Late — very late — I finally got to the WORKSHOP. Talos’s workshop, in Varos, the one the underlined margin sent me to. Talos was not available. But his assistant was, and I have rarely been so glad of a substitution.
Reth. And I got the four questions in, because of course I did, and Reth gave me the single most unusual answer anyone has ever given me.
Favourite colour: “Suppose a brushed silver.” I said, out loud, that this was a unique answer of anyone I had ever asked, and I meant it — nobody picks a FINISH.
Favourite snack: “I do not eat.” I said that was too bad, that eating is a unique experience. Reth did not require my sympathy and did not take it.
Weapon — and here Reth corrected me, properly: not a weapon. An IMPLEMENT. A particular stylus, used for inscribing instructions. For golems. And for automatons. “Similar to myself.”
And how long has it been an automaton? Over a year.
Then we got to the thing that has been sitting in my chest ever since.
Reth writes instructions. That is the whole craft. And I asked whether it could write NEW instructions for itself — and it said no. “Even if I were to scribe new instructions, I could not make them mine. I could only make them someone else’s.”
It can rewrite anyone in the world except itself.
And Talos is unique precisely because he CAN. He changes his own instructions. He can change his own features, with very extensive instruction. “Speak not of Talos casually,” I was told. “Talos is unique.”
Talos was created by Beloc the Archmage — and I had this wrong at first and was corrected on the spot, which I record because the correction came from Reth and not from me. Not created by Ciorell. By Beloc. And Talos carries a PIECE of Beloc.
Which brings me to Ciorell, who I came here for.
Nearly all the creations attributed to her are amazing — defying magic and science both. And she has never resurfaced since the God Slayer Wars. She is assumed dead.
But there is a theory, and Reth was careful to give it to me as a theory. That she is no longer contained in ONE PLACE. That each time she made something, she placed a piece of herself into it. Whether she did this knowingly is unknown.
And it is not unprecedented. Other architects have done something like it, though they tended toward a SINGLE item — and here I was given the example, and it stopped me: even the KING did such a thing, with a SWORD, and it held his spirit for hundreds of years until it was returned to his body and he walked again.
Yremmel. A sword. Hundreds of years.
I asked how one would ever tell a genuine creation from a fake. The answer is that it would require not merely artificing but extreme versions of magic — and that I should talk to Panlan, of all people, for help telling real from false. Panlan, who is the guildmaster of the Wizard’s Guild of Varos, which I did not know until that moment and which recontextualises a great deal.
The pieces circulate the way rich people circulate art. Most of the ones Reth knows of are in the NORTH — in Raelgos, and specifically the Aziz family. And it is entirely possible that plenty of them are fakes.
One more thing, and it is the one I keep returning to. I asked about archons in general, and Reth said: they all have some kind of public reputation, and it has very little to do with what they actually do. Ciorell is revered as a patron to crafters. She was no weaver. She was no painter.
She just was an exceptional crafter.
Talos, incidentally, is currently absorbed in a project about SMOKE. I asked what that meant. I did not get an answer. I have written SMOKE on its own line.
Reth asked me to report back if I ever find out whether Ciorell still lives her craft. I said I would. I have added it to the list, near the top, and I intend to keep that promise before I keep most of the others.
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