HomePage RecentChanges

I Zeta

The invention of printing can be said to be one of the great turning points in the history of the Helosian States, always pressed on two sides by more warlike peoples, the finally found a means to make good their advantage of technological prowess, by increasing the speed of dissemination.

Speaking, Writing, Printing – The Word as Deed, Helmut Wegener, Long Count 990.11

The calendar is another question which has vexed my inquires from the beginning. I found only a few who even claimed dates that go back as far as the Long Count, and then, only on king lists which I could not read.

But let me lay out what I know. The Long Count is based on 13 annae (Ishtari Year), and then annae of the remainder, and then days of the annae. Should we accept that there was a beginning, it is lost back in the mists of time, shrouded in mystery. Where their civilized peoples some 10,000 annae (over 6000 years) ago? Such that they could make a beginning that all accept as the beginning. Surely only a god can do that.

There are some who claim it comes from the lord Lucifer himself – because it is based on the passages to his world. There are others who claim that it was merely a convenient long period. There are still others who claim that there is an influence between the worlds, and that influence creates a moment when souls may pass back and forth freely.

In the far north they have a story that these spirits walk up and down rainbow bridges to the heaven which is that planet…

My Inquiries Ecodotus, excerpts from chapter 7

Long Count Date: 998.11.92

The postmeridian had brought a cooling breeze from the sea, and March walked back to her room to sleep. The Magus saw people only at night, and she needed sleep. She read parts of the scroll, which explained that there was a connection between an order of, Christians – followers of the anointed one – and the Eleari. The Christians did not have many gods, which was not unusual, many worshippers of Marduk claimed that he and Lucifer were the only gods, and the others were spirits in their service – but they and angelorum, or messengers, from their god. One of these, Michael, was associated with Marduk. Or perhaps was Marduk, or at least many Christians preached that Marduk had been sent by their God, and therefore it was no heresy to worship him, but now that the Gospels were spread, this “good news” overtook the older. In any event, thought March, the followers of St. Michael are often followers of Marduk, and many held both beliefs at the same time.

She knew, with a sigh, that she would have to learn this, because, if she was to walk among the Germans, who were notably closed minded about such things, she would need to be able to speak their spiritual language. Her craft of soothsaying had taught her to always speak the language of the client, and use their words. Since she was now a messenger, an angel, this was no more than professional duty raised to a higher level.

She spent time reading and then drifted off into a sleep.

She again went through what she was now calling the antechamber to dreams – a place where she spent time, but could not remember how it was spent, though she knew she saw things and heard things and even touched things, but that they had no equivalents, and thus no memory. There were no letters in the mind to write the story.

She was then, again, in the cave. And this time she studied the figures, and noted them. When the bell pealed calling to sunset, she awoke, opened her journal, and drew what she could remember. Write down your dreams, she reminded herself, it was the first thing her mother had taught her.

She looked at them in the warm dying light. She saw arms that crossed through bodies, and pointed heads and long beards and cold, cold eyes. She knew she had seen them before, but where she did not know. There were also colors of grey and blue and dark sea green. She noted this down. The long count entry which had started so scantily, became cluttered with her notes. She set this aside, closed everything, and decided to eat before going to the Magus. She had barely remembered the wrapping of cold bread and sausage she had eaten just after leaving the Sybil. And hunger was definitely upon her. Now that she thought about it, her eating had been very irregular. She decided what she needed was fruit, and went out mango trees that lined the south side of the campus, plucked several and at them as she walked.

Teloikoplis is built on a sloping hill overlooking the bay, at the top of the hill stands a tower to Marduk and cluttered around that the buildings of the old University, built in the old style with columns and friezes. Kept painted bright vermillion and amethyst indigo. They were considered lovely, but she preferred the new style: buildings with two sets of pointed spires, and arches that supported them, The rows of spires were like sails, they were built of heavier rock than the delicate marbles of the old buildings, and dominated the far side of the hill, away from the sea.

The city itself was a sprawling clutter of low buildings, laid out in a semi-circle around the market and wharves, where the agora was. The agora, of course, had been the first meeting place for classes, where sophists – that is, teachers of professions rather than arts – still gathered students. A successful sophist might buy himself a chair at the University, and even start a school. The University had once been a great center of deep learning, but had, in recent years, become more of a way station for practical matters, navigation and engineering. It had one of the most active printing businesses in the Mer Centralis, and its books were sent out all over the known world.

She saw the vast heavy foundry – where they cast letters. The stench of burned sulfur clung to it, and it employed seven priestesses to check the use of fire. They had vast bellows systems, and it was told that people who worked their soon went mad from it. Plumbia, it was called, poisoning from lead, which was know recently known to be a poison. The pipes in dozens of cities had been ripped out and replaced because of it, that was happening when she was a child, the expense was fantastic. Her mother had never let her drink water from fountains as a child, and now she understood why: the old tales told of the disease of cities that made people quarrelsome and stupid.

But west of the foundry and the warehouse was the great mill, a series of wheels that caught water, and turned this into the divine spark: electricity. A thing so dangerous and holy that few were allowed to even speak of it. She was told in books that it came from tearing apart atoms – that basic stuff of the universe. She marveled at the idea that the uncuttable could be cut. But also realized that this was probably the danger – to harness lightning was a great and terrible thing. The slightest mistake could create free sparks, and that would be disaster. The mill was worth more than everything else in Teloikopolis, and it was this that the caliph coveted, for the caliphate did not have electricity yet.

West still of that was the main road, but there was a smaller road that went into the hills, it was dotted with the large villas of successful merchants, with there three story colonnades and hanging gardens in the Urakkadian style. And beyond that was where the Magus lived, she would walk long into the night. Fortunately, there were phosphor globes along the way of that road, the expense born by those that lived on it. She realized that she would be arrested if she went there, and suffered a panic attack. Then realizing she had seen a pass in the scroll that Amalthea had given her.

With this, and a knapsack that she seldom used, she set off, fruit, some coins, notes, a scroll and a fear of the dark walk to come. She avoided the center of town, taking the third circular road, which went along residential neighborhoods, though not tree lined ones, which would loom dark and frightening to her, and then met the main northern road and walked on the edge, away from the center were horse droppings were, and which, in the dark, she would possibly step into. Only on a few roads were horses allowed, of course, since no one wanted a road closed half the time.

After almost an hour of walking, that is, 45 of our minutes, she reached the gentle upward slope of the side road, lit on both sides by bright green globes of polished phosphorous, still glowing from the daylight. The colour seemed friendly to her, and for the first time since going out to the field, she was light in her heart and had that bounce in her step.