpi makes statements that imply he actually knew Tehlu personally. He has just insulted this Tehlin Justice before Erlus strikes him, orders him not to speak in his presence and says that he ‘know’s nothing’, Skarpi ignores his command and replies ‘I suppose that could be true, Tehlu always said—‘ where no matter what came next, the next words are a recollection of Skarpi's meaning he was once in the presence of Tehlu. This angered the justice greatly to have such an obvious heretic blaspheming before him about his having talked to God. In his next line Skarpi chides Erlus by name, implying that he must either of had dealings with him before or that he has just read him ‘like a heavy lettered book.' He goes as far as to state that ‘Tehlu hates you even more than the rest of the world does, which is quite a bit.’ A very personal opinion which could only be true from personal knowledge. Skarpi laughs hysterically through his ensuing beating at the thought of ‘these sort of men’ calling on Tehlu like it was the name of God himself.

Is Skarpi just a simple storyteller, fond of a drink and unaware of the trouble he is in? He seems to think that he will be alright because he has ‘friends in the church’. If he did once know Tehlu personally then that would be true that a friend of a powerful being would have many priestly connections. Maybe he just knows some eqivalent of ‘the hempen verse’ which he thinks will somehow get him off of the hook. But regardless of the accusations it is clear to me that his stories are not the ravings of a drunken madman, as the justice insists they are, because all of his words and actions indicate his veracity.

Could Skarpi have spoken with Tehlu quite recently? No, because according to his own story, Tehlu has now left this world and cannot be seen by mortal sight. In order to know what ‘Tehlu always said…’ he would then have had to have known him from a time before he left, in fact Skarpi would have had to be among those Ruach present at the scene before Aleph in order to accurately record his own second story. This answer makes the most sense to me, for him to be actually remembering his own first hand experiences , obviously with an eidetic memory, in order to provide us with such an accurate pile of assorted information.

This not a tale he once had told to him, but an actual memory. His stories are basically factual history, an inconvenient truth which contradicts the new official Tehlin Church version which is written down in their own ‘Book of the Path’.

Thus the conclusion we reach then  is that Skarpi and Selitos were both in attendance when Tehlu was last seen at Alephs great meeting and therefore reveals that Skarpi is not what Kote calls a rumourmonger but is a very long lived being with some very powerful connections.

8 ~ Selitos

Selitos.

So if Skarpi is ancient and still alive today, and Haliax is still around too then where is Selitos One-Eye? Wondering about the true age of him uncovers some evidence to suggest that Selitos may have already been the Lord of Myr Tariniel for many more years than is at first assumed, he may well have been a factor in it’s founding and to have been an active player in the creation war since day one. Skarpi is vague about the length of this long war yet all the indications are that it was many, many years. If the unknown reason for which Chael shaped Saicere was to be carried in the creation war, a not unreasonable assumption, then thirty of it’s holders had died before the war’s defining battle. Lord Selitos had been a key player in the war with the enemy for at least as long as Lanre had, indeed at their meeting, Lanre repeatedly calls him ‘old friend’ which may be a more telling description than is assumed at first glance.

Selitos curses Lanre ‘and all who follow him’ with his own blood in a doom to last ‘until the world ends and the aleu fall nameless from the sky.’ Yet we also know Lanre is alone in the world as the only man who cannot cross death’s door, even his powerful wife had to pass eventually. His Chandrian, however, are a different kettle of fish. They too have been witnessed still alive in the present day, as tools in Haliax hand showing us that Selitos linked curse is still holding as strong as ever. Holding a link between his own blood and this curse upon the Chandrian would almost certainly require a living, breathing Selitos to be still active in order for his curse to be enforced. Furthermore, if one had the power to do such a thing to others once, it could be eminently possible, given a strong enough alar, for him to hold a secondary binding on a second group of peoples, the knights of his very own Order Amyr for example, in order for them to join his struggle against the seven immortal chandrian on equal terms. Otherwise we are talking of a scenario where an Amyr father passes the burden down to his first born son, unbroken for generation upon generation with neither side ever claiming a single victory. The Amyr v the Chandrian is a game that has lasted for thousands of years now and there are still as many chandrian now as their name suggests. Maybe Selitos could even have looked in a mirror and turned his vaunted naming powers upon himself, or maybe that would have been unnecessary if he had already mastered the secrets of a very long life? But even if he could not, We know that his equally powerful acquaintance Lord Aleph most certainly could grant extended life. We have already heard of him turning some other Ruach into angels with a touch so by giving them all new long names that forever changed them into new creatures of power. The number of original Amyr who stepped forward from among the Ruach is not given but I would suggest that it is going to be a small number, quite possibly a lucky number similar or equal to that of the chandrian.

When Lanre bound Selitos on the mountainside he did so by speaking his true name, not his calling name, oh no, that would have had no effect. The name he used to bind Selitos was ‘Selitos’, a mistake here on the master namers part perhaps, to walk about proudly wearing his true name for all to see instead of disguising himself beneath the shield of a common calling name. He is unlikely to have left himself so open twice, especially with the battle still raging, and so it is quite probable that an eternal Selitos would have had his own name changed along his own choice of path and has assumed a new identity long since. 

 If New Selitos is still active in the world today, then he would have seen five thousand years of history. Think about that a bit, five thousand years ago in our timeline is the age of the first pyramids, whilst in England, a less evolved society was building stonehenge, a circle of greystones similar in design to our description of Faeriniel. Writing was only just being invented, construction was basic, yet the cities of the Ergen empire were cultural wonders, where namers walked the streets like tiny gods having absolute power over things like fire, water, wind and stone. The Great Stone Road whose age and construction are lost in the depths of time runs straight and true across the land, a feat of engineering that was almost certainly only made possible by employing the name of stone. Part of its length is the impressive bridge over the Omethi river. That it is still standing is testament to the strength of its individual stones and it’s clever design although the origins of its creation are long forgotten. The road doesn’t deviate at all, ruler straight (across the curvature of the world), it has stood for centuries and I am in little doubt that its builder deliberately followed the exact and correct course that led it unerringly to its desired ends.

We are further told that the current university stood on the ruins of a previous university, a second place of learning that would also have been deliberately located at the road’s terminus.

In Pats world, the first we hear of recorded history is still vague and comes from 2000 years ago with the nomad Cealds beginning to settle in their mountain conquest and starting to work with metal, eventually creating currency which established their place in the shape of the world. The very foundation of the current Lackless family, the Loeclos box is guessed at being from about 3000 years ago. Yllish story knots were being tied earlier that that, but what stories did they tell? and this was all before men started scratching pictograms on the skins of sheep. Sovoy’s bloodline goes back fifty generations, older than tree and stone, but not as far as that of their High King, the oldest royal lineage there is. The Adem have records from the time of drossen tor, but are now a secret and outcast race, Antagonised by the Amyr and no longer considered a part of the four corners. The Tehlin church is younger than any of these, maybe a thousand years old or so. Their history is riddled with conflicting reports as both Kvothe in the archives, and Alveron in an actual Aturan mendary found out when looking for records concerning the mysterious knights of the Order Amyr, a name coined by Selitos himself in memory of his beloved city.

An eternal Selitos would have first hand knowledge of everything that has happened since the time of Lanre. Everything from before the fall of Ergen through to the rise of the current status quo, led mainly by the Aturan empire and it’s lust for conquest. He was there to witness the origins of the Cealds, the history of the Yllish, the rise of the Modegans, and was alive when the Loeclos box was closed. He may even know why the Loeclos box was sealed in the first place and what it contains. Selitos would have been witness to the birth of nations. He has personally overseen five thousand years of human evolution and actively participated in it’s shaping through the strong arm of his Order Amyr. He was once the most powerful Lord in the world and in all the long years since, all of his works have been pushing towards one goal. He has one reason and one reason only for why he has orchestrated the current shape of the world, and one reason why he continues to do so.

To confound the plots of Lanre and all who follow him.

And Nothing shall prevent him from attaining the greater good.

Ivare Enim Euge.

9~  Red Herrings

Illien.

If we are going to investigate the secrets of everyone important in this one true story we will have to do them one at a time. Only once we have placed all the relevant pieces on the board we can start moving things about. I'll try and weave their order of appearance into something slightly relevant but it's very difficult to know where to go next among so many  possibilities. But Kvothe thinks that the most important person in the world was called Illian, so let's begin with him.

So what do we know about Illien? Aside from him having red hair.

Fact 1. Felurian has heard of him yet she has not heard of Oren Velciter or Taborlin the Great. Oren Velciter is understandable, he is a famous hero but Chronicler has interviewed him and so he is a modern day mortal hero and only a recent speck in her eternal timescale, she also laughs at stories of modern Amyr church knights, an older sort of ‘hero’. Taborlin the Great is a mythical figure but clearly one from the mortal world given her ignorance of him. Whilst his time scale is undoubtedly more ancient than modern, she still hasn’t heard of his infamy. Visitors are rare and who would have told her about any of them anyway? She likes sex, not stories. Which makes Illien quite a paradox. Either He came to visit Her in Fae or she had heard of him ‘long ago’ during her time in Murella, or rather during her time in the cities of the Ergen empire, before it all fell apart.

Fact 2. When it was suggested by Kvothe that Illien was the greatest man who ever lived, Master Lorren blinked. Everyone agrees that getting any reaction out of master Lorren is nigh on impossible to achieve meaning that Kvothe’s answer must have struck a raw nerve there. Lorren also knows of Arliden the Bard, an archaic term that would suit Illien better. Illien’s name is a famous name, so much so that even children in bars ask for stories about him.

Fact 3. He was one of the Edema Ruh, a group that Felurian had no reason to know of either. A troupe of travelling mortal folk, shunned by society at best and despised as a rule. Something about them is simply ‘unwanted’ around ‘normal god fearing folk.’ and the ravel ruh are even described as ‘more trouble than they are worth.’ a line Kvothe admits to Felurian verbatim. They are not generally given the time of day so how one ever become so famous at all is a mystery in itself. My answer is that Illian clearly wasn't born an Edema Ruh, that all happened later in his career. He was obviously a world famous musician first and a social outcast second.

Illien did eventually become an Edema Ruh and all of their oldest and best songs were his. In order for this statement to be true, Illien must have been one of the founding members of the edema ruh. A master luthier, he redesigned the neck on the unwieldly court lute, and cut it’s two dozen strings down to the more robust and portable seven-string troupers lute, his own instrument was said to have had eight strings, and that number sounds like a rather important clue to me. He then taught the world to play it by writing all of the best music and lyrics. There have always been ruh, since the first travellers sat around the first campfires after Tehlu Day and one of these earliest travelers was Illien, a very long lived Illien who had experience of courtly music and it’s craft. The most obvious way of linking these things together would be to assume that Illien was an original and famous citizen of Ergen society, a respected court musician who somehow survived it’s fall from grace. This would mark him not only as Ruh, but as Ruach. Perhaps that is where the name comes from.

Not all the ruach became angels or amyr, most were afraid to get involved with serious matters. So once Aleph’s great meeting was concluded what were they all to do next? I suspect that 'most of the ruach' went out into the new world and made a new beginning for themselves in a bid to recapture the kind of power they once enjoyed in Ergen. Modegan is the oldest royal line and I would suggest that ruach bloodlines are at the heart of that nations heritage, as they are with the Loeclos family of Tinuë. But none of them became a famous patron to Illien so perhaps he took his musical knowledge and went chasing the wind out into the ruins of the broken world to find a more appreciative audience. It appears that he found such a place telling the first stories and singing the first songs around the first campfires with the first common people. So why would he choose a life stringing along with ravel like them? That name was coined much later in history and we get its etymology from Kvothe but they have always been called the Edema Ruh, it is a proper old name from an old forgotten language.

If Illien had owned a court lute it would be impractical for the road, and common folk appreciate simpler things. Eight strings were said to be on his own personal instrument but seven is a lucky number for the troupers lute. Lutes have bloodlines every bit as noble as racehorses. Skarpi knows the truth about all things since he has lived the one great story in the world and the children in the Half-Mast even ask Skarpi for stories of Illien, a favourite being ‘Illien and the bear.’ Skarpi knows all the best stories and Illian has a lot of history behind him to tell. /  If Illian was an Ergen bard then the former Lord Selitos might have also enjoyed his musical entertainment, for the discerning player Illien composed the fiendishly complex étude Tintatatornin and his masterpiece Sir Savien…, a song for six or seven strings, it is an epic production that moves people of all classes. It is a love song about one of the Aturan Amyr, one of Selitos companions, but the upper classes of Atur hate Ravel like him and Selitos and the Amyr were now busy pulling their own Ruach strings, deep at the heart of great matters from their Atur base, great matters that the remaining Ruach members were too afraid to become involved in./

 So why would a famous singer, songwriter, master luthier and the ‘greatest man who ever lived’ choose a life among outcasts? Was he considered an outcast himself? he may have achieved his fame in Yll before some scandal tarred his name, after all, Yll with it’s red hair, lilting language and string stories of it’s own was ancient before the Imperial Aturan Army trampled it under it’s boots. Perhaps the Yllish were telling the wrong sort of story knots. It was also Atur which launched a pogrom on the ‘travelling ravel’ of the Edema Ruh that Illian was a founding member of. Atur is not a friend to either group, in fact it sounds like Atur might have actually had it in for Illien personally, a long standing grudge for a long lived ruach for long forgotten reasons. His one family could be only guilty by association.

Illien would have crossed the world many times over as an eternal trouper and so would not have to explain his ancestry or longevity to anyone. On the surface he would be assumed as being Yllish, just like Kvothe’s matching hair suggested the same thought to Viari. Illian may have even been a Lord in the country which so closely resembles his name, but that may just be a red Hairring. But in many ways Illian most resembles Sceop, the old man who joined the Ruh at Faeriniel, which would be far down times long journey from Ergen, years ago and miles away on a night with no moon.

I’m not speaking…

Kvothe says that all ot the best ruh stories came from Illian and so it is quite feasible that the tale he passed on to Simon and Wilem was actually one of Illian's original early works. 

Kvothe’s tale is less of a story and more of a history lesson. One which tells us about of all the different peoples of the land. As Simmon complained it is based upon their exaggerated stereotypes.

First up are the Cealds. Four horses and three men. All the men are dark-bearded merchants with wealth to flaunt. They would happily make a deal with Sceop or indeed with anyone, but at a customer level only for their own financial gain. Sceop is not Cealdish, wrong colour.

Then there are four Adem. They are fierce fighters with a history but do not welcome any outsiders. The old man is not one of them either, he hasn’t the eyes for that, although the name Sceop is almost certainly rooted in an ademic word.[quote] In that old language of the forgotten world Sceopa would mean ‘to speak’. And the Adem are a silent race. This part of his tale also contains the source of Kvothes ‘interesting fact’, which is later debunked by Tempi, although not by Caceret.

There are no Modegans present, which is typically aloof of them, but why would anyone bother to explain that there is no royalty older than the Modegan royal line? who doesn’t know these things. They are remembered by Sceop who was in Modeg years ago where he witnessed the kings guard displaying their arrogant superiority and their devotion to bloodlines both. They are also desribed as lewd, which politely sums up our impression of Modegans in general. Their blood goes back generations, older than tree or stone. But Sceop has no bloodline to speak of.

The Aturans were the worst. They desired servitude, domination and power which they see as their natural right to impose upon any they can. A fitting description of Aturan Impirialistic ideals. They may have welcomed a fellow Aturan but Sceop was not one of them.

The six Vints may have been more outgoing on another day, but it was a night with no moon and they were scared and superstitious of what they didn’t understand so didn’t take any chances, which sounds a lot like most of the ruach to me. They each held different opinions like a group with no firm leader, much as modern Vintas is an amalgam of many kingdoms and farrels and houses. Sceop might perhaps also be of Vintish stock, come from the cradle of cizilization.

The single Amyr had his own private mission and none must be allowed to interfere with it’s execution. Neither Sceop, nor indeed any of the various races of man were important to to the order.

There were also no Chandrian present for him to confound… we hope, It was a moonless night though…

Only the nomadic Edema Ruh welcomed the traveller. They didn’t have a land to call home, they don’t want one, they are too common for most common folk. The Ruh asked him to join their extended family as they felt a kinship to him. Undesirables all they saw themselves reflected in him and his origins were not an obstacle to being ‘One Family’. They also believe it best to stick together to help each other against the many dangers of the road. Sceop, with his vast stock of worldly knowledge then began to teach them all the stories of the world, stories such as this one, stories that reveal to us all the true shape of the world. They were heading to Belenay next, which is in the Commonwealth, a land which was always there but with no real history, common land for civilized people. The countrymen there fought for their right to live free.

Two and Seven.

But back to Faeriniel, and I note that our polytravellers are both globally representative and are oddly numbered.

Numerically, we have a meter running through the campfires. We have Zero moon, One Ex-Ergen Amyr, Three Cealds, Four Adem, a handful (!) of Aturans, Six Vints, and Eight Edema Ruh, who camped around the central stone circle. But there is a break in the circle, and that is in itself significant as a broken circle is the mark of the outcast. To complete the full equation there really ought to be a Yllishman or maybe a representative of the vast scattered Loeclos Family in order to mend our broken circle and make our casting call for all the diverse peoples you may meet in Temerant complete. A red headed lackless relative would be both, and 1+1=2.

That would put the break in the circle firmly at the feet of the Seven.

The irregularities regarding the missing two are best summed up within Sceop himself. We are told that he barely even owned his own name and even that had been worn thin and threadbare through the years. When pressed he has almost forgotten it himself, he gives a name with a meaning from the secret language of the Adem. This is the language that was used by those who fought at drossen tor making it a language not spoken anywhere in the four corners of civilization since the time of the deliberately forgotten Ergen empire. Any who still speak it have been antagonised off the map, which is a long way to go to find real answers as the Cthaeh would say. Sceop has bright blue eyes and a white beard, just like our ex-ruach friend Skarpi does another who would know the old words for things. He hasn’t finished explaining his own presence yet. There is a lot to link Skarpi’s performance with an Edema Ruh performance. A masterful delivery, with a little bit of money involved.

Skarpi is also odds on to be what the ruach would call a speaker.

‘I’m not speaking…’ I listened to the words I was using, ‘Sceopa Teyas.’

Now, it is a fact that whilst many people go grey haired with age, red hair cannot do this. It doesn’t have the right pigments and so Instead, it turns snowy white. This little known fact is casually alluded to by the University educated physician Caudicus who says he knows a tale that will send Kvothe’s own red hair white. A small thing in life but one that we can now apply to Pat’s world just as it does in our own. Our old man had walked around the world for years until he found Faeriniel, not a place any man has ever found by searching. It is not a place you travel to, it is a place you travel through on your way to somewhere else. It is a crossroads where friends are found, greystones abound and where all the roads in the world come together just like our clues are also now doing. Sceop and Skarpi and Illien all come across as knowledgeable wandering outcasts of Ergen. Equally unwelcome in much of Temerant they are all without a firm link to any part of the cizilized world, save possibly to do the it’s eldest family.

Sceop might be what his name means but the calling name by which we know him today is almost certainly Skarpi. And I will bet my tinfoil hat that once upon a time he was known to the other ruach as Lord Illien Loeclos, the first lord of Tinuë.

10 ~ Primordial Soup

‘soup is easy’

This one feels a bit ‘unnecessary’ to me in that I feel it is so obvious that it sort of goes without saying, and yet it needs to be said anyway in order for this history to progress further. Proving something by connectivity cannot always be achieved satisfactorily, but a heavy implication can carry an awful lot of weight. The point is that even though Ergen and everything it stood for has now been deliberately forgotten about across all of the diverse nations of the four corners, life continuëd, obviously.

When you think about that a bit you come to the conclusion that those few folk who had somehow survived the fall of Ergen, (approximately 1/8th of the original total… and some change), must have also managed to make their seperate ways through all of the horrors of the demon days that were to follow until the day when they finally gathered together in one disparate group of assorted refugees who somehow came to stand before Lord Aleph in order to receive his judgement on the shape of the new world to be. According to Skarpi#2 this group of men and women are now collectively referred to as the Ruach, when actually they were all technically still classic Ergenites at heart. Some of them (like Selitos one-eye) could still expect to have had a larger say in matters than others as he was once acknowledged as their supreme leader in the past and furthermore he would also be considered to still have the blood of Myr T running through his veins, and bloodlines are very important things in Temerant today, incredibly so in some cases.

Natural selection dictates that the cream will always rise to the top in any given society and so the strongest, tallest, fastest or simply the cleverest, richest or the most powerful will always dictate the road for their herd to follow, and the closer to the top you are then the creamier you will deemed to be. This will naturally establish a pecking order, and therefore a class system, and ultimately create a hierarchy where Lord Aleph must be at least one step above Lord Selitos which will make Him a very, very powerful fellow indeed. On hearing of Lord Aleph’s plans for everyone's future, under-lord Selitos promptly refused his own acknowleged lord his kind offer to play the starring role in his masterplan but said that he had a different plan of his own in mind at which point some of the crowd of Ruach came to stand behind to put their faith in his leadership in a similar show of open defiance to the wisdom of their Lord and in doing so took on the rank of Amyr beneath him. With first choice Selitos declining the job and forming a splinter group, Tehlu stepped in and told Aleph that HE would play the lead part instead and Eight more from the crowd of  Ruach chose to stand beside him and thus became God's angels with all that entailed. Transformation over they departed the land never to be seen again, their names only remembered by those they left behind. This will leave the rest of the ruach, a dwindling number number that is still referred to as 'most of them' who were afraid and didn’t want to become involved in great matters’ standing at the back of the hall like so many wallflowers at a barn dance. These unchosen ruach leave the meeting empty handed and have thus decided to step away from the responsibilities expected from the upper echelon’s of future power and opted instead to make their own ways in the new world. As priests perhaps. Shepherds to guide the flocks of peasants. The top rungs of the power ladder were clearly deemed too high for them to aspire to and so, left to their own devices, these lower case ruach will have moved to consolidate their own immediate futures at a position found a few rungs down the ladder of power from that of the Chandrian, Amyr and Angels (and the singers and Sithe!) somewhere in the middle levels where they felt that they could better operate to the best of their abilities. This lesser rung was a level where they might have felt more comfortable but it was clearly not going to be at the very bottom rung of the social ladder, obviously, as that’s where all the ravel will eventually end up.

Skarpi’s information about these ruach is cut away here quite abruptly and so we will never get to hear about their true fate meaning that all these remaining ruach have promptly disappered off of our radar as they stepped away into the great labyrinth of history, which will begin writing itself tomorrow, just as soon as there is something new to gossip about.

The situation for us historians now is akin to observing the sowing and sprouting of the first green shoots that will eventually make up a whole new forest of Temeranti family trees to replace the officially dead EveRGreEN trees which have all now been chopped down and burnt to ashes in a fiery pit in Atur on the orders of Lord Tehlu the lead actor in his father's great sacrifice.

Blue Blood

Now, there are two ways of going about continuing this piece. I could either bore the pants off you all by meticulosly examining all the quotes we have about the histories of each individual culture and highlighting all of the little indications Pat has cleverly given us just to try and prove a point. Or… I could just stick with outlining the general theory and let you fill in the relevent citations for yourselves so to more easily make up your own minds as to each ones veracity and relevance. After a month of low productivity working painfully towards plan A, I have now decided life is too short and so I will follow plan B instead, which is quicker, easier, and will perhaps help us all to sharpen up our Alar’s a bit more.

So, ignoring what differences this decision might actually make, if any, to this whole project and assuming that time did indeed run concurrently across both timelines of our Erg>Tem chronology… and ignoring the moon, and the fae, and the consequences of the plans of Aleph, Amyr, Haliax, the7 and all that other fun stuff for now, we can at least understand that there must then have been a moment in time when these two seperate era’s of man will have met, overlapped, officially stopped, and then officially re-started again under a new guise on Tehlu Day the new year Dot. This will mean that the lives of these remaining ruach will now become a lot like a collection of Adam and Eve projects, a close study of whom will result in us affirming the point of view that anyone who has ever lived in New Temerant should all still carry some small link to the now forbidden Old Ergen bloodlines of the distant past buried somewhere deep within their own genetic make-up, with some folk moreso than others.

This possibly reveals itself in the form of what they call knacks.

Society today can be likened to the horse analogy Denna used when she explains how the strongest, fastest and fanciest horses will always get the best treatment. To win in that game is always a gamble based upon the assumption that breeding and pedigree equals class and power with the best bloodlines holding the truest down through the ages suggesting that the earlier you can trace your ancestors lineage, the more ‘pure blooded’ and therefore the more ‘noble’ your station in life will be deemed to be. Such is the way of all worlds, alas.

This situation will become a bit more sticky if we can also imagine that perhaps there might have been something a bit ‘special’ about the blood of old Ergen, something which marked all those who carried it in their veins to be considered as being somehow ‘superior’ to all the others… we might use the term blue blood here perhaps to ease our thinking. If that is so then we must now be talking about two seperate races of man, the more common red bloods v’s the more noble blues giving us an image of a class divide in action. However, if we also consider that everyone who was still alive after Tehlu Day had a drop or two of Eld Ergen in them then at some point in our history, a second strain of a more ‘common’ bloodstream would have been required to dilute this ‘royal’ bloodline down into the lesser version of itself that it clearly is today. This would perforce require the introduction of a new blood group that wasn’t there before, or rather it was always there before but considered to be a lesser variant to that of the ‘blood of kings’ making it ‘the blood of peasants’ instead.

The only actual marriage that we can reference from before this time gives some credence to the claim holding water when we consider the marriage of Lyra and Lanre. Lyra knew the names of things and so knew true power which has been compared to that of a tiny god. She was named by Selitos as being one of the four most powerful people in all of Ergen whereas her husband would was not to be found on his inherent power list in any such shape or form and so ultimately his respect must have been regarded as 'granted' power, as Maer Alveron nicely puts it. Lord Lanre was always ‘just a soldier’ to Selitos  who had found glory in war and married above his station. If he did have any ‘power’ it was found in his strength of arm making him brawn, not brains. Whilst he was a man who’s heroic actions may well have led him to be ‘considered beyond reproach’ by the upper powers of Ergen who actually ruled the cities and who trusted him and his loyal men to fight and to die for them, he was still not ‘one of them’ in the classical sense. They might have married for love but he was never going to be considered to be her equal in true power in any sense and was therefore always going to be deemed of a lower social standing than his wife. 

Then came both of their deaths which ultimately seemed to lead to him after death somehow becoming as powerful as she herself once was. which was soon followed by his great betrayal which ultimately bought down seven of the eight pillars of empire. His actions on that day necessitated great changes to fall upon all of the diverse peoples of the land he professed to love. Those who died he declared to be the lucky ones. leaving the Ruach survivors as the unlucky ones. Homeless nomads now doomed to wandering in a broken world beset by demons.

The collapse of empire would of course mean that much of it’s original power base was also lost and that would have been a great leveller to all of those who did manage to survive, be they prince or pauper, as they were now all paddling in the same boat together, the reds and the blues, surviving the whims of life and death as best they could until the next round of great events arose around them. That would be the state of the nation until the eventual coming of Tehlu which created a second chance for everyone who was left standing to start all over again once more by God's great plan to press the restart civilization button. 

From that day onwards we can then imagine them all now attempting to rebuild the land from among their severely diminished stock, a situation which will always lead to a future that can only ever be a shadow of its former self.

Now the church tells us that Titan Tehlu had a big hand in bringing the path for his Godfather's great change unto all the massed races of mankind when he gave everyone in the entire world a brand new name via a tap or three with his magic iron hammer. This touch of iron explanation effectively led to an end result of it subltly altering not only their longnames but possibly also their genetic fingerprint in the process.

A much simpler answer can be conjectured by applying simple biology in that everyone knows that it takes two people to make a baby, a man and a woman, but with so much life having been lost during the fall of empire it would be fair to assume that most of Ergen’s surviving posh population will now have lost at least a few of their former loved ones to the fighting and so they might now find their own particular branch of the universal family tree to be threatened with extinction… unless they could find a suitable new mate from whatever breeding stock was left available at the horse market. The mass re-planting of all these new Temerant family trees may mean that those who were once regarded as the most noble houses might well now have had to resort to mixing their own refined bloodline with that of a ‘lesser’ family than they would normally consider as being suitable. I cannot recall any half caste characters (Viari?) but interracial dating is not unknown so we cannot disavow it as possible. Some would find such unions as they could cement to be absolutely necessary to ensure the future of their lineage, an action which will, of course have the unavoidable side effect of diluting the bloodstreams of these noble families future breeding stock down by a notch or two from any perceived strength which it once might have held.

‘In those days the arcanum was a strong brandy, now it is a well-watered wine.

This quote from Elodin can be used to help understand what it is I am actually trying to say here. Wine is not brandy but blood is still blood so if a surviving lord or lady had lost part or all of their own family line during the fall of his or her city (or indeed to the departure of the angels, Deah is one such example) yet still needed a fertile mate with whom to replenish the family name then they would needs must have married beneath themselves, dropping their sights down to a lower station than they might have chosen before in order to produce more heirs. If the best match left available to them was that of say a rich merchants daughter then that lord’s heirs would now find themselves carrying only half of his blue blood and half of her red blood meaning that the future rulers of Temerant will not be as true blue as before but be considered as being more of a purple colour instead. 

This human breeding program will have been strengthened or weakened by the careful selection of suitable mates from amongst the ‘old blood’ families ever since and thus a form of status quo is still maintained among the upper classes as best they can. But once it has been cut, no bloodline will never truly recover back up to the rarified quality of the Ergen blue that it was once deemed to be because entropy always increases.

Some loyal servants of today, such as Stapes, might also lay claim to a purple lineage of his own spent in loyal service to his own Lord Alveron’s blue whilst at the same time being undoubtedly common and lacking any noble bearing in his appearance whatsoever making him look ‘more like a grocer’ as Kvothe often comments. Stapes own family history has clearly run a step away but still parallel to that of the kings of Vint right back to the ‘old’ days when the Vints were no more than a bunch of squabbling sea kings. They were served by their own army of loyal retainers all following in their own personal family footsteps, like father like son, down through the same long centuries as their masters did and perhaps even further backwards in time to the self same forgotten events that once shaped them all. Even the original common folk of Ergen would have found themselves just as caught up in the same fall of empire as their peers and would likely have survived in much the same diminished percentage rates as anyone did on that fateful night when Lanre orchestrated his great betrayal. The same basic survival rates would have carried some of the luckier ones all the way through until we reached Tehlu Day when the good Lord Aleph caused his great humanitarian reset to be. Across the board the same luck of the draw survival rates will have held their shape across all of the races of Ergen. When the seven cities fell everyones chances were all the same and so we can imagine that only a random sample of folk will have survived the trials and tribulations, hailing from all walks of life and representative of all races and not just those select few who wielded the real power in the land, who lived in a big city and perhaps even had a big palace to call their own.

We can therefore happily assume that every single one of the diverse peoples we hear of in the world today could, given accurate enough records, all work out their own ancestral family tree which in theoretically could be traced back through time to the time of the ruach as this same date in history. And those alive on that day would all have descended from the self same root stock that was the eight great cities of Ergen. Everyone must have originated from somewhere, after all.