{"id":973,"date":"2014-06-08T11:12:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T23:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/?page_id=973"},"modified":"2014-06-08T11:12:35","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T23:12:35","slug":"sample-hope-and-the-clever-man","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/sample-hope-and-the-clever-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Sample: Hope and the Clever Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hope<\/a>\u201cDaddy, come and look at this!\u201d
\n\u201cDaddy\u2019s busy, Hope. What\u2026 oh.\u201d
\nThe tall, dignified man with the sad face paused and knelt by his daughter in the corner of his office. The sun streamed through the window, broken up by a tree outside. Eight-year-old Hope curved her little brown hands around one of the beams, and where it hit the floor it made a perfect patch of rainbow light. She turned her big dark eyes up to him, looking for his approval.
\n\u201cHow are you doing that, sweetie?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m bending the light,\u201d she said, with that tone of voice that children use to adults who are being dense.
\nHer father blinked, and stared, first at the rainbow and then at Hope.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s very good, Hope,\u201d he said. \u201cJust wait here a few minutes?\u201d
\nHe came back with the mage, a woman called Sincerity, whose straight black hair formed a disciplined line above her eyebrows and another line above her shoulders. Hope knew who the mage was, since she was also the manor\u2019s healer and Hope had had a couple of childhood illnesses. Sincerity didn\u2019t seem like a person who liked children much. Hope showed her the game with the light when her father asked her to, though.
\nThe adults looked at each other with wide eyes, and the mage began asking her questions. How long had she been able to do this? Oh, not long. Could she do anything else? Yes, all sorts of things, especially with light. She could make a light in the air, and change its colour, and make it move around. But they were just little games.
\n\u201cActually,\u201d said the mage, \u201cyou have a very important talent.\u201d
\nHope\u2019s father\u2019s office had a door through to the Countygold\u2019s office, because Father was the Countygold\u2019s secretary. Hope\u2019s family had been retainers of the Countygolds of the Western Isles for generations. Father called through and asked if the Countygold could come and discuss something, and they talked about Hope like adults do, as if she wasn\u2019t there.
\n\u201cHaving a mage from the Western Isles would be a source of pride for our County,\u201d said Father.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s true, Vigorous,\u201d said the Countygold, a big old man who had always been kind to Hope. \u201cBut in any case, it\u2019s the mage\u2019s duty to train her up, and my duty to make allowance for it. That\u2019s in the contract I agreed to when I brought Sincerity here.\u201d
\nSincerity nodded. \u201cHow\u2019s she doing at school?\u201d she asked.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s a bright child,\u201d said her father.
\n\u201cI\u2019ll want to take her out of the school and teach her my own way,\u201d said the mage. \u201cI\u2019m sure the village school is fine for teaching figuring and the dwarvish script, but she\u2019ll need a proper education in the Great Nine if she\u2019s to get anywhere as a mage.\u201d
\nHope lifted her head at that. On the one hand, she didn\u2019t always get on with the other children at school. On the other hand, she wasn\u2019t sure she wanted to be with the mage all the time. At least at school if you didn\u2019t know the answer there were other people to hide behind.
\n\u201cCan you teach all of the Great Nine?\u201d asked Father.
\n\u201cI know the Earthly Three best, but I can teach the rest well enough for an eight-year-old.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat about Reliance?\u201d said the Countygold. \u201cHe could teach her.\u201d
\nThe mage thought about that for a moment. \u201cAll right,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s the Earthly Three she mostly needs, but I\u2019ll be pleased enough to have more time to attend to my other duties while the chaplain teaches her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope\u2019s father held her hand as they walked home that night, and didn\u2019t say much. He looked worried.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d Hope asked him.
\n\u201cI\u2019m trying to work out how to tell your mother.\u201d
\n\u201cOh.\u201d
\nHope\u2019s mother was the Countygold\u2019s estate manager, which meant that she went around all the farms and houses that belonged to the Countygold and told people what to do. She usually came home in a bad mood.
\nFather cooked the dinner, a stew, and when Mother came in he made sure to give her the best bowl. When they\u2019d eaten, he cleared his throat.
\n\u201cVerity,\u201d he said, \u201csomething happened today.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d said Mother, in her usual sharp tone.
\n\u201cIt turns out that our little girl has magical talent, and Sincerity has agreed to teach her.\u201d
\nMother glared at Father, and then at Hope. \u201cHmph,\u201d she said.
\nSince she didn\u2019t say any more than that, Hope went to her first lesson the next day. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all,\u201d said the mage, \u201cI need to bind you to the Protocols of Hesh.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat are those?\u201d said Hope.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re powerful mindspells which will prevent you from using magic to do anyone direct, lasting harm.\u201d
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t hurt anyone,\u201d she protested.
\n\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter,\u201d said Sincerity. \u201cI can\u2019t teach you if I don\u2019t bind you. That\u2019s part of the Protocols too. Unless we do this, I won\u2019t be able to open my mouth to teach you anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Great Nine turned out to be the old elven curriculum, still the basis for higher education in the Realm of Koskant, though the Elven Empire was more than five hundred years gone. Sincerity taught the Earthly Three: life, mind, and what the elves had called, rather dismissively, \u201cdead things\u201d. This third category formed the whole of dwarven magic, since the dwarves didn\u2019t hold much with things that were alive. The mage didn\u2019t know much dwarven magic \u2014 she was a life-and-mind mage \u2014 but she had books. Playing with light, she told Hope, was energy magic, and there was also matter magic, transforming and shaping nonliving things. There were magics of space and time as well, in theory, but humans had never learned them and even the dwarves admitted that they couldn\u2019t do much with them.
\nFor the rest of her education, Hope went to the chaplain, an elderly Asterist scholar named Reliance who had grown up with the Countygold. He taught the Three Bridges (music, poetry and storytelling) and the Heavenly Three (astronomy, mathematics and Asterist theology: the three aspects of the Divine and their nine faces). His approach to teaching was less disciplined than Sincerity\u2019s. He would give her something to read, usually, ask her questions about it or look at her work when she came back, and grunt something noncommittal. He did love music, though, and taught Hope to sing in the classical style. This also helped with her chanting, an important part of elven magic.
\nMathematics had always been Hope\u2019s best subject at school, and even without much encouragement from Reliance, she studied it enthusiastically. She was soon well beyond the level she would have reached in the village school.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow were your lessons today, Hope?\u201d asked her father one day. He always asked, and Hope usually said, \u201cGood,\u201d or \u201cFine,\u201d but today she said, \u201cOh, it was fun, Daddy, I learned all about how to bring heat from the other spaces into our space, and we set some things on fire.\u201d
\nHope\u2019s mother set her knife down with a thump.
\n\u201cIt\u2019ll be your fault,\u201d she said to her oathmate, \u201cif the child burns the cottage down.\u201d They lived in a cottage at the back of the manor house.
\nAngry tears welled up in Hope\u2019s eyes. She wouldn\u2019t burn anything down, she knew better than that.
\n\u201cNow, now, I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be fine,\u201d began her father.
\n\u201cI was opposed to this foolishness from the start,\u201d said her mother, \u201cas you well know.\u201d
\n\u201cVerity, it\u2019s a chance for our girl to shine,\u201d he said. \u201cThink of the reflected glory of having a daughter who\u2019s a mage. The Countygold already treats me with more respect because of it, consults my opinion\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cI can\u2019t think why,\u201d said Hope\u2019s mother, in a tone which made it clear what she thought of her oathmate\u2019s opinion.
\nTears were sliding down Hope\u2019s cheeks, but she kept silent.
\n\u201cShe\u2019ll do us no favours with her looks, anyway, especially if she keeps that up,\u201d said her mother. \u201cGo to your room, child.\u201d
\nHope\u2019s mother very rarely addressed her by name. After that night, she carefully did not show any enthusiasm for her lessons in her mother\u2019s hearing. <\/p>\n

Hope spent a lot of time in the manor\u2019s library, especially on Fourdays. Most people took the last day of the four-day shift-round as a day off, and even though her mother often worked on Fourday, Hope got into the habit of spending the day in the library to get away from the cottage. As she\u2019d passed her childhood\u2019s end rites and become a \u201cbetweener,\u201d in training for adulthood, she became more aware of the constant tension between her parents. Besides, if she studied hard, and became a really useful mage, Mother would have to acknowledge that she wasn\u2019t worthless after all.
\nParts of the library were much older than the house itself. The Countygold\u2019s ancestors had themselves been senior servants in the old elven manor-house, the one before this, back before the fall of the Elven Empire. They had taken the old manor over when the elves retreated into the mainland forests, leaving their human former slaves in possession, and there was still a whole section of ancient Elvish books in a corner at the back of the library.
\nMindmagic and lifemagic were mostly worked in Elvish, and Sincerity insisted that she be fluent. On a Fourday when her parents had had a shouting argument before breakfast was even on the table, Hope wandered into the ancient section and picked up an old daybook. Her mother kept one just like it, recording events in the house and estate \u2014 harvests started and finished, planting, the matings and births of livestock (the people had their own, separate record in the estate rolls), building work undertaken, weather observations and suchlike. Hope thought it would be interesting to see how much had changed and how much had stayed the same, so she went to a window-seat and curled up with the fragile old volume.
\nOne entry referred to the fact that the siora had bloomed early that year. \u201cWhat\u2019s a siora?\u201d she wondered, and went and fetched the old Elvish illustrated herbal.
\n\u201cOh,\u201d she said when she saw the illustration, \u201cmeadowbonnets.\u201d She noticed, though, that the ink illustration showed a pattern she\u2019d never seen on the flower, and that didn\u2019t seem to be on the painted version. She checked the text in case there was an explanation.
\n\u201cSiora have a beautiful lia pattern,\u201d she read. \u201cLia, lia. Is that a colour word?\u201d She checked the big Elvish encyclopedic dictionary that she always kept at hand when expanding her vocabulary.
\nLia was indeed a colour word, and the entry referred her to an essay on colour at the back of the dictionary.
\n\u201cElves,\u201d she read, \u201capparently perceived colour differently from humans, and many of their artistic works employing colour look odd to human eyes. For example, the famous rainbow mosaic in the Citadel of Coriant shows the classical 27 named colours of elven art, three of which are imperceptible to humans. Compare the 32 colours recognised by the dwarves, some of which are also not perceptible to human eyes, though in the case of the elves it is the colours beyond purple in the spectrum, and in the case of the dwarves the colours beyond red.\u201d
\nA chart beneath the text compared the two colour systems, and showed lia as one of the three colours humans couldn\u2019t see.
\n\u201cI wonder,\u201d thought Hope, \u201cif I could shift the light somehow to see what the elves saw.\u201d
\nShe looked up her textbook on light magic, and while it didn\u2019t give a spell for exactly that purpose, she thought she saw how she could make one.
\nIntrigued now, she wrote out her best guess at the spell, taking her time over the sigils, and started to work it. The light shifted, and sure enough, she could now see the patterns in the painted illustration of the meadowbonnet flower.
\nThe daybook still lay beside the herbal in the window seat, and, to Hope\u2019s surprise, underneath the text, in a different hand, she saw another text in Elvish. It seemed that an elf had not wanted humans reading it, and had written it in lia ink.
\nHope snatched up the book and ran to show Sincerity. Sincerity lived alone, having never oathbound, in a cottage not far from Hope\u2019s parents\u2019.
\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the mage. \u201cWell, well.\u201d She eyed Hope with something resembling respect.
\nWith the help of a great many books, and working together for hours, they managed to enchant a viewing glass so that it would change the light in just the right way to enable the hidden words to be read.
\nUsing the glass, they found more texts. It appeared that when the elves had left, their apparently-blank books had been reused, and Hope and Sincerity discovered account books and daybooks and estate rolls with Elvish writing underneath the entries. Besides long-irrelevant political notes, the texts included a number of spells, most of them unfamiliar. The most useful was a lifemagic technique that let one both observe and affect the blood flow in a body far more easily than any of the methods Sincerity knew. One could use it to see if someone was lying, for example, or diagnose and even treat illness without touching someone.
\nSincerity sent out letters to every mage she knew, not only to tell them about the new spells, but to ask them to look in old libraries for more examples. Before long, she started to get replies telling her that they\u2019d found answers in old books to mysteries that had puzzled everyone for years. There was a good deal of magic, lifemagic especially, that the old Empire elves had never shared with their human slaves.
\nOne morning, at the start of their lesson time, Sincerity brought in a thick letter written in a round elvish hand. The elvish alphabet was only used for magical, formal, scholarly and legal purposes now, having been replaced with the square dwarvish alphabet for everyday use, so this was clearly an important letter.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d asked Hope. Sincerity had an air of what, in a more expressive person, would have been glee.
\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the mage. \u201cOne of my letters was to the Master-Mage Amiable. He\u2019s the head of the magic school at the University of Illene, and, as it happens, my old teacher.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is from him?\u201d said Hope.
\n\u201cYes. He\u2019s started a project to transcribe, compile and distribute the knowledge that\u2019s been hidden in the old books. He\u2019s written to mages in other realms, offering to send copies of all the spells discovered in Koskant if they send copies of theirs to him. He\u2019s announced a new library and institute of ancient knowledge, to be established in Illene.\u201d
\nSincerity actually smiled, an unaccustomed expression on her severe face.
\n\u201cAnd he\u2019s sent this to you.\u201d She handed over another enclosure. It was unopened, but Hope guessed that its contents were described in the other letter, because Sincerity seemed to think it was significant. She eyed her mentor for a moment, then tore open the letter.
\nIt was not just in the elvish script, but actually in the Elvish language. By writing in Elvish, he was silently acknowledging that she was a person of scholarship, she thought to herself.
\n\u201cDear Mistress Hope,\u201d it began, as if she were a grown-up woman with her adulthood rites behind her, and not a girl just short of seventeen years old. \u201cI was delighted to hear from your tutor, my former student Sincerity, of your most valuable discovery. This is an opportunity to regain knowledge lost for centuries, and has already begun to show its benefits.\u201d
\nThe letter went on in this vein for some time. Halfway down page two, she gasped aloud.
\n\u201cAnd so,\u201d the letter said, \u201cI am most gratified to offer you a full scholarship, to complete your studies in magic at Illene, starting in the next academic year.\u201d
\nSincerity was openly smiling now, and Hope felt like her face was going to break in half. \u201cLet\u2019s go and tell Father,\u201d she said, and they hurried to the secretary\u2019s office, abandoning their lesson.
\nWhen the Countygold heard Hope exclaiming to her father about the scholarship he poked his head through the connecting door between their offices.
\n\u201cDid I hear right?\u201d he asked. \u201cOld Amiable is offering you a free place?\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s right, Countygold,\u201d she said.
\nThe Countygold was in his late sixties, and rather overweight. He wheezed as he made his way into the room and pulled up a chair to the table on one side of the office, where Hope\u2019s father held meetings, then gestured Hope, Sincerity and Hope\u2019s father to join him.
\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we discussed, Vigorous, I\u2019d have liked to pay for her education myself. You and your oathmate, and your families, have served the county well for generations, and it\u2019s not every year someone comes along with young Hope\u2019s potential, eh?\u201d
\nHope blushed, and muttered something grateful.
\n\u201cBut with the repairs we need to the seawall, and the price of grain, I don\u2019t know if we could have managed it, so this comes as a relief. What does the scholarship cover?\u201d said the Countygold.
\n\u201cFees, lodging and basic food,\u201d said Sincerity. \u201cThat\u2019s standard. Books and travel are still the student\u2019s own lookout.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, I can cover travel,\u201d said Hope\u2019s father. \u201cI have some money set aside that your mother doesn\u2019t know about,\u201d he continued to Hope. \u201cEnough to pay for a steamer up the Gulf.\u201d
\n\u201cThank you, Father,\u201d she said. A steamer trip all the way to the mainland was expensive enough that very few people she knew had ever been there.
\n\u201cAll right, then,\u201d said the Countygold. \u201cI remember when I was at Illene, my father established an account with the university bookshop. I\u2019ll look up what he set up and how he did it, it\u2019ll be in the old accounts. Though it was, my goodness, fifty years ago nearly.\u201d He smiled reminiscently.<\/p>\n

As she emerged from the chaplain\u2019s study at the end of her lessons that day, Hope drew up short. Her father waited outside, leaning against a wall.
\n\u201cI wanted to talk to you before we go home,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very pleased that this scholarship has come up.\u201d
\n\u201cSo am I,\u201d she said, as they began to walk towards the back door of the manor.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful opportunity. You\u2019ll be carrying the pride of the family, of the whole island. The whole county, in fact.\u201d
\n\u201cI suppose I will.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s an important recognition, and I want you to always be aware of that. Recognition is very important.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat about the work for its own sake?\u201d she said, stopping on a middle stair of the back staircase.
\n\u201cWell, I suppose. But without recognition, you won\u2019t get far in life. What do you want to do when you graduate?\u201d
\n\u201cI haven\u2019t thought. I mean, my talent seems to be strongest in energy magic, but I\u2019m not bad at mind and body magic. I\u2019ve seen how Sincerity helps people with those.\u201d
\n\u201cListen to me, Hope,\u201d said her father, leaning forward from the higher step on which he stood, so that he loomed over her. \u201cNobody ever became wealthy and respected by helping people. You keep an eye out for your chance to shine.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, Father.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Buy Hope and the Clever Man<\/em> here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDaddy, come and look at this!\u201d \u201cDaddy\u2019s busy, Hope. What\u2026 oh.\u201d The tall, dignified man with the sad face paused and knelt by his daughter in the corner of his office. The sun streamed through the window, broken up by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/973"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/973\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}