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We have conflicting data on the length of the Interregnum:
For those with an interest in Dragaeran "history," or rather, continuity, he [=Paarfi] can be placed at roughly the same period as the books of the Vlad Taltos series, or about a thousand years after the events he is supposed to be writing about. [TPG 487]
This dating should be the most reliable of all, for it comes in Brust's own voice: Brust the author in the first "About the Author" afterword to The Phoenix Guards, speaking of his creation Paarfi of Roundwood. That puts the Vlad books -- or, to be precise, Paarfi -- at about 468 years after Adron's Disaster, which occurred in "The 532nd Year of the Reign of Tortaalik the First" [FHYA, p.IX (first page of Paarfi's title)].We know the Interregnum began Five Hundred Years After the events of The Phoenix Guards, and the Vlad novels are set "about a thousand years" after The Phoenix Guards, so Vlad's career is about 500 years after the start of the Interregnum. This is consistent with 240+ years of Interregnum followed by about 240 years from the end of the Interregnum to the time of Vlad's career. The 497-year period that Verra mentions so explicitly seems to be actually the time from the start of the Interregnum to Vlad's time.
It looks as if Brust the author slipped. Of course, time flows differently in the Paths of the Dead, where Morrolan meets Baritt before Baritt has died in Dragaera [], so maybe there's a loophole for Verra there. And, of course, it would have been impolitic even for Vlad to correct a goddess's arithmetic when the number was not germane to the business at hand.
The gold-colored chain that Vlad acquires in Taltos and names Spellbreaker changes in length through the books, with no indication that Vlad is aware of these changes until Dragon: 18 inches [Phx 7], two feet [Jrg 23,Yen 8], and three feet [Phx 62]. The passage where Vlad acquires Spellbreaker [Tlt 56-65] says "each link [is] about half an inch long" [Tlt 63], but nothing specific about its length. Vlad's "dialogue" with it after he's rescued from torture might have been useful -- we learn that Spellbreaker is "thin" [Tek 83] -- but everything that happens there is unhelpfully consistent with any of the values.
[2003-05-18] In Dragon, however, Vlad is aware of Spellbreaker's changes. Here he is talking with the Serioli that Morrolan takes him to visit; Vlad speaks first. [Drg 111]:
"But were you speaking of Spellbreaker?"
"Is that what you call it?" He made his laughing sound again.
"What would you call it?"
"Spellbreaker," he said, "is as good a name as any, for now."
"You're saying I'm holding a Great Weapon?"
"No, you are not. Not yet."
"Not yet," I repeated. I let Spellbreaker, which I kept coiled around my left wrist, fall into my hand. I studied it. It seemed shorter than it had the last time I looked at it, and the links appeared to be smaller. "Not yet?"
"Someday, there will be a weapon--" He stopped and his lips worked. Then he resumed, "Someday, there will be a weapon called 'Remover of aspects of deity.'"
At one point, considering only the descriptions in Phoenix (18" vs. 3'), I thought the Dragaeran foot might be only six inches long; but that's unlikely, and wouldn't jibe well with other uses of those units. The descriptions as "two feet" effectively rule out that interpretation.
I can't imagine Vlad's not noticing these changes unless he was in some way prevented from doing so. I'd expect others to notice, but only if they were with him when he was using it, and in a position to notice, on more than one occasion; for example, Morrolan was pretty busy when Vlad acquired Spellbreaker (or vice versa ;-) ) in Taltos. Maybe Vlad was aware of its mutability all the time and never saw fit to mention it, or maybe it or some other agency was suppressing his usual acuity of observation or his memory of what he had noticed. See "Clouds of Witness" for discussion of Vlad's memory.
Before Dragon appeared, I wrote in this section, approximately:
Either Brust the author goofed, or Vlad has been lying to us, or Spellbreaker changes length between pages 7 and 62 of Phoenix and Vlad hasn't mentioned the fact. If it habitually changed size, either on its own or on command, Vlad would almost certainly have mentioned the fact... unless he's not aware of the changes.
Vlad doesn't know at this point what Spellbreaker really is, nor do we. (Later we learn that it's actually made of gold Phoenix stone, a substance that blocks sorcery. [Phx 209]) After he acquires it, Sethra suggests that he name it but declines to tell him about it. [Tlt 68] Later she says she doesn't know all about it, though she hints that it's more than he thinks it is. [Phx 209-210] During the "dialogue" it behaves as if it has some kind of sentience [Tek 83].
Much later in his life [ADOP], he holds up "the gold chain I had misnamed Spellbreaker" to "give it a good look" at a window in Morrolan's tower which is functioning as "a Gate to some other place"; later, when that place begins to fall apart, he asks Spellbreaker to take him home and it transports him back to the tower room. Obviously it's more than a spell-breaking chain made of gold Phoenix stone. (Or the whole episode could be just a dream of passion.) [And Steve has since confirmed that we shouldn't try to fit ADOP into a consistent pattern with the rest of the canon.]
Could Spellbreaker be changing length for some reason (e.g., to whatever size is most useful to Vlad at the moment) but keeping him from noticing? I don't know.
All of that speculation may now be irrelevant. On the other hand, maybe Steve really did goof, and wasn't aware of it till he read it here; I haven't asked him. (And he might just snicker.) Anyway, I'm leaving it in for the use of anyone who may be interested... which, after all, is really what "Cracks and Shards" is all about.
The Dragaeran day is thirty hours long. But in his first collection job, Vlad tells the debtor, "You have twenty-four hours" [Tlt 87]. This doesn't mean 4/5 of a Dragaeran day: reporting to Nielar afterwards, Kragar says, "We gave him a day" [Tlt 88].
Similarly, when leaving Castle Black with Cawti, Vlad assures her, "This party runs twenty-four hours a day, five days a week." [Yen 145]
In both these passages Vlad is evidently using "twenty-four hours" just as we usually do: not as a period of time counted off hour by hour, but as an idiom for the length of a full day-night cycle. Its usage in the first passage could be rephrased as "till this time tomorrow", and in the second as "around the clock".
This idiom can't be easily reconciled with the thirty-hour Dragaeran day. I can see three reasonable explanations:
More correctly, what is the relation between a week and a month? It's pretty clear that a week has 5 days and a month has 17. But at one point Vlad says, "About a month and a half ago -- eight weeks, I think it was" [Yen 34]. Now, 8 times 5 is 40, which is more than two Dragaeran months (2 x 17 = 34)! Terran (Gregorian) months, maybe?: 40 days is about 1 1/3 months in our calendar, close enough for someone thinking back to approximate as "about a month and a half". Either Vlad or Brust (one of him) must have slipped.
In a related problem, we are told many times that there are five days in a week, yet we have six names for them. See the discussion of the calendar.
[2003-05-06] There are inconsistencies in the dating system. I tried to work it out but gave up. Fortunately for Brustomaniacs, Alexx S. Kay has done it. See his site for analysis.
Spying magically on Shortisle's records room before entering it, Kiera observes: "If the ceiling was as high as the ceiling of this room, then the filing cabinets were about eight meters tall..." [Orc 164]. That's about 25 feet. Even Dragaerans would need ladders to get into most of the drawers. Eight feet, on the other hand, would be a reasonable height for filing cabinets for Dragaerans. There's no suggestion of ladders when Kiera finally enters the room and snoops through all the cabinets.
Or so I thought. But as John Moreno has pointed out to me, to Dragaerans of Vlad's time [at least, most members of the noble houses], levitation is a trivial matter! So eight-meter file cabinets need not be a problem after all.
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 09:25:23 -0700
From: Steven Brust
[...] You are also right about "8 meters" being "8 feet." I had forgotten, when I first wrote it, that I wanted Kiera thinking in meters to represent a different one of the too many measurement systems in use in the Empire, and then I somehow forgot to convert it, but just changed the word. Ooops.
Bengloarafurd had "a population of eleven thousands, more than twice its elevation measured in meters" [TPG 250]. Round that down and say 5,000 meters, or 5 kilometers, or slightly over 3 miles. Castle Redface is even higher [TPG 277]. Sea-level athletes notice a real difference in Denver, "the mile-high city". Yet our heroes don't seem to notice any shortness of breath in either Bengloarafurd or Castle Redface. (Pointed out by Ben-San Arizona.)
Well, they are heroes, and in excellent physical condition, and they've come up gradually and had time to become acclimated to the change; and if Dragaera City is at a significant elevation, there's less change than if they were coming from Adrilankha, at sea level. Besides, maybe Dragaerans are less sensitive to the difference than Easterners are.
For that matter, how big is the planet that Dragaera is on? We can suppose that its surface gravity is about the same as Earth's, but (leaving aside any magical effects) if it is less dense -- and our own planet appears to be the densest in our solar system -- then the gravity gradient would be shallower, and air pressure would fall off more slowly with increasing elevation, with a correspondingly slighter physiological effect.
[This question leads me to wonder about the permanent unbroken overcast that covers the entire Empire, as well as at least Greenaere Island, though it is thinner at the edges, over the islands and near the Eastern border. This overcast is low enough for Rocza to fly up through it (holding her breath! There's another subject for speculation) and see the true clouds [Ath 14]. Surely she hasn't flown over three miles up! Or is Smallcliff in a highland? Or does the overcast follow the contours of the land, rather than keeping a more-or-less fixed absolute altitude above sea level? A contoured overcast seems meteorologically improbable, but this overcast is magical:
"the result of sorcerors casually using magic for war, pleasure, and
taking out the garbage for something like two hundred thousand
years."
(From Brust's introduction to Dzurlord, "a
Crossroads Adventure by Architects Adventure", p. 1, found by Chad Underkoffler.)]
On the other hand, how much simpler to assume that Brust (author or translator) had the same problem here as with the file cabinets, referring to meters but using the measurement in feet. Then the elevation is just about a mile (5,280 feet), the same as Denver, which alleviates the problem to the point of insignificance.
("Then why'dja go through all that rigmarole, if the answer is so easy?"
"It's more fun this way. Besides, it avoids attributing a mistake to Brust in any of his identities."
"Even if you don't think it's correct?"
"Especially if I don't think it's correct!")
"Congratulations, Vlad. [...] You've now not only got the Jhereg after you but also the Empire, and, as soon as they tie you to the documents we stole, the House of the Orca will want you, too-- and me, by the way. That leaves only fourteen more Houses to go and you'll have the set. Then you can start on the Easterners and the Serioli. Good work." [Orc 107, Kiera]
Seventeen Houses, minus the Jhereg leaves sixteen, minus the Orca leaves fifteen. Where'd the other House come from, or go, and which one is it?
I'd say the Phoenix, in the person of Zerika IV, the Phoenix Empress, representing the Empire. Not that the two (or three) are the same... well, in fact at the moment two of them are the same: Zerika is the only living Phoenix.
[2003-05-23] "Kneem" interprets this paragraph differently:
The Teckla have no aristocracy, to be worried about. The House of Teckla has no real organization behind it, that could carry out an agenda, like revenge, etc.
Michelle Pratt offered another hypothesis:
When Kiera is speaking and lists the houses which might be after Vlad, she mentions herself. It is quite possible that this is simply another "clue" to let us in on the fact that Kiera is not who she seems. Since Sethra is Dzur (or Dragon?) then the comment about 14 houses would seem to be accurate.
But in my grammatical opinion, Kiera's "me" is more likely to be parallel to the immediately preceding "you" (i.e., "they'll want you, and they'll want me, too") than to "the House of the Orca". The Doctor thinks that if Kiera had meant what Michelle says she meant, she would have said something like "the House of the Orca will want you, too-- and, by the way, so will I."
Considerably longer ago than I care to think about --
"How long was that, Boss?"
"About five years... Blood of the horse! It was five years to the very day!"
-- Aaron Kashtan wrote to me as follows:
On p. 286 [of The Phoenix Guards], Adron notes that he has killed three horses getting to Redface, one of which Khaavren and company earlier saw on the side of the path they took there. On p. 341, Adron informs Shaltre that he killed two horses getting there. Presumably he was exaggerating the first time, or misspoke.
And while we're on the subject, I also noticed that Khaavren and company only saw one horse out of the promised three. Maybe there only was one horse, and Adron exaggerated both times. To paraphrase Vlad in Yendi, this is a man who blew up Dragaera City and toppled the Empire, so I wouldn't put it past him to beef up his own reputation a little! :)
I can add nothing to this analysis.
At some time "Doc" asked me:
In Jhereg [paperback p.154] when Vlad goes to Morrolan's tower he says there is only one window, but in Dragon [paperback p.98] he says there are more then 6 but less then 17.
Morrolan's tower is simply like that. Or, more precisely, the window(s) in Morrolan's tower is/are like that. The fenestration of that room is the eponymous subject of Chapter 99 of Sethra Lavode, "The Demon Goddess's Gift".
"Your dream was, indeed, a true Seeing, Arra. There is a window in my tower."
"A window? I beg your pardon, my lord, but there are many."
"How, many? I see only one, although, indeed, what it looks upon is most remarkable."
"One? You see only one window? And yet, I clearly perceive several, all around the tower. There are... I cannot count them. They appear to move about. It is strange. Twenty? No, not so many." [p. 309]
For that matter, in Dragon, immediately after Vlad fails to be able to count the windows accurately, Loiosh observes:
"Boss, when we saw the tower from below, were there any windows?"
"No."
"I hadn't thought so."
As Morrolan comments to Arra later in the same conversation in Sethra Lavode (p. 311):
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last modified 2005-04-28