SPORN. The term commonly used throughout the Kalif’s Empire to refer to the gray caps. The Kalif’s people refer to the gray caps’ sacred symbol as the “zetbrand” and their underground land as the “zetland.” See: Fungus; Kalif, The.
EXHIBIT 9: AVANT GARDE WESTERN PAINTER ORIM LACKPOLE’S MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE GRAY CAP SYMBOL, ENTITLED “SPORN ZETBRAND 3”; ON DISPLAY IN THE MORHAIM MUSEUM’S “MODERN ARTISTS” WING.
STOCKTON. Even more boring than Morrow. Might as well be populated with monkeys or Oliphaunts than with people. Not even a religious institute to save it from boredom. Incidentally, the city of Duncan Shriek’s birth. See also: Busker, Alan.
STRATTONISM. Believers in the mythos of the bicameral brain, Strattonists have always been in conflict with the followers of Richard Peterson, primarily because neither religion can understand its own teachings, let alone those of its opponent. A typical entry from the guiding text of Strattonism, The Consciousness of the Origin of the Bicameral Breakdown, reads “The compresence and prehension of a monism in keeping with the gravitational relinquiships and syntaptic revolutions of the mind cannot be undersuaged in any discussion of concantimated narratizations or even when considering slorbenkian bilateral mandates.” One diagram in the book depicts a brain with arrows pointing to “The Bandaic Hallucinatory Pit,” “The Bilateral Convulsive Impulse,” and “The Origin of the RP Heresy.” The belief that the brain can talk to itself has led to some confusing conversations at Strattonist meetings. See also: Peterson, Richard.
– T –
TARBUT, ARCH OF. Richard Tarbut was a wealthy man who liked to have things named after him. The Arch of Tarbut is one of those things. The Tarbuts moved to Ambergris from Morrow, where they sold, among other items, stoves and canaries. Tarbut named only one condition for giving money to construct the arch: that, by means of a ladder, he and his family be allowed to hold a party atop the arch upon its completion. This, indeed, he did, but, bothered by a mud wasp, lost his balance, and fell to his death, attaining a condition very close to that of Brandon Map. See also: Map, Brandon.
THRUSH, THE. A doomed ship in the Ambergrisian navy, commissioned during the reign of Trillian the Great Banker. At that time, even oak-built ships succumbed to rotted timbers because the alternate wetting and drying of wood created favorable conditions for the growth of fungi. Reports from the naval command to Trillian stated that “In building and repairing ships with green timber, planks, and trennels, it is apparent by demonstration to the ship’s danger and by heat of the hull meeting with the greenness and sap thereof immediately putrefies the same and draws that ship to the dock again to repair within six years what should last 20 years.” Directly prior to The Thrush leaving port, an even harsher report stated “The planks were in many places perished to powder and the ship’s sides more disguised by patching than usually is seen upon the coming of a fleet after a battle. Their holds not cleared nor aired but (for wont of gratings and opening their hatches and scuttles) suffered to heat and molder until I have with my own hands gathered toadstools growing in the most considerable of them, as big as my fists.” Despite this, The Thrush was sent down the River Moth toward Nicea. Within five days, the crew complained of a general itchiness. Within ten days, the ship was so encrusted with fungi that the crewmembers were trapped inside. Forced to eat the fungi for sustenance, they began to mold and the ship collapsed and sank far from shore on the twentieth day. No one survived. See also: Fungus.
TRILLIAN THE GREAT BANKER. One of the greatest rulers Ambergris has ever known. Under Trillian, Ambergris became a miniature empire, but more importantly, a center for business and finance. Ambergrisian banks spread across the continent and at one point accounted for 75 percent of all financial transactions in the South. Trillian, more than any ruler before him, was able to snuff out the power of the Brueghelites through a methodical process of depriving them of capital and resources. Strangely enough, his downfall came at the hands of cababari pigs. A slave in love to his mistress, he bristled over a perceived insult handed to her by a cababari breeder and signed an order that cababari would no longer be considered fit for eating and would be banned from the city. Just six months later, a group of Cappan Rest- orationists funded by a powerful pig cartel ousted Trillian. See also: Cababari.
– U –
URINATION, ORDER OF. The most annoying of the Orders. See also: Living Saints.
– V –
VERDEN, LOUIS. This talented artist first established his reputation with gargoyle-inspired jewelry (the highlight of many a Festival parade). From jewelry, Verden progressed to book illustration, illuminating such popular texts as The Physiology and Psychology of the Giant Squid. He served for many years as the contributing art director for Burning Leaves. A fervent acolyte of Strattonism and a prize-winning hedgehog breeder, Verden has for many years headed up the Ambergris chapter of the Free Thinkers Guild. His most famous quote might be “I’m working on your damn illustrations!” directed at his long-time collaborator Nicholas Sporlender and published in the “Heard in the Mews” section of Burning Leaves. Laypersons will be most familiar with his work for the festival booklet, The Exchange. See: Burning Leaves; New Art, The; Safe House; Sporlender, Nicholas.
EXHIBIT 10: THE DELUXE EXCHANGE, A COLLABORATION BETWEEN SPORLENDER AND VERDEN; HOUSED IN THE MORHAIM MUSEUM’S ROTATING “CRUEL FEAST: FESTIVAL MEMORABILIA” COLLECTION.
– Z –
ZAMILON. A ruined monastery-fortress still inhabited by monks. This vast complex of buildings and defensive fortifications is ancient beyond memory. No one knows who built the original structures. The monks who live there possess a page from Samuel Tonsure’s Journal and believe that, if the words on that page are read in a particular sequence, the page can serve as a door to another place. See also: Busker, Alan; Daffed Zoo; Lacond, James; Masouf; Skamoo.
EXHIBIT 11: BADLY DAMAGED PHOTOGRAPH OF GRAY CAP ARTWORK FOUND BY CAPPERS NEAR THE SO-CALLED “GRAY CAP ALTAR” DURING THE REIGN OF TRILLIAN; EXPERTS BELIEVE THIS IMAGE DEPICTS A GRAY CAP FUNGAL “BOOK” EMBEDDED IN A DOOR; HOUSED IN THE MORHAIM MUSEUM’S SPLENDID “SUBTERRANEA: THE HIDDEN WORLD” COLLECTION.
Endnotes
1. By Manzikert’s time, the rough southern accent of his people had permanently changed the designation “Captain” to “Cappan.” “Captain” referred not only to Manzikert’s command of a fleet of ships, but also to the old Imperial titles given by the Saphants to the commander of a see of islands; thus, the title had both religious and military connotations. Its use, this late in history, reflects how pervasive the Saphant Empire’s influence was: 200 years after its fall, its titles were still being used by clans that had only known of the Empire secondhand.
2. A footnote on the purpose of these footnotes: This text is rich with footnotes to avoid inflicting upon you, the idle tourist, so much knowledge that, bloated with it, you can no longer proceed to the delights of the city with your customary mindless abandon. In order to hamstring your predictable attempts—once having discovered a topic of interest in this narrative—to skip ahead, I have weeded out all of those cross references to other Hoegbotton publications that litter the rest of this pamphlet series like a plague of fungi.
3. I should add to footnote 2 that the most interesting information will be included only in footnote form, and I will endeavor to include as many footnotes as possible. Indeed, information alluded to in footnote form will later be expanded upon in the main text, thus confusing any of you who have decided not to read the footnotes. This is the price to be paid by those who would rouse an elderly historian from his slumber behind a teaching desk in order to coerce him to write for a common travel guide series.
4. Today, the salinity of the river changes to fresh water a mere 25 miles upriver; the reason for this change is unknown, but may be linked to the build-up of silt at the river’s mouth, which acts as a natural filter.
5. Almost 500 years later, the Petularch Dray Mikal would order the uprooting of native flora aroun
d the city in favor of the northern species of his youth, surely among the most strikingly arrogant responses to homesickness on record. The Petularch would be dead for 50 years before the transplantation could be ruled a success.
6. And yet, what is our understanding of the monk’s early history? Obscure at best. The records at Nicea contain no mention of a Samuel Tonsure, and it is possible he was just passing through the city on his way elsewhere and so did not actively preach there. “Samuel Tonsure” may also be a name that Tonsure created to disguise his true identity. A handful of scholars, in particular the truculent Mary Sabon, argue that Tonsure was none other than the Patriarch of Nicea himself, a man who is known to have disappeared at roughly the same time Tonsure appeared with Manzikert. Sabon offers as circumstantial evidence the oft repeated story that the Patriarch sometimes traversed his city incognito, dressed as a simple monk to spy on his subordinates. He could easily have been captured without knowledge of his rank—which, if revealed, would have given Manzikert such leverage over Nicea that he might well have been able to take the city and settle behind its walls, safe from Brueghel. If so, however, why didn’t the Patriarch make any attempt to escape once he had gained Manzikert’s trust? The case, despite some of Sabon’s other evidence, seems wrong-headed from its inception. My own research, corroborated by the Autarch of Nunk, indicates that the Patriarch’s disappearance coincides with that of the priestess Caroline of the Church of the Seven Pointed Star, and that the Patriarch and Caroline eloped together, the ceremony performed by a traveling juggler hastily ordained as a priest.
7. For reasons which will become clear, Tonsure could no longer complete it; therefore, 10 years later, Manzikert’s son had another Truffidian monk summoned from Nicea for this purpose. Unfortunately, this monk, whose name is lost to us, believed in wearing hair shirts, daily flagellation, and preaching “the abomination of the written word.” He did indeed complete the biography, but he might as well have spared himself the effort. Although edited by Manzikert II himself, it contains such prose as “And his highly exhulted majesty set foot on land like a swaggorin conquor from daes of your.” Clearly this abominator’s abominations against theWritten Word far outweigh any crimes It may have perpetrated upon him.
8. If the careful historian needs further proof that Sabon is wrong, he need look no further than the inscription on the monk’s journal: “Samuel Tonsure.” Why would he bother to maintain the pretense since the contents of the journal itself would condemn him to death? And why would he, if indeed the Patriarch (a learned and clever man by all accounts), choose such a clumsy and obvious pseudonym?
9. All quotes without attribution are from Tonsure’s journal, not the biography.
10. Quote taken from the biography. One wonders: if the Cappan was so fierce, how much more fearsome must Michael Brueghel have been to make him flee the south?
11. The Cappan’s appending “II” to his son’s name gives us an early indication that he meant to settle on land and found a dynasty. The Aan clan would have thought the idea of a dynasty odd, for usually cappans were chosen from among the ablest sailors, with hereditary claims a secondary consideration.
12. I find it necessary to interject three observations here. First, that the paragraph on the gray caps written for the Cappan’s biography is far worse, describing as it does “small, piglike eyes, a jowly jagged crease for a mouth, and a nose like an ape.” The gray caps actually looked much like the mushroom dwellers of today—which is to say, like smaller versions of ourselves—but the Cappan was already attempting to dehumanize them, and thus create a justification, a rationalization, for depriving them of life and property. Second, and surprisingly, evidence suggests that the gray caps wove their clothing from the cured pelts of field mice. Third, Tonsure appears to have given away a secret—if, in fact, the gray cap they met came “only to the Cappan’s shoulder” and the gray caps averaged, by Tonsure’s own admission, three-and-one-half feet in height (as do the modern mushroom dwellers), then the Cappan could only have stood four and one-half feet to five feet in height, something of a midget himself. (Is it of import that in a letter concerning future trade relations written to the Kalif, Brueghel calls Manzikert “my insignificant enemy,” since “insignificant” in the Kalif’s language doubles as a noun meaning “dwarf” and Brueghel, who wrote his own letters of state, loved word play?) Perhaps Tonsure’s description of Manzikert in the biography was dictated by the Cappan, who wished to conceal his slight stature from History. Unfortunately, the Cappan’s height, or lack thereof, remains an ambiguous subject, and thus I will stay true to the orthodox version of the story as related by Tonsure. Still, it is delicious to speculate. (If indeed Manzikert was short, we might have hoped he would look upon the gray caps as long-lost cousins twice removed. Alas, he did not do so.)
13. We can only speculate as to why Manzikert should find children and mushrooms repulsive. He certainly ate mushrooms and had had a child with Sophia. Perhaps, if indeed undertall, his nickname growing up had been “little mushroom”?
14. As this is the first and last time the gray caps actively attempted to communicate with the Aan, one wonders just what the gray cap was saying to Manzikert. A friendly greeting? A warning? The very loquaciousness of this particular gray cap in relation to the others they were to encounter has led more than one historian to assume that he (or she—contrary to popular opinion, there are as many female gray caps as male; the robes tend to make them all look unisexual) had been assigned to greet the landing party. What opportunities did Manzikert miss by not trying harder to understand the gray cap’s intent? What tragedies might have been averted?
15. Tonsure was criminally fond of Oliphaunts. References to them, usually preceded by mundanea like “as large as” or “as gray as,” occur 30 times in the journal. Possessed of infinite mercy, I shall spare you 28 of these comparisons.
16. Tonsure’s description in the biography also includes a series of mushroom drawings by Manzikert—an attempt to “appear sensitive,” Tonsure sneers in his journal—from which I provide three samples for the half dozen of you who are curious as to the Cappan’s illustrative skills:
17. Apparently, since Tonsure fails to describe it.
18. The mammologist Xaver Daffed maintains that these were “actually cababari, a stunted relation of the pig that resembles a rat.” (Quote taken from The Hoegbotton Guide to Small, Indigenous Mammals.) If so, then, as subsequent events will show, the rats of Ambergris have managed something of a public relations coup; the poor cababari are today extinct in the southern climes.
19. James Lacond has suggested that the fungus had hallucinogenic qualities. Tonsure, for his part, sampled a “fungus that resembled an artichoke” and found it tasted like unleavened bread; he reports no side effects, although Lacond claims that the rest of Tonsure’s account must be considered a drug-induced dream. Lacond further claims that Tonsure’s later account of Manzikert’s men glutting themselves on the fungi—some of which tasted like honey and some like chicken—explains their sudden mercilessness. But Lacond contradicts himself: if the rest of Tonsure’s account is a fever dream, then so is his description of the men eating the fungus. As always when discussing the gray caps, debate tends to describe the same circles as their buildings. (A similar circularity drove Lacond, late in his life, to declare that the world as we know it is actually a product of the dream dreamt by Tonsure. Since our knowledge of our identity as Ambergrisians, where we came from, is so dependent on Tonsure’s journal, this is close to the heresy of madness.)
20. Admittedly, a perilous and notoriously inaccurate undertaking; the mushroom dwellers tend to look unkindly upon intrusions into their territory.
21. The question of where the gray caps came from and why they were concentrated only in Cinsorium remains a mystery. The subject has frustrated many a historian and, to avoid a similar fate, I shall pass over it entirely.
22. But surely they farmed the fungus?
23. Tonsure reports the f
ollowing symbol showed up repeatedly:
24. Volume XX, Issue 2, of The Real History Newsletter, published by the Ambergrisians For The Original Inhabitants Society.
25. In a city otherwise so pristine, such blatant “disorder” should have made Tonsure suspicious. Was he now so completely set, as was his master, on the goal of discrediting and dehumanizing the gray caps, that he could see it no other way?
26. Unfortunately, this claim strengthens Sabon’s assertion with regard to the Patriarch of Nicea—see footnote 6.
27. Poor Tonsure. Just preceding this diatribe, the monk describes a kind of hard mushroom, about seven inches tall, with a stem as thick as its head. When squeezed, this mushroom suddenly throbs to an even greater size. While walking innocently between the “library” and the amphitheater, Tonsure came across a group of gray cap women using these mushrooms in what he calls a “lascivious way.” So perhaps we should forgive him his hyperbole. Still, shocked or not—and he was a more worldly monk than many—Tonsure should have noticed that for every such “perversion,” the gray caps had developed a dozen more useful wonders. For example, another type of mushroom stood two feet tall and had a long, thin stem with a wide hood that, when plucked, could be used as an umbrella; the hood even collapsed into the stem for easy storage.