Mark
Walking up the narrow street to the upper palace, Mark went through his list of priorities. The first one was simple. Stay alive.
Since this was a pretty binary goal, he had to consider himself successful thus far. But then again it had been tight a couple of times. Way too tight.
Each time he had tried to choose a safe route, he ended up in a life-or-death situation.
When they had found the Assanaten war party, he had convinced Atissa not to run into a village that was about to be invaded only to end up in a life-and-death grappling match followed by a stare-down with a human flamethrower. Had he known what these magi could do, he would never have volunteered to face one.
The messenger mission was supposed to be his ticket out of a warzone. Instead, it had turned into a death race ending in a sea battle.
“The priests responsible for the archive have been informed about your interest,” the scribe leading them said. “We are ready to answer whatever questions you might have.”
“I am grateful,” Mark answered politely.
I need to make better choices, Mark thought. To accomplish this, he had to develop a better understanding of the world around him.
With his arrival in Riadnos, Mark had started to get an idea why the Assanaten magi at the hut had backed down. The decorated staff in his right hand seemed to mark him out as a special type of magi. Not just a normal magi, that can’t actually do magic, he thought grimacing.
It was a conundrum. On the one hand, his false identity kept him fed and alive. On the other hand, he might be exposed as a fraud at any moment. Judging by what he had seen of this world up until now, this was unlikely to end painless for him.
“Mistress Bel’Sara is also making use of the archive. I’m told that this is a first, even though she’s visited Riadnos many times before.” The scribe looked at Mark, trying to mask his curiosity as polite conversation. Mark just stared back with an expressionless face and the man looked away quickly. “This way please!”
They crossed under another archway built from big blocks of limestone. The depiction of some kind of winged animal was chiseled above the lintel.
Mark couldn’t help himself but be impressed by the ability of these Helcenaean people to construct walls and buildings of this size without modern technology. He had no way of estimating how many men and days had been spent raising the walls that surrounded the upper and lower palace complex.
While he deliberately hid his fascination behind the mask of the professional magi, Atissa's amazement was obvious. The young girl stared open-mouthed at the buildings and people they passed by.
“If you have questions, I am sure Elaiadoros here is willing to answer them,” Mark said.
“Really?” Atissa asked.
“Of course!” Elaiadoros said.
“Those huge stones of the wall, how did they get them up the hill? And how did they place them on top of each other?”
“Ah, that is the first question many people ask when they visit Riadnos for the first time.” Elaiadoros smiled proudly. It followed a lengthy lecture on the city’s history and construction. Mark left it to Atissa to keep Elaiadoros going with a question here or there. The man didn’t need much encouragement.
Learning about the city and the semi-civilized parts of this world, in general, wouldn’t only help him to stay alive, but it would also help with priority number two and three – staying healthy and staying comfortable.
In a world without antibiotics, getting a splinter or taking a sip of the wrong water could mean sickness and death. He had done what he could, using the awe he inspired to make the servants comply with his demands.
Maybe he should acquire some local pharmacological knowledge. Educated people might be eager for a chance to talk to a sage if Elaiadoros was any indication.
They left the street and climbed a short staircase leading to an open space wider than a basketball court. Beyond it towered the actual palace. According to Elaiadoros it served both administrative and religious purposes. The difference between scribes and priests seemed to be somewhat fluid, while together they constituted something like a civil servant class.
There was no entrance or wall, just rows of columns holding up a high ceiling. It reminded Mark of the lobby of some fancy corporate building. Instead of a reception desk, they walked past a long solid stone table richly decorated with gold and fabrics.
“The main altar,” Elaiadoros said, pointing to the stone. “Here, the priests perform the sacrifices to Rehala and Seidos, the city’s patron deities.”
“Very impressive,” Mark said, making Elaiadoros beam. It actually was. As an engineer by training, he appreciated the wonders of human ingenuity.
Maybe that gives me an in with the leadership, he thought. It was something he intended to investigate. Depending on this world’s advancement he might be able to secure himself a permanent position.
He needed to find a way to maintain his current standard of living. In the absence of technology, human beings in the form of servants and cooks seemed to be a necessity for an acceptable level of comfort. Mark would have to figure out what the local leadership needed and then feed it to them little by little, keeping himself indispensable. Like any good business consultant would.
Elaiadoros led them through one of several site doors. “Here begins our archives.” Through the doors, they could see desks and rows of shelves. Men and women in the outfit of scribes or priests moved busily from room to room, carrying clay tables and other items.
“Do you store documents on history or magic here?” Mark asked.
“Oh no,” the scribe said. “They are stored deeper in the palace. All this serves the administration of Riadnos and the surrounding land. They say not one grain goes through the city that is not accounted for.” Gesturing down the long corridor with visible pride.
“Is he counting over there?” Atissa asked.
Following the gaze, Mark noticed one man holding up his left hand with the thumb pressed to the middle bone of his ring finger. A second man in the garb of the scribes looked at his hand and subsequently wrote with a stick on a slab of clay held in his hand.
“Yes,” Elaiadoros asked. “Do you know how to count? I understood you lived as a hunter in the mountain wilderness.” He gave Mark a nervous glance, probably ensuring that he wasn’t causing offense.
Mark kept his face passive, observing the communication of numbers between the two men.
“My uncle taught me,” Atissa said. “He learned in the army.”
Elaiadoros nodded. “Do you know numbers, too?”
She shook her head.
“I see. Still, you can be proud. Many people can’t count higher than ten.” He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers.
Mark frowned. He remembered Atissa trying to count the warriors back in the woods with her hands. “How does it work?”
Both Atissa and Elaiadoros looked up at him in surprise.
I need to be careful displaying ignorance, Mark chided himself.
“I think”, he quickly said, ”where I’m from, we might use a slightly different method. I would love to learn how it is done here.”
“I can show you!” Atissa smiled enthusiastically. She held up her right hand and made a fist. “If I wanted to count the racks in this room, I would lift a finger for each until all are spread.” She turned around, her eyes wandering from rack to rack. “Then I put my left thumb here.” She pressed the tip of her thumb against the distal bone of her left pinky finger. “Now I can start over.” She closed her right hand again and started the process over. In the end, she held up three fingers on her right hand while the left thumb pointed at the pinkie’s middle bone.
“That is correct,” Elaiadoros said, nodding eagerly.
“Thirteen,” Mark said, interpreting her hand signs. “Very interesting. Thank you.”
Atissa beamed. “I don’t do it a lot, so I am not very fast.”
“I imagine there’s not that much opportunity in the mountains,” Elaiadoros said carefully.
“Do you count much differently?” Atissa asked.
“Hm?” Mark had to consider the question for a second. “I guess, we mostly do it in our heads.”
When Atissa just looked at him with incomprehension, he stepped closer to one of the racks and pointed at one of the shelves. “Look at the clay tablets here. There are two, four, six….”, he murmured, counting, ”nine tables in the first row and there are three rows. That’s twenty-seven tablets. Also, the last one is shorter by three. So, twenty-four.” He turned back to the others. “Like this?” He held up four fingers with his right hand and placed the left thumb at the tip of his ring finger.
Atissa frowned but Elaiadoros nodded, clearly impressed.
“Of course, most people just use a calculator,” Mark murmured, sighing. How often had he had that argument over homework when Anne was young?
“What is a calculator, master?” Elaiadoros asked.
Mark cursed himself. He had spoken without thinking again. But maybe there is an opportunity here, he thought.
“Have you ever heard of an abacus, Elaiadoros?” he asked.
“No, master!”
It took Mark a while to explain the concept. In the present time in his world, an abacus was mostly just used to teach small children. He still remembered pictures of different historical models he had seen while attending university. Maybe this was a first step towards buying himself a more permanent position in this place.
“If you could send me somebody who can do detailed work with wood, I could have a sample constructed,” Mark said. “I am sure once people see an example, the overall principle and the value will be self-evident.”
“Yes,” Elaiadoros said, nodding enthusiastically. “I will ask that somebody is sent to you. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us!”
The first one is for free, for the second there will be a fee, Mark thought.
He decided to compile a list of things he could introduce to these people. The lack of modern materials would put limits on what could be done. Introducing electricity would have to wait, for example. But things like construction methods, mathematics, and maybe paper and printing were possible.
They continued the tour of the archive including the restricted library of historical and magical documents. To his surprise, Mark learned that the anax had granted full access to the sages. He surprised the scribes in turn when he displayed no interest in studying those documents but asked to be taught the local number system and written language instead. The men promised to send somebody to instruct him the next day.
“Was it boring for you?” Mark asked when he and Atissa walked back down to their residence in the lower palace. She had been mostly quiet during their tour, following behind Mark and their guides.
“No, it was very interesting,” she said. “I would never have imagined that such a place existed. It seems all so big and complicated.”
“I understand.” Mark nodded. In truth, for somebody used to the society of the twenty-first century, Riadnos’s administration looked rather improvised. He assumed that, historically, mankind’s sophistication rose with the challenges. From the invention of numbers and language to complex accounting methods and Excel.
“I guess”, Atissa said,” I’m worried about uncle Tatros and the others. I think I should have gone with our people.”
There was something in her eyes that Mark did not like. “Do you believe you are not doing enough?”
Atissa nodded. “I am not doing anything right now.”
Mark studied the young girl walking next to him. He could not quite say why he cared but he did not want her to go off and run into danger. Did she remind him of Anne? The two had very little in common, yet for some reason this time he didn’t feel the impulse to squash the memory as soon as it surfaced.
“I once heard a wise man say that the most direct way to human greatness is the acquisition of skills,” he said. “In other words, while you cannot help Tatros and the others right this moment, you can spend the time improving yourself. If you do that, you will be more capable later.”
She looked up to him. “Like learning grappling?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “You are a very quick learner. I’m thinking of teaching you leglocks next.” Usually, those were not part of the basics but Atissa needed weapons against opponents that could easily be twice her weight or more. “Even if you take somebody’s back, strangling him unconscious can be difficult if he is much stronger. In contrast, it takes only very little force to tear up a knee and most people won’t see it coming. We instinctively defend our throat but if you grab somebody’s leg, he probably won’t sense any danger until it is too late. I will show you later.”
“What about weapons?” Atissa asked, her interest sparked. “Shouldn’t I learn to use more than just the bow?”
Mark considered that. “We will ask for advice on that. I don’t have weapons skills myself.” He paused for a second. “You must learn numbers, mathematics, and writing, too.”
Atissa’s eyes widened. “Why?”
Because nothing kills a child’s motivation as surely as school, he thought. “If you want to be an effective scout, you need to be able to accurately calculate enemy numbers. You need to be able to write things down so you can remember them or pass them along.” It somehow troubled him that she did not have these basic skills. “We have a lot of work ahead of us!”
Atissa looked overwhelmed. “Maybe it would be enough if I just learned to count a little bit better?” she asked carefully.
“No,” Mark said, smiling. He would have to study the local script and number system and put together an education plan for Atissa. When he had a sufficient grasp of the language, he would be able to search for clues on how he had come into this world in the library. He was not willing to risk sharing the truth with the locals, yet.
He also needed to compile a list of innovations he could feed his hosts to secure his position and lifestyle.
There is so much to do, he thought with a feeling of contentment. His current circumstances were far from ideal but he was finally out of the dirty nature and there were lots of projects to occupy his mind.
Atissa seemed to be far less enthusiastic about their prospect but Mark didn’t mind. He had fought this fight several times before. Anne had not wanted to enroll in accounting, either.
The memory of Anne’s shortened time in college changed his mood immediately. With years of practice, Mark pushed the memory aside and started to compile lists in his head.
With a potential war coming I should think about innovations with military application, he thought.
Mark
Walking up the narrow street to the upper palace, Mark went through his list of priorities. The first one was simple. Stay alive.
Since this was a pretty binary goal, he had to consider himself successful thus far. But then again it had been tight a couple of times. Way too tight.
Each time he had tried to choose a safe route, he ended up in a life-or-death situation.
When they had found the Assanaten war party, he had convinced Atissa not to run into a village that was about to be invaded only to end up in a life-and-death grappling match followed by a stare-down with a human flamethrower. Had he known what these magi could do, he would never have volunteered to face one.
The messenger mission was supposed to be his ticket out of a warzone. Instead, it had turned into a death race ending in a sea battle.
“The priests responsible for the archive have been informed about your interest,” the scribe leading them said. “We are ready to answer whatever questions you might have.”
“I am grateful,” Mark answered politely.
I need to make better choices, Mark thought. To accomplish this, he had to develop a better understanding of the world around him.
With his arrival in Riadnos, Mark had started to get an idea why the Assanaten magi at the hut had backed down. The decorated staff in his right hand seemed to mark him out as a special type of magi. Not just a normal magi, that can’t actually do magic, he thought grimacing.
It was a conundrum. On the one hand, his false identity kept him fed and alive. On the other hand, he might be exposed as a fraud at any moment. Judging by what he had seen of this world up until now, this was unlikely to end painless for him.
“Mistress Bel’Sara is also making use of the archive. I’m told that this is a first, even though she’s visited Riadnos many times before.” The scribe looked at Mark, trying to mask his curiosity as polite conversation. Mark just stared back with an expressionless face and the man looked away quickly. “This way please!”
They crossed under another archway built from big blocks of limestone. The depiction of some kind of winged animal was chiseled above the lintel.
Mark couldn’t help himself but be impressed by the ability of these Helcenaean people to construct walls and buildings of this size without modern technology. He had no way of estimating how many men and days had been spent raising the walls that surrounded the upper and lower palace complex.
While he deliberately hid his fascination behind the mask of the professional magi, Atissa's amazement was obvious. The young girl stared open-mouthed at the buildings and people they passed by.
“If you have questions, I am sure Elaiadoros here is willing to answer them,” Mark said.
“Really?” Atissa asked.
“Of course!” Elaiadoros said.
“Those huge stones of the wall, how did they get them up the hill? And how did they place them on top of each other?”
“Ah, that is the first question many people ask when they visit Riadnos for the first time.” Elaiadoros smiled proudly. It followed a lengthy lecture on the city’s history and construction. Mark left it to Atissa to keep Elaiadoros going with a question here or there. The man didn’t need much encouragement.
Learning about the city and the semi-civilized parts of this world, in general, wouldn’t only help him to stay alive, but it would also help with priority number two and three – staying healthy and staying comfortable.
In a world without antibiotics, getting a splinter or taking a sip of the wrong water could mean sickness and death. He had done what he could, using the awe he inspired to make the servants comply with his demands.
Maybe he should acquire some local pharmacological knowledge. Educated people might be eager for a chance to talk to a sage if Elaiadoros was any indication.
They left the street and climbed a short staircase leading to an open space wider than a basketball court. Beyond it towered the actual palace. According to Elaiadoros it served both administrative and religious purposes. The difference between scribes and priests seemed to be somewhat fluid, while together they constituted something like a civil servant class.
There was no entrance or wall, just rows of columns holding up a high ceiling. It reminded Mark of the lobby of some fancy corporate building. Instead of a reception desk, they walked past a long solid stone table richly decorated with gold and fabrics.
“The main altar,” Elaiadoros said, pointing to the stone. “Here, the priests perform the sacrifices to Rehala and Seidos, the city’s patron deities.”
“Very impressive,” Mark said, making Elaiadoros beam. It actually was. As an engineer by training, he appreciated the wonders of human ingenuity.
Maybe that gives me an in with the leadership, he thought. It was something he intended to investigate. Depending on this world’s advancement he might be able to secure himself a permanent position.
He needed to find a way to maintain his current standard of living. In the absence of technology, human beings in the form of servants and cooks seemed to be a necessity for an acceptable level of comfort. Mark would have to figure out what the local leadership needed and then feed it to them little by little, keeping himself indispensable. Like any good business consultant would.
Elaiadoros led them through one of several site doors. “Here begins our archives.” Through the doors, they could see desks and rows of shelves. Men and women in the outfit of scribes or priests moved busily from room to room, carrying clay tables and other items.
“Do you store documents on history or magic here?” Mark asked.
“Oh no,” the scribe said. “They are stored deeper in the palace. All this serves the administration of Riadnos and the surrounding land. They say not one grain goes through the city that is not accounted for.” Gesturing down the long corridor with visible pride.
“Is he counting over there?” Atissa asked.
Following the gaze, Mark noticed one man holding up his left hand with the thumb pressed to the middle bone of his ring finger. A second man in the garb of the scribes looked at his hand and subsequently wrote with a stick on a slab of clay held in his hand.
“Yes,” Elaiadoros asked. “Do you know how to count? I understood you lived as a hunter in the mountain wilderness.” He gave Mark a nervous glance, probably ensuring that he wasn’t causing offense.
Mark kept his face passive, observing the communication of numbers between the two men.
“My uncle taught me,” Atissa said. “He learned in the army.”
Elaiadoros nodded. “Do you know numbers, too?”
She shook her head.
“I see. Still, you can be proud. Many people can’t count higher than ten.” He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers.
Mark frowned. He remembered Atissa trying to count the warriors back in the woods with her hands. “How does it work?”
Both Atissa and Elaiadoros looked up at him in surprise.
I need to be careful displaying ignorance, Mark chided himself.
“I think”, he quickly said, ”where I’m from, we might use a slightly different method. I would love to learn how it is done here.”
“I can show you!” Atissa smiled enthusiastically. She held up her right hand and made a fist. “If I wanted to count the racks in this room, I would lift a finger for each until all are spread.” She turned around, her eyes wandering from rack to rack. “Then I put my left thumb here.” She pressed the tip of her thumb against the distal bone of her left pinky finger. “Now I can start over.” She closed her right hand again and started the process over. In the end, she held up three fingers on her right hand while the left thumb pointed at the pinkie’s middle bone.
“That is correct,” Elaiadoros said, nodding eagerly.
“Thirteen,” Mark said, interpreting her hand signs. “Very interesting. Thank you.”
Atissa beamed. “I don’t do it a lot, so I am not very fast.”
“I imagine there’s not that much opportunity in the mountains,” Elaiadoros said carefully.
“Do you count much differently?” Atissa asked.
“Hm?” Mark had to consider the question for a second. “I guess, we mostly do it in our heads.”
When Atissa just looked at him with incomprehension, he stepped closer to one of the racks and pointed at one of the shelves. “Look at the clay tablets here. There are two, four, six….”, he murmured, counting, ”nine tables in the first row and there are three rows. That’s twenty-seven tablets. Also, the last one is shorter by three. So, twenty-four.” He turned back to the others. “Like this?” He held up four fingers with his right hand and placed the left thumb at the tip of his ring finger.
Atissa frowned but Elaiadoros nodded, clearly impressed.
“Of course, most people just use a calculator,” Mark murmured, sighing. How often had he had that argument over homework when Anne was young?
“What is a calculator, master?” Elaiadoros asked.
Mark cursed himself. He had spoken without thinking again. But maybe there is an opportunity here, he thought.
“Have you ever heard of an abacus, Elaiadoros?” he asked.
“No, master!”
It took Mark a while to explain the concept. In the present time in his world, an abacus was mostly just used to teach small children. He still remembered pictures of different historical models he had seen while attending university. Maybe this was a first step towards buying himself a more permanent position in this place.
“If you could send me somebody who can do detailed work with wood, I could have a sample constructed,” Mark said. “I am sure once people see an example, the overall principle and the value will be self-evident.”
“Yes,” Elaiadoros said, nodding enthusiastically. “I will ask that somebody is sent to you. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us!”
The first one is for free, for the second there will be a fee, Mark thought.
He decided to compile a list of things he could introduce to these people. The lack of modern materials would put limits on what could be done. Introducing electricity would have to wait, for example. But things like construction methods, mathematics, and maybe paper and printing were possible.
They continued the tour of the archive including the restricted library of historical and magical documents. To his surprise, Mark learned that the anax had granted full access to the sages. He surprised the scribes in turn when he displayed no interest in studying those documents but asked to be taught the local number system and written language instead. The men promised to send somebody to instruct him the next day.
“Was it boring for you?” Mark asked when he and Atissa walked back down to their residence in the lower palace. She had been mostly quiet during their tour, following behind Mark and their guides.
“No, it was very interesting,” she said. “I would never have imagined that such a place existed. It seems all so big and complicated.”
“I understand.” Mark nodded. In truth, for somebody used to the society of the twenty-first century, Riadnos’s administration looked rather improvised. He assumed that, historically, mankind’s sophistication rose with the challenges. From the invention of numbers and language to complex accounting methods and Excel.
“I guess”, Atissa said,” I’m worried about uncle Tatros and the others. I think I should have gone with our people.”
There was something in her eyes that Mark did not like. “Do you believe you are not doing enough?”
Atissa nodded. “I am not doing anything right now.”
Mark studied the young girl walking next to him. He could not quite say why he cared but he did not want her to go off and run into danger. Did she remind him of Anne? The two had very little in common, yet for some reason this time he didn’t feel the impulse to squash the memory as soon as it surfaced.
“I once heard a wise man say that the most direct way to human greatness is the acquisition of skills,” he said. “In other words, while you cannot help Tatros and the others right this moment, you can spend the time improving yourself. If you do that, you will be more capable later.”
She looked up to him. “Like learning grappling?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “You are a very quick learner. I’m thinking of teaching you leglocks next.” Usually, those were not part of the basics but Atissa needed weapons against opponents that could easily be twice her weight or more. “Even if you take somebody’s back, strangling him unconscious can be difficult if he is much stronger. In contrast, it takes only very little force to tear up a knee and most people won’t see it coming. We instinctively defend our throat but if you grab somebody’s leg, he probably won’t sense any danger until it is too late. I will show you later.”
“What about weapons?” Atissa asked, her interest sparked. “Shouldn’t I learn to use more than just the bow?”
Mark considered that. “We will ask for advice on that. I don’t have weapons skills myself.” He paused for a second. “You must learn numbers, mathematics, and writing, too.”
Atissa’s eyes widened. “Why?”
Because nothing kills a child’s motivation as surely as school, he thought. “If you want to be an effective scout, you need to be able to accurately calculate enemy numbers. You need to be able to write things down so you can remember them or pass them along.” It somehow troubled him that she did not have these basic skills. “We have a lot of work ahead of us!”
Atissa looked overwhelmed. “Maybe it would be enough if I just learned to count a little bit better?” she asked carefully.
“No,” Mark said, smiling. He would have to study the local script and number system and put together an education plan for Atissa. When he had a sufficient grasp of the language, he would be able to search for clues on how he had come into this world in the library. He was not willing to risk sharing the truth with the locals, yet.
He also needed to compile a list of innovations he could feed his hosts to secure his position and lifestyle.
There is so much to do, he thought with a feeling of contentment. His current circumstances were far from ideal but he was finally out of the dirty nature and there were lots of projects to occupy his mind.
Atissa seemed to be far less enthusiastic about their prospect but Mark didn’t mind. He had fought this fight several times before. Anne had not wanted to enroll in accounting, either.
The memory of Anne’s shortened time in college changed his mood immediately. With years of practice, Mark pushed the memory aside and started to compile lists in his head.
With a potential war coming I should think about innovations with military application, he thought.
