K Parker - Memory

And here it was, the repository of all known wisdom-one or two sceptics had cast doubts on its infallibility in the past, but not any more, not after the matter of the lathe plans-left negligently open for anybody to see, while its custodian nodded, snored and swore into space. It was tempting; very tempting indeed. Just a quick glance, not even a whole page, just to get a taste of it. Couldn't do any harm, and Spenno'd never know. The words would still be there on the page, undamaged by the intrusion.

Poldarn crept forward, then hesitated; and as he paused, Spenno opened both eyes, stared at him for a moment, mumbled 'Fucking arseholes', closed his eyes and snorted like a pig. Dead to the world.

Even so. The plain fact was, Spenno was a brilliant but completely unstable individual, who happened to be obsessive about this book of his; if he did wake up for real while Poldarn was violating its pages, there'd be trouble for sure, quite possibly violence. Just for a sneaked glimpse of some mouldy old book, more than likely written in a language he didn't even understand. Not worth it.

But by this time Poldarn was so close that he could feel the soft draught from Spenno's foul-mouthed mumblings-too late to be sensible, he told himself cheerfully, what a pity, never mind. He craned his neck, and saw -If any kind of glass vessel gets broken, this is how to mend it. Take ashes, carefully sifted, and soak them in water. Fill the broken vessel with them, and place in the sun to dry. Fit the broken bits together, keeping the join clean of dirt and grit. Then take some blue glass, the kind that melts easily Ultimate wisdom, Poldarn thought. Fine. Handy to know, of course, but hardly worth risking a jawful of broken teeth for. Did ultimate wisdom really cater for cheapskates, the sort of miserable tight buggers who'd bother patching up a broken bottle rather than buying a new one? Even if the gods were omniscient, could they be bothered to remember something like that?

He frowned. Maybe it was just a book, after all, and maybe Spenno was so uptight about it because he was afraid that if other people read all the smart stuff in it, he wouldn't be the cleverest any more. Rather more likely (just as it was rather more likely that rain was moisture sucked up into the sky by the heat of the sun and then precipitated by mountains, rather than being the gods pissing through colanders; but if you have faith, you know better than to be fooled by the speciously probable). Even so.

Even so, Poldarn realised; the pins and needles in his feet were now so bad that he wasn't going anywhere for several minutes at least. In which case, if Spenno woke up he was going to be in deep trouble anyway, caught standing over the sleeping pattern-maker with his nose inches from the holy pages, whether he was actually reading the confounded thing or not. In which case, there was no point in not reading it, surely?

All very true; but Poldarn didn't really want to know how to mend broken bottles, so he cautiously reached out a forefinger and slid his fingernail under the edge of the page, lifting it until it turned and fell. At that Spenno squirmed in his seat and muttered something extremely vulgar, even by his standards; a scary moment, but he didn't wake up. Still safe, then, so far.

To make a Poldarn's Flute, such as the Rai and Chinly people of Morevich used to employ in war, first cast a solid round bar of good-quality bronze, of the sort used in bell-founding (see below, under bells). Mount the bar in a Morevish lathe (see below, under lathes) and bore out the hole while simultaneously turning down the exterior until it's smooth and even. To make the pins around which the flute pivots, to enable it to be aimed accurately, take a thick wheel tyre and swage the pins by folding a hand's breadth of the tyre into a cylinder on each side; then heat the tyre, slide it over the tube, and shrink it in place firmly by cooling.

And that, as Asburn used to say, is all there is to it. Now that sounded rather more like a god talking, because to a god, it'd be as simple as that-cast a thick bar, drill a hole in it, job done. He wasn't in the least surprised to learn that all this had been done before (in Morevich, where his people originally came from; where else?) because if he'd learned anything over the last year or so, it was that nothing was ever invented or discovered, only remembered-by men or gods who'd had the misfortune to lose their memories for a time. And if that wasn't a precept of religion, it damn well ought to have been.

Then he wondered: had that page been there in the book a month ago, or this time last year? Or had it grown somehow, like the new season's leaves, once the book had realised that the information would be required at some point? He considered the book: big, fat thing, nobody could possibly have read it from cover to cover, not in a single lifetime. So nobody could know for sure whether those pages had always been there (like his own memories, grudgingly spoon-fed him in dreams; had they always been there in his mind, or was someone writing them in from scratch while he was asleep? And had Gain Aciava been telling the truth, really?)

'Bastards,' Spenno grunted. Poldarn had to concede that he might have a point there.

Well: if the book (standing, of course, for his own lost memories-even Poldarn could understand symbolism when it was stuffed remorselessly down his throat) kept making up new stuff as it went along-and the new stuff was true, as true as anything else-then it simply wasn't fair. There was no point running away from memory, if it wasn't just behind you but quite possibly all around you and in front of you as well. You could run as hard as you could manage and not be running away at all; you could be heading straight for it, and never know until it was too late.

That wasn't a pleasant thought, and Poldarn was tempted to dismiss it as unproven or wildly unlikely (but no more unlikely than Spenno's bloody book just happening to contain a full set of detailed instructions for building these Poldarn Tubes that Muno Silsny and his clever engineers in Torcea had only just invented). The only thing he could think of doing was to have another look at the book and see what else it chose to show him. Either he'd catch it out in the act of being written, or he could forget all about this nonsense and get some more sleep before they finally plucked their courage up and tried out the lathe.

Just as tentatively as the last time, he toppled over a page. He saw To divert the course of a lava flow from an active volcano, first procure a number of steel-tipped drills, at least ten feet long and two inches in diameter Poldarn scowled. The bloody thing was playing games with him. He tried another page.

The flight of the stones thrown from a Poldarn's Flute can be controlled by raising or lowering the mouth of the flute, causing the stone to fly high or low; the higher it's thrown, within certain limits, the further it will travel Skip a paragraph or so and continue An alternative is to substitute for the stone a stoutly made leather bag filled with small rocks, metal scrap, potsherds amp;c. When discharged at short range, the bag will burst almost immediately on leaving the tube, scattering its contents over a wide area at tremendous speed. Each flying stone, potsherd or metal fragment will become a lethal weapon, making this technique especially suitable for use against closely packed enemy infantry.

Nasty little book, Poldarn decided. He skipped a dozen or so pages, and read This effect draws its name from an incident in the myth of Poldarn, patron god of Morevich. According to legend, after playing his pipes which bring death to all who hear them, Poldarn will 'Shit,' grumbled Spenno amiably, stretching his arms and legs and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. 'Shit, fuck and piss in a bucket. Fuck-'