Gate of Horn, Book of Silk

by Michael Andre-Driussi

  • 7:30 P.M. Mint rescued, emerges at Prolocutor’s Palace.

  Phaesday

  • Morning Trivigauntis take control of the Juzgado (IV, chap. 12, 250).

  Sphigxday

  • After midnight Meeting between Insurgents and the Ayuntamiento. Silk surrenders Viron to Potto; Trivigaunti agents storm in and take many prisoners, including Silk (IV, chap. 13, 262–82). Councillor Loris is killed in the confusion, perhaps by Oosik (IV, chap. 14, 298). Prisoners taken to the tents of the Trivigaunti camp, northeast of the city.

  Scylsday

  • Shadeup Viron forms new government, declaring Silk caldé, appointing new Councillors Newt and Kingcup.

  • 7:00 A.M. Prisoners put into airship for transport to Trivigaunte.

  • 8:00 A.M. Siyuf taken hostage.

  • 2:00 P.M. Trivigaunte declares war on Viron.

  • 3:00 P.M. Vironese leaders interview Siyuf. Airship seems to be missing. Fake Siyuf allowed to “escape.”

  • Shadelow Airship, pushed along by a strong wind, arrives at Mainframe.

  Molpsday

  • Shadeup Exodus begins with Auk’s lander leaving from near Mainframe. Airship begins return to Viron.

  • 3:00 P.M. Airship arrives in Viron where there is fighting as the fake Siyuf tries to conquor Viron for itself. Vironese exodus begins.

  Revolutionary Government of Viron the rebels actually restore the government to the pattern set forth in the Charter (IV, chap. 1, 30).

  • Caldé Silk: head of government.

  • Ayuntamiento: advisors to the caldé.

  • Councillor Potto (remnant of old Ayuntamiento).

  • Councillor Kingcup (Mint’s choice).

  • Councillor Newt (Potto’s choice).

  In addition, the military is reorganized

  • Generalissimo Oosik: supreme military commander.

  • General Skate: commander of the Caldé’s Guard.

  • General Mint: leader of the armed populace.

  • Bison

  • Gulo (captain or colonel?)

  • Serval (captain)

  • Babirousa, Goral, Kingcup, Marmot, Rook, Yapok, Zoril.

  Rimah, General “Siyuf’s chief of staff” (IV, list; IV, chap. 14, 314).

  Arabic: a name sometimes used for women. Reem means gazelle; reemah may mean an individual female gazelle.

  Rook “one of Mint’s subordinates” (IV, list), the one who saves her from being crushed to death by the falling façade of the Corn Exchange (III, chap. 9, 334). Through Remora’s dream analysis, he seems to be a symbol of the Outsider, by way of Silk’s black bird Oreb (IV, chap. 6, 96). It is also the name of a chess piece, the one looking like a tower.

  Zoology: a black, raucous-voiced European and Asiatic bird Corvus frugilegus, nesting in colonies; one of the commonest of the crow tribe.

  Rose, Maytera the senior sibyl at Sun Street manteion until her death on 29 Nemesis, a Tarsday (II, chap. 11, 278). Around 90 years old, at least (I, chap. 7, 186), she served the manteion for 60-odd years (I, chap. 9, 222). Of her childhood, we only know that Rose “had once played the flute” (II, chap. 2, 46). Her nose, mouth, and right eye are polymer (I, chap. 2, 56).

  As part of Blood’s negotiations with Silk over money, he offers to buy Rose’s prosthetics. One eye is pupil-less, the other is prosthetic (I, chap. 8, 212). She also has two prosthetic arms, after a strange disease took her arms when she was in her forties. She seems to also have prosthetic legs, and some devices in her chest, including her larynx (I, chap. 2, 51).

  Early on she spies on Silk and Marble, watching for sin: “Echidna hated everything of that kind [fornication], blinding those who fell as she had blinded her” (I, chap. 3, 69). It turns out this is based upon her own life, when Rose/Marble confesses about Blood, her son by Pike (III, chap. 4, 131). Rose was 40 years old at the time of his birth. She believes that Echidna blinded her and took her arms as punishment for her fornication with Pike.

  Rose visited Blood and his foster mother once each season, until she lost track of the foster mother when he was nine years old (III, chap. 10, 340). In Blood’s version, his biological mother visited a few times when he was little (340).

  There is a certain mystery about her death. Marble, in a dream-like state, goes to wake Rose for breakfast and seems to shatter the door by knocking (II, chap. 11, 278). Later it seems to be a fact that the door is broken (III, chap. 4, 126; chap. 8, 283). The glass in her room is working, and the monitor tells Silk that Rose’s last words were, “Let’s see what that slut Silk foisted on us is doing right now” (III, chap. 4, 130). The monitor obligingly showed her Chenille, possessed by Scylla, naked on the boat on the lake (129), and Rose died. This scene of Chen on the boat must have been at shadeup.

  Rose’s funeral rites involved her corpse and Marble’s old parts (III, chap. 10, 340).

  Marble/Rose, speaking to Silk about Oreb at Blood’s villa, says, “That’s the bird I saw hopping into your kitchen . . . isn’t it? Later on my glass, and on your shoulder like that in the garden” (III, chap. 10, 352). This causal mention of her glass implies she saw Oreb there: was this the famed “last vision” bit?

  Botany: common name for some members of the Rosaceae, a large family of herbs, shrubs, and trees.

  Commentary: the fact that the view of a naked woman killed Rose suggests that she was possessed by Echidna at the time. The view of a naked Chenille would surprise Rose, but it would also confirm her opinion rather than kill her. The surprise for Echidna, on the other hand, would be extreme as she recognized her daughter possessing that shameless prostitute. The shock that Echidna-in-Rose felt would probably be enough to kill Rose, or she might have been killed by the sudden leaving of Echidna from Rose. Perhaps Echidna’s presence in Rose was the only thing keeping Rose alive.

  Rose is directly associated with “love” in the text when Blood offers rabbits as funeral sacrifice to Kypris for Rose (III, chap. 2, 50). A more cryptic link is that since Rose lost her arms she is a living version of Venus de Milo, the famous armless statue.

  S

  Saba, General commander of the Trivigaunti airship and the troops it brings to Viron (III, Epilogue, 380). A “massive woman with a marked resemblance to an angry sow” (IV, chap. 2, 55), she is possessed by Mucor at Silk’s dinner table (IV, chap. 9, 183; chap. 10, 199). When it happens again on the airship, Major Hadale arrests her. Later she has a sexual tryst with Hyacinth on the airship (IV, chap. 16, 349–53; 366).

  Arabic: sabah (with heavy h) means “morning”; saba could mean “youth” or even “east wind.”

  Sacred Window “Sacred Windows are eight cubits by eight” (I, chap. 6, 146). The biggest size of computer screen in Viron, they are twelve feet by twelve feet, being theater-sized, large enough to be seen from the back of a church.

  A visitation by a god or goddess begins with a swirl of color, the Holy Hues (I, chap. 6, 142; explained I, chap. 6, 146 and III, chap. 6, 243). But there have not been any visitations in decades: “two generations had passed since she [Scylla] had manifested her divinity in a Sacred Window” (II, chap. 6, 151): not since Pike was young (I, chap. 1, 15); not since Blood was young (I, chap. 1, 19). Only virgins can fully see and hear the gods, a condition put into place by Echidna, with details according to Tartaros (III, chap. 6, 242) and according to Mint (IV, chap. 8, 158).

  Kypris first appears at Orchid’s glass after the exorcism there (I, chap. 12, 295). Her theophany at Sun Street manteion (II, chap. 2, 44) is the first at a Sacred Window, and she later appears on the Sacred Window at Brick Street manteion (IV, chap. 9, 177). The last time in the text, she shows up on the airship glass. (For a complete listing, see THEOPHANES.)

  Scylla possesses people at Limna Juzgado, along Pilgrims’ Way, and at the Lake Shrine. The lake itself is a Sacred Window for her.

  Echidna at Sun Street manteion (III, chap. 3, 91).

  Pas appears on the airship glass (IV, chap. 3, 67).

  Quetzal says, “Before Kypris
. . . the Windows of our city had been empty for decades. I can’t take credit for that, it wasn’t my doing. But I’ve done everything in my power to prevent theophanies. . . . I proscribed human sacrifice” (III, chap. 4, 147). This suggests a causal link between human sacrifice and theophany, and also perhaps a distinction between empty screen, theophany, and a third state/condition (simple “visitation”?).

  Saddle Street adjacent to String Street (III, chap. 5, 187). Sard’s pawn shop is on Saddle, not far from Orchid’s place (III, chap. 5, 184; IV, chap. 12, 236).

  Salvia, Matera sibyl at Brick Street manteion (IV, chap. 9, 171). Not on lists.

  Botany: a large genus of Labiatae, including the common sage; a plant of this genus, in popular use, chiefly applied to the ornamental varieties.

  Sand, Sergeant “a soldier in the army of Viron” (II, list); “Hammerstone’s squad leader” (III, list). This chem soldier first appears when he arrests Silk in the tunnels (II, chap. 8, 215). Sand kills Potto at Blood’s villa when Potto makes the mistake of identifying Silk as caldé (III, chap, 10, 377). Later he sacrifices himself for Pas (IV, chap. 10, 203–204). When Auk repairs Sand, the chem says, “V-58-0, V-58-1, V-59-0, V-59-1” (IV, chap. 12, 241).

  Sard “the owner of a large pawn shop on Saddle Street” (III, list), not far from Orchid’s yellow house. Chenille mentions Sard’s as a place she could sell jewelry (III, chap. 5, 184). Sard’s is where Hyacinth bought the silver ring that later becomes her wedding ring (IV, chap. 12, 236). It is not given whether Sard is a woman, a chem, or a man.

  Botany: yellow or orange carnelian, Comus mas, European berry bearing tree.

  Mineral: a reddish gemstone.

  Zoology: shortened form of sardine, the fish.

  sauterne a type of fine wine at Trotter’s (IV, chap. 11, 224). The Californian wine sauterne is a white dessert wine. The French Sauternes (capital S and final s) is an expensive dessert wine.

  Scale “one of Bison’s lieutenants” (III, list), the “imbecile” who argued with Xiphias (III, chap. 6, 229).

  Zoology: from fish and reptiles.

  scarf during Silk’s captivity on Basket street, he finds a woman’s perfumed scarf in a drawer (III, chap. 5, 181), a silk scarf dropped from her window as a token, color unknown (212).

  scents at the market “perfumers waved lofty plumes of dyed pampas grass to strew the overheated air with fragrances matched to every conceivable feminine name” (I, chap. 2, 33). The funny thing here is that Vironese feminine names are all after plants.

  • Blood’s perfume on handkerchief (I, chap. 1, 18), later named by Auk as “musk rose” (I, chap. 3, 86).

  • Rose’s lamp to Echidna burns a rose-scented oil (I, chap. 3, 71).

  • The water of Blood’s Scylla fountain is scented with “tea rose” (I, chap. 4, 113).

  • Frankincense is the incense at Hyacinth’s shrine to Kypris (I, chap. 6, 142).

  • Spruce is a cologne in the young man’s room, the bottle shattered by Silk’s needler (III, chap. 5, 212).

  Schist, Private “a soldier in Sand’s squad” (III, list; III, chap. 3, 78).

  Mineral: crystalline rock.

  schola in Viron, a religious school for augurs, a seminary (I, chap. 1, 9).

  Latin: place of learning.

  Sciathan a male Flier in the team sent by Tartaros to find Auk (IV, chap. 5, 83), chosen for his high language ability (IV, chap. 12, 238). Sciathan has one wife, but success of the mission might give him four more. Sciathan loves Sumaire, and Mear does too. He is the one possessed by Mucor (IV, chap. 5, 85) and then captured by the Trivigauntis.

  He is interrogated first by Sika, then by Saba, and finally by Abanja (IV, chap. 12, 239). Later Sciathan is rescued by Auk, who gives him the nickname “Upstairs” for being on the top bunk of the jail cell (IV, chap. 12, 252).

  Irish: (pronounced “ski-a-thon” with the “a” like “at”) word for wing; side; extension; part; arm.

  Scleroderma wife of Shrike (I, chap. 3, 77) and author of a shorter book about Silk and the Whorl, her name being that of a forest puffball (IV, chap. 15, 333). Remembered as “the cat-meat woman” because she had spilled some cat-meat on Silk when she thought he was patronizing her. She was a witness to the preparation of General Mint and her volunteers (Gib, Goral, Kingcup, Marmot, and Yapok) before the big charge at the Alambrera. Last seen in the group heading for the lander (IV, chap. 16, 369).

  Botany: (Greek word for “hard skin”) a kind of puffball, thus in the fungus group.

  Scup, Captain “the fishing-boat skipper employed by Crane to watch the Pilgrims’ Way” (III, list; III, chap. 1, 31). See also GRISON.

  Zoology: the fish Pagrus argyrops; Paugie.

  Scylla “a major goddess, the goddess of lakes and rivers, and the patroness of the first day of the week and of Silk’s native city of Viron; particularly associated with horses, camels, and fish; pictured with eight, ten, or twelve arms” (II, list). On Auk’s cheap colored picture she is depicted with eight arms and smiling (I, chap. 3, 80); at Blood’s villa the fountain statue has tentacles and the water gives forth a tea rose scent (I, chap. 4, 113). In the Sacred Window, she has the “sneering features of a girl a year or two from womanhood” (III, chap. 1, 32), implying that the eldest child of Typhon and Echidna was only twelve years old when she was scanned. She is one of the rebel gods (III, chap. 4, 156).

  Lemur says to Silk, “She founded your Chapter as well, a parody of the state religion of her own whorl. She was hardly more than a child . . . and the rest younger even than she” (II, chap. 12, 299).

  Things become increasingly strange for Silk at Lake Limna. He encounters a dazed woman at the Limna Juzgado (II, chap. 6, 156–59). Then, when he gets to the boulder at the start of the Pilgrims’ Way, “The great [Scylla’s] . . . features, as depicted on the boulder, bore a chance resemblance to those of the helpful woman in the Juzgado” (161).

  It is a fact that people become possessed on the Pilgrims’ Way (e.g., Coypu). This seems to be related to how the Lake itself is Scylla’s Window (II, chap. 11, 274). Thus, Scylla is possessing the dazed woman, and accidental drownings at the lake amount to Scylla-directed human sacrifices (to Scylla, naturally).

  It might be that the man ahead of Silk on the Pilgrims’ Way is this woman, still being ridden by Scylla. It also could be that the dead woman in the tunnels (II, chap. 8, 218–20) is the same woman who died shortly after the talus dropped her off somewhere.

  When Scylla is possessing Chenille we learn that Scylla uses an eye-gouging attack (II, chap. 11, 274), and note that she strikes with her left hand first (275).

  Myth: (Greek) a female monster living in a cave in a rock between Sicily and Italy. She had 12 feet, six necks and six heads. If a ship came too close, she snatched up a man with each head, as she did to the crew of Odysseus.

  Sedes a foreign city (II, chap. 6, 171).

  Latin: seat; throne; temple.

  sellaria a large room in which guests are entertained (I, chap. 9, 219).

  Serval, Captain “the officer who pretended to arrest Silk in Limna, usually called ‘the captain’” (IV, list). He is elegant (II, chap. 13, 342), with a thin mustache (343). It turns out he is Hyacinth’s estranged husband.

  He is at Sun Street manteion where he receives instructions from Kypris (II, chap. 13, 322–24), then at the Rusty Lantern by the lake where he contacts Silk (II, chap. 13, 342).

  During the ambush, Silk thinks Serval is dead (II, chap. 13, 351), and he still thinks so later (III, chap. 5, 211–12), but the reader learns he is not (II, chap. 13, 352).

  Serval is present when Mint’s rabble forms. Some of the guard go over to her and he is one of them (III, chap. 3, 95; III, chap. 5, 192). He talks to General Mint on the glass, and she says she will speak to Oosik about promoting him (IV, chap. 10, 197). He is guarding the Juzgado (IV, chap. 10, 198).

  Serval might be the unnamed captain with his right arm in a sling who Mint promotes to colonel (IV, chap. 16, 356). He is certai
nly the unnamed captain who halts the horse carrying Silk and Hyacinth (IV, chap. 16, 363), as Silk reveals later (368). Horn writes of Mint’s fearlessness, noting, “If it had not been for Bison and Captain Serval, she would certainly have been killed by the second day” (IV, My Defense, 373).

  Zoology: a medium sized African cat.

  Sewellel “the dead man in the abandoned guardroom” (IV, list; IV, chap. 8, 142). Sewellel had been the quietest of Spider’s group, and Mint thought him potentially the most dangerous (IV, chap. 8, 156).

  Zoology: a small rodent of the Western coast of the USA, Haplodon rufus. Called also “mountain-beaver.”

  Shale, Private “a soldier in Sand’s squad” (IV, list; III, chap. 3, 78).

  Mineral: a rock composed of layers of claylike, fine-grained sediments.

  Shell, Patera “Patera Jerboa’s acolyte; he attended the schola with Silk” (III, list). He helps Silk when Silk is imprisoned by Oosik after being shot with a needler by Tiger (III, chap. 9, 166). He is Jerboa’s acolyte (IV, chap. 9, 165), and is possibly a black mechanic (IV, chap. 12, 240).

  Zoology: a trait of shellfish, turtles, tortoises, and snails.

  Shrike “Scleroderma’s husband, a butcher” (IV, list; IV, chap. 16, 359). Last seen in the group heading for the lander (IV, chap. 16, 369).