D. T. Kane reads chapter 27 of his epic fantasy fiction novel, The Acktus Trials, and discusses the chapter with his audience.
If you’re enjoying the Acktus Trials, or have already read it, please consider taking a minute to leave a review. Reviews help authors by increasing the visibility of their books, which helps get them into the hands of more readers. Thank you for your support!
Follow this link to leave a review: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B09QZ8MQ38
The Acktus Trials, an epic fantasy novel, available now:
https://dtkane.com/books/the-acktus-trials/
https://books2read.com/theacktustrials
Parts II and III of The Spoken Books Uprising also now available!
Part II, Declaimer’s Discovery: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09R18NZ5G/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Other Retailers- https://books2read.com/declaimersdiscovery
Part III, Declaimer’s Flight: (out June 17, 2022)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XKGDYFM/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
Other Retailers- https://books2read.com/declaimersflight
Map of Oration: https://dtkane.com/resources/map-of-oration/
Characters in this Chapter:
Baztian (Baz): Our main character
Rox: Deliritous’s Harbour (bodyguard)
Ehma: Leader of Citiless Patrol
Madame Scrivener Tessa: Leader of all the Citiless
Below is my script/notes for the episode, not a verbatim transcription:
PERSONAL UPDATE
Welcome back to D. T. Kane’s Epic Fantasy Book Club. Today is June 12, 2022 as I record this, Episode 22.
It’s great to be back with all of you! I know you’ve had a new episode each week, but it’s been about three weeks since I last sat down to record, since I was away in Europe. I had a blast and could talk to you about it for the remainder of the episode. But I know this isn’t a travel podcast, so I’ll limit myself to two highlights from each of the three countries I went to. So if you’re planning a vacation and want to hit Ireland, Paris, and Brussels, here’s what I’d recommend:
- Guinness Storehouse Tour and Gravity Bar in Dublin
- Gap of Dunloe, Kilarney National Park
- Visit the Eiffel tower, Paris
- Get a bottle of wine and a sweet treat at an outdoor café. I enjoyed both Le Nemours and Café Blanc, which are both near the Louvre. If you’re just looking for pastries, also try Tartine Bakery, a couple blocks from the Louvre, or Café Liberte, which is in the Latin Quarter.
- Atomium, Brussels. The Eiffel Tower of Belgium.
- Belgian Liege Waffle with chocolate from Le Funambule next to Manneken Pis
On the writing front, I’ve had a very busy week back from vacation getting Declaimer’s Flight ready for publication. It comes out next Friday, June 17. You can still get your pre-order if you want to be sure you’re one of the first people to read it!
ANAYLIS CH. 27
Under Tome
So Ehma takes Baz and Rox through the hidden door she revealed down a long corridor that descends downward. She mentions they’re going to Under Tome. What the heck is that? Well, we find out soon enough, and we have our answer for where all the Citiless are living.
There’s a whole little city beneath the Great Library! “Reports of Tome being an abandoned shell were apparently grossly mistaken.”
Our heroes enter into the middle of a three-tiered chamber. They’re on a stone balcony overlooking a lower level full of rows of long tables, and at some of them there are people sitting writing, bent over parchment with jars of glowing elemental ink. And up above there appear to be living quarters and another balcony that encircles much of the space where it appears groups of young children are being taught how to write.
So this is pretty shocking based on what we know of the rest of society in Oration. There appears to be a whole society down here that doesn’t abide by the typical separation of powers, the division between Readers and Speakers. Now it really seems that that Citiless who was caught back in the beginning wasn’t an aberration–they’re all taught to read and write in Under Tome, the hidden city beneath the Great Library.
Perhaps the space’s defining feature, though, is this peninsula type walkway that extends past a barrier at the end of the lower level of the chamber into darkness. It leads out into a dark pit where light seems to die. And the pit is lined with countless bookshelves. Here’s Baz’s description:
Bookshelves. Endless numbers of bookshelves, each full to overflowing. They reached perhaps twenty feet up the wall, which by itself was impressive. But they also seemed to stretch down into the dark bowels of the tower. Down and down until the darkness swallowed them up. A semicircular room of Books with no floor, a ceaseless pit of knowledge. However, Baz could see no obvious way to reach any of the volumes, as the peninsula clearly ended well before it reached the shelves.
Madame Scrivener Tessa
So next Baz is introduced to the true leader of Under Tome, a woman called Madame Scrivener Tessa, who turns out to be Ehma’s mother. We can see where Ehma got some of her stern characteristics, as her mother is obviously a hard woman. She’s quite upset that Ehma would bring outsiders into Under Tome. When Ehma says it’s because they have Book Dragon blood her mother says she ought to have just killed Baz and Rox immediately, obviously making the same assumption about Baz as Ehma did.
But in his characteristic way, Baz butts in, explaining he isn’t a Reader, which prompts Tessa to order him down to the “Sanctum” floor where she is overseeing the Scriveners who are writing at the tables. What is it they’re working on? We’ll see soon.
The first thing Baz discusses with Tessa is how they’ve kept Under Tome secret for so long. Apparently they’ve been playing the Readers for a long time: they purposefully plant a few Spoken Books above ground each year, so the Trials participants have something to find and no reason to go snooping around the ruins. And as Tessa says, “men believe what they wish to believe, and none in the Triumvirate wish to think we exist.” An interesting idea here, and likely a true one. Confirmation bias is a real thing, where we tend to pay closer attention to evidence that supports our beliefs than evidence that contradicts them, and Tessa is obviously playing into that with the Readers. No one wants to think there’s a whole city of Cusses living beneath Tome, and she gives them no reason to investigate.
Of course, when Baz presses that there must occasionally be a curious competitor, Tessa acknowledges that does happen. But anyone who gets too curious have a strange habit of suffering unfortunate accidents before they can leave Tome. So it seems that at least some of the deaths during the Acktus Trials are attributable to this hidden underground society ensuring its secret is kept safe.
Let You go? Oh, no.
So then we get into the meat of Baz and Tessa’s discussion. She orders Baz to tell his story. Baz asks if she’ll let him go if she likes it, but Tessa says he isn’t going anywhere–he’s seen too much. Hmmm, that’s a problem for Baz, right? He needs to find a Book and get it back to Deliritous so he can get back to Erstwhile and his brother.
But Baz sees no alternative but to tell Tessa his story, which he does, only leaving out that he can Read. We know Baz isn’t a very trusting person, and he’s certainly not going to put his complete trust in this stranger who apparently intends to keep him confined to Under Tome.
Of all the things Baz tells her, the one thing Tessa keys on is, why are you helping a Reader? Obviously this society beneath Tome does not view them as the rightful leaders of society. Tessa shows obvious disdain for the Readers–fight back against those who oppress you! Baz says she sounds like Tax.
You really teach everyone who lives here to Read?
Tessa becomes sad, though, when Baz asks if they really teach everyone in Under Tome to Read. Tessa’s sadness at the question drives home how messed up Oration’s society is, right? How truly evil it is to deny the ability to read to others. As she says, teaching others to read shouldn’t be a “great thing,” it ought to be like that everywhere.
And why do the Readers prevent others from learning to Read? Baz, of course, thinks it’s to prevent others from casting spells against them, but that’s not Tessa’s opinion. Most common men wouldn’t have access to Spoken Books even if they could Read them. No, denying the ability to read creates ignorance, which creates an ignorant proletariat, says Tessa. It’s a vehicle of oppression.
“An ignorant proletariat is a submissive one.”
The Big Lie
So now that Baz has told his story, he asks Tessa whether she intends to kill him and Rox. Not if they stay and help them. Help with what?
The Scribes’ great work. They’re finishing the Books of Power the Scribes began during the Burning. Now, pause here a moment. Recall back at the beginning of Part 2, the Conservator told us that the Scribes had been working on Books that only a select few would be able to Read, so that only those who truly deserved the ability to call power from Spoken Books could wield it.
But that’s not what the Scribes were doing according to Tessa. No, they were making translations. Of what? Baz asks. Translations of the languages of the Trinity into the Common Tongue, so everyone could learn to draw power from Books. They were doing the exact opposite of what society has taught.
But what’s the point of that if only certain people are born Bound to the Books, able to call forth their power. And here Tessa drops the first big bomb. *EXPLOSION* Eromer already foreshadowed this for us a few chapters ago, but here’s confirmation: It’s all a big lie–anyone can learn to draw power from the Books. Now, it’s true that some a born naturally gifted, able to draw the power without much training, while most have to study and work at it for a long time. But still, anyone can do it. The very basis of Oration’s society is built on a lie! Apparently one created by Deliritous’s ancestor to consolidate power among a select few of his allies. And now the lie’s been around for so long that even most Readers believe it for truth.
But woah, the implications here! If Baz could reveal this secret, think of the consequences. The anger in the masses. And what about here in Under Tome. If everyone can Read, does that mean they have a force capable of challenging the Triumvirate cities for control of Oration? Imagine a whole society that isn’t dependent on Reading spells to other people before they cast them engaging in battle with Readers who must work in pairs with their Speakers.
The Dark Ones
But really, dems small potatoes when it comes to the next bomb Tessa drops. BOOM! Tessa seems to believe they don’t have many Books in Under Tome, and Baz wants to know why when there’s this seemingly endless wall of bookshelves descending into the ground right behind them. Well, those Books are all lost to them, Tessa says. Lost, because the Dark Ones are imprisoned in that dark pit.
It was the Dark Ones, these mythical demons to this point we’ve only seen people mutter about, who caused the Burning. The Scribes drew so much power trying to create their translations of the Trinity, they apparently weakened the barrier between this world and the Elsewhere, sort of this world’s version of hell, and permitted the Dark Ones to attack. And so now we finally see what Pront vi Lextor was up to in the prologue. He was descending the tower at the Great Library to go imprison the Dark Ones, who he’d inadvertently released on the world by attempting to create Books that would permit anyone to learn to Read and draw the power of the Spoken Books.
Baz, of course, is incredulous, but he doesn’t have much time to question Tessa. Ehma shouts for her mother from back up on the balcony where we left her at the beginning of the chapter. Tessa is annoyed by the interruption, but soon we see it’s more than just a daughter bothering her mother. There’s a razor to Ehma’s throat, and Marla is there. She’s found Under Tome, too!
Quick side note: Did you catch how Book Dragons were essentially librarians before the Burning? Tessa mentions that they spent their days retrieving volumes from the vast pit of Books. Makes sense–remember how Eromer was rescuing Books in the prologue? Also, Tessa notes how people back before the Burning used to read for pleasure. Baz is dumbstruck by that–it’s not something he’s even contemplated. Another sad thing about this society. Can you imagine being prohibited from Reading for the pure joy of it?
CONCLUSION
Homework: Next week we’ll read Chapter 28, the climax of the novel. How will Baz overcome Marla’s unexpected appearance at Under Tome?
Quote:
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Until next time, this has been D. T. Kane’s Epic Fantasy Book Club.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download