Patchwork Universe

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Thu May 27, 2004 11:43 pm Post subject: In which theories are expounded

A most eccentrically dressed figure emerged from the mists, somehow managing to avoid hitting a large oak tree nose-first in doing so. He absent-mindedly patted the bark as he looked about.

"Well, old Tcholsky was right after all. That can't have been the reciprocal thread, or I'd be able to hear Karol from here, since I don't imagine he's admitted the necessity of this little experiment yet. Hmm. What are the chances of two unrelated twisted-thread anomalies? Unless that unfortunate gentleman's unweaving opened an existing weakness..."

A few minutes of scratching complex equations on the bark followed, then Loresan shook his head. "Not unless he accidentally formed an Albright knot, and even then the placement is fifty yards off. How interesting."

He stared at the unexceptional woods about him with bright eyes. "I wonder where this is, then?"

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:03 am Post subject:

It was a balmy summer afternoon in Aldersley, and sunlight shone down through the leaves of Aldersley Wood creating inkblot patterns of light upon the ground. There was a rustling noise as some small animal made a hasty retreat from Loresan's voice, but on the whole the wood today was a calm and relaxing place. At first there was no sign of human occupation, but then a woman's laughter cut through the background noises of the wood from the other side of a rise some smal distance away, stark enough to cause the paniced flight of several birds. The woman herself, however, sounded quite at ease.

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:00 pm Post subject:

Bathed in leaf-patterned sunlight, Loresan slowly began to stop shivering. He headed towards the sound of laughter.

As he trudged down the other side of the small rise, he called out in a friendly voice, "Hallo! I'm new to this reality, could you possibly tell me where the nearest laundry is?"

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject:

As Loresan came over the head of the ridge, he was confronted by the suprising sight of Anna and Higgins, two of the Aldersley household staff, in a state of partial undress. Anna uelped in surprise and hurriedly covered herself, before bursting into a further fit of supressed giggles, both at their situation and at the intruder's peculiar attire. Higgins was more composed, perhaps because he was still wearing his breaches when Loresan arrived on the scene. He replied to Loresan in a not unfriendly manner.

"Well, there's a laundry up at the manor, but being as you're not known to the family you'd probably be better off cleaning up in the farmhouse before you head up there. Tell Mrs. Butcher that Higgins sent you.

"You do have business with the Earl, right? Because if not, I wouldn't bother him right now. Everyone's in a bit of a state, see?"

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:30 pm Post subject:

"Yes, I rather suspect I do indeed have business with the Earl. If you'd be so kind as to point me in the direction of the farmhouse, I'll leave you to go about your business undisturbed.

"Oh - though you wouldn't happen to have encountered any hideous monsters around here lately? About so big, tentacles, antisocial disposition? No? Fascinating. Thankyou very much for your time."

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:05 pm Post subject:

"Monsters? No, not unless you mean the cats - they're being a right handfull at the moment. The farmhouse is over yonder." Higgins pointed. "Oh, and a word to the wise, sir, you'd best not be mentioning monsters to the Earl, and especially not to his lady wife. They don't really take kindly to that kind of talk."

Loresan wandered off in the direction indicated, leaving the servants to return to thier entertainments, which they apparently did with some ghusto, judging from the sounds Loresan could hear as he walked through the woods. After a short while he came out into the clear, and could easily spot the farmhouse nestling near to a large barn. Aldersley Manor was also visible - its ivy covered walls a verdant green in the sunlight.

At the farmhouse, Mrs. Butcher, presumably the tennant farmer's wife, showed Loresan to a large waterbutt. Loresan washed himself without comment, and made a reasonably successful effort to clean himself and his clothes up before heading down to the manor house. Wondering up the grand staircase to the front entrance, the wizard rapped loudly on the door, which was answered by an obsequious underbutler, who, after one look at Loresan's clothes, became considerably less obsequious. "Tradesman's entrance is round the back," he said, slamming the door in Loresan's surprised face.

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2004 12:39 pm Post subject:

Loresan rapped on the door once again.

"Excuse me, but I am not a tradesman. I am, in fact, the Archmage of another reality, and I have come to speak with your... Earl? on the urgent matter of the spatio-temporal semi-discontinuity just beyond the rose garden."

He paused for a moment, as if suddenly thinking, then added, "Of course, unless you have magic in this reality, that won't make much sense to you, will it. Tell me, are you familiar with string theory?"

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:08 pm Post subject:

The door did not appear to be particularly interested in Loresan's conversation. Presumably the servant who had answered the door was now studiously ignoring it in the vain hope that Loresan might go away.

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:02 pm Post subject:

Loresan continued staring at the door for a moment, his expression showing clear bemusement at the lack of interest in news of monsters and spatio-temporal anomalies, then shrugged and walked around the side of the house.

Soon he came to a window. He looked briefly around, then jemmied it open and entered.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:22 pm Post subject:

Loresan appeared to have entered a library of quite some impressive size. Shelf upon shelf of leather bound books covered the walls and spread out onto freestanding bookshelves that made the precise size of the room difficult to determine, since it was impossible to see more than a few feet in any given direction. The bookshelves themselves did not appear to have been arranged with any particular regard to logic, and jutted out at seemingly random angles. Loresan experienced the intuition that while the door out of the library was likely to be fairly easy to find it might not be quite so easy to find one's way back to any given point within it. Certainly the floor bore a layer of dust that suggested that attempts to keep the room clean had been abandoned quite some time ago. Pulling books off the shelf at random, he read the titles to himself.

"Faraday and the New Rationalists" appeared to be a somewhat dry political treatise about the leader of something called the Whig party in the mid 1860s, whenever they might have been. There was a novel by a woman called Jane Austin called "Sociability and Sharpness" which, from skimming a few pages appeared to be about a young woman who rejects the security of a wealthy but dull marriage because she is iin love with a common soldier, charismatic yet lacking in social graces, with dire consequences for her personal wellbeing. Skipping on to the end, it appeared that the scapegrace returned from fighting Napoleon both an officer and a gentleman, having distinguished himself in the eyes of some general called Wellington, and thus the young lady married happily and well after all. It sounded like frightful drivel.

Other titles caught his eye as he browsed the shelves. "Alice under the Haystack", "The Illiad", "David Copperfield", "An Introduction to Natural Philosophy". Finally he realised that the books were not arranged by any particular subject, but rather by colour and size. While this lead to a very neat looking library, it must, presumably, have been rather hard to find anything you were specifically looking for there.

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:10 pm Post subject:

Absently picking up two or three of the more interesting titles from the shelves, Loresan wandered through the library, alternating flicking through the books with muttering to himself.

"Fascinating. Again, the maze motif. Hmm. An infinite regression of mazes, perhaps? Which might suggest that these realities themselves formed a kind of maze. For what purpose? For defence, or... a maze is a kind of knot, one of spaces rather than strings. So, knotting a continuum of spatial anomalies... but for what purpose? I must speak to Bedin when I get back."

So pondering, he blinked in slight surprise when he looked up to see the library door ahead of him. He closed the cover of 'The Adulterous Cat" with a decisive snap and exited the library with a jaunty step, for all the world as though he were not a burglar as well as a trespasser and housebreaker.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 6:08 am Post subject:

It is not clear which of the two was most surprised when Lady Beatrice pulled up short to avoid cannoning into Loresan as he vigourously exited the library, causing the matriarch to drop the embroidery piece she was carrying. Giving the wizard a very stern stare, she bent down and retrieved her handiwork (a half-completed tableau of the manor house) with a dignity clearly meant to rebuke Loresan for his lack of decorum. Taking in his unusual clothing and the armfull of books he was carrying, Lady Beatrice became even less impressed, and drawing herself up to her full height of five foot one inch, and yet still somehow managing to make herself appear taller than Loresan, in her own mind at least, she spoke.

"Sir, I have absolutely no idea who you are or what you are doing in my house, but your conduct is quite beyond the pale. Kindly return those books from whence they came and leave." Lady Beatrice's face was stony with displeasure as she turned back down the hallway whence she had come. It was clearly unthinkable to her that he would do anything other than follow the instructions that she had just given, and therefore this audience was at an end.

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 9:49 am Post subject:

"Oh, how incredible," Loreson said softly, gazing at Lady Beatrice in unabashed wonder.

He raised his voice. "Please forgive my abrupt entrance." He bowed, surprisingly creditably, to her retreating back, waving his stolen books in much the same way a courtier might wave a feathered hat. "I pray I haven't startled you in any way, my lady, and I beseech just a few moments of your time. And if I may make so bold, may I have the pleasure of examining that fine work that you carry?"

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:30 am Post subject:

Unabashed wonder could equally describe the expression on Lady Beatrice's face when she turned around to realise that Loresan had not in fact departed metaphorical tail between his legs, but had in fact asked to see her embroidery. The man was clearly some sort of lunatic, and a shameless one at that.

Suddenly several facts connected in Lady Beatrice's head. Loresan had removed books from the library. The only person who had ever been interested in the library was Violetta. He was also clearly mentally deficient in some way. Again, circumstantial evidence of association with Violetta. After that Angelis man had given them the slip, she didn't intend to let another possible clue as to Violetta's whereabouts slip through her fingers.

"Why, yes, yes. Of course you may. If you'd like to come to the summer drawing room, the light is much better in there. I'm sorry. I didn't realise that you were a conesseour of the art of embroidery, it's, erm, always a pleasure to meet someone who takes an interest and, er, I can't believe that anyone with such refind tastes would stoop to common theft. I apologise for the misunderstanding. Do please follow me. You can leave the books by the door. I'll send one of the servants to put them back." Without waiting for a reply she swept off and lead him through a confusing maze of corridors.

By the time they had reached the summer drawing room, they had, Loresan estimated, walked around the approximate location of the room at least three times, and, if he wasn't mistaken under it at least once, but although the corridors of the family part of Aldersley were spacious, they certainly were not designed to assist in getting from one part of the house to the other quickly and indeed no two of them seemed to be at any predictable angle to each other.

The drawing room itself was light and airy as Lady Beatrice had promised. She laid out the embroidery on a work table for Loresan to examine and summoned a servant to fetch refreshments.

"So what brings you to Aldersley, oh, I'm afraid I don't even know your name. How rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Lady Beatrice."

Loresan Knotreaver · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 2:29 pm Post subject:

Loresan closely examined the tapestry with the eye of an obvious expert and an expression of awe. It took him a moment or two to realise he was being spoken to, but when he did he managed another creditable, if shaky, bow.

"It is an absolute honour to meet you. I am Loresan Knotreaver, Archmage of the Citadel, second son of the Thane of Skyweir, which technically makes me the Marquis of Fenhallow, or would if they hadn't run me out of town for practicing witchcraft.

"So, my lady enchantress, how came this entire area to fall under your spell?"