Karl Schroeder by Book Theatre;Wheel

Author:Book, Theatre;Wheel [Book, Theatre;Wheel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-22T12:15:28+00:00

“What if it were the obligation of each generation to re-invent its civilization? How would that affect the way you lived your life?” He shook his head, puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said, and left.

Genevieve arranged for her almister to invite Brother Jacques to a private dinner. She and Neville ate in the kitchens. Throughout all this she maintained a coy silence, but was evidently enjoying his curiosity.

Afterwards, they walked into the warm, deepening evening.

Genevieve followed a tenuous path that led into the forest. No one was about; even the animals had fallen silent. Genevieve walked slowly, humming gently. She seemed inspired somehow, but Neville only felt nervous. “What’s going to happen?” he demanded.

“Nothing bad,” she said. “You understand how memory systems work, do you not? One can use any striking, bizarre, beautiful, or horrid image to impress a thing into memory. We use that to remember names, accounts, prices, and so on. But there’s another use for it.

“When your wife died, the experience of standing below her window for days was so strange and so memorable, that it completely eclipsed any other memory of her for years. You did not know that this would happen when you did that. But if you wish to change your life in any way, that is how you do it. You impress the change upon your character with the stamp of an event that’s completely outside ordinary life. That’s what ceremonies are.

Like the marriage rite.”

They ascended a winding path up the side of the hill. Rocky fissures with moss-grown sides began to appear around them. The hillside had split here like the roof of a loaf of bread in the oven; the fissures varied from knee-depth to fathomless.

The path entered a particularly wide fissure. Neville could see more torches strung along its length, at ever-increasing depths.

“One of our books talks about that,” said Genevieve. “It concerns the pagan mystery cults. The Duke or the Inquisition would have it destroyed, because it’s a book about designing a religion.” She nodded at his shocked expression. “It talks about how to change the direction of a man’s life by using the right ceremony at the right time. We only have a few rites in common - christening, marriage, death - because these are the passages we all share. They’re the only ceremonies we see, so we think they’re all we could have. The ancients knew you could invent a rite to fix any change in your life for all time. Yet you could have a rite specific to just one man, and meaningful only to him. That’s not such a strange idea: the king is the only one who experiences coronation, true? This book I spoke of describes how to create rites of passage for small groups, or even for individuals.”

“But what does this have to do with your memory system, or your merchants?”

“It has to do with alms. And civilization.” She laughed at his confused expression. “You’ll see. Tonight, it has everything to do with you.

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