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An Inflationary Problem

by Geoffrey Hart

Grimhelm ran at the troll and at the last possible instant, zigged left, jumped atop a small rock, and redirected his momentum upwards behind the troll’s clumsily swinging club. This maneuver carried him just into reach of the troll’s exposed head. The Dwarf’s heavy axe buried itself to the eyes in the troll’s skull, dropping the beast like an iceberg calving from a glacier. Grimhelm leapt clear just in time, smiling cruelly at his foe’s corpse.

The smile faded, replaced by a frown and curses, when he found that even with Dwarfish strength, he had to struggle to retrieve his axe and when he did, the finely honed edge had crumpled until the weapon was more war-hammer than axe. Not that there was anything wrong with war hammers—Grimhelm was not the kind of Dwarf who was quick to judge—but he was a traditionalist, and only axes were truly Dwarfish weaponry in his opinion.

Sighing, he bent to loot the troll. To his surprise and delight, he found its pouch crammed full of gold coins. Usually you found a double handful of copper, or maybe a few silver if you were lucky. If he couldn’t get his axe replaced under warranty, at least he could buy a new one.

Later, he arrived at the forge and slapped his flattened axe down on the counter.

“You didn’t tell me you were planning to ruin my beautiful axe waling on trolls”, Strongforge grumbled. “I explicitly told you: no waling on trolls. I mean, who fights with trolls these days? Where did you even find one?”

Grimhelm growled at the smith, who held up a pacifying hand.

“All that’s to say that I can’t simply give you a new axe. But I can offer you a very good price on this one.” From beneath the counter, he pulled an even more beautiful axe and handed it to his customer. Grimhelm swung it in a circle, enjoying its weight and balance. Sensing victory, Strongforge named a price. Only years of rigorous practice prevented Grimhelm’s grip from slackening, as this would have released the axe to embed itself in a wall of the forge—or in the smith.

“Surely you jest.”

The smith shook his head. “Wish I were jesting, but you can’t imagine my costs. Iron’s gone through the roof, and don’t even start with me about mithril and adamantium. It’s all I can do to keep the forge lit. Anyway, that’s my price. Take it, or stick with your new”—he frowned and pushed the ruined axe across the counter—“war-hammer”.

Well, at least he’d been wealthy for a few moments, he thought to himself. Grumbling, Grimhelm tipped out the troll’s pouch, counted out the requisite number of coins, and pushed them towards the smith, who handed over the new axe.

#

It was a truly lovely axe, but as he passed it around the table to be admired, careful not to knock any of the ale mugs to the tavern’s floor, he bemoaned the price.

“You’ve been away adventuring,” smirked Rockhewer, making room for a tray of full mugs and letting the waiter remove the empties. “Wait until you see the price for the ale!”

The waiter turned his back on the Dwarfish frowns and sped off to serve another table.

“He’s right,” Grimhelm observed. “Everything’s more expensive. I’ve no idea how anyone copes. What’s going on? Is it another plot by the Dark Lord? I thought we’d beaten some sense into him the last time?”

Sharpaxe, who was fondling Grimhelm’s new axe in an acquisitive sort of way, looked off into space. “Maybe,” he mused. “It’s something subtle and it has His stench. But honestly? I’ve no idea what’s up.”

The waiter had returned. “Blame the humans,” he observed. He rolled his eyes at the Dwarfs’ incomprehension. “Oh, it’s a Dwarfish problem too. After all, it’s mostly our fault for mining so efficiently.”

Grimhelm frowned. “Come again?”

“We flood the markets with fresh-minted coins, not to mention older ones hoarded by vermin like trolls. Merchants, not being fools, raise their prices to absorb some of that newfound wealth. Everyone else raises their prices so they can afford to pay the higher merchant fees. This cuts into merchant profits, so they raise their fees again. Then kings and other defilers of currency melt down the gold and mix it with lesser metals, forcing merchants to raise their prices to ensure they receive the same amount of buying power as before. And so it goes, prices steadily spiraling upwards—sometimes by great leaps and bounds when you fellows strike a particularly rich vein of gold or some king needs to finance a war.”

Dwarfish heads nodded. “That makes sense,” Grimhelm agreed. “But what can we do about it? If we mine faster, we exacerbate the problem, but if we mine slower, prices still increase because now the merchants want more of the smaller supply of coins. Either way, we’re buggered.”

“Not necessarily,” the waiter replied, eyes glowing with secret knowledge.

“You have a solution?”

The waiter held out an empty palm and grumbling, Grimhelm deposited a gold coin. After biting it to ensure it was real gold, the waiter pocketed it and began speaking.

#

Grimhelm tipped back his heavy iron helm to reveal sky-blue eyes set deep in a craggy face. Steam rose from where the dragon’s fiery breath had baked off a thick layer of sweat, leaving salty rime behind.

“I said, Dragon, that we need to talk.” He raised his shiny new battleaxe. “Unless you’d prefer that I lop your head off at your shoulders and make it into a table ornament?”

The dragon was frankly bemused. None had ever survived a direct hit from his flame, but then again, he’d never faced one of the Dwarf elders, equipped with enchanted mithril armor. “All right, Dwarf. You have five minutes.” Looking at the axe, the Dragon resolved he’d be long gone by four minutes if the Dwarf hadn’t persuaded him to stay by three. One didn’t live for centuries taking chances with fireproof, dangerous-looking Dwarfs.

Grimhelm smiled coldly. “Wise choice, oh mighty Wyrm. Here’s the problem we face: We Dwarfs delve in the world’s deep places and return, bearing gold and platinum—” he patted his armor “—and even mithril sometimes. Then, there are the gemstones.” Deep in his eyes, a ruby spark kindled. “I don’t think I have to tell you how exciting that is.”

The Dragon nodded. “When I must perforce leave my cavern, I dream until my return of the hoard I left behind. Were it not for those dreams, you’d never have taken me by surprise.”

“Be that as it may,” Grimhelm continued. “We face a problem: we’re victims of our own success.”

The Dragon’s brows furrowed. “How can it be possible to have too much gold?”

One side of the Dwarf’s mouth twitched upwards. “Attend, and I shall enlighten you. May I sit? It’s been a long walk to reach you.”

“And you with such short legs.” The dragon held up a paw to indicate it was joking, then nodded its head towards a flat-topped rock.

“My thanks.” The Dwarf sat with a clinking of armor. “The problem lies in a balance between supply—the gems and precious metals we extract—and demand—the merchants who sell the things we need. When it’s perceived that we have too much gold, the merchants raise their prices to lighten our burden. To maintain a satisfactory supply of gold with which to warm our halls, we must therefore mine more gold, which leads the merchants to raise their prices further. And so it goes, in a never-ending vicious cycle. The humans have a word for it.” The Dwarf spat copiously on the ground. “They call it inflation.”

“I can see that would be tiresome,” the dragon replied, keeping a careful eye on his mental timer. “But what has it to do with me?”

Grimhelm paused a moment to draw a mithril flask from his belt pouch. He took a long sip, hesitated a moment, then offered it to the dragon. When the dragon raised a single skeptical eyebrow, he shrugged sheepishly and put away the flask. “What it has to do with you is this: if you were to withdraw large amounts of the gold from circulation, the quantity would then decrease and each coin would become proportionally more valuable, which means we’d need less of it for our purchases.”

 “Which reverses the cycle and restores balance to the Dwarfish—and Human and Elven and Hobbit—economy?”

“Until the Humans decide to defile the coins again,” the Dwarf replied. “Which they do with dismaying frequency. But a little persuasion and zealous monitoring should solve that problem. All we need is somewhere safe to store the gold.” He gestured at the mounds of gold only partially concealed by the Dragon’s bulk. Noticing the acquisitive look that had entered the Dragon’s eyes, he hastily continued. “And by safe, I mean temporarily. That is, no Dwarf should casually undertake to liberate the coinage to support some foolish purchase or other.”

“Enlightenment dawns,” the dragon exclaimed, a cupiditous expression spreading across his face and kindling a fire in his eyes. “And where could be safer than a dragon’s lair?”

“Precisely. There’s one catch: no one must ever hear of this arrangement. If the word gets out, others would sabotage our idea by taking advantage of their knowledge to wager on the currency’s value.”

The dragon mused a moment. “Keeping silent will be no problem; it’s not like I get a lot of traffic here, and most… visitors… aren’t here to gossip.” The dragon licked its lips with a thin, forked black tongue. “And what would my share of the proceeds be?”

Grimhelm grinned, face relaxing. “Ah, that would involve some negotiation.”

“Let us first begin by redefining temporarily as semi-permanently.”

The Dwarf snorted. “I see this may take some time.”

“Fortunately,” the dragon replied, “we are both long-lived beings who have ample time to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion.”

~

Bio:

Geoff Hart works as a scientific editor, specializing in helping scientists who have English as their second language publish their research. He’s the author of the popular books Effective Onscreen Editing and Write Faster With Your Word Processor. He also writes fiction in his spare time, and has sold 78 stories thus far. Visit him online at www.geoff-hart.com.

Philosophy Note:

Money-supply inflation is Milton Friedman’s idea; there are other possible causes, and in real-world economics, nothing’s ever as simple as this tale. This story arose from a discussion with Darrell Schweitzer of a blog article by historian Bret Devereaux on the economics of fantasy coinage. Darrell noted: “I have yet to see a fantasy world deal with the concept of hyper-inflation. Inflation can also happen when too much currency floods the market… If all that gold hoarded by Smaug ever got into circulation, Middle Earth would have to switch to the turnip standard. It may be that the fantasy dragon sitting atop the hoard of gold is a device for controlling inflation, a sort of Ft. Knox, whose function is NOT to let that gold get out…”

Orplid: Celebrating Two Hundred Years Of The Birth Of High Fantasy

by Mariano Martín Rodríguez

High fantasy is today one of the most widely popular genres of fiction. Its essential feature is the creation, for fictional purposes, of an integral secondary world fully distinct from the phenomenal or primary world in which we live. This creation is “integral,” that is, it is entirely the fruit of imagination, of fantasy. Consequently, although it may be inspired by our global mythic, folkloric and literary heritage, its secondary worlds are the result of a complete invention and, therefore, have their own ontological order and their own laws, which may or may not coincide with the natural laws of our material universe. Unlike other genres such as fairy tales, the creation of these internal laws of the secondary world in high fantasy is based on the intrinsic modern preference for verisimilitude in fiction. Accordingly, it is founded on a rational and scientific conception of the universe, derived from the methods, practices and discourses of contemporary Humanities. The scientific study of languages, literatures, history, myths and rites is what inspires the shape of the invented secondary worlds of high fantasy. These worlds usually look ancient and legendary, as well as pagan, because they imply a mythopoetic development congenial with the mythic tenets of paganism, rather than with the theological stance of most monotheistic religions. Tolkien fully understood this deeply pagan nature of high fantasy. This is why he eschewed both theology and its fictional expression, allegory, when conceiving and practicing his subcreations, as Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. Le Guin and other canonical writers of high fantasy also did. 

But when and how exactly did high fantasy originate? We refer, of course, to its concept and practice, not to its name, which appeared relatively late. Scholars often put the origin of science fiction well before the invention of the label of science fiction proper. This is usually estimated to coincide with the mutation of mentality caused by the rapid acceleration of technological progress as a result of the industrial revolution since the first third of the 19th century. Similarly, high fantasy predates its labeling as such. Although its development was limited before the period around 1900, when exotic and sometimes invented landscapes were favored in literature and the arts, its birth took place much earlier. It was at a site and time almost as specific as that famous Geneva evening of the summer of 1816 in which Mary Shelley presented to her friends the story that would give rise to her pioneering science-fiction novel titled Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).

In the summer of 1825, two students of Theology at the German University of Tübingen named Ludwig Amandus Bauer and Eduard Mörike started a close intellectual friendship, nourished by common readings and cultural concerns. This friendship lasted their whole lives, as their letters attest. Bauer would eventually become famous in his country for a universal history in six volumes intended for a wide readership. Mörike was soon to begin a successful literary career, both in prose and in verse, which earned him great renown and a solid place among the German Romantic narrators and poets. Several of his poems even inspired composers of the musical genre called Lied, such as Hugo Wolff’s opus 46, his musical version of Mörike’s “Gesang Weylas” or ‘Weyla’s Song.’ Weyla’s voice evokes a sacred island called Orplid, but few concrete details about it are offered in this very short poem of just eight lines, which does not even tell who the eponymous person might be. It would seem that Mörike assumed that both Orplid and Weyla must had been familiar to his readers and listeners. However, the first line, which reads in the original “Du bist Orplid, mein Land” (‘you are Orplid, my country’), suggests that this is rather a personal world, and indeed so it is. Scholars who set out to elucidate the mystery of this famous little poem soon found out that Orplid was, in fact, an invention, and that neither Weyla nor Orplid had ever existed in this material world of ours. They also learnt that both featured in other longer and more detailed works by Mörike, and also by his friend Bauer. Reading those works, as well as both friends’ correspondence, shows how significant Orplid was for them. This significance was not limited to their individual lives, though: it also marked the birth of high fantasy.     

In a letter from Bauer to Mörike dated in June 27, 1826, the former asked the latter on which day in the summer of 1825 they have begun discussing Orplid, Mörike’s invented land.  Bauer only remembered that it must have been a few days after July 25, when together they projected and mapped the island that Mörike had called Orplid, as the first sketch of a country and a civilization that they would jointly create, or rather subcreate, if we prefer to use Tolkien’s term for the kind of literary creation consisting of envisioning fully imaginary secondary worlds for fictional purposes. Bauer’s question about the exact date of ‘Orplid’s birth’ (‘Orplids Geburt,’ as he put it) was prompted by his wish to celebrate it every year. Mörike did not remember the exact date or did not want to tell him, perhaps because he did not give it as much importance as Bauer, who might had felt that Orplid’s birth was a cultural milestone, not just a biographical one. In the same letter, however, Bauer told Mörike of a play that he had planned to write to be set on the island of Orplid, featuring as its main character a certain king Maluff, whose name is as invented as that of the island itself. In 1828 Bauer finally published a long romantic drama entitled Der heimliche Maluff (The Secretive Maluff). Shortly afterwards he wrote Orplid’s letzte Tage (The Last Days of Orplid), but he did not see it published, since he died before it appeared in 1847. By then Eduard Mörike had already published Der letzte König von Orplid (The Last King of Orplid), a shadow play included as an independent work in his novel Maler Nolten (Nolten the Painter, 1832). Mörike would later return to Orplid in his enigmatic heroic-comic narrative poem “Märchen vom sichern Mann” (The Tale of the Man of Certainty), which he published together with “Gesang Weylas” in a volume of Gedichte (Poems, 1838). However, as that story of the ‘ever certain man’ takes place in an afterlife combining Christian features, such as the devil, as well as other elements from the mythology of Orplid in a rather vague way, the poem does not contribute much to the knowledge of Orplid as a whole. Only the above-mentioned plays allow us to describe Orplid as the first full example of a high fantasy venue, as well as of a saga.

This statement might surprise those who believe that high fantasy is, above all, a cultural product originating in the Anglophone world that writers in other languages would imitate rather than develop in an original way. This idea could be sustained, if at all, for the period after the launch by Lin Carter in 1969 of the marketing label of (high) fantasy through his Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series. However, a multilingual and comparative look at Western literatures reveals that this label is comparatively recent. It was fully unknown to the greatest modern classics of high fantasy such as Robert E. Howard and J. R. R. Tolkien, whose high fantasy works were labelled as such by critics and booksellers long after they had been written. Similarly, quite a few writers from continental Europe and Latin America independently produced similar fictions to those by Howard and Tolkien both in their time and long before them. If everyone seems satisfied with the later, maybe anachronistic, labelling as fantasy of Howard’s Hyborian stories and of Tolkien’s Middle-earth novels, there is no reason why we should not also label retrospectively as high fantasy the non-Anglophone works preceding them and presenting the same essential literary features. This is especially the case of Bauer and Mörike’s Orplid, a subcreation not unlike those of Howard and Tolkien, as we shall now see.

Der heimliche Maluff narrates the complicated and at times confusing intrigues of Maluff—the king of one of Orplid’s nations, the so-called schmetten (a further invented name)—against Ulmon, the ruler of a city also called Orplid. This city, located in the center of a lake, is the seat of the most powerful kingdom in the whole island, as well as the location of its main temple, where the different gods of Orplid are worshipped by its whole population. Orplid is located somewhere in the South Seas, between Australia and South America. The racial and ethnic background of its inhabitants is not mentioned. We can know only for certain that they are not to be counted among any known populations from our primary world, Polynesian or otherwise. The idea of their existence far from any contact with any foreigners could have been inspired, however, by Rapa Nui islanders from before their contact with European explorers, since all in Orplid believed they are the only human beings in the world.

In addition to these two kingdoms in conflict, there existed in Orplid a republic of free fishermen and a tribe of plundering nomads, the hynnus. Maluff had tried to enter the city of Orplid and seize it by surprise, but had been prevented from doing so by the supernatural rising of the cliffs that surrounded it, which turned Orplid into an inexpugnable fortress thanks to its supernaturally heightened natural walls. However, after having managed to spread discontent among the inhabitants of the island against the government of Ulmon, Maluff ends up defeating and killing the rival king in a pitched battle, after which the victor abdicates his acquired throne to his son and heir Quiddro. That turns out to be the reason why he had secretly undertaken his shrewd political maneuvering, while everybody believed that his motives were related instead to his unquenchable thirst for power.

A thousand years later, according to Bauer’s Orplid’s letzte Tage, the tables have turned. Another king of the Ulmon dynasty of Orplid has defeated the schmetten and imprisoned their king, but his imperialist ambition has not yet been satisfied. After learning that the sea has brought to the island some pieces of driftwood inscribed with characters unknown in Orplid, he decides to assemble a great expedition to explore and conquer the territories now believed to exist beyond the island’s shores. Wam-a-Sur, one of the priests of Orplid’s supreme sun god Sur ascends the mountain seat of this deity to tell him about Ulmon’s plans. Sur then informs him that he will not tolerate Ulmon’s colonial plans. Instead, Orplid will be wholly destroyed by a huge storm. As a punishment, only King Ulmon himself will survive for a thousand years. According to Mörike’s Der letzte König von Orplid, towards the end of that period, long after the fall of Orplid’s civilization by divine decree, a ship arrives on the island carrying lower and middle class unarmed Europeans, thus showing that their intent is not militaristic. After they settle among the empty ruins of the city of Orplid, they learn of the survival of Ulmon, who walks the island like a lonely ghost with the fairy called Thereile, his unrequited lover, at his heels. Ulmon, who only wants to find eternal rest, flees from Thereile and finally disappears into the waters of a lake. Orplid perishes for good together with him. We can only hazard a guess at how the knowledge about the ancient history of Orplid was acquired. Later European settlers and scholars might have found and deciphered its documents, since Orplid’s kingdoms seemed to be highly literate. In fact, they had far more in common with ancient pagan cultures from Europe and Asia than with contemporary Oceanian islanders. Orplid even resembled one of the Hyborian nations in Howard’s Conan stories…

However, Mörike’s Orplid drama cannot be considered a fully-fledged example of high fantasy. Customs and characters from the primary world coexist there with the legendary King Ulmon and with beings taken from European folklore such as fairies and giants. The importance in the work of these latter beings suggests that Mörike’s Orplid was still indebted to the Kunstmärchen or literary fairy tale genre, preventing him from advancing along the path of scientific plausibility that, on the other hand, Ludwig Bauer followed in his two Orplid dramas. Both of them entirely lack fairy-tale features. Even the intervention of Orplid’s gods as characters in Orplid’s letzte Tage does not preclude that plausibility, since they are an integral and constitutive part of that secondary world, unlike those beings from European folklore featuring, somewhat incongruously, in Der letzte König von Orplid, although Mörike himself felt that an explanation was warranted. Before reproducing the text of his drama in his novel Maler Nolten, an embedded explanatory foreword states that the subordinate world of elves, fairies and elves was not excluded (die untergeordnete Welt von Elfen, Feen und Kobolden war nicht ausgeschlossen) from Orplid. These beings are not mentioned at all, however, by Bauer in his own foreword to Der heimliche Maluff, where he told his prospective readers a similar story about the invention of Orplid, but with significant differences from Mörike’s later report with regard to his literary and personal approach. While Möricke would suggest that Orplid was a sort of poetic pastime and he even downgraded its originality by pointing to Homeric deities as forerunners to his own invented ones, Bauer emphasized everything that made the island and its civilization a consistent and credible fictional new (sub)creation. Moreover, he rendered it all the more believable by sistematically establishing its geography, politics, religion and history.

In any case, the explanations offered by both authors about Orplid demonstrate that they had first devised it as a complete fictional world even before writing any specific works set there, in a way similar to how Tolkien had conceived his Middle-earth, with its geography, myths, languages, customs, civilizations, geopolitics, chronology and history before using all that pre-existing material in The Lord of the Rings. Unlike Tolkien, however, Bauer did not tell the myths of the island, but only described its pantheon. This was then a great innovation. Well before Lord Dunsany concocted the myths of The Gods of Pegāna (1905), Bauer implied that Orplid had its own system of gods by mentioning in the foreword to Der heimliche Maluff their names, all of them invented, as well as describing their function in the mythical cosmos of Orplid and some of the rites practiced by its inhabitants to honor them. Bauer also put on the stage the gods themselves in Orplid’s letzte Tage, where their intervention may recall how beings endowed with divine or semi-divine powers shape the fate of humans in the Tolkienian universe of Arda and Middle-earth. All of this was revolutionary, since these gods were imagined for purely fictional purposes, unlike William Blake’s private and mostly symbolic pantheon.

Bauer was also a pioneer when it comes to conceiving the mundane dimension of Orplid. His foreword to his first Orplid drama fully informed about its geography and related geopolitics, of its landscape and how it had defined the position of each polity (a republic of fishermen, the royal city and seat of the centrally located and hegemonic kingdom of Orplid, the rival kingdom whose sovereign is Maluff, etc.), as well as their military, cultural and political relationships. In this way, Bauer strived to give the impression of a global historical reality of which the staged conspiracies and fights are simply an episode. All this contributes to providing Orplid with a plausibility familiar to contemporary readers. This even extends to Bauer’s hypothesis about the real existence of Orplid, as if the positive knowledge of the island had somehow come to Mörike and this had shared some of its documentary evidence with his friend and Bauer had just presented it to the readers of his first drama.

Bauer also tells there about Mörike having drawn a map of Orplid, a map that is unfortunately now lost. Fantastic cartography was not new, since it already appeared, for example, in the famous Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift, where the author also invented the names, manners and institutions of his fantastic isles. However, Mörike and Bauer’s Orplid is not an island like those visited by Gulliver and other imaginary voyagers, whose fictional travelogues Tolkien excluded from high fantasy in his 1957 speech on fairy-stories, because “such report many marvels, but they are marvels to be seen in this mortal world in some region of our own time and space; distance alone conceals them.” In this regard, while Mörike’s Der letzte König von Orplid is still linked to the well-established genre of the ‘imaginary voyage,’ Bauer’s two dramas began a new genre, due to the wholeness and full independence of their secondary world from any intrusion of the primary one, including by contemporary travelers such as Gulliver. He actually specified in his foreword that Orplid existed as a civilization vor Zeiten, that is, formerly or once, literally “before time,” thus fictionally transporting us to a bygone age. This is similar, among others, to Howard’s Hyborian civilization, since it is located on Earth though in a distant time; crucially this is a closed time, as Mörike also claimed about Orplid when he applied to it the adjective abgeschlossen in the original text. Following the destruction of Orplid’s civilization with its inhabitants, nothing survived but the unfortunate King Ulmon, and only for a limited, though lengthy period of a thousand years. After Ulmon’s disappearance, Orplid fully becomes a legendary land. Its ruins remain mute until they are revealed by Mörike’s and Bauer’s mythopoetic imagination as a thing of a past that could only be explored through fiction.

Orplid was conceived as such, without any other discernible purpose and it has thus the whole set of features that we are used to recognize in high fantasy for the very first time. Atlantis has made many believe in the possibility of ancient, bygone imaginary civilizations, but Plato did not separate his secondary fictional world of Atlantis from the past of the primary world: Atlanteans had allegedly fought the very real Athenians and had been defeated by them, while both nations worshipped the known Greek gods, instead of any invented ones as the Orplid nations had. Furthermore, the inhabitants of the island imagined by Mörike and Bauer did not even know that there were human societies other than their own and, after they had come to suspect that others could exist, they were simply wiped off by their gods. Therefore, Bauer at least underlined in clear terms that Orplid was not, and could not be, related to our positive, primary world, unlike the secondary worlds of both the imaginary voyage popular during the Ancient Regime and later portal fantasies such as J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. If we add to that the extensive use by Mörike, and especially Bauer, of the scientific method and discourses of contemporary Humanities in order to confer materiality and rational plausibility to their creation, we can have now a clear picture of how those genial friends invented high fantasy when they started discussing Orplid a bright summer day exactly two hundred years ago.

~

I Know What I Desire

by James C. Clar

In the narrow, labyrinthine streets of the city, there was a nondescript establishment nestled between a taxidermist and a tobacconist. Above its door was a sign that read simply, The Hourglass. If you happened to pass by the shop, and if you happened to take notice of it in the first place, you’d very quickly afterward begin to forget you had ever seen it. On your next trip down that street, you’d probably ask yourself, “where did that shop come from?  I’ve never seen it before.” It was that kind of place. All cities have them.

The Hourglass belonged to a man named Alejandro Montoya. He had devoted his life to the accumulation of objects that had long outlived their usefulness. Objects whose provenance, in fact, was often far more intriguing than their original purpose. Among antique maps, unwound clocks and ancient esoteric texts, Montoya took pleasure in ephemera, in the flotsam and jetsam of the past. His store catered to a small but enthusiastic and, luckily for him, wealthy clientele.

One gray, late autumn afternoon just as a light rain had begun to fall, an old man entered the shop. He was tall and gaunt, almost stereotypically so. His coat was stained by both time and the tide. His eyes were blue, the blue of the sea.

Montoya took him for a vagrant or, more likely, a down-on-his-luck sailor too long divorced from his ship. From time to time, street people and others would wander into the shop in search of a handout. He was just about to usher the stranger from the premises when, without preamble, the old man placed a stoppered glass bottle on the counter.

Against his better judgment, Montoya was intrigued. The bottle was emerald-green and was covered in an elaborate network of runes and symbols done in intricate cloisonne. It was a beautiful piece and one of obvious antiquity.

“How much do you want for it?” Montoya asked. He already had a buyer in mind. He knew a collector who would pay a tidy sum for an antique like that.

The old man laughed. “Take it,” he replied. “It’s all yours. I can’t wait to be rid of it. As far as paying for it is concerned, the bottle will exact its own price in due time.”

Before Montoya had a chance to ask for an explanation, the old man turned and left the store. The shopkeeper watched him as he disappeared into what had now turned into a downpour.

Over the next few weeks, Alejandro Montoya studied the ornate bottle for hours. It became an obsession. He would run his fingers over the delicate filigree. He polished it endlessly. More than once he picked up the phone to call a prospective buyer, but something always seemed to prevent him from doing so. His research, thus far, had yielded nothing regarding the object’s origin or age.

One evening, just after closing, Montoya found himself once again contemplating the bottle. The one thing the shopkeeper had not yet done was to pull the stopper from its neck. At least he had no recollection of having done so. That realization surprised him. Curiosity now became his driving motivation. Holding its base with one trembling hand, Montoya carefully removed the stopper with the other. As he did so, a thin wisp of vapor escaped. The vapor curled, coalesced and, within a few seconds, took the shape of a man.

It was a moment before Montoya processed what had just happened. His rational, empirical mind wrestled with what it saw.  “You’re a genie,” he murmured, not yet truly believing that it was true.

“Indeed, I am,” the figure in front of him spoke with a voice that seemed both playful and old … as though it had been old even when the world was young. “My name is Azar, and for the record, I find the term ‘genie’ to be so imprecise as to be almost meaningless.”

“Do you not then grant wishes,” Montoya asked.

“Let us just say that I am bound to fulfill desires. There’s a difference.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Montoya spoke with hesitation.

“I’m quite sure you don’t,” Azar response with a chuckle. “In my experience, few mortals do.”

“Please explain yourself.”

“The first thing you must understand,” Azar began, “is that precision is all-important. A ‘wish’, as you put it, must be carefully worded and flow from a genuine, concrete desire. A poorly crafted wish can – and often does – lead to unintended consequences and even disaster.”

Now it was Montoya’s turn to chuckle. “What if I choose not to wish at all?”

“Then I will remain.” Azar looked at the store’s owner with something akin to pity. “I am patient, infinitely so. But, sooner or later, you will wish. They all do.”

#

Weeks passed. Montoya found himself engaging in lengthy conversations with Azar who emerged from his bottle unbidden almost every day. The latter’s knowledge was limitless and spanned centuries. They talked of art, history, literature, science and philosophy. The vagaries of human nature and human ambition were of particular interest to the genie. Try as he might, and despite their growing rapport, Montoya could not forget the implied warning in Azar’s declaration that, as far as wishes were concerned, “precision was all-important.”

“It strikes me,” Montoya observed one night as the two sat talking, “that you enjoy tricking mortals.” The shop’s proprietor had stayed on long after closing.

“I don’t trick them, my friend.” Azar’s teeth seemed to glimmer in the moonlight that filtered into the room amid the bric-a-brac of bygone eras. “Rather, they are undone by their own haste and their almost universal lack of clarity.”

“What if someone were to wish for nothing?”

“Ah, that ancient paradox,” Azar spoke quietly as he leaned forward. “To wish for nothing is in fact to wish for something. Even that wish has ‘content’. Besides, it reflects a desire. A desire that is itself its own negation.”

One afternoon shortly thereafter and, unable to any longer bear the weight of his indecision, Montoya decided to act. Azar materialized before him. His expression was, as usual, inscrutable.

“I’ve made up my mind. I know what I desire.”

“Have you indeed?” Azar’s tone was jovial, almost mocking. “Speak your desire and let the universe conspire to make it so.”

Montoya hesitated, momentarily unsure. He had rehearsed this moment, crafting a wish he believed to be as precise as humanly possible using anything other than the language of mathematics. Still, when the time came …

“I desire,” he began haltingly, “to be granted three wishes for all eternity.”

Azar’s eyes glittered with a strange, ethereal light. “I grant your desire. You have three wishes for all eternity.” Under his breath, the genie murmured “I warned you …”

#

One afternoon shortly thereafter and, unable to any longer bear the weight of his indecision, Montoya decided to act. Azar materialized before him. His expression was, as usual, inscrutable.

“I’ve made up my mind. I know what I desire …  I desire to be granted three wishes for all eternity … “

~

Bio:

James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more moderate climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently, his work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Journal, Freedom Fiction Journal, The Collidescope, Antipodean Sci-Fi and Sci Phi Journal.

Philosophy Note:

I’ve played with these Borgesian ideas previously in my short fiction. Here, in “I Know what I Desire,” I have two thoughts or questions:

  1. Does a wish without concrete content constitute a wish? (Philosophically, the act of wishing is more about the act of willing than it is about the object of that action/will. If so, then, a wish without content is still a wish since it involves the act of willing desiring itself.)
  2. If, as the ancients believed, words have power, then precision in using those words would be essential — think of an ancient curse or incantation poorly worded. Or, better yet, what would have happened had God not chosen his Word(s) so carefully? “Let there be …” what?

Dracula In The Looking Glass

by Don Mark Baldridge

Fairies are famously forced to dance on exposed blades of kitchen knives —angels on needles and pins. Something about sharpness dazzles spiritual minds. 

Salt fascinates the evil spirit with its brilliant billions of facets —can’t count them all in a handful, tossed. Have to stop time —and maybe get stuck there, staring…

The pentagon in the pentagram spawns another pair, identical, within —a demon slides down, forever, same stairway angels ascend: game of Snakes and Ladders with Satan himself, armwrestling God. 

Phantoms are obsessive, compulsive, disordered —not inured to right angles. Think of crosses —mirrors, in which, by degrees, we learn: you can see me, if I see you!

The vampire knows it’s being looked at, participates in being seen. Passive reflection won’t do.

It appears in a mirror if it knows it needs to, it maybe catches your eye in one. But there are so many of them, mirrors; think of that!

All the silver, polished, on the mantle. Crystal, set out on the sideboard. All reflecting, in distortion, everything else in the room but this apparent person, passing though, untouching of the flickering fire as it burnishes the brass.

That alone raises hackles, sets the eye to staring, this absence of ray-tracing.

Really, it’s the vampire who can make nothing of reflection —perceives naught but a terrible antithesis, a meaningless void. If it has learned to project one, why, that’s just survival, protective coloration: evolution in action.

It’s true that certain knots confound invisible minds. Entities which would snatch, or poison if they could, are kept at bay with rare words, obscure anagrams, broken palindromes —abracadabra!

~

Bio:

Don Mark Baldridge serves as some species of professor in both Art and Computer Science, working with one of those ancient, shade-strewn colleges that dot Pennsylvania.

Philosophy Note:

I here engage in a reification of the Vampire, and explain its peculiarities —re: reflection in mirrors— as a problem in computational overhead.

Lethe

by Eli Sclar

There has been a mistake. The gods have been neglectful, as where once lay the calm, gentle river on the outskirts of our town now lies the river Lethe. Most of us believe the transformation, likely brought on by a faulty levee or dam that allowed the sacred waters to seep from the underworld, occurred overnight; yet even of this theory, no one is certain.

Only when a young boy fishing along the bank with his grandfather decided to jump in did the unearthly effects of the water become apparent. Upon rubbing his eyes, the boy no longer remembered his grandfather, nor who he himself was. Naturally, when news of the phenomenon spread there were skeptics, but a single dive into the waters was all that was needed to reassure onlookers of the river’s authenticity.

The story has reached all corners of our town and even further beyond. From a second-floor window, one could clearly see all along the riverside, which in those first few days was almost always overflowing with men and women eager to forget their troubles and slip away into calm serenity. In they go into the muddy waters of the Lethe and out they return, dazed, stumbling, and reincarnated. Yet it is a reincarnation uncelebrated, for where are they to return? They most certainly do not know, and even if a loved one managed to find them, what good would that do? And so men drift aimlessly throughout the town, free of previous difficulties, yes, yet burdened now with much larger ones.

Our townsfolk recognize this and, despite that fact, still regularly witness their neighbors march themselves towards the banks. Some managed to choose a direction and start walking, although a few, finding the day hot and themselves parched, decide to take a drink of water and, having drunk anew from the river Lethe, are once again completely oblivious. Initially, a meeting was held by those who renounced the waters, and it was decided that a very respected man, a teacher from the local high school, would become our leader. The first action he decided upon, however, proved to be his last. He, alongside some of our other prominent men, went to the banks of the river. There they had tried to steer some of the men and women towards the center of town, where a makeshift shelter was to be constructed. But they had miscalculated; those who went into the river did not recognize the men and ran from them. One, ankles deep in the water, having her arm grabbed by our leader, out of fear and ignorance pushed him into the water’s depths. Similar fates befell the others.

Since then, we have all simply resigned. What else are we to do? The men and women still wander around our once quiet town, quite aimlessly. That minority which avoided the waters have learned to go about their own business, ignoring those confused faces that may be met in the streets or countryside.

#

One cloudless day, I was looking out my window, truly without seeing anything. I was deep in thought, consumed by my work, and had been sitting at my desk for several hours. It was just when my thoughts came to a lull that I noticed something unusual. A young woman with wet straw-colored hair, no older than myself, was roaming around in the street below. Usually, I would no longer take any notice of such a scene, but something particular struck me about this woman. I had almost blurted something out, anything to get her attention, but was stopped.

Around the corner, in the shade of another house, there was a boy practicing violin. I stood there, my head outside my open window, and listened. There the boy lingered, his back towards me, quite carelessly and erratically drawing his bow over the strings. What followed closely mimicked an animal being strangled. Every few seconds he would stop, realize that his playing didn’t quite resemble the sheet music in front of him, and would start all over, making the same errors. The boy was so engrossed in his study that he failed to see the woman staring at him fifteen feet away. She was frozen, listening intently at every wrong note, at every mistroke of the bow. Despite this, he did not seem discouraged and just played on. I tried to get back to work, but would only manage five minutes at a time before losing my concentration. Getting up from my desk, I would once again look out the window, and each time I would find that woman still there. 

An hour must have passed, before anything remotely musical came along. It was a simple melody, at first played painstakingly slow but soon enough at an acceptable tempo. It wasn’t beautiful or particularly clever, but there it was, the beginner’s first phrase. Upon hearing it, I rushed towards my window. There, still in the street below, was the woman. She looked paler than before, and it almost seemed as if there were tears in her eyes. Confused tears, no doubt, but tears nonetheless. The boy continued to play his one phrase again and again, with her standing just out of his sight. After taking in the scene for a moment more, I regained my senses and closed the window.

#

We sent out a messenger for help long ago. He hasn’t returned. While we gave up on those unfortunate souls that frequent the cobblestones of our streets, life quickly became unbearable for us. Our humble town is seated within the heartland of our country, miles and miles from any important trading route or harbour. What need had we for walls, what enemy would bother with us? We could never have known that the tragedy would worsen. We failed to see that those pilgrims who dove into the waters were forever unable to share news of their fates with others. Of course, the story of the river Lethe had become known, yet only our town saw firsthand its devastating effects. The rest only heard hearsay. Those strangers who traveled to our river following a dream could not journey back home. Suddenly, as I suspect, men and women from all over – perhaps in some places only a few, in others a noticeable amount – had gone missing, without any other explanation than the rumors of the miraculous river. A few days go by, and their loved ones wait patiently for their son or husband, daughter or wife to return, only to bide their time in vain. The doubters, who scoff at the very idea of the river Lethe, are soon haunted by doubts, and the regretful youth, ashamed at his own fancy and starved for cause, soon finds one. All are bound toward our town.

We were overwhelmed with our families, friends, and neighbors succumbing to the waters, and in our clouded judgment, could not foresee any further pilgrims. Newcomers began to trickle in, and we hardly noticed. Yet the same circumstance which had brought them, brought more to us. They were found creeping through the forest, traveling through unbeaten paths, trampling through our fields; they were quite easy to distinguish, for the purpose in their eyes contrasted starkly with the bewildered gaze of those taken by the river. We had already been experiencing some difficulty with our own soaked citizens: they had long exhausted any food to be found in our small town and, as demonstrated with the makeshift shelter, the prospect of meaningful aid was entirely futile. But as this second influx trickled in, our humble supplies were utterly dwarfed. By the time that we recognized the growing issue, these pilgrims, like locusts, utterly devastated our crops.

News spread slowly, through pockets of us at a time, and soon another emergency meeting was called. The lesson had been learned that direct contact with the men and women of the river was fruitless. There were simply far too many of them and far too few of us. Broken, indifferent, and lost, the congregants at first were quiet. Yet as the evening went on, long lost tempers began to flare, and it was decided that perhaps walls, constructed around the entire perimeter of our town, would at least help mitigate our problem. And as the logistics for such a project were discussed, I kept silent. Their words began to fade, and I could feel my tired mind racing elsewhere, as it has recently been inclined to do. For when we had a city, we lacked defenses, comforted by the thought of pastoral peace. Yet now, after our illusion of reality was shattered, what good would walls do us now? We have already lost before we began. The effects of the gods’ mistake extend far beyond us now. The river Lethe is sure to flood behind any wall’s cracks anyhow, eking out to the rest of the world and drawing them towards us. What of our town then? How on earth could we possibly persevere?

A careless mistake, like the flow of a river, can never be reversed.

~

Bio:

Eli Sclar is based in San Diego, California and a recent graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara. His influences span from Kafka and Gogol to Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. He is currently authoring a book on philosophy and religion during the French Revolution.

Philosophy Note:

At some stage in our lives, we have all wished that a memory or two would disappear. Yet our memory is who we are, in our entirety. What we forget or remember is not in our hands, and when placed so, would bear the risk of unravelling us all. Could our aversion to strife lead to deeper strife?

High Fantasy IS Science Fiction

by Mariano Martín Rodríguez

Some introductory remarks

Years ago, and maybe still today, it was customary in large bookstores to place high fantasy books in the same section as science fiction. Only the alphabetical order separated the Asimovian Foundation series from Tolkienian Middle-Earth narratives. Thus, a genre of fiction allegedly based on reason as well as natural and applied sciences could be found along another one admitting the material existence of supernatural entities and events, and in which magic really works. Thus, the most scientific and the most ascientific kinds of fiction were entwined on the bookshelves and, presumably, in the minds of their buyers as much as in those of booksellers. However, it would be both unfair and misguided to blame them for such apparent blatant disregard for the purported essential features of each sort of fiction. Out of respect for their literary acumen, it would be rather advisable to see whether their closeness on the market shelves was truly an unsettling contradiction. Is there, indeed, any sound reason for such proximity?

Having emerged later, high fantasy was the genre added to science fiction bookstore shelves, not the other way around. What is to be discussed, therefore, is why it was placed there, although it is not, in principle, a genre of scientific fiction as ‘science fiction’ is, as its very name suggests. We could, however, question the alleged rational and scientific status of science fiction proper. SF stories and plays often show occurrences violating the known natural laws of our universe. Among those violations could be mentioned any kind of remote exercise of mental powers such as those attributed to the Mule in the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov and to the Bene Gesserit in Frank Herbert’s Dune cycle. Nevertheless, it is the perception of being scientific what often distinguishes ‘science fiction’ from other genres, while the opposite occurs in the case of ‘fantasy,’ which would supposedly be mainly fantastic, as its own name indicates. ‘Fantastic’ is, however, a term so broad that its conceptual value is negligeable.

We could consider that all kinds of fiction with supernatural elements are to be called ‘fantasy,’ as is the case in a landmark reference book on the matter, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), edited by John Clute and John Grant. The only common feature in the many works of fiction there considered is that they welcome the supernatural in one way or another. We have seen that so does much of science fiction. There would then be no reason to exclude it from the ‘fantastic.’ In fact, not even the so-called realistic worlds, such as the 19th-century novels of manners, should be excluded from it, since there is little more fantastic that a narrative voice describing in minute detail the most inner thoughts of the characters. We would need then a more precise taxonomy of ‘fantasy,’ and specifically of ‘high fantasy’ as a particular genre. It is time to shortly address some boring, but necessary theoretical issues on the matter.

#

Now for a bit of theory

Like science fiction, high fantasy can be recognized with relative ease, but it is not easier than science fiction to define it. However, the basic concept of high fantasy is that of subcreation, proposed by J. R. R. Tolkien in his 1939 lecture “On Fairy-stories”(1947). Subcreation implies a secondary creation, i.e. the artistic invention by someone from our primary ‘created’ world of an imaginary world presented as a fully fictional entity. Therefore, it does not pretend to be a reflection of our natural and social universe in the past (historical fiction), in the present (‘realistic’ fictions of any kind, from novels of manners to thrillers) or in the future (science fiction). A fully invented world can be shown as co-existing with settings borrowed from our factual universe in portal fantasies such as C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series or historical fantasies with imaginary states such as Jean D’Ormesson’s La Gloire de l’Empire (The Glory of the Empire, 1971). Nevertheless, Tolkien’s theory implies that completeness of the subcreation also entails a notion of full autonomy in high fantasy, as opposed to those related fantasy genres. The subcreated universe is a secondary world fully independent from the primary world in the realm of fiction as well. This allows for, and even demands, an ontological order in it that is different from that of the universe we inhabit. Since this order is not a mundane one in any recorded or extrapolated time and space of our universe and considering the historical roots of many high fantasy worlds in the long-standing tradition of popular and artistic fairy tales, it is small wonder (pardon the pun) that magic and other supernatural occurrences are so often found in high fantasy. Their presence is, however, not compulsory in the genre. There are, indeed, significant works of high fantasy from which magic and supernatural occurrences are virtually absent, such as Samuel R. Delany’s Tales of Nevèrÿon (1978).

The secondary worlds of high fantasy are a very particular kind of invented fictional world. As such, they are quite different from those found in other genres of speculative and science fiction. As Lin Carter showed in his landmark essay Imaginary Worlds (1973), high fantasy worlds have their own specific features. They are not the worlds of allegories, with their symbolically abstract characters and venues, or those of the afterlife, or those discovered by imaginary travelers to unknown lands on our planet or other celestial bodies. More importantly for our contention, these are not the worlds bequeathed to us by written or oral tradition, such as received myths and folktales, as those are not subcreations, not having been invented by particular persons. Artistic fairy tales are perhaps more akin to high fantasy, since they are often written as personal works of literary art, such as those by H. C. Andersen and Oscar Wilde. In addition to often taking place in the primary world, they still draw from a common pool of conventional plots, characters and places largely limiting the extent of their subcreation. As an illustration of the essentially different nature of the fictional world in high fantasy and fairy tales, it is worth reminding that, whereas maps as paratexts are usual and welcome in high fantasy narratives, they and any other kind of ‘documentary’ information are wholly unnecessary, if not inconvenient, in fairy tales. Where the castle of Sleeping Beauty is located, how it is named, which kind of state is her kingdom and how tense are its foreign relations, what are the myths, beliefs and institutions of her nation, and other cultural and historical data are fully irrelevant to her fairy tale, while they are paramount in high fantasy proper.

Despite his talking of fairy-stories, Tolkien’s idea of subcreation does not apply to any type of fictional ‘magic’ worlds, including those featured in fairy tales. His own practice as a writer, which underpins and determines his literary theory, is rather to be considered along a number of taxonomically similar works by different authors that would later be grouped together and labelled as (high) fantasy. These works describe civilizations with a legendary outlook, lacking advanced technology even when set in the future, usually showing a sociopolitical order typical of ancient civilizations, from the first sedentary societies to early empires, when heroism of the sort exhibited and sung in ancient epics was proper. They are worlds where gods and other mythical beings can be seen acting alongside humans, worlds in which characters perform religious and social rituals alien to known religions[1] and act according to motives and beliefs unlike those common in our modernity. They are also worlds whose completeness demands inner credibility to seem as consistent as our own primary world is portrayed, among others, in so-called realistic fiction. In order to reach such a level of realistic plausibility, the subcreated secondary world typically follows a particular set of procedures to enhance its logical consistency as fiction.

Science fiction follows a rational procedure of extrapolation or anticipation inspired and underpinned, at least in theory, by the modern scientific method, with its technological and societal outcomes. This is what makes seem plausible both the most extraordinary inventions described, as well as the most humanely incredible eutopian and dystopian institutions imposed upon an imagined society. On the other hand, what rational basis is required for a fully invented civilization in an unfamiliar universe, in an undocumented past, or even in a future implausibly lacking advanced technology? How to persuade modern readers used to ‘realism’ to suspend disbelief in the true (fictional) existence of the worlds of high fantasy? The answer is perhaps not as alien to science as one might think at first.

#

A smattering of history

Whereas recent commercial high fantasy can take advantage of a wider public already familiar with the narrative conventions consecrated by the global success of the Howardian series of Conan stories and the Tolkienian epic adventures in Middle-Earth, the first modern authors of the future high fantasy genre published works whose fictional secondary worlds, being subcreated and fully invented, were unprecedented. This is likely why many tried to prevent the bewilderment of their readers by resorting to some contemporary methods and discourses able to endow, through analogy, a measure of rational and scientific authority to the invented world, as it were a genuine reality in a time and place divergent from our known human universe. The first to do it was perhaps Plato when he presented his invention of Atlantis and his empire as a real historical place by using not only the method of verified documentation proper to historiography, but also the rhetoric of narrated history developed, among others, by Herodotus. Plato was, indeed, so successful in his use of nascent historiography for fictional purposes that there are still quite a few scholars taking it at face value and looking all over the world for the remains of Atlantis, an endeavour as futile as trying to unearth Tolkien’s Númenor…

Atlantis was not a full-fledged secondary high fantasy world, though. It existed along real places such as Athens and it was subjected to the whims of the Greek gods. Moreover, the literary approach of Plato was not followed for many centuries, namely until modern methods in the historical and related human sciences were first developed, above all, in Germany as from the first half of the 19th century. It was precisely in that period when the very first full high fantasy world was conceived: Eduard Mörike and Ludwig Bauer imagined during the summer of 1825 Orplid, an island having existed in the Pacific where an imaginary civilization thrived in full isolation, with no relation whatsoever with any people from our world. Orplid has its own integral culture, with its own toponomastics, its own history with several kingdoms and states fighting each other for supremacy, its own religion with its own gods and myths… All of this was invented, or rather subcreated, following the methods of inquiry in human sciences, namely in the so-called Humanities. Mörike even drew a map, unfortunately now lost, of that island with its cities and states, as well as its natural features. Bauer described the physical and human geography of the island in the introduction to his drama Der heimliche Maluff (Hidden Maluff, 1828), which can be considered the first published modern high fantasy work. Bauer also offered in that same introductory paratext the outlines of the history of the kingdoms of Orplid and of the pagan religion common to all its inhabitants.

Shortly thereafter, a British writer, John Sterling, and a German one, Karl Immermann, subcreated equally consistent fictional universes in their respective etiological myths on the origin of warriors narrated in “The Sons of Iron,”included without title in Sterlings’s novel from 1833 Arthur Coningsby, and of our own universe in “Mondscheinmärchen,” or ‘Tale of the Moonshine,’ included in Immermann’s novel from 1836 Die Epigonen (The Epigones). These two stories are perhaps the first modern instances of mythopoetic subcreations using the language of mythographic form, well before Lord Dunsany’s masterful collections of invented cosmogonic myths titled The Gods of Pegāna (1905) and Time and the Gods (1906).

The first high fantasy long narrative came soon after. In France, George Sand subcreated in Évenor et Leucippe (Evenor and Leucippe, 1856) a fully imaginary early human civilization within which existed a secluded second ‘secondary world’ called Eden, where lived the last of the dives lived, a race of angelic pre-human beings endowed with some supernatural powers, and whose last specimen died just after having imparted moral lessons to the young lovers after whom the novel is titled. These lovers were eventually forced to escape from their fellow humans, along with other peace seekers, to that refuge of Eden in order not to suffer the political intrigues and wars which were corrupting their civilization. Sand’s double secondary world was inspired by Platonic Atlantis and the primordial myths of the ancient Hebrew book of Genesis, but it differs from both by its secular and non-mythic character. Sand published the book with a long paratextual introduction where she invoked the latest theories and discoveries of her time on the transformation of species and the possibility of prehistoric societies very different from those archaeologically documented. Thus, she tried to explain what sort of parable her novel was, but to little avail. Her novel was rather unsuccessful among readers, as was later a longer novel by her son Maurice titled Le coq aux cheveux d’or (The Golden-Haired Rooster, 1867), in which the Platonic legend of Atlantis was retold in such a way that it could be read today as an early example of later Howardian sword and sorcery fiction. The same can be said of an earlier example of that sort of fiction but with female protagonists, the Spanish novel Las amazonas (The Amazons, 1852) by Pedro Mata.

All these works came perhaps too early. It was a time when Gustave Flaubert’s novels were making modern ‘realism’ triumph, even in narratives set in an ancient exotic past, such as Salammbô (1862). However, this very same book was a testament to the new public interest for civilizations different from the classic and biblical ones, both in space and in time, from those of the Neolithic (e. g. novels on the pike-dwelling settlements in Central Europe) to those of Polynesia. Most of these civilizations had recently been (re)discovered by scholars and the wider educated public, thanks to far-reaching geographical and archaeological explorations, which were accompanied by the decisive development of philology. This science allowed to understand living and dead languages previously unknown in Europe and westernized America. This understanding contributed numerous myths, legends and even truly occurred histories to common knowledge all over the world.

Consequently, not only retellings by European and American writers of all this new worldwide cultural heritage were published in the 19th and early 20th century, but also some works portraying imaginary equivalents of the ancient cultures that archaeology and philology were gradually revealing. A representative example, due to its extensive and obvious use of human sciences to build a rich secondary high fantasy world, is the novella “Dyusandir y Ganitriya” (Djusandir and Ganitrija, 1903) by Luis Valera. This romantic legend about the two young lovers of the title is presented as a story told to the narrator by a Czech archaeologist who had found and deciphered the relevant documents stemming from an imaginary Puruna empire, a fully invented Indo-European ancient civilization in Asia. Valera describes it to minute detail, including the political organization and history of the two Puruna nations, as well as their shared religious beliefs and rituals, as they could have been reconstructed by archaeology, to the point of even discussing divergent hypotheses on the historical reliability of the narrated facts. The extent of Valera’s recourse to the historical sciences was not to be matched for quite a long time, but other contemporary narratives were also using similar methods of subcreation based on the Humanities. Among the examples by renowned authors that could be mention are the historic-looking high fantasy romances by William Morris, both without supernatural features, such as The Roots of the Mountains (1890), and with them, such as The Story of the Glittering Plain (1891), as well as other works rather inspired by ethnography, such as Gabriele D’Annunzio’s short narrative poem “Il sangue delle vergini” (Virgins’ Blood, 1883/1894), and philology, such as J.-H. Rosny aîné’s novella “Les Xipéhuz” (The Xipehuz, 1887), which is presented as a critical translation, including notes, of a document written in a language prior to the first ones documented in Mesopotamia.

Shortly afterwards, following Lord Dunsany’s fictional mythographic works, high fantasy acquired in the English-speaking major nations a critical mass unknown in the other linguistic areas where high fantasy was also first developed. Without diminishing the significance of weird high fantasists such as Clark Ashton Smith and of their French Decadent masters such as Camille Mauclair, high fantasy reached maturity mainly due to the monumental work of two writers, each of them representative of the two main strands of later high fantasy: the one focusing on subcreated history and the other focusing on subcreated myth. Robert E. Howard came first with his stories on the adventures of Conan in Hyboria, a land on our Earth where civilizations thrived prior to recorded history. Although older than Howard, Tolkien published later his narratives set in Middle-Earth, which was a part of Arda, a mythic universe having preceded ours. After them, high fantasy followed its course until today without major changes.[2] Howard and Tolkien did not invent high fantasy, but their work helped it become an accepted and specific sort of fiction. They are, therefore, of paramount importance, also for our inquiry, since they produced important texts suggesting that the scientific contents of high fantasy are not only related to the methods of the Humanities, but alto to their discourses, to the rhetoric governing their conventions when presenting their findings to the scholarly community, as well as to the general public.

#

A touch of rhetoric

The rhetoric of the Humanities and generally the human sciences consists in the set of linguistic conventions governing the presentation of their arguments and conclusions, this is to say, the kinds of writing specific to each of them. This particular register allows readers to recognize that a narration of past events is not told as if these events were invented stories, but documented facts in our universe and time, among human beings interacting with each other (historiography), or in a supernatural dimension where gods and godlike entities are shown as really acting (mythography). A specific kind of rhetoric also signals if we are describing the rites and customs of a particular population (ethnography), or if we are rather trying to explain the features of a text, from its language to its deeper meaning, as it can be guessed from it using the philological method. Describing the full range of rhetorical conventions across the different human sciences could be the subject of huge treatises. It will suffice for now that these formal conventions determining the discourses of those sciences are to be abundantly found in high fantasy from its very beginning. Ludwig Bauer already felt the need to explain, using those discourses, what Orplid looked like, and how its culture was shaped, in order to put his literary fiction related to his imaginary island in an apparently factual context. The language of science was then used to present the invented secondary world as having really existed, thus supporting the realistic plausibility of the fictional events presented as taking place in that world. A similar rhetorical procedure was occasionally followed by Howard and Tolkien. Both great masters of high fantasy produced mock documentary writings with the clear purpose of complementing their novelistic subcreation, which lacked any discursive authority, with expository pieces that could have that authority. In this way, their statements about their subcreated worlds seem to be the result of scientific inquiry, at least formally. In Howard, the rhetoric chosen is that of historiography in “The Hyborian Age” (1936/1938), which tells the history of the Earth several millennia ago, when Conan fought against his many enemies in the realms supposedly existing in that distant epoch. For his part, Tolkien began the subcreation of the fictional universe of his novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by narrating his cosmogony as a piece of mythography in “Ainulindalë,”although this text only appeared posthumously in 1975.

Thus, Tolkien shows that the subcreation of the secondary world could predate the writing of the related fiction itself. Even if the world-building exercise in high fantasy does not necessarily predate the literary operation of the subcreated world, it is often considered convenient to underline its ontological status as an independent and full reality on its own by presenting it as such through rhetorically non-fictional means. A high fantasy book or series may therefore frequently be accompanied by paratexts objectively describing the setting and culture of the relevant world, or by companion books entirely devoted to that description. This is the case of fictional encyclopedias in which the subcreated worlds are comprehensively presented, including their geography, history, social and political organization, among other data. This is the case, for instance, of The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time (1997) by Robert Jordan & Teresa Patterson.

In addition to fictional encyclopedias combining texts written in the manner of the various human sciences, there is also several high fantasy books entirely written as if they were compilation of myths, such as O’Yarkandal (1929) by Salarrué. Historiographic accounts also exist in high fantasy, such as the imaginary chronicle of the world of Westeros titled Fire & Blood (2018) by George R. R. Martin. Ethnography has not been neglected either in this genre, since there are some interesting books devoted to the description of the manners and rituals of imaginary ancient civilizations, for example, those of Los zumitas (The Zumites, 1999) by Federico Jeanmaire. For its part, philology, understood as the science of editing, translating and interpreting texts, has inspired the creation of anthologies of pseudo-translated literary documents from subcreated civilizations, sometimes linked to a particular fictional cycle, such as The Rivan Codex (1998) by David & Leigh Eddings, as well as in the form of independent books that suffice, along with the comments of the supposed editor/translator, to subcreate a whole world through the texts allegedly produced there. In particular Frédéric Werst did so in his two volumes of Ward (2011-2014), which are presented as a bilingual edition of a selection of classics of the Ward civilization in French and in the imaginary language of that invented nation, a language created from scratch by the author and whose grammar and vocabulary are fully offered in these two books, thus surpassing the limited attempts of Tolkien at writing texts directly in a subcreated language.

Ward probably represents the extreme point that can be reached in world-building through fictional non-fiction, but all those examples and others that could be mentioned hint at the importance that the rhetoric of human sciences has always had in high fantasy. Even in the usual commercial three-, five- seven- or n- deckers that are currently crushing bookshelves and high fantasy itself under the sheer weight of their literary fat, the unavoidable maps in the printed volumes are to be seen as a token sign of the scientific seriousness of their world-building. Drawing a map is certainly easier than devising a whole language and the culture going with it; it is also easier than telling the whole history of a world beyond the limited sphere of some individual characters. Drawing a map may also prove easier than knowing how to use the language proper to each human science correctly, but the fact that maps of imaginary lands are so pervasive in high fantasy books suggests how closely intertwined this genre has become with the Humanities. Even in the many cases where commercial considerations supersede literary ones, high fantasy seems to be reluctant to cut all ties to science, perhaps because these ties are no less essential to it than they are to ‘science fiction.’

#

And conclusions, for good measure

Human sciences are as scientific, albeit in another way, as the applied sciences which have inspired canonical works in science fiction proper such as H. G Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), as well as the social sciences underpinning utopian fictions such as William Morris’ News from Nowhere (1890). They are also as scientific as the natural sciences describing the material universe, including living beings, in xenofictions such as Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker (1937), to which one could very well add the divine sciences of metaphysics and theology transposed into fiction through symbolic and allegorical works such as George MacDonald’s Phantastes (1858), whereas formal sciences have found some fictional counterparts in mathematical fantasies such as Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland (1884). The relative true cognitive value of those different sciences is open to discussion, but it can hardly be denied that human sciences have allowed us to obtain a wealth of valuable insights about our diverse past on a sound documentary basis, second only to the information gleaned from natural sciences in their field. Since high fantasy is the kind of speculative fiction corresponding to at least some human sciences, it deserves to be considered just as speculative and scientific as ‘science fiction,’ although high fantasy has traditionally been more open to the supernatural, precisely in the same way as human cultures have traditionally been prone to believing in divine interventions as well.

The key to our understanding of high fantasy, as opposed to the usual fairy tale staple with unicorns and elves that often mimics it, is not the supernatural understood as a matter of fact in its fictional universe, but the rational way it approaches it. According to Palmer-Patel, “Fantasy can be defined as a narrative that you use similar structures and language of Mythology, Legends, and Fairy-Tales to create a new world with its own rational laws. As a result, Fantasy fiction is logical even when it is not possible. (…) Fantasy must have internally consistent laws as a point of reference from which the reader can hope to understand the fiction. (…) the Fantasy genre, though often defined by the ‘impossible’, still follows the logic of our current scientific and philosophical understanding of the world.”[3] If magic in high fantasy could very well have stemmed from fairy tales and inherited myths, it is no less true that a mutation occurred in the 19th century that gave rise to a new genre of speculative fiction that cleaves as much as science fiction to the “positivist spirit” and to the “logic of our scientific and philosophical understanding of the world.” In this context, science brings authority, but also ‘realism,’ which is a term that we should understand here as a modern literary approach intended to give fiction an illusory ‘effect of reality’ supported by the authority of science as conveyor of ‘truth(s).’

Certain historical conclusions in a number of human sciences seem to obey more to the prejudices of past mentalities than to the actual reality of the studied cultures, resulting in interpretations that we considered erroneous now, perhaps on the basis of our own biases. This fact should not hinder, however, our recognition of the scientific status of their methods, just as the methods of the natural sciences do not prevent further discoveries from modifying and even refuting previously widely accepted ideas on the material universe. In fiction as well, the human sciences in properly conceived high fantasy are no less logical and rationally sound that the natural sciences in xenofiction and the applied sciences in ‘science fiction,’ both traditionally put under a single taxonomic umbrella, despite their widely divergent ‘scientific’ approaches. In this perspective, and considering that it often borrows the discourses, or at least the maps, typical of human sciences as well, we can only conclude that booksellers were right after all. Indeed, high fantasy is science fiction in its broadest sense.


[1] High fantasy excludes Christianity, as well as any other really existing religion in the present or the past, since such a significant dimension of a culture would deny the secondary world its full completeness and independence from the primary one. This is why the medieval fantasy romances by William Morris, where Christian monks exist as much as papal Rome, are to be excluded from high fantasy, despite Lin Carter’s contention that these romances are the first instances of the genre. There are other works by Morris which would truly qualify as high fantasy, without being in any case the ‘first’ ones. High fantasy had long been invented elsewhere, as we will see.

[2] It could be argued that Ursula K. Le Guin’s high fantasy narratives set in Earthsea are mainly inspired by Ethnology, given the importance in that fictional universe of rituals and ceremonies, whereas history proper, which usually focuses on the secular exercise of power and on the fights to secure it, is downplayed. In this, her Earthsea books were the main literary heirs to an early masterpiece of ethnological high fantasy, Laurence Housman’s novella “Gods and Their Makers” (1897). However, perhaps due to the lesser narrative potential that ethnography has compared to historiography and mythography, contemporary high fantasy has rarely adopted the ethnologic approach as its main tool when it comes to fictional world-building.

[3] C. Palmer-Patel, The Shape of Fantasy: Investigating the Structure of American Heroic High Fantasy, New York, Routledge, 2000, p. 5 (italics in the original).

~

Alog

by Roberto González-Quevedo

Introductory Note

Roberto González-Quevedo (1953-) is one of the leading writers in Asturian, in particular thanks to his creation of the world of Pesicia, one of the most significant examples of fantasy world-building based on a free recreation of a pre-Roman culture from the Iberian Peninsula. Since so little is actually known of Pesician people, as well as of other ethnic nations living in that peninsula thousands of years ago, their cultures, including their history and myths, have been largely invented by writers, thus giving birth to a particular kind of high fantasy fiction of archaeological and legendary nature based on educated speculation. This sort of high fantasy has had a great development in the literatures of Spain, and González-Quevedo’s Pesician stories are to be counted among the best ones in Spanish contemporary literatures. The following very short story titled “Alog” (first published in 1990), which has been translated by Álvaro Piñero González from the author’s own version in Castilian Spanish, is a rare example of flash fiction in the high fantasy genre. It shows that a whole suggestive fantasy world can be built in just a few lines. Although it is not directly philosophical in its scope, it still can serve as illustration for one of the literary tenets of Sci Phi Journal: world-building can be kept (very) short, even in high fantasy, and poetic style should also be welcome in speculative literature in the broader sense of the word.

ALOG

Alog was loneliness. He was born in a far away county, a county covered with huge millet fields and traversed by rivers in which the water flowed ever so slowly. His eyes stared, from the very beginning, at the everlasting sorrow of an infinite horizon infinitely distant from all things.

#

When the Glubbs invaded the land and smeared with blood the little mills, the stone houses and the winter produce, things changed for Alog. He saw his mother die, his father’s eyes become empty and his siblings leave with their backs bearing the marks of slavery.               

#

Only Alog escaped, but, alas, he saw, by coincidence, from within a small crate used to measure millet, the death of his own self.

Alog bearing witness to his own death.           

~

The Mound

by Nicolas Badot

After the disappearance of the final Lamp, only the Mound remained visible on the horizon. It is said that a person may walk a thousand miles towards or away from it and still be no nearer or further from its base, and thus, it is equally distant to all persons. It appears to be a perfect Hemisphere, and its other half is believed to be visible in an “underworld”, a mirrored world that exists far below us, populated by demons and other creatures too abominable for the surface. (It must be noted that most of what is said and believed about the Mound is the result of Conjecture rather than Knowledge, and as such does not appear in the Book). Only two pieces of Knowledge about the Mound are scribed in the Book. The First is that the Mound is the repository of all abandoned Ideals. The Second is that it exists beyond the constraint of Time. These facts combined produce a compelling, and largely accepted, Conjecture: given that time is infinite – and thus, that all objects that can exist will exist, become Ideals, and finally be discarded – the Mound must contain all possible objects, and consequently, all possible Knowledge.

Acquisition, the sacred duty, predates the dying of the final Lamp, and has only grown in importance since, for it is believed that Knowledge, once scribed into the Book, becomes the property of all the Living once and forever. There was an Ideal once, that was called The Sun. A hypothetical entity greater than all the Lamps combined. In its warmth, all the Living would achieve prosperity and marvels beyond the imaginings of any mortal mind would become possible. It is not known who created this Ideal, but the fact that it exists is undisputed by even the most contrarian of historians.

This is, in part, what spawned the tradition of the Voyage. The Druids have composed the following Conjecture: 1) No route to the Mound exists in material geography, it being equidistant from all persons in all places reachable by physical means; 2) There must exist a path to the Mound, else it would not be visible on the horizon and there would be no Knowledge pertaining to it in the Book, indeed the existence of Knowledge indicates that one of the Living has been to the Mound and returned; 3) If there is a path but the path does not exist materially, then it must exist immaterially; 4) The mind is partially immaterial, and thus able to locate the path within itself. Every year one among us is Selected to drink the Haze of the Voided Lands, and disappear within themselves, hoping to obtain the Mound and discover the Ideal known as the Sun and return to scribe it into the Book. This is the Voyage.

So far, none have returned.

There are those who, like the Dead Druid in the salt, say that the Mound is, by its very nature, unconquerable. That attempts to obtain it are vainglorious blasphemies against Knowledge; that the Voyage is a profane endeavour that can bring only doom to the Living. I am one of them.

Mound help me – today, I was Selected. There has never been a refusal, so no punishment has yet been prescribed for doing so. But it was my own personal Conjecture that it would be a fatal one, more unpleasant than the profane voyage itself. And so, I did not protest as the Druids dragged me to the edge of the Voided Lands, nor when they stripped my robes and held me by the leg over the gulf so that my lungs could drink the Haze. I felt weightless for some moments after I inhaled. Then I sensed the ground beneath me once more, throbbing with rage. And then, I felt nothing else.

#

My mind floats away from my body. I am aware of the Druids pawing my old shell; two of them shuffle over the Book while another positions my arms so that I may hold it.  With the Book laid down in the crook of my elbows, one Druid creases it open and the other forces a stylus into my hand between clenched fingers. But my animosity is gone; I do not feel anger.

I move over the Voided Lands, and below the gargantuan husks of the Lamps. I note that the Mound grows in size and I wonder if I am wrong to think the Voyage is a profane thing, but I know that I shall not have my answer until I reach my destination. I am puzzled by the fact that this immaterial path still seems to obey some sort of physical geometry, and that I am still perceiving the world in the familiar guise of corporeal sensory input. Mind transcends the body, but is still limited by its senses. What would my mind detect had it not previously been chained to a body?

To pass time, I Conjecture further (and somewhat facetiously, at first), that I am the only real person in the universe. I suppose that: 1) The Mound exists within this immaterial realm; 2) This immaterial realm exists within my mind, constructed as it is from the senses it once knew; 3) The Mound then, exists within me; 4) The Mound exists in all immaterial realms constructed by all minds, the Mound theme exists within all persons just as all persons exist within the Mound; 5) In this case, all  persons exist in infinite, recursive layers, and that I contain all persons within myself; meaning that any one person is all persons, and thus entirely indistinguishable from me.

The Mound is closer still. Enormous beyond imagining. Approaching its slopes, I “see” that it is not a perfect hemisphere. There are layers of concentric circles piled one atop the other, each with the silhouettes of abandoned Ideals imprinted in salt upon them. The temptation of Knowledge draws me, like a compass is always drawn towards the Mound, but I resist when I “see” one of the former Living minds, one of my predecessors on the Voyage, fusing into the salt, so enthralled by the Ideal that they become it.

Further still, and I am struck by visions of the underworld. An enormous creature with wings and the head of a lion appears before me in the empty sky, grey tendrils erupt from its mouth and devour the perfect layers of salt. I scream in anguish, for the destruction of the Mound is the destruction of all persons, and thus myself. My outburst summons more visions; spindly demons with stone knives that pounce upon the apparition. In their hundreds, they die, consumed by the tendrils or torn limb from limb by monstrous tooth and claw. In time, they overcome their foe, piercing the leather of its wings with their knives and forcing the Lion-headed monster to descend. Once landed, its paws catch in the Silhouettes of Knowledge. Flesh becomes salt and stone.

I continue upwards towards the peak, sensing more minds fusing into the circumference of the Mound. They account for my predecessors on the Voyage, but there are others, from other worlds. I realise that the Lion-monster must have been one of them; I feel a brief pang of remorse but do not let it halt me. What does it mean that other minds have been captured by Knowledge but mine has not? I cannot say. Perhaps it is my reluctance to partake in the Voyage; my unwillingness to believe all Knowledge must flow to the Living. There is a story of the Barbed Crown, the one that grants Knowledge to its wearer, but slays them if they attempt to share it with the Living or Scribe it in the Book. Many, even among Druids, think the Crown to be a great treasure – and I wonder every time this view is voiced if they have heard the same story as I.

I banish the Crown from my mind.

The circles become smaller and smaller; and the silhouettes of Knowledge become more alluring as I approach the focal point on the peak. A figure rises and bars my way. Its face is carved from salt, with obsidian gemstones for its eyes and marble for its hair.

“Who am I?” it says.

“You are the Dead Druid,” I answer.

“And who are you then?” it asks.

I ponder my answer for a moment and then reply: “I am all persons.”

The Dead Druid smiles, revealing diamonds on its teeth. “Go then, and learn the true profanity of Knowledge.” The figure dissipates back into the salt.

I continue until I am on the summit of the Mound.

All Knowledge flows into me.

#

To possess all Knowledge is to see all things at all times in their totality. I will see that all things that can exist will exist; and that it will all exist both simultaneously and not at all. Omniscience will be indistinguishable from ignorance. The Sun – countless Suns – will birth in a crescendo of primordial forces, and then wane as all things must, and then exist once more. Suns will usurp the Mound, and be consumed by the Mound, and both will exist in harmony, and neither will exist at all. I will try to make these countless Suns eternal – but as I make them I will also unmake them, for to create a thing is to create the possibility (and thus, the actuality) of its absence. In this way, omnipotence will resemble impotence.

I will observe the Living; watch them find Prosperity and Knowledge under their infinite Suns; or watch them suffer silently in infinite dark; I will create the Lamps and then extinguish them. Often, I will watch the Living be sated, only to then ask for more. Sometimes, I will answer them, bring them down the secret of Fire and watch them scorch themselves out of being; or I will leave their wants unanswered and see what they discover without my aid; or I will find their arrogance distasteful, and simply destroy them myself. Mostly, I will observe.

I will do all of these things and none of them (indeed, I have already done so, there is no distinction between the cyclical and the simultaneous). Knowing all of this to be inevitable, I will allow my immortal mind to leave the Mound and return to my mortal body, the one that will be hauled away by Druids and forced to drink the Haze of the Voided Lands. I will return to this body at the moment of its dissipation, knowing that the Knowledge in my mind is too vast to be contained by a physical form, and that mind and body will both die under the strain of this reunion. But death will not come before the mind sends the body one final command: with the last spasm of your mortal hands, scribe these words into the Book:

“Let there be Light.”

~

Bio:

Nicolas Badot is an Irish-Belgian writer of fiction and poetry currently living in the Balkans. His poetry has appeared in The Provenance Journal and Rabble Review and his short fiction in 7th Circle Pyrite. He is currently working on a novel about endless towers and the ruins of cities in the desert.

Philosophy Note:

Pascal (and later Borges) imagined the universe as an infinite sphere in which the centre was everywhere and the circumference nowhere. It may not be an accurate representation of the universe, but it’s a good starting point for applying the infinite to real-world geometry. When the infinite is applied to our finite perception of space and time, things can start to break in interesting ways.

The Power Of The Stone

by David K. Henrickson

I was there when the first aliens landed in Central Park, when the lost tomb of Alexander the Great was discovered, when fabled Atlantis rose again from the waves.

That is the power of the stone. Those four words: “I was there when”, carved into its surface, can take you anywhere or to any time, real or imagined.

I have no knowledge of where the stone came from or anything concerning its origin. In all my searches into its provenance — and my resources these days are considerable — I have found no mention of it anywhere, in any time, in any culture.

I know it is not contemporary. The first time I held the stone, those four words were not in English but in a script unknown to me, then or now. When I looked again, the stone had changed and appeared as it still does today, many years later.

Nor do I know how the stone does what it does. There is no way I could risk an investigation into its nature. I cannot see that it matters. The stone is either magic or a technology of the highest order — far beyond anything humans are currently capable of.

Will ever be capable of. We’re talking about pure creation here. Of fashioning an entire universe in accordance with a single sentence uttered in its presence. Yes, I was there when Oswald failed to assassinate President Kennedy. Yes, I was there when Hannibal overran Rome during the second and final Punic War. Yes, I was there when Superman first appeared in the skies over Metropolis.

Whether the stone fashions these realities whole cloth, or pulls them from an infinite grab bag where such worlds lay waiting, I have no way of knowing. Nor am I always sure how the stone will interpret my words. It seems to possess a puckish sense of humor at times when fulfilling my wishes.

It also ignores requests that are too specific. A simple sentence with a minimum number of qualifiers works best. Something that can be uttered in a single breath. That is enough if one is sufficiently clever. Yes, I was there when Edmond Dantès discovered the lost treasure of Monte Cristo. (Ha! I needed a wheelbarrow for that one.)

I was also there when they developed the cure for cancer. You see, I am not quite the heartless misanthrope people make me out to be.

You might well think all this to be the ramblings of a delusional eccentric. My scars would indicate otherwise—as does the absence of the little finger on my left hand. Using the stone is not without its dangers.

I am old now, even though I do not look it, and have been a recluse for many years. (Yes, I was there when Ponce de León discovered the Fountain of Youth.) Whenever I need an escape, I pick up the stone, speak my desire, and journey into the realm of What Might Have Been.

Our travels together are nearing an end, however. Over the years, I have become attuned to the stone and its moods. I know, even though I do not know how, that it is ready to move on. To find a new owner, whoever and wherever that might be.

Accordingly, I have put my affairs in order. As for the stone, I will send it away when I reach my final destination. Where it will end up, I have no way of knowing, just as I do not know how it came to be where I once found it. Let fate decide—or rather, the stone itself.

As for the many eclectic treasures in my collection, I have bequeathed these to various museums without explanation or annotation. (All but my journal. That, I am taking with me.) Let people make of them what they will—a last, enigmatic note to a singular life.

There remains only my final journey, one from which I do not intend to return. It is one I have thought long and hard on over the years. Where should I go? The far future? The distant past? Or to some place that should have been but never was, like Wonderland or the world of Scheherazade and her One Thousand and One Arabian Nights?

Perhaps I should go to Barsoom. Or to some vast, galactic empire at the height of its power and glory. What about the First Age of Middle Earth? (Wouldn’t that be something?) Wherever I end up, it should be a place where a person can still have an adventure or two.

Where would you go if you could pick only a single destination, one from which you would never return?

Let me see. I was there when…

~

Bio:

Dave Henrickson has a background in engineering, oceanography, and computer science but always wanted to be an artist. Maybe a dancer. He currently lives in Virginia and spends his free time writing, reading, and killing monsters with his wife Abbie. He has also written a number of novels — which he may even publish one of these days.

Philosophy Note:

Where would you go if you could go anywhere? To places that never were or never could be? Where would you go if you could never come back from such a place? The realm of the imagination provides limitless possibilities.

The Arbiter

by Conrad Gardner

EXHIBIT 101 – THE ARBITER

BEFORE TOUCHING, READ BELOW:

Forged in 1882, The Arbiter is the earliest Pistante in history. It was created by Abel Garcia (1860-1922), an Anjiladonian native who trained as a mage in this museum’s home at the age of ten. Upon leaving the Mantelios Institute, he moved to the developing settlement of Los Lojones in Mastaces, Babonia, working as a smith. Born to farmer parents, Garcia was used to labour, but not always well-behaved, stealing trinkets from his grandparents. Adopted by an aunt after his father’s death, he was enrolled in our institute, being taught humility and learning to help the less fortunate.

During the Third Invasion (1882 – 1885), Garcia attempted to defend the town, but his offensive spells needed a device to help channel their power. His hand-cast spells lacked accuracy, so he forged The Arbiter, inventing a new kind of weapon that would protect the entirety of Kantinia.

Modelling The Arbiter on a Ricosto Revolver, Garcia implemented the chant Spiritum Deus Guardia for several hours while under the forge’s heat. (This chant has been used on two other exhibits in this institution’s collection, Exhibits 84: The Disciplo and 96: Ramirez’s Lawgiver). His diary (housed in the Mantelios Library) notes that when removed from the forge, ‘The gun was too light, like a leaf.’ The weight of his chants squashed the barrel, increasing it four millimetres in length, proving beneficial to the weapon’s range capabilities. With the first Pistante in hand, Garcia learned to focus his beam casts on the weapon (which he termed ‘injecting’) and fire the energy bestowed, becoming the first gunmage. He waged war on the Chacibarae and Chupahomani that terrorised Los Lojones. Porofi was one of his most frequent casts against such beasts, powerful when injected into The Arbiter.

In 1883, Garcia returned to Anjilados, a focal point of the Third Invasion. Ignoring the torment of the surrounding towns, The Arbiter weighed his belt down until he agreed to return.

The gunmage rode through the country, shooting Fiestorre with stakati energy as he passed. With an army of New Babonites and Anjiladonians behind him, he helped reclaim his land. When not fighting, he shot his injured allies with consuviae projectiles, healing those that had rudimentary cuts and bruises. Though The Arbiter never refused him, he said his Pistante grew heavier during moments of anger, which led him to learn the meditative arts. He shared the knowledge of how to craft a Pistante with few people, though many imitations by criminals yielded failed results.

Due to the draining effects of injecting his magic into the Pistante, Garcia retired in 1905. An international discussion started about who would continue his legacy and become the next gunmage. Despite numerous attempts by the Anjiladonian and Babonian governments to claim the weapon, no politicians or military leaders could lift it with ease. Competitions were held without Garcia’s consent, attempting to find the best fighters and shootists, but no winners were selected by him.

Deciding to search for his new mentee himself before he grew too drained, Garcia came upon Rosa Macabe (1899-1966), a young thief in Mastaces City after she attempted to steal his wallet. Taking his belt, and The Arbiter with her by accident, Garcia saw the weapon did not drag her to the ground and sensed her benevolent spirit. Adopting Macabe, he tutored her in achieving inner balance and using her talents to help others.

Garcia’s choice was controversial. He permitted others to try using the weapon, but it was lifted by few, fired even less. The Saraphitos made vocal threats against Macabe’s life for not being a noble-born magician. Garcia taught her his method of weapon-smithing and had her study The Arbiter’s individual parts before he let her practice firing it. The weapon is notorious for being difficult to use unless the wielder understands its making. On his deathbed, Garcia said that Macabe was a better gunmage than him as she had mastered her hate.

During the Poronean Invasion on Kantinia, Macabe used The Arbiter to defend the continent. Preventing the needless slaughtering of thousands, she proposed a duel between herself and a Poronean champion, Cladstock the Brute. Injecting The Arbiter with combosti, she demolished his armour with a flurry of shots (Exhibit 198: Cladstock’s Helmet can be seen in the Invader Display, where the effects of combosti energy on veitor steel are visible). Following her predecessor’s practice, she never wore armour, making her grasp around The Arbiter’s ivory grip firmer, and her movements quicker.

In 1957, a Sariphoto invaded Macabe’s home and tried to execute her with The Arbiter. The Pistante detected the attacker’s dark soul, refusing to fire and scorching his palm. Taught by Garcia not to rely on The Arbiter for all spells, she killed the Sariphoto with a hand-cast combosti.

Drained by The Arbiter as Garcia had been, she searched for its next bearer, Guillermo Conti (1968- ). Losing his parents in the Poronean Invasion, he was taught at this institute until Madame Macabe selected him as her successor at the age of fifteen. Despite his aggression, he tempered this along with steel at Garcia’s forge as Macabe mentored him.

Serving in the Diavolos War (1986-1987), Conti helped close the Tiaria Tear, and was the leading gunmage of the Anjiladonian army. By the war’s end, he had greatly contributed to establishing an era of peace.

Conti attempted to use healing casts on it, but consuviae, was the only workable spell, due to its projectile nature. Unable to help others with The Arbiter beyond basic medical aid, he returned here to become a teacher. Introducing two new classes, Gunmaging and Gunsmithing, Conti crafted his own Pistante and gifted The Arbiter to this institute, saying that it had no use in a time of peace, as it needed conflict to be used well.

Here it lies, waiting for a day The Mantelios Institute prays will never come. If you wish to hold The Arbiter and see if you are worthy, please take hold of the grip.

WARNING: The Mantelios Institute and Museum does not claim responsibility for any injuries sustained when attempting to fire or remove The Arbiter from its Lashiana-enchanted glass. Hands are crumpled or burned at the visitor’s risk.

~

Bio:

Conrad Gardner’s fiction has been published by Superlative, Martian, AEL Press, and Full Moon Chronicles. He writes to calm his mind and keep his hands busy.

Philosophy Note:

Weapons, like beasts, may lay dormant for millennia. But they are always ready to be used again.

Geriatric Dragon Care Associates Needed!

by Bethany Tomerlin Prince

Freedom Valley Care Center for Really, Really Wise Dragons is Always Hiring!

Freedom Valley Care Center for Really, Really Wise Dragons is the premier care center for geriatric dragons on the Western Continent. Unlike other multi-species care homes, we only serve Dragons, Drakes, Drakainas, and Wyverns, allowing us to provide custom care tailored to our client’s unique ultimatums! If you were a cave-bound Dragon, Freedom Valley Care Center would be your children’s top choice!

We are looking to replenish our team of brave, compassionate associates!

***Required Disclosure***

If it was up to us, we would consider every applicant.

However, due to various town and kingdom regulations, we are unable to hire any individual:

  • With an evil alignment
  • With a theft conviction
  • Who is currently a member of an adventurer’s guild

***Equal Opportunity Statement***

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against applicants due to class, race, species, gender, native language, continent, or realm of origin. The only factors we consider are an applicant’s willingness and ability to complete the requested role.

Mage Interns Needed

Our patent-pending mobility barges provide a low-impact way to move patients recovering from wing surgery around our facility. If you are a wind mage looking for an opportunity to earn casting hours toward your wizard’s license, then we would love for you to join our team!

***Responsibilities***

  • Enable patients to attend follow-up appointments and physical therapy
  • Continually cast for extensive periods of time

***Qualifications***

  • Ability to cast spells with a substantial amount of thrust
  • Ability to cast with a high degree of directional accuracy

Going forward all applicants will have their magical ability verified via an on-site practical exam as part of the interview process. Candidates planning to lift the barges, rather than magically manipulate them, need not apply. 

***Pay***

This is one of the few conjurer credit eligible internships that also pays a competitive salary.

Full-Time Care Assistants Needed

Our care assistants are at the heart of what we do, providing physical and emotional support to their assigned patients.

***Responsibilities***

  • Emulsify large quantities of meat
  • Change extra, extra, extra, large incontinence pads
  • Clip claws
  • Change bandages
  • Administer barrels of healing potions
  • Listen to chronicles of bygone centuries
  • Monitor hibernating patients

***Qualifications***

  • Experience putting sweaters on large, non-humanoid creatures
  • Thick-skinned (figuratively)
    • We need our employees to exhibit understanding if threats are made to set one’s person or village ablaze
    • Literal thick skin would be a plus but is not required
  • Priority will be given to candidates that are fireproof and/ or invulnerable to large quantities of offensive magic

***Pay***

Kitschy knick-knacks gold, and precious gems, paid out in increasing amounts for every year you’re a part of the Freedom Valley Care family. In addition, we provide a comprehensive benefits package that includes prepaid healing, discounted potions, enrollment in the company tontine, and fully subsidized accidental dismemberment and death insurance. 

Tracker Contractor Needed

Oftentimes, our more confused clients forcefully wander outside of our property. We need an experienced tracker to find our misplaced patrons, as well as to convince them to return. This position is that of an independent contractor that provides services on an as-needed basis.

***Responsibilities***

  • Quickly locate clients out in the wild
  • Return them to our care before they can harm themselves or others

***Qualifications***

  • Nearly instantaneous response time
  • Proven track record of successfully locating living creatures
  • Ability to cover enormous distances quickly
  • Multiple means of nonviolent persuasion
  • Training in de-escalation techniques would be a plus

***Pay***

One artifact-grade magical item per client returned minus any property damage expenses.

Freedom Valley Care Center For Really, Really Wise Dragons Eagerly Anticipates You Joining Our Team!

~

Bio:

Bethany Tomerlin Prince is a voracious lover of stories, a compulsive buyer of books, a recovering fan fiction addict, and a wannabe writer. She is so glad to have found Sci Phi because she loves idea-based science fiction and sometimes thinks characters are overrated. This is her first paid sale.

Philosophy Note:

When I was helping my mom recover from her knee replacement, I started thinking about a Dungeons and Dragons-type fantasy world that followed a similar civilization trajectory as our own. I.e. the tribal and kingdom violence gradually gave way to urbanized civilization. I realized in this world that a lot of Dragons that would have historically been killed off by adventurers or by younger rivals would now instead be living longer and longer with all of the challenges that old age brings, including dementia. Then I started having a fun time imagining the individuals a nursing home for geriatric dragons would hire.

The Eye

by Kostas Charitos

Paul, my little nephew, has a magic wand. He is pointing to the sky, trying to create a rainfall, but it doesn’t work.

I don’t know why he brought the wand with him. Every time we go to the countryside he brings an old toy, but usually it’s a starship from the set that I gifted him when he was four.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek.”  I say.

It’s his favorite game.  

He agrees.

I close my eyes; I’m pretending to be a child again, and I start counting: “Five, ten, fifteen…”

I hear Paul’s footsteps as he is running. “I discovered a new hiding place. Not even the Eye could find me there.”  he says and I shudder.

I think about the day when the Eye closed for the first time.

It was 20:35 am, Greenwich Mean Time.

Some people were sleeping under warm blankets, some held cups of steaming coffee and some watched the sky acquiring a small black patch.

I was alone in a small office of the Physics department, in front of an old computer, struggling with the presentation of the upcoming conference.

The next day, I read on the internet about the dark nebula, but I didn’t care a lot. Astronomy has never been my favorite field. I was interested in quantum physics, and despite my parents’ objections, I preferred to spend a whole day digging into Bohr’s papers, rather than going out for a coffee with my friends. Maybe that’s why I do not know much about coffee and I don’t have many friends.

The Eye closed again after several months; the last day of the conference.

My speech was successful, and we gathered on the atrium of the hotel to admire the clear sky.

Everyone was stunned as soon as they turned off the lighting and left us in the dark with the candle flames flickering.

I counted at least twenty open mouths. But only one said the phrase that must have been heard millions of times that night: “How do they do this effect with the black pieces?”

As we all soon learned, the gaps, which had filled the night sky like large drops of ink, were no effect. The stars were disappearing without anyone being able to give a logical explanation.

The ones who bothered the most were the cosmologists.

Suddenly, all their theories collapsed like a tower of playing cards. They gathered at conferences, filled the television windows, wrote articles in various magazines, but it was too late. Nobody took them seriously.

Instead, quantum physicists, like me, were standing tall.

We were familiar with the importance of the observer in our experiments, having seen particles appear as soon as we observed them, and others disappear forever when we stopped the detection.

Very soon, the term that would spread like a tsunami in popular culture was born. Some called it god, others supernatural creature or an extra-dimensional observer, but we called it “The Eye”.

And the next time it closed, humanity shuddered. A cold night with a clear sky, we lost the Moon.

#

I stand now on the edge of the hill, with my little nephew on my side who is trying to gather the clouds with his wand.

I look at a willow that is balancing as if it is about to fall into the void.

The whistling of the wind, the distant horizon and the blue sky make me feel as if I am the last person in the world.

I close my eyes thinking about the questions that trouble so many philosophers:

Is the world still there? Is the sea, the wind and the willow still around me? Is there an objective universe or is everything a creation of our consciousness? If the last man dies, will reality be lost with him?

And finally: Can we hide from the eye? It’s a lot to think about. But I’m afraid we are running out of time.

Somewhere out there, beyond our world, lives the only being who can answer our questions.

Our Observer.

The Eye.

I’m sure it’s futile to try to capture its form or its sensory organs. So, I prefer to imagine it as a small child, in a nearby dimension, which sees us as a wonderful toy. Unfortunately, it seems to be losing its interest in us. Maybe it discovered a neighboring universe and is less concerned with our world. His gaze falls more and more elsewhere, the Eye closes more frequently, whatever that means, and, with it, parts of our world disappear.

I have no idea what attracts it.

Why our galaxy survives while others disappeared? What does the Earth have that the Moon didn’t?

Maybe that’s why there are so many movements that aim solely to get its attention.

Their main slogan seems to be: Do not let it get bored.

It’s unbelievable what people can do once they realize they are in danger.

Giant graffiti in fields with the phrase “WE ARE HERE”, religious ceremonies with small silver oval-shaped ornaments, thousands of naked people wandering in the streets, probably having misunderstood the word Eye.

However, if the Eye is attracted to intelligence, I believe that we do everything we can to take its attention away from our planet.

#

Paul is, now, chasing a gray-blue lizard. It’s the first time I see such a creature.

“Be careful. Don’t run.” I say to him.

To my great surprise, he stands still. He points with his wand to the sky.

“I didn’t do that.” he says.

I look up and smile.

Fortunately, I’m not a cosmologist.

I’m trying to think of a scientific explanation but I quit.

Maybe the Eye, just as a little kid, missed the small blue planet with the lonely quantum physicist who plays hide-and-seek with her nephew and brought them into its brave new world.

It seems fair but I just wonder how life will be with two moons and a system of shining rings in the sky.

~

Bio:

Kostas Charitos was born in Arta and lives in Athens with his family. He has a PhD in Chemistry and he teaches in secondary education. His science fiction short stories have been included in international magazines and anthologies like Future Science Fiction Digest, a2525, Nova Hellas, The Viral Curtain and InterNova. Two of his novels, Project Fractal (Τρίτων Publications, 2009) and Lost Colors: Red (Κέδρος Publications, 2020), have been published in Greek. He is a member of the Athens Science Fiction Club and he co-ordinates its writing workshops.

Philosophy note:

The short story “The Eye” is inspired by the well-known philosophical question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This question raises issues about the meaning of observation and perception. For example, we can wonder whether something exists without being perceived by a consciousness. This is connected with the anthropic principle which suggests that the observer may have an impact on the reality that is observed. In physics, the disturbance of a system by the act of observation is called the “observer effect”. You can learn more about these philosophical issues in:
John Campbell (2014). Berkeley’s Puzzle: What Does Experience Teach Us?. Oxford University Press.
Jostein Gaarder(2007), Sophie’s World, Farrar Straus & Giroux.
And if you want to learn about the quantum physics of observation you can read:
Chad Orzel (2010), How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, Simon Spotlight Entertainment.

End Of Year Missive: Sundered Keep, A.F. 5962

by Matthew Ross

To the Men and Women of the Onyx Legion,

When the daylight hours dwindle and the nights grow ever longer, it can only mean two things: the Winter Solstice draws near…heralding the arrival of the Onyx Legion’s annual end-of-year missive from our beloved warlord! The High General bids you all her greetings and commands me to convey her warmest wishes to you this Solstice season. It has been nigh on six millennia since the infernal hordes last dared to cross the Adamantine Pass and terrorize the realms of men – six millennia of uninterrupted peace and prosperity that the Seven Lands owe to the steadfast watchfulness of the Onyx Legion. And though many believe that the great Fergus the Red (hallowed be his name) wiped their loathsome race from the face of the earth so many years ago, we cannot rely on faith alone to shield us should they ever return once more. The ongoing existence of the Seven Lands depends upon the unceasing vigilance of the men and women of the Onyx Legion. Whether your enlistment into the Legion came voluntarily or otherwise, that is something that should make us all square our shoulders in pride.

Though it is nearly time to bid farewell to A.F. 5,962 and toll the welcome bells for A.F. 5,963, at the High General’s behest, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on all that we have accomplished this past year. A.F. 5,962 will surely be entered into the logbooks as a banner year for the Sundered Keep. In addition to keeping the infernal horde (should they still exist) from sweeping down through the Adamantine Pass to menace our loved ones once again, we also fought – and won – a good twenty-six skirmishes with local tribesmen treacherously seeking to steal back the land rightfully commandeered by the Legion during the reign of Niall the Peacemaker (hallowed be his name). That’s nearly ten more victories than last year – way to show those filthy goatkissers what’s what! In addition, though the Keep continues to lose more hands to self-slaughter than the High General would prefer, our overall casualty numbers actually dipped a bit from A.F. 5,961, with accidental maimings suffered in the line of duty hitting a new ten-year low. Let’s all be sure to show our gratitude to Morale Centurion Mordha by giving him an extra-big round of applause at next week’s series of mandatory safety lectures!

Having now conveyed her Solstice greetings, the High General has directed me to issue a brief series of announcements and reminders for all Legion personnel, which I shall append below.

-Following the results of last week’s surprise barracks inspection, all personnel are to be reminded that Legionnaires are forbidden from keeping animals in their living quarters. Anyone caught harboring mice, rats, squirrels, hedgehogs, woodchucks, voles, moles, lizards, toads, newts, or birds of any kind – whether as pets or unauthorized livestock – will be assigned to Punishment Detail and the offending creature (or creatures) destroyed forthwith. In addition, Morale Centurion Mordha has directed me to add that the Legion’s rations have been carefully portioned to provide a Legionnaire with all the nutritional sustenance that they require and assures me that there is no valid physiological reason why a Legionnaire need supplement them further.

-All personnel are also to be reminded that while they are free to visit the Legion’s Taproom during their off-duty hours, the consumption of intoxicating spirits while on duty is a serious offense that will result in an extended assignment to Punishment Detail. Legionnaires are also advised to remember that both the possession and consumption of unauthorized intoxicants is strictly prohibited.

Morale Centurion Mordha wishes to add that these prohibitions are there to safeguard your health and wellbeing, as unauthorized intoxicants have been placed off limits for good reason. Legion studies have shown that the fermented berry spirits commonly known as ‘swipe’ have been known to cause blindness in up to one third of Medical Corps test subjects drawn from Punishment Details.

-Morale Centurion Mordha would also like to remind all personnel that the hallucinogenic mushrooms which grow in the caves west of the Sundered Keep are still officially classified as an ‘intoxicating spirit’ and remain off limits to all Keep personnel. All Legionnaires are to be advised that a new guard rotation has been posted to the entrance of these caves since the previous guards were found to have been trading in said mushrooms and permanently reassigned to Punishment Detail.

-Lastly, all personnel are to be reminded that enlistment in the Legion, both voluntary and compulsory, lasts for the duration of a Legionnaire’s natural lifetime. While Legionnaires who sustain disabling injuries honorably in the course of their duties will be reassigned appropriately, any Legionnaires who suffer disabling injuries that are later deemed to have been self-inflicted will NOT be discharged, but instead assigned to a suitable Punishment Detail. THIS INCLUDES ANY LEGIONNAIRES FOUND TO HAVE SUFFERED DEBILITATING INJURIES RESULTING FROM THE CONSUMPTION OF UNAUTHORIZED SPIRITS! Legionnaires would do well to remember that blindness would be no serious impediment should they be assigned Punishment Detail to the Brothel, Medical Testing corps, or Sewer Maintenance division, and to conduct themselves accordingly both on and off duty.

Turning now to cheerier subjects, the High General and Morale Centurion Mordha have some very exciting news and announcements to share, which they have directed me to disseminate as follows:

The High General wishes to announce that due to the ongoing financial crisis, his radiant majesty Duncan the Festive (hallowed be his name) has tabled the hoped-for increase to the Legion’s monthly wages for at least another year. The High General is proud to add that it was only thanks to her personal petition that she was able to convince his radiant majesty not to decrease the Legion’s monthly wages, and that we should all celebrate that generous concession as the great victory that it is.

The High General is very excited to announce an exhilarating new initiative aimed at improving the Winter Solstice experience for everyone here at the Sundered Keep. As we all know, Solstice season is a time of celebration, but also a time when many Legionnaires may find themselves missing their friends and family back home. Thus, Solstice season does tend to be one of the busiest times of year for the Keep’s Brothel.

In order to keep wait times to a minimum and show a little consideration for our brother and sister Legionnaires on temporary or long-term assignment to the Brothel (it is Solstice season for them too, after all!) the High General is pleased to unveil her new A-B-C campaign. Morale Centurion Mordha is already organizing an invigorating series of mandatory informational lectures for us to enjoy in the coming weeks, but in brief, this electrifying initiative is as simple as A-B-C:

A: Appointment – plan out your Brothel visits in advance by making an appointment with our Brothel’s new Scheduling Department! Just stop by the front desk and ask to speak with Morale Optio Bradaigh for more details.

B: Be Open to Alternative Scheduling – Brothel lines tend to be the longest in the evenings and during the 48 hours that follow each Pay Day. So, the High General will soon be announcing an exciting new Incentives Program to encourage Legionnaires to space out their Brothel visits and/or visit the Brothel during off-peak hours. Come by to pick up your complimentary Incentives Program punch-card from Morale Optio Bradaigh any time after First Moon and start working towards your first upgrade!

C: Consider Alternate Forms of Gratification – the Legion is well aware of the existing gender gap between male and female personnel stationed at the Sundered Keep, as well as the various ways in which that gap contributes to the necessary function that our Brothel plays. In an effort to address that disparity, new Legion directives are now encouraging all troops to be open-minded towards other forms of physical gratification that they may not have sampled previously. Men, if you’ve never experienced it before, have you ever considered consensual buggery? If your answer is ‘No,’ what’s stopping you from trying it out now? How do you know you wouldn’t enjoy it – or perhaps, even prefer it to whatever forms of gratification you currently favor? Why not grab a like-minded bunkmate and give it a go – you might both soon find yourselves saving a fortune in monthly Brothel fees!

And as for you female Legionnaires out there, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you either. If you’ve always preferred the company of your own fairer sex, why not try a roll in the hay with one of your brother Legionnaires – after all, you have nothing to lose, and a whole new world of gratification to potentially gain! And for those female Legionnaires who already take pleasure in rutting freely with their male comrades, have you ever considered seeking to turn your part-time hobby into a full-time profession? The High General has been authorized to offer some very attractive benefits packages to female Legionnaires willing to volunteer for Brothel duty. Not happy with your current duty station? A more rewarding one may only be a short conversation with Morale Optio Bradaigh away!

While the High General is confident that our Keep’s new A-B-C campaign will ensure that all personnel are able to satisfy their physical desires in an orderly and enjoyable fashion, Morale Centurion Mordha bids me remind all Legionnaires that freelance harlotry within the barracks remains strictly prohibited. While Legionnaires are free to pursue consensual physical relationships with personnel of an equal or equivalent rank, it is forbidden for Legionnaires to accept any form of compensation for the physical acts of gratification they may choose to engage in. Legionnaires of any gender who are found guilty of exchanging their favors for coin or barter will be immediately reassigned to Punishment Detail in the Brothel.

Lastly, the High General is pleased to announce that due to the recent civil unrest in the capital, enlistments into the Onyx Legion have just reached their highest point since the food riots of A.F. 5,959. With the courts returning to session shortly after the new year, we can expect to start receiving our first shipments of new recruits by the beginning of Second Moon. The High General encourages you to greet our new brothers and sisters in the same spirit with which we were all initiated into the Legion and to begin accustoming them to our ways as soon as they arrive. Remember, the Legion is only as strong as its weakest link – and the High General is sure you will all go to whatever lengths are required to properly motivate our new fellows and swiftly bring them up to Legion standards of discipline and deportment.

In closing, the High General wishes to commend you all on another year of honorable service to the Onyx Legion. There may not be a feather-bed, a silken handkerchief, or a brandied sweetmeat to be found outside the officer’s quarters, yet the Sundered Keep remains stocked to the brim with far greater rewards – like the satisfaction taken in an honest day’s toil, or the fellowship born of dangers braved with steadfast comrades. And above all else, there is the greatest reward of all – the pride one takes in knowing that a Legionnaire’s life is a worthy one, for the hardships it entails and the sacrifices it demands play a vital role in the protection of the Seven Lands. We are the thin black line which safeguards our countrymen from the hellish terrors of the infernal hordes, should they have the temerity to ever show their grotesque faces above ground once more – and the High General knows that there’s not a man-jack among us who would trade a day in the Legion for all the feather-beds in the world.

All Glory To The Onyx Legion!

–Scribed by Ossian, Scrivener 2nd Class, as directed by High General Kenna

~

Bio:

Matthew Ross is a writer, editor, and English professor living in Los Angeles, CA. His fiction has previously appeared in Teleport Magazine and The Chamber and will be forthcoming in Literally Stories. Find him online @matthewrossphd.

Philosophy Note:

As an English professor teaching at a struggling community college, I’ve come to dread the yearly end-of-year emails that seek to put a positive spin on the latest round of hardships that my colleagues and I can expect to face in the upcoming year. This story was inspired by the brief “What If” response I had last December that went, “I wonder what those end-of-year messages would look like in one of those dreadfully barbaric military organizations you always see in fantasy books…” This story is the result. Readers interested in exploring other literary excursions into the realm of workplace dystopias may enjoy Severance by Ling Ma, or Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

A Unified Explanation For Elven Urbanization And Associated Morphological Changes

by Gabriella Buba

Dr. Sharn Ghorzna and Dr. Traugh Duluk’s research team of the Golgoth Institute

Abstract        

It is widely accepted that Domestication Syndrome in mammals, a series of morphological changes including: depigmentation, shorter jaws, smaller teeth, reduction in ear size, and increased docility occurs when wild species are selected for tamer offspring. The explanation for this wide range of morphological changes is tied to reduced adrenaline production, wherein the diminished fight-or-flight response results in increased docility and adaptability to communal habitation. This decrease in adrenaline production has been linked to undersized adrenal glands, a fairly common mutation that arises due to spontaneous embryonic mutations resulting in reduced size and numbers of neural crest cells. Neural crest cells are a band of embryonic cells that play a large part in the development of pigment, cartilage formation, jaw length, tooth size and quantity, as well as the size of the adrenal gland (Wilkins, 2014).

After extensive studies of Urban, Village, Small Band, and Solitary Elves, our research team concludes that the Urbanization of the Elf and the morphological changes seen therein can be explained by a similar evolutionary mechanism. In this paper we will explore the connection between increased ability for social cooperation in a species naturally given to a Solitary lifestyle and reduced adrenaline production caused by a smaller neural crest.

The Solitary Elf vs the Urban Elf

It has been argued by our esteemed colleagues at Alberich University Subterra that the Solitary and Urban Elves are completely different species that have not shared a common ancestor any more recently than we at Golgoth have shared one with pigs (Klien, 1530). We argue that our respected, though vertically-challenged colleagues’ findings are not supported by the breadth of observational data, due to their reluctance to spend time above ground. Anyone having devoted a modicum of time to studying Elven culture and communities can see the clear evolution of the Elven species from Solitary to communal living habits. Indeed, in a mere ten generations our researchers have observed how a single family line of Solitary Elves can become urban-dwelling Elves, taking on the morphological appearance of Urban Elves that have been living in their cooperative social environment for fifty generations or more.

Our team has been tracking the migration of Solitary Elves into urban communities for over 200 years and is prepared to conclusively denounce previous theories of separate-ancestor origin. We will demonstrate the trait-by-trait morphological shift marking the need for increased social cooperation in Elven societies enabling them to engage in trade and treaties with the kingdoms of other sentient species on more equitable footing.

Decreased Adrenaline Production: The Initiating Step to Fostering Social Cooperation

Measurements of adrenal gland size and activity were conducted humanely on already-deceased specimens, by biopsy and scans in our catch-and-release program, or by paid volunteer sampling among our partner Elven communities. Our measurements show across Elven subspecies there is a correlated change in adrenal gland size and observational flight distance of Elven individuals when encountering unknown Elves in their territory. Observational flight distance, or the distance an unfamiliar Elf could approach before the subject fled or reacted aggressively, was measured by presenting the subject with an unfamiliar Elven individual from our partner program.

Figure 1: Graphic of adrenal gland size measurements correlated with flight distance as recorded by our team across different elven communities.

Solitary Elves spend the majority of their adult lives alone, only socializing during the large mate-finding gatherings that occur on every lunar eclipse. Through extensive sampling, our team found they have adrenal glands that are 3x larger than their Urban relatives at a median of 26.7± 0.9% g. On average, they react to the presence of an unknown sentient in their territory as soon as the individual is within 840m. It is notable that Solitary Elves were found to have a flight distance that was 31.4x greater than their Urban relatives. Our team did not show a clear correlation indicating why one individual might react with a dominance display vs. a flight response, though forthcoming research suggests the lunar eclipse dulls the fight or flight response. This may allow Solitary Elves to safely come together at these important times of their lives to mate and produce offspring, which are raised for 3 years by the female of the species completely alone and without the aid of the male.

Paired or Small-band Elves live in cooperative mate pairs, or bands of five to seven, usually family groups. In our observations, it is most often a pair of sisters who will conscript their mates to travel together accompanied by one unmated juvenile, usually related. These bands do not much differ in lifestyle from Solitary Elves except that their cooperation allows them to hold and defend larger territories and hunt larger prey. Paired and Small Band Elves have adrenal glands that have a mean combined weight of 17.9± 0.7% g, twice as large as their urban relatives. While they are known to react with aggression toward Elves who do not share the band’s particular blended family scent, they will allow such intruders to approach within 506m, making their flight distance only 19x greater than that of their urban relatives.

Village Elves live in cooperative communities of 20 to 50 individuals and in small, settled societies. Their adrenal glands at a mean weight of 12.7± 0.8% g, are only 1.5x larger than their Urban relatives. Although Village Elves still show significant distrust towards Elven individuals not from their village, their flight distance at 217m is only 8x larger than the Urban Elf. Given time to acclimate they have been known to conduct limited trade with outsiders of Elven, Orcish, and Dwarven persuasion.

Urban Elves maintain large settled colonies of up to several thousand individuals, and experience easy interspecies cooperation. They are seen to operate in work crews under Elven supervisors and accomplish engineering feats such the great tree city of Baden-Wurtt and the terraced farms of the Caprian Coast. They quickly acclimate to the arrival of new Elven individuals, absorbing them into the colony in a matter of days. Their adrenal glands are quite small, at an average combined mass of 8.6± 0.5% g. They have an average flight distance of 26.7m however several individuals were observed to express no discomfort or affront until unfamiliar Elves were within 3 meters. As such the Urban Elf comingles easily even in large groups of strange Elves. Dominance fights are rarely seen among working-class Urban Elves, reserving territorial displays for leadership positions or settling disputes with rival colonies. This increased affinity for social cooperation has greatly improved Elvish ability to operate in civilized society interacting on near equitable levels with Orcish and Dwarven communities. Despite much exaggerated accounts of Elves hunting fellow sentients during lean winters, the last verified account of such an incident is over 100 years old. Truly it is amazing to see how a naturally solitary and predatory species has been able to adapt themselves to a communal lifestyle when they do not naturally prefer it as do the Orcish Clans and Dwarven Houses.

Depigmentation: How Hair Tone and Pattern Changes Affect Elvish Hunting Strategies

Our colleagues at Alberich Subterra often use outdated phenotypical hair pigment differences between Solitary and Urban Elves to justify categorizing them as separate species (Schmitt, 1567). To that, we say it’s clear they haven’t spent appropriate time investigating the genetic reasons for coloring variations between Elven communities. Furthermore, dwarves, a naturally subterranean species, have reduced visual acuity at distance and a tendency towards colorblindness, which necessarily reduces the quality of their observational data, particularly in non-subterranean environs. My respected colleague Dr. Duluk’s paper on the development of dwarven songs and cave soundings explores this topic in depth (Duluk, 1790).

Extensive and exemplary research has been done by our fellow Golgoth Institute Researcher, Dr. Utumband, to show how the prevailing dark blue coloring of hair helps Solitary and Small Band Elves thrive in their densely forested environments, which are dominated by blue tip spruce and purple plum. Furthermore, their utilization of grease paints of ash and animal fats to camouflage their shape can further exaggerate the features of the colloquially called Forest Elf (Utumband, 1801). This use of paints in addition to their dark foliage-mimicking hair helps them to blend into the undergrowth, thereby allowing them to successfully stalk and take down prey many times larger than themselves, even when hunting alone.

As Elves begin to operate in village communities where communal hunting strategies and even early attempts at farming remove the need for stalking and hunting strategies, depigmentation and spotting becomes common. This mutation is caused by the shrinking neural crest cells, and generally, appears as stripes of blond around the face.

Finally, there is the Urban Elf, operating in a large colony, rarely hunting alone, with the bulk of their diet being grain-based supplemented with livestock and rarely wild game. Such individuals often show total loss of hair pigmentation. Our research has shown the prevalence of depigmentation is directly correlated to the reduced size of the neural crest.

Jaw and Teeth:  Reduction of Dentition and Resulting Dietary Alterations

The reduced neural crest also leads to significant reductions in jaw and tooth development across various Elf communities.

Figure 2: Elven Jaw and Dentition Pattern Diagrams (Campbell, 1982)

Although tooth number and pattern remains the same across Elf communities, the length of the jaw in Solitary Elves and the pronouncement of front incisors and canines cannot be denied. This arrangement of teeth and jaw allows them to hunt and consume prey, largely raw, using their teeth as their primary weapon and utensil.

Paired and Small Band Elves are often seen using crafted weapons such as spears, and employ community hunting strategies. This is an important adaptation given their shrinking jaws and canines, which are on average 1 cm reduced in size from their fully Solitary relatives. Some Small Band Elves have even been observed cooking their food.

Village Elves, while primarily carnivores, eat largely cooked diets, and hunt using bows and spears in advanced group strategies.

Urban Elves have been observed domesticating deer and elk to supplement their diet of grains and vegetables. This can be clearly seen in their dentition which is far more adapted to eating cooked meats and grains. Note also the reduced canines and shortened jaw more favorable to their omnivorous diet.

Reduced Cartilage Production: The Cause of the Altered Ear Form

The final and perhaps most readily visible difference between Elven subspecies to the outside observer are the changes in ear form. The reduced neural crest causes significantly reduced cartilage production. Without the high cartilage production, the traditional long-peaked Elven ear seen in Solitary Elves is not possible. In paired and Small Band Elves this is often observed in the folding or drooping of ear tips. Village Elves retain the readily recognized pointed ear but have even more reduced point length, by as much as 3 cm. Meanwhile the Urban Elf often has fully rounded ears (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Ear Forms in (a) Urban, (b) Village (c) Paired or Small Band, and (d) Solitary Elves

Conclusion

Based on our extensive genetic analysis and anthropological field studies, we, the researchers representing the Golgoth Institute of Orcish Sciences stand fully behind our hypothesis that the reduced size of the neural crest and its effects on adrenal production have resulted in the self-domestication of Elves as they have adapted from a solitary predator species into beings more given to social cooperation.

Works Cited:

Bernard G. Campbell (Editor). Humankind Emerging. 3rd ed., Little, Brown, 1982.

Klien, Orlan, et al. The Convergent Development of Living Wood Safe Glues of Elven Culture Across Unrelated Elven Species. Material Science (Subterra), vol 02, no 6, 1530.

Schmitt, Garlan. “Humans and Elves a Separate Species: As Shown by a Study of Their Divergent Architectural Development” Urbani Izziv, vol 14, no.20, 1567

Utumband, Duran., et al. “The Utility of the Native Hair Coloring of the Solitary Elf in Their Natural Environment” Anthropology (Golgoth), vol. 17, 1801

Wilkins, Adam S., et al. “The ‘Domestication Syndrome’ in Mammals: A Unified Explanation Based on Neural Crest Cell Behavior and Genetics.” Genetics, vol. 197, no. 3, 2014, pp. 795–808. Crossref, doi:10.1534/genetics.114.165423.

~

Bio:

Gabriella Buba is a chemical engineer who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her stories.

Philosophy Note:

A speculative take on comparative anthropology and genetics in the vein of Body Ritual Among the Nacirema by Horace Miller seeking to humorously subvert the traditional hierarchy of fantasy worlds.

Fresh Kill

by James C. Clar

“In those days, the world of mirrors and the world of men were not … separate and unconnected … one could pass back and forth …”

 Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings

I own an antique shop on Nuuanu Avenue in the heart of Honolulu’s Chinatown. The area has seen numerous ups and downs. The latest “up” was a gentrification and transformation into a trendy, artsy neighborhood with boutiques, restaurants and galleries. Then came COVID which, frankly, hit the area hard. Numerous places went out of business, crime increased and the homeless populated the streets and alleys in record numbers. Even now, with the virus seemingly on the wane, things have not returned to pre-pandemic ‘normal’.

Through it all, I’ve managed to do well thanks to Internet sales and wealthy, mostly Asian customers who are more than willing to pay handsomely for that certain piece that completes their collection, or which adds a certain undefinable aesthetic or, in some cases, wabi, to their homes or offices. Things are even better now that customers – both local and those visiting from elsewhere – are shopping in person.  I pride myself on the quality and authenticity of my merchandise. Nothing in the store is cheap and everything I sell has an established history or provenance.

The incident I am about to relate is remarkable, singular even, on any number of levels. It involves a recent acquisition; a very old bronze Chinese mirror acquired from a College Hill estate sale in Manoa adjacent to the University of Hawaii campus. The College Hill area is rich in local history and boasts numerous homes on the Historic Hawaii Foundation Register.

The mirror has been in the shop now for a little over a year. It belonged to a local Chinese family and, according to their records, it was with them when they came to the islands in the 1890s. At that time, they started what would become a very lucrative jewelry and jade business. The piece is spectacular. It stands just under six feet tall in a simple metal frame that has long since acquired a green patina. The front of the mirror itself is highly polished and reflective. There is an emblem of the Zodiac cast on the back. When light hits the front, the obverse design is reflected on the rear wall and the mirror becomes virtually transparent. The effect is nothing short of magical.

The manufacture of such mirrors can be traced as far back as the Han Dynasty and is mentioned in at least two texts from the later Tang, the Record of Ancient Mirrors and the Dream Pool Essays of Shen Kuo. While not nearly that old, the mirror in my possession is most probably a reproduction from the early 19th century Qing Dynasty, utilizing the traditional techniques.

Myths and legends about such mirrors abound. Ancient Chinese sages suggest that animals, whole worlds even, exist inside or, rather, on the reflective surface. One ascetic school of thought shunned mirrors entirely based on the belief that whatever images were reflected by them became somehow stored or ‘trapped’ within. I lend no credence to such fantasy but, still, I must admit that I have become loath to sell the mirror that now sits in the front hall of my shop, to the left of the front door. Truth is, I am fascinated by the object, transfixed. I spend many late afternoons sitting in a chair watching the light from the setting sun play across the surface of the bronze. More than once I’d swear that I’ve seen figures moving in its smoky, translucent depths.

Strange as it may seem, I am not alone in my obsession. About a month ago, a well-dressed man in his early 60’s came into the shop to inquire about the mirror. Based on his astute questions, I assumed him to be a collector or, at least, an aficionado. He was remarkably reticent to divulge any details about himself or his background. I was surprised that, to best of my recollection, I had never encountered him before. Honolulu is in many ways, a small-town masquerading as a big, cosmopolitan city. Everyone knows everyone and the antiquities community is even ‘smaller’ in that regard. I told the gentleman that the mirror was not for sale. He pestered me to an unseemly degree and simply would not take ‘no’ for an answer. At one point I thought I would have to have him forcibly removed from the store! He’s been back at least twice since that first visit, each time with the same result.

Things came to a head just two days ago. I heard the small bell attached to the front door tinkle signaling that someone had entered the shop. I looked up from my desk to see the older man back, staring fixedly at the mirror. We went through our, by now, usual routine. It was obvious, however, that this time he was not going to leave. I reached over and touched him on the shoulder so as to usher him out the door. With that, he pushed me. I slipped and hit my head as I fell backward onto the floor.

What happened next is, admittedly, a bit fuzzy. I was stunned by the impact. It seemed to me that as the mysterious stranger turned quickly away from me, his momentum caused him to lose his footing as well. He reached out his hand to steady himself against the mirror. I heard, or thought I heard, the sound of a drain emptying. After that, he was gone. I may be mistaken, but I simply don’t recall hearing the bell on the door indicating his departure.

Since then, I’ve been tempted to inform the police about what had happened. I’m doubtful that I will bother. Something tells me that I will no longer be troubled by that strange gentleman. You see, when I picked myself up from the floor after my fall that day, I went immediately to the mirror to inspect it for damage. It was unharmed but, this time, and even given the fact that I had just hit my head, I am quite certain of what I saw. Gazing into its sooty depths I spotted a tiger. The animal was burnt orange with fuliginous stripes tracing their way around its powerful body. The big cat seemed to be feeding, its muzzle stained red as it ripped and tore its way through its prey. Whatever it had caught, it was clearly a fresh kill.

~

Bio:

James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the mean streets of Honolulu and the wilds of Upstate New York.

Philosophy Note:

The inspiration for this story rests on my obsessive re-reading of Borges and my lifelong fascination with mirrors. Mirrors are remarkable on any number of levels. Consider… Two mirrors facing one another reflect an infinite number of images. An ancient analogy for the multiverse perhaps? It is also worth noting that the functioning of many modern telescopes, not to mention the DSLR digital camera relies, in part, on the properties of mirrors. What if mirrors somehow retained or ‘captured’ the images they reflected? That idea, the premise of my story, is not too far from the notion of a computer hard drive… From the standpoint of psychology, mirrors are, to a certain degree, instruments of vanity. Consider a world devoid of reflective surfaces or, at least, those surfaces designed expressly to show one images of oneself. What would happen to marketing, advertising, and the beauty industry? To what degree would such a lack impact the acquisition and content of self-esteem, for example? I could continue but I’d rather have you enjoy my story.

Where The Monster Lurks

by Malik Mufti

The Vizier sat in the front row of worshippers, along with the other dignitaries, as the High Hierophant droned toward the end of his sermon on fidelity: fidelity to the Twin Goddesses who poured their beneficence down to all in equal measure, to their representative the Emperor, to the officials high and low who enforce his laws, to the collective good of his subjects.

Eyes half closed, the Vizier had tuned out most of the service, stroking groomed whiskers as his mind flitted from one vexation to another. First, that cur Suf-An four seats to the right with his endless scheming at the imperial court. Then, the ongoing decline in revenues despite his latest tax levies, and the mediocre performance of the expeditionary force he had sent to crush the fanatics in the outlands. Finally, above all, his private passion, the manuscript that had stymied him for so long – his exposition on the conundrum of the One and the Many propounded by the ancient philosopher Hak-El. Now, however, alerted belatedly by a familiar and hitherto reliable instinct, the Vizier’s attention dove back down into the temple. 

The High Hierophant, who was no fool, had been treading a fine line between acknowledging the congregation’s concerns – about official corruption for example – and affirming the Emperor’s Goddesses-given mandate to rule. But there was no mistaking the increasingly desultory, even resentful, tone of the responses to his benedictions from the rabble crowded row upon row to the Vizier’s rear. Was it the crushing taxes? The arbitrary conscription? He turned to the aide behind him.

No, they were complaining about the government’s failure to do something about a supposed monster that had been terrorizing the capital in recent days. It was said to emerge from the great river Idigna which divided the city in two, seizing solitary pedestrians who were never heard from again. The Vizier recognized the panic that slithered and surged like a sinister current through the assembled mass. This was not good.

#

Deaf to the urban clamor around him, blind to the captivating reflections of the two holy moons in the Idigna’s waters, the Vizier contemplated the urgency of his situation as he walked across the Bridge of Triumphs, the most magnificent of the river’s many crossings, and made his way up to the affluent part of town where he lived. It was his habit to dispense with carriage and attendants when needing to plot his major moves.

Just days after the disquieting temple service, he had been summoned to an imperial audience. Entering the Grand Hall, he had noted at once the uncharacteristic absence of music and raucous laughter, and how the young Emperor’s boon companions – Suf-An of course at their head – mimicked his grim visage. The Vizier had come prepared to account for the recent financial and military setbacks, but instead the Emperor demanded to know why nothing had been done to allay the populace’s panic about the river monster. He had ten days to deal with it.

The Vizier had been unable to resist glancing at Suf-An. There it was: the hint of a smile, the embryo of a sneer. But also something else, softer and more elusive, as if Suf-An saw a secret he himself could not. He had forced himself to focus on the trap that now lay before him. His failure to capture the nonexistent monster would provide the pretext for his ouster. He would be accused of negligence and corruption, put to torture until he revealed the various hiding places of the fortune he had accumulated, and then cast out as a scapegoat for the envy and rage of the mob.

But now, scaling the Idigna’s eastern embankment under the crepuscular moonslight, the repellent sights, sounds, and smells of the capital’s teeming western half receding behind him, the Vizier was no longer concerned. That very morning he had received the latest dispatch from the governor of Kharba, the southern port where the Idigna flowed into the great sea. Kharba had been the pinnacle of the technological efflorescence overseen by the previous emperor – a fully submersible city built right on the shoreline in defiance of the land-swallowing tides generated by the twin moons. Most of the dispatch was routine – riots suppressed, imposts levied – but, in an attempt to inject a diverting note, the governor also recounted how after a particularly massive ebb tide, the remains of a large sea creature had been found on the beach. It appeared to be a giant specimen of the sort of squid fishermen occasionally capture in their nets, but putrefaction and bloating had rendered it unrecognizable. The Vizier wrote back at once, ordering the carcass to be shipped up the Idigna in strict secrecy.

On, then, to the reason he had chosen to walk alone. He had made a breakthrough in understanding how Hak-El resolved the dilemma of participation, which lay at the core of his theory of being: how the world’s diverse multiplicity could nevertheless be generated by one eternally unchanging, entirely separate truth. It was right there, more or less, in his second and fifth hypotheses. Positing a relationship between the One and the Many, which allowed participation to take place without compromising the integrity of the former hinged on the realization that Hak-El’s definition of the One was equivocal. This insight would be his claim to true greatness as a philosopher. This would show his mentor, who back at the academy had tried to steer him toward more mundane problems better suited, she apparently thought, to his limited abilities.

The Vizier reached his mansion and hurried up the stairs past the laughter emanating from the family quarters. He would wash up and change into finer garments before heading for his private study on the top floor, eager to begin outlining the final revisions to his manuscript.

#

It was some days past the Emperor’s deadline when the Vizier headed for the temple downtown, once again forgoing his carriage despite the now full-dark. He had dealt with his various distractions. The Kharba squid’s disfigured cadaver had been paraded through streets to popular acclaim, pacifying the rabble, solidifying his position at court, and redirecting the Emperor’s expropriatory attention to his rival. Once the imperial torturers were done with him, Suf-An would be released, stripped of his fortune and – lest he be tempted to join the growing rebel ranks – of his eyes as well.

As he crossed the Bridge of Triumphs onto the pathway which hugged the western bank of the river for a while before veering into city center, therefore, the Vizier concentrated on his real problem: his resolution of the Hak-El dilemma had proven illusory. There was no getting around it – the missing term of the decisive syllogism in the fifth hypothesis was untenable. How had he overlooked that? Could it really be that Hak-El’s entire treatise on the One and the Many was an obscure and elaborate joke? What did it mean?

Just then, however, the ripples and splashes behind him that had for some seconds registered only on his subconscious reached a volume that brought him crashing down to earth. He spun around, eyes wide open. There was nothing there. It must have been a fish leaping for some prey. Smiling at his own folly, the Vizier resumed his descent into the seething heart of the city.

~

Bio:

Malik Mufti is a professor of political science at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts, USA. His writings focus on Near Eastern politics and political philosophy.

Philosophy Note:

This story is inspired by an anecdote the medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun recounts in his Kitab al-Ibar about an ostensible river monster that terrorized the people of Baghdad one year. It provides the framework for an exploration of the ancient philosophical question of unity and multiplicity, and of the vital importance of participation between the one and the many.

Sci Phi Journal
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