Subject: (urth) Hethor's mirrors: further reflection

From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 08:01:30 +0000

Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:

> It seems nearly obvious that Hethor's "mirror" is specula-sailcloth
> stolen from the Ship.
>
And mantis:

> As for a bit of sailcloth, hmm.  That's interesting!  I was just thinking
> that maybe it was the pocketbook edition of THE BOOK OF MIRRORS . . .
>
I like both these ideas, but the trouble is Father Inire says in his
letter that Agia remains a plausible commander "as long as the mirrors
of the caller Hethor remain unbroken" (Citadel, XXXV). "Unbroken" does
rather suggest that these are the old-fashioned, rigid,
seven-years-bad-luck mirrors that we know today rather than fabric.
Inire -could- have meant "unbroken" in the sense of "still working", but
it seems unlikely.

Since apports appear out of the space -between- mirrors, rather than out
of the mirrors themselves, I suppose they don't actually have to be that
large.

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Mitchell A. Bailey <mab at lindau.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 22:41:37 +0000

> > It seems nearly obvious that Hethor's "mirror" is specula-sailcloth
...
> ...the trouble is Father Inire says ...that Agia remains a plausible commander "as 
> long as the mirrors of the caller Hethor remain unbroken" (Citadel, XXXV). "Unbroken" > does rather suggest that these are the old-fashioned, rigid,

I have to agree with that; rigid breakable glasslike mirrors do seem to
be implied...

> Inire -could- have meant "unbroken" in the sense of "still working", but

...and knowing Inire, I don't think I can even argue convincingly that
he simply made an assumption in ignorance; Inire probably not only knew
exactly of what type and size Hether's mirrors were and how he
transported them, Inire probably observed him doing so first-hand. I
suppose you could speculate Inire wanted to plant a red herring against
espionage in his correspondence, but that hypothesis is admittedly
rather weak...

> of the mirrors themselves, I suppose they don't actually have to be that

I got the impression that the kind of teleportation or apporting done by
Inire's booth did involve mirrors which were at least as large as the
dimensions of the subject parallel to the plane of the mirror, and of
course the Ship's sails are vast as continents, but I seem to have
misplaced my Specula Technical Applications Manual and can't confirm
that...

A thought did occur to me, though. Remember that Hethor was caught on
the House Absolute grounds and thrown into the Antechamber. Clearly he
had his specula because he managed to summon his corrosive slug while
incarcerated. You might argue that the slug was already present and
merely followed Hethor in, but I doubt that would have been unnoticed by
the guards and servants. Odilo for one would have been positively
apoplectic over the slime on the carpets.

Now, Sev and Jonas upon their arrest had been searched and relieved of
possible weapons and valuables, but not too meticulously (or the Claw
would have been found, too). Rigid mirrors, even hand mirrors, would
have been rather hard to conceal well unless they were smaller than
coins. A flexible mirror which could be folded or wadded into a very
tight little ball could have been secreted into a fold of clothing, a
shoe,  or -ahem- other concealing places which the Praetorians would not
have bothered to search.