L and L close

7 ~ Unraveling 

The secrets of House Lockless are hidden within two riddle rhymes and seven things will likely take at least three tricky chapters to unlock.

Warning: things are becoming complex now and Relar level thinking will be required.

Some problems like the door are pretty easy, others like the rings are less so. The whole may be impossible to crack without a third book of clues to help us and a seven fold binding was beyond even Kvothe. Still, we can but try

To differentiate between the two songs more easily it is common practice to name the first chant the girls song and the second chant the boys song. In the girls song the focus is upon the Lady Perial Lockless herself and it tells us something we didn't know before in that she has acquired a husband since we last saw her. She was unmarried when she gave birth to Menda and so any marriage must have taken place after her firstborn son had left home and probably happened some time after Tehlu Day. This union should have made her husband the new Lord Lockless by default which really ought to have given him a half share in the running of the family estates. That means that something like the Lockless door mentioned in both of our lyrics (which is obviously going to be the secret door which stands on the oldest part of their ancestral land) would effectively now belong to both of them at the same time. However, things like the 'secret she's been keeping' clearly belong to the lady alone since it is her secret. A candle mentioned in her lyrics is clearly labelled as being his candle but there may well be a second candle ascribed to her name as well if the items we are talking about are truly 'his n hers'. Candles we will be investigated at 'A time that must be right', which is not right now. Seven pairs of items of oddly dual possession (like the chancellor's socks) cannot be ruled out but that path to solving is irrational mathematics more worthy of a diagram and can also wait until we have fleshed out the remaining pieces better.  The boys song is more ambiguous about ownership and I like to think this second song is actually more relevant to the husband than to the wife and so I shall upgrade the girls and boys monickers and henceforth refer to song#1 as the Ladies and song#2 as the Lords, and I intend to put a name to him before we go too much further down this particular rabbit hole.

The Lord of the Rings

Rings are the first piece of the puzzle given to us in the Lockless songs. 

'One of them a ring unworn' 

'One a ring thats not for wearing'

Now that may appear to mean the same thing at first reading but ring lore is an obscure Vintish thing all by itself that has nothing to do with the rings within eyes, apparently.

We hear from Bredon about the tradition of exchanging courtly rings among Vintish society as a time honoured way of displaying your perceived importance. The three levels of ring rank are lowly Iron, Silver for parity and finally superior Gold. Whichever ring you give or receive displays your current rung on the social ladder where kings are at the top and peasants are at the bottom. Gods golden spectacles [NB Jax and tinker,,] will mark Lady Perial as being accorded a status far above any mortal kings in the true way of such things but even if they didn't acknowledge her vision as having any bearing on ring matters, you must agree that any ring sent to her would always have been superior gold as no name could be held in higher regard than that of the mother of God. Not even her husband can claim that accolade as he was only Gods step-father and although we do not know his own ring status to properly compare their relationship, we can assume that he was likely regarded as a silver person in the three ring scale as you wouldn’t insult such a man with iron. If the eyes do indeed have it then I suppose sporting silver rings in your eyes would suggest the closest match there is to having grey eyes. Quite what colour eye would be a match for Iron is tricky but the non specific 'dark' eyes is the ubiquitous description for the iron loving Cealds so perhaps dark eyes of iron will just have to be used to cover 'everything else' for now...(except blue!)

Now if Perial's gold came via her touch from God, and everyone else in the world received a touch of iron instead then where did these silver people all come from and what's their backstory? The Adem is the obvious answer but they don't believe in Tehlu which is a bit of a spoke in that wheel and I prefer to follow a much deeper answer. I think that Silver eyes indicate eyes of Ergen origin.

Now that bit of tinfoil definitely deserves a chapter of it's own so let's just put it to one side for now.

[Felurian quote]

"Once, sitting on the walls of Murella, I ate fruit from a silver tree. It shone, and in the dark you could mark the mouth and eyes of all those who tasted it... eyes shining in the dark.'

Greenwood

 

Then we are told that there is a fourth ring to consider, an even lower rung of the ladder than iron which once appeared in the ring rankings long ago to mark a servant. We are told that the practice has now fallen out of use completely and is only remembered as a plot device in a number of old plays. A play which shows the origin of ring giving is exactly the sort of place to go dig for answers. Perhaps a good wooden ring colour might be green and it used to suggest a touch of fae in your bloodline...

In a modern day comparison to our historical investigation, the difference in status between the top ring and bottom rung of the ladder is well depicted when the Gold tier Lady Meluan Alveron-Lockless gives a member of the Edema Ruh family a wooden ring with her own name freshly burned into if. This highborn Lady is giving a ring which shows to the whole world that she is taking the most extreme method of making her point by declaring the recipient to be considered as far beneath herself in every shape, way and form imaginable, that the ravel ruh are ranked, in her eyes, as the lowest of the low, that the Edema men are an excresence on the arse of world, or even that they are like the green discharge that drips from it. Compared to her own lofty golden station they aren’t even bracketed as being the same species as herself*

‘That means to her you aren’t even a person. You aren’t worth recognizing as a human being… It’s not the sort of ring you wear,’ Said Bredon uncomfortably, ‘It’s quite the other sort of ring actually.’

Stapes confirms this on the next page when he asserts that ‘You really shouldn’t wear it’ to which Kvothe replies ‘I’m not ashamed of what I am, If this is the ring of an Edema Ruh, I’ll wear it.’ Stapes sighed, ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

*If you count the Fae as being another species then suddenly my thought about a wooden ring being a faen ring suddenly starts to look a bit more promising as an answer.

Of course Faen Felurian also asserted that were never any human Amyr either meaning wooden might also be their ring of choice, too. The Amyr were of course first formed out of Aleph's Ruach, and the Ruach were the survivors of Lanre day, who may or may not have silver eyes... We really need to go down that choice of the path soon. Stapes is right. It Is more complicated than that.

/So, insertg with a table of wood then iron then silver then gold.

Fae/human/Ruach/gods

Green, dark grey gold

All of these words we can associate with our hero and his eyes will hint at four different bloodlines 

The four corners of civilization 

Husband/

Diagram eye chart pi chart

Unlke our Ladies line of 'a ring unworn' which I'm attributing solely to Perial since you don't really wear your eyes. A wooden ring fits better onto the Lords hand as being a ‘ring that’s not for wearing' which is verbatim what the learned Bredon and Stapes just said and I think that's going to turn out to be the end difference between the First Lord and the First Lady. Hers will always be a golden ring and her own summoning ring for him, which would once have been her silver ring of a partner is now a wooden one instead. Perhaps she caught him diddling the chambermaid. 

This is not a summoning ring at all, quite the opposite in fact, this is the ring of an outcast.

Meluan Lockless should know better than any the gravity of using this old family tradition when she let her true feelings about the Edema Ruh be known to Kvothe. It's entirely possible she once sent a wooden ring to Arliden and maybe even sent one for her sister Natalia, too. Kvothe's new ring he keeps as a memento of his own family reunion and it will end up sitting next to his other wooden ring which he was given by Auri for completely different reasons. His new ring is also really a male heirloom since it this is the ring of the original Lockless outcast then given his mothers bloodline this is also his birthright from his eternal grandfathers contribution the family gene pool. Now I bet you a jot that Meluan wasn't even the first Lockless to ever give out a wooden ring and the best way to tie up this ring cycle would be to discover if Lady Perial also once gave the outcast ring to her own mysterious husband. What a scandal that would have been, and strife and separation within house Lockless is just the sort of scandal that has dogged their family ever since. If my princess Ariel theory is to be believed then it's happening again right now. I wonder if Maer has gotten his own wooden ring yet?

"It's generally accepted that there was some sort of falling out that splintered the family. Each piece took on a separate name"

This sort of husband scandal (sorry) has bevome prevalent in house Lockless across time but it all had to start somewhere and a good story will always start at the beginning. We can assume that Lord and Lady Lockless must have had at least one child of their own in order for the family name to have continued on after them, which it obviously did, but their offsprings eyes could never equal the pure gold perfection of the mother as the fathers silver contribution would have muddied the waters so to speak. Even if there was nothing but inbreeding in the Lockless house thereafter they would none of them coul ever match up tobthe 24 carat Lockless that greatⁿ granny Perial was. 

I earlier proposed that to keep both of their noble houses supplied with heirs, the Maer and Meluan should agree to share out their offspring with house Vint raising the boys and house Lockless inheriting the girls and I still have no fairer answer than that. If this has been the standard arrangement down the ages, part of the Lockless plenary powers perhaps, then that means House Lockless is always going to be a purely female household. This answer will nicely explain why so many family members flew the nest and made their own names elsewhere in the world.

 " Lack-key, Laclith, Kaepcaen" 

These would be all the male children given over to their fathers houses to raise but were not considered deserving of the true Lockless name. In the worlds oldest bloodline all of the boys are considered bastards and only the golden girls get to stay. 

So the first Lord Lockless was apparently banished from the Lockless lands and in those days these lands stretched far and wide meaning then he would have been doomed to wander four rather extreme corners in search of a new family to call his own, one who wouldn't turn him away because of his 'tainted blood'.

Kvothe as a male is a direct descendant of this union. From his mother’s side of the family he already has the Golden rings unworn of the Lockless family's ultimate grandmother and from his greatⁿ grandfathers side he has now received his very own 'ring that's not for wearing.' It is not the original of course but it is still a true Lockless male heir's ring, it’s even got their name burned into it so now he has the matching set.  Through him the original bloodline remains unbroken and so Kvothe the Bloodless is now the current favourite candidate to qualify as being the 'son that brings the blood.' 

He probably also gets his bright red hair from this union of the first Lord and Lady suggesting one of them was also a red head which if you put everything together pretty much wraps up the case for Perial's ex husband to have been called Illian, the first Lord of the the Edema Ruh. 

Auri say’s that a wooden ring holds your secrets, and Auri is very wise about such things. 

8 ~ 

The Chandlery

Fork Handles

Candles are a recurring theme in these books, not just common candles such as Kvothe is caught with in the archives, but important candles such as the one Auri makes especially for him. The Mauthern pot links Haliax to candles, the Lackless rhyme features them and the Adem may have a surprising addition to the list too. Auri makes a special candle for Kvothe in the slow regard of silent things and we get to see the whole process…well, sort of, and so that is where we shall begin our circtangular investigation into the the lost art of chandlery.

Her ingredients are interesting since two kinds of wax are used, both beeswax from honeycomb and the wax obtained from Laurel fruit. This is important because bees are obviously not plants and the formulae and factoring needed to mix and meld these fundamentally different things together properly, not forgetting the importance of including the dreams of lavender, all together into something that would suit Kvothe’s unique personality… is a very long drawn out process. Auri clearly knows her way around a laboratory and has mastered all the necessary skills of artifice to be able to follow the normal formulae perfectly. But! Auri also knows that to do things the correct way takes time and that vital ingredient is just what she does not have. Even entering the laboratory through Boundary was against her nature ‘For herself she would not dare, but this was simply how it had to be.’ but this step is even more daring. This was not a time for ‘begging favors from the moon’ but given that this was a special occasion and it is for a special person then Auri deemed it acceptable to use special ways of doing things and Auri knows things, secret things, things that even the masters don’t know. If time is the problem, then best practice would be to remove it from the equation altogether. And since she could, she did.

‘ She grinned and bought the weight of her her desire down full upon the world. And all things shook. And all things knew her will. And all things bent to please her.‘

~~~

'It was not long before Auri returned to Mantle with a sorrel coloured candle pressed with lavender. It smelt of bay and bees. It was a perfect thing.'

Master Alchemist says that ninety nine parts of alchemy is waiting, but Auri knew this final and most important part, something she shares with the adem legend Rethe, and she understands the part that is not waiting, Thus she acted instantaneously and removed time from the whole process and, in no time at all, had created her perfect present. Exactly how she did this involves poking about with the deeply profound arts that are best summed up elsewhere and can be found within my πece ‘under lying principals‘ but to put it bluntly, what she did caused all of the different waxes to become one wax using the forgotten art of shaping which brings together a combination of live and inert names , beeswax and plantwax to bring you your heart’s desire, and since she was factoring out unwanted raw principals, all things that she wished to remain must now co-exist together in harmony. This bi wax candle (blood) has been shaped to be tuned to Kvothe’s personality and whilst he is not perfect, this candle undoubtedly is. And there lies the rub. All perfect things have no imperfections and so will remain perfect for ever. Just like Caesura will never need sharpening, Auri’s candle will never melt because by it’s very nature it can never lose it’s perfectness to any form of unwanted decay… a bit like Willy Wonka’s everlasting gobstoppers. That means that this candle is exactly what Master Artificer Kilvin most desires in all the world to create for himself one day, an ever-burning light that can never go out. What a clever lettuce.

Seeing the Light

Shaped things are rare in the world now, the art of creating them has been lost but I have a rather good feeling that kvothe has already stood within the light of an Ever Burning Candle without even realising it elsewhere in these books. It is possible that the candles in Puppets lair are EBC too but if any other eternal candles existed then such things would be rare and desirable and probably very dangerous to leave lying around and Puppets bunker is the safest place in the world. Any artefact left over from the forgotten days of shaping would be of huge significance to the University and Amyr both and given the time scales involved then such things would undoubtedly have found their way to the bloody handed Amyr. Master Kilvin’s private workshop holds all the other shaped items and restricted schemata but he clearly knows nothing of any candles. Wherever they may be hiding in the world they should certainly be hidden away from irresponsible people like Kvothe and the best place to hide something is usually in plain sight. An ever burning light means exactly that, they cannot be destroyed and once they were lit I doubt if they could be extinguished or  forced to act against their nature any more than you could blunt an Adem sword or throw a rock and bring down the moon. It is necessary that the original owner of any such candle would be able to control it but no other would have the same alar that he has, rather like a gram is individually tailored to it’s owner or a shaed to it's wearer, Candles would be no different. If there ever were any EBC that outlasted their original owners then they could be burning still. It all depends whether the candle bearers themselves wished their light to be extinguished and that would probably depend upon whether they considered the blowing out of a candle to be against the lethani or not.

If you had a few such candles in your posession it seems very likely to me that you would want to keep all such finds together, safely under lock and key in one room together with any other unique artefacts that you may possess, like the adem’s old shaped swords for example.

The sword room is locked although theft would be unthinkable among the Adem and untrustworthy barbarians are not allowed here. This was ‘the first locked door I had seen in all of Haert’ says Kvothe, which itself is significant and Shehyn, the head of the school, holds the iron key to open it.

‘The three of us moved into a small windowless entryway. Vashet closed the outside door and the room grew black as pitch cutting off the sound of the persistent wind. Then Shehyn opened the inner door. Warm light from a half-dozen candles greeted us. At first it seemed odd that they had been left to burn in an empty room…’

That’s a very good point to consider. There is an air lock in place to navigate before gaining access, maybe they don’t want the candles to blow out? but that should not be possible anyway. Maybe it is a light lock? One to prevent any this special light from seeing the sun and that they don’t want this special light to leak back into the outside world? Maybe sunlight (or moonlight) can extinguish these flames? Whatever the reason, the outside world must clearly be kept safely away from this inner sanctum. Shehyn held the key and is the likely culprit for lighting them but if these are EBC then the original candle owner could have done that task for her long, long ago. They were also left still burning when the three departed the room locking the door behind them. Why leave a light on when nobody is home? the only reason that makes any sense is ceremony, but that doesn’t feel right to me. Wasting energy is not of the lethani and Pat doesn’t waste ink either so that indicates to me to be a clue telling us that these particular candles are very important. That would support my theory that they cannot be put out, except by the one who lit them, or following my tinfoil further they mustn't be put out… @Since this room contains the swords, which are shaped artifacts from long ago, then I imagine the proper light for illuminating them would be an ever burning one. 

There is a light that never goes out.

Haliax is depicted on the Mauthern pot with two candles. One was yellow with a bright orange flame, but the other sat underneath his outstretched hand

 'it was grey with a black flame, and the space around it was smudged and darkened like shadow.'

This important representation of secret things would seem to represent Haliax trying to extinguish a flame, or looking at things from another viewpoint, he could be trying to protect one!

This image is probably going to be important when we think about Lockless candle that is 'without light' but that's work for later on. Taborlin the Great is also famously associated with owning a candle, it is one of his many useful tools along with his coin and key which funnily enough are also some of the gifts that Auri has given Kvothe so far. TTG knew the names of all things and so would have the necessary powers to Name perfect things. 

>Swords...There is an argument about whether his sword, Skyaldrin, was made of copper or not because as Dedan points out copper wouldn’t hold an edge. But a perfectly shaped sword would be more than mere copper and this would render that argument invalid since shaped items do not decay. Might be useful fighting Fae

Namers would only employ perfect tools so they would be unbreakable and  It would seem likely that Cyphus the wizard king would have broken TTG's stuff if he were able but , but clearly he could not. So he put them in a box instead. A Lockless box at that...

Lighting Up

The lighting of candles is another important area for investigation and we get a few pages in the books about ways to link candles during adept sympathy class. Master Dal gets two students to ‘duel’ with each other using their respective alar to overpower each others will and the example we are shown involves lighting candles, although there is nothing especial about these wax tools.

There were three choices to be made and firstly Fenton chose to use candles for the focus of the competition. Then he had to choose a link, and with candles the link was always either wicking or wax. Thirdly he had to pick a source and opted to use only his own body heat rather than a brazier. Since the choice was for wicking (or straw if you are stupid) the aim was to light your opponents wick using your own blood as a power source whilst at the same time preventing him from doing the same to your own. I can only assume that if the initial choice had been wax then the opposite would apply and the boys would be trying to smother their opponents lit flame whilst also keeping their own flame alight. This is tinfoil thinking, backward mathematics in a binary form which is how tinfoil performs best. If your link is wicking and you begin with an unlit candle and the aim is to make things burn, then when the opposite choice of wax is used as the link an opposite reaction must apply by default and so the entire game would be reversed. Starting with a lit candle (one lit using the same source, naturally) the idea would be to extinguish your opponents flame whilst keeping your own alight. I made that up myself but it is hard to argue against such logic when dealing with the unknown. There is no middle path available with candles, they either burn or they don’t. Prove me wrong if you can.

That is about as far as I’m willing to go on candles for now. But one last observation to contemplate is that candles are linked to Haliax and haliax is linked to the chandrian. Now everyone assumes that the chandrian are named after Chaen, the number Seven, but the correct name for a candle maker is a chandler...

9 ~ Secrets

'There's a secret she's been keeping'

The time has come to start talking about man mothers. It's possibly the most challenging theory to explain to any degree of satisfaction so far without going on for ever or straying too far from the approved text and I'm sure it still won't convince everyone, but it will I hope tie a lot of loose ends together into the most satisfying knot available without any further input from Pat. Now I'm sure you will have differing opinions about this divisive topic, mostly based on your own understanding of human biology. But this is fantay fiction which means that anything is allowed. I've done my homework and I say that all humans need man mothers. Fact.

The Touch of Gold.

Perial, however, was God's chosen vessel and is not to be considered human anymore. She didn't need a Man mother because her son had a God father instead, and his name was Aleph.

Tehlin doctrine says that there is no god but Tehlu but Tehlu is actually just a demi-god. A half god-half human hybrid for which the proper name is a Titan. 

Now a true god is a noncorporeal being whilst Perial was born of flesh and blood. But whilst God's can do most anything they desire in their own realm they are like software programmers who work in a different field to hardware engineers and thus cannot themselves operate in the physical planes of existence, Gods can only affect things here remotely which in Pat's world translates as 'through dreams' or to put it another way, through 'that which comes with sleeping'. 

Since Aleph needed a more hands on approach to solving Temerant's demon infestation problem then he needed to create an avatar to work through, and that's where Perial came in. When she passed through the doors of sleep she entered into the spiritual plane we can think of as being middle ground , a place where Aleph could act. 

This is the land where deals are struck. Through the Door of Sleep.

Perial said that "Man should never lay a hand on a woman save in love." And since God is love she offered her services, gave him the requisite permissions and volunteered for duty meaning that this was Not a demonic possession, something which can also happen in this realm. The being of light and fire she spoke with there touched her heart with gold and in doing so 'soldered' her (so to speak) into the altered shape of the gold standard that was necessary for her coming task. Tehlu was more of a welder who worked with the name of Iron instead. Aleph flipped her internal switches into pure fertility mode and her dream body was joined with his dream desire and between them they created a Titan that would evolve into some new hardware which she called 

MEnDA.

Which is ADnEM in a mirror

That's about the best analogy I can think of to put my thoughts into words today. I will go more into the nature of Gods and men when we reach Atur but this computing analogy will, I hope, help to bridge the gap between my words and my thoughts.

Shaped creations by their very nature are made to last and gods golden touch was an eternal one that shaped what Perial was at a fundamental level into someone fit for his purpose and since his golden gift was never rescinded by their Titan sons touch of iron that meant that once her holy task was done Perial could retire to her estates with her gold watch reward still intact.

Perial should now be regarded as immortal, and unchanging , and so by rights she should still be alive today and still be as fertile as ever. She might even be using the calling name of Aculeus if I really wanted to stretch this tinfoil to it's limit. 

The memory of Gods golden power is still within her, and gold does not rust so she has remained so ever since and would be forever fecund from that day forth. And since she has done it once before the next time should be easier if she so desired, she could quite conceivably give birth again all by herself at any time that she wanted to.  No man mother required. And that's the bones behind secret she's been keeping. 

When Perial sleeps and Perial dreams of God she can if she desires become pregnant again. All she has to do is ask and so the answer to 'That which comes with dreaming'  is, in her case, a baby.

Silver

The Adem also don't need man mothers and probably never have  but if Tehlu declared that all of mankind was wicked and needed punishing, how did they manage escape the wrath of God? Well quite clearly, God did not consider the Adem in the same light as mankind, and who are we to argue with God? 

There is only one explanation which fits in my opinion and that is going to take us away from our Lockless investigation and like Kvothe explains to Caudicus it's best to only focus on one family at a time lest you become too muddled. We  shall be following his path to Ademre for a deeper dive in my next chapter but a small spoiler should suffice for now.

Let us suggest that the Adem nation were those citizens of the one city of Ergen which did not fall under shadow on Lanre Day. That means thatvthe people of that city were the only people in the world to remember the lethani. If God considered that forgetting the lethani was the equivalent of being on the wrong side of his path then that should mark the path of the lethani and the  path of God to be the same thing. The Adem never once  strayed from the correct path when everyone else became lost and so under Tehlu's universal justice system they should be found not guilty and totally undeserving of the punishment meted out to everyone else.

Of course, all of the wicked people would become jealous of their neighbours for still having a nice unspoilt city to live in and since they really were wicked and also outnumbered them by about eight to one, they probably decided to take it over for themselves and evicted the grey eyed mutants to go wander the wilderness so that they wouldn't be a constant reminder to the mob of their own failings.

So when Tehlu came along he considered what his mother would say and since they had done nothing wrong he decided it was probably best to leave them as they were and did not impose his iron will upon them.

The Touch of Iron

When Aleph first came to her Perial the Good was most worried for her wicked neighbours.

Perial asked her dream god if he was going to 'do something' for her neighbour Deborah and whether he was going to 'lay his hand on her husband Losel and make him a better man.' Which is rather prophetic of her since that is exactly what He did.

Now laying his hand on people is gods way of changing them. I will deal with the recipe for that pie in the next chapter but for now we just need it pointed out that this is exactly how he and his avatars act to both reward the good and to punish the wicked. One works with gold, the other with iron, and iron rusts which gives it's victims a shelf life.

In response to Perial's questions Aleph replied that 'Mankind was wicked and the wicked should be punished' and that

'Man and wife were each others fitting punishment'

 

So Tehlu's touch of iron was how Gods punishment was administered to the masses but hus actual sentence upon them for the crime of being wicked was for man to be 'paired' to woman for life. The science behind this punishment of iron probably involves magnetics which would effectively lock their +/- iron molecules together into a new shape making mankind's joint sentence, in essence, to be locked up together and means that in the future each half of the whole would be dependent on the other half for the mutual continuation of their species. These are the facts of life in Temerant as I understand them. Or to put it another way it takes Two ha'penny to make a whole one.

Using the binding of iron, Tehlu made this so and by renaming everyone afterwards, he locked in this new change for the rest of their mortal lifespan. The result of this reshaping was that from that day forward a woman would always need a man in order to make a baby. And thus Tehlu created man mothers as his punishment for all those who had strayed onto the wrong side of his path.

Perial, of course , was already standing beside him on the right side of his path and so was exempt from this lock and thus is fully deserving of the name Lockless. 

The rest of Mankind is now bound to the rules of Iron which will protect them from the wickedness of demons and prevent any future procreation war.

Wait! What?

If you have made it this far with your sanity still intact, well done. 

The richness of the weaving in this Tapestry of Temerant is becoming quite complex now and it does not want to follow a straight line. Our eyes are being drawn elsewhere as it becomes abundantly clear that everything is related to everything else, and I hope you are starting to appreciate the skill of the weaver. However. Us mere mortals can only follow one warp or weft at a time and while storyline wants to diverge I will try to steer it onto a straigher course. Following the main line of the Old Stone Road westwards will eventually bring us to the University and that's more of an architectural endeavour than the theological one we shall encounter in Atur en route. We also need to tie up the Adem question and start thinking about Lanre soonbut in a final attempt to sum up our Lockless songs , her is a picture to help.

 

A Play on Words 

Of course, we know that in Naming circles a wooden ring means that the ringbearer know the name of wood and the Lockless box is a prime candidate for also being a shaped article that was once created for purpose by speaking the Name of wood to it. Wood will obviously be more complex a name than stone to master because a tree will naturally have a higher level of vaevin than a stone. 

Since I don't exactly know what is inside the box any further credible investigation today would be a waste of ink and brain cells. We don't even know what kind of fruity smelling wood it is made of or even if the tree it came from has long since gone extinct but if the Ladies song is to be believed then whoever wrote it's riddling words purports to know this secret answer, and It's Lord Lockless' rocks apparently. Her husband then would be the proper man to ask but since he has long since left the stage we need to turn back the pages of time to the date when the box was last open since whoever wrote the song must have been present at the time to know what nobody else does.

Setting the scene. 

The location of this act takes place on the oldest part of the Family estate where stands our mysterious stone door to act as a backdrop. It is currently unlocked and standing open, a single stone door in a frame that opens inwards into darkness. The stage lighting is provided by a pair of candles, his and hers. Standing in front of this door the Lord and Lady Lockless are performing the box closing ceremony. This is the very root of the family name and it is most certainly family members only. If there were no other witnesses and it is just him and her that know of this secret thing that tells us that one of them must have also written the song and my money is on the husband although the promise of a future child is visibly present under Lady Perials maternity dress. In her hands she holds her husbands rocks which are likely considered as whatever got her in the family way in the first place. The Lord, as a wooden ring wearer knows the name of wood and wears this plot device upon his finger and he is holding a suitable piece of wood which he is ready to shape anew. The name of wood is spoken (edro) and the wood dances to his desire and becomes an open box. The Lady places his rocks inside and the Lord speaks another word that tells the box to close which it duly does. Naming and shaping adds a new condition on the boxwood to make it become unbreakable, like all shapen ware is, meaning it can never be opened by force. Ceremony over, he gives the box to his lady to look after, a secret to hold tight in keeping. She, not being a name knower herself cannot open the box again because she doesn't speak the language of wood which is the key to unlocking this lockless box. 

Then the rockless lord says goodbye to his lady. The lord kisses the Lady farewell then poignantly kneels before her and sings a farewell lullaby to his unborn son who is growing within her womb. 

Then focussing his alar he takes the flame from one candle and puts it into the other to be his light in dark places when all others go out. He marches boldly through the dark doorway , the door closes behind him and locks from the inside. As the curtain falls, the closing image is of this forbidding door of stone bearing the legend SATIRALAV.

*Tomes trailer. Now the best box in the world would be one which could be trusted to never open again and this is the best box you can get. But if it is now believed safe from opening then it is no longer dangerous, but nothing can ever be 100% perfect, not in a broken world it can't, and so while this box has a 99% chance of staying shut until the aleu fall nameless from the sky it still has a 1% chance of being opened again one day in the future. Moon numbers. That's how the all things operate. Tldr. You cannot have a light without a shadow because imperfection is part of life.

*That will turn up in a tome somewhere I expect .