The interstellar democracy is on the cusp of collapsing into a totalitarian dictatorship, and members of the LORDS party are all too eager to place themselves at the head of the new regime which they will bring about by promises of efficiency in government. One man has proof of the plans of those involved, but because of their maneuverings he is in no position to deliver it to the chief executive Louhi Kulvero (called Secretary-General in the early chapters but later Executive Secretary; it appears to be an error in the writing, not intended to indicate a change in the title). He seeks someone willing to accept the mission of carrying the message from the outer extremes of human space to Earth itself, and to find a way to deliver it.
This government, the IDE (Interstellar Dominion Electorate), has stood for about five centuries, but will not stand for another.
Like our first article in this Adapting series, this article looks at a book which came to me bound with another, the first of two parts of To the Magic Born by Christopher Stasheff, but was originally published under its own title, Escape Velocity. It happens that I am adapting the second book in that volume in great detail as I run it for a player, and I anticipate learning much about that book from that run, although it may be a while before it appears in this series. Meanwhile, the first volume is also interesting, and has potential as a game story. Further, although in a very real sense this book is the prequel to that, they are so completely separated from each other that the only characters in both–a several thousand year old computer and a ghost–do not remember their involvements in the critical events of the first that lead to the setting in the second. Reading this discussion will not interfere with playing that world.
The book provides a sort of race and chase plot through several interesting settings; a player character could be introduced at any of several points along the way and could move with the main characters or fall into the developing sidestories of those other worlds. The author uses several mnemonic tools including drug names and twists on names of famous people and turns on words; those the referee spots will be helpful for him, but those which are obscure are not worth learning.
We’ll start with a quick overview of the major characters. They are distinguished as “major” by virtue of the fact that they appear in multiple “acts” of our story; other important characters appear in one part of the story and then vanish. The plot itself will be divided into “Acts”, which will be our way of moving the characters from one point to another.
There is at least a chance of positioning the verser as the main character in the story as written, although the referee is able to do otherwise and still put the verser in the primary story. As a convict on a prison planet placed there by administrative fiat by an angered military superior, Dar Mandra has good reason to want to get away from the planet Wolmar and go see the wonders and comforts of the nearly fully urban Earth (where there are still a few parks, such as the Rockies, but most of it is city and most of the people are bored and trapped in their place in the universe, according to Samantha “Sam” Bine who fled the place). Dar has some basic computer skills, is a low-level professional teacher trained to mid professional level as an army pilot with extensive knowledge of the army’s quartermaster’s office systems–how to get what you need delivered where you want it. Only the piloting skill is put to use, but he is the logical choice for keeping the plot on track. He also has some wilderness stealth skills which are used at one point, but are not particularly prominent.
Dar’s first role is to introduce Sam to Wolmar, so as to shift her understanding from seeing it as a settlement of conscripted colonists (the prisoners) stealing the world from the established native settlers (the Wolman, human descendants of an earlier “back to nature” group) to a place of hope with a growing democracy and unity with a developing unified economy. He works for “Cholly” ostensibly as a trader, but surreptitiously as a teacher bringing the natives an understanding of philosophy, technology, science, economics, politics, and other fields of study. He enlisted in the army and became a space tug pilot, then was assigned to quartermaster corps, where he attempted to correct an intentional mistake and got administratively routed to prison entirely by the manipulation of red tape and alteration of computer records. Described as slim, Dark Egyptian skin color, he was a pilot, then stock clerk, then studied data processing, promoted to corporal, and knows all codes for all army platoons and naval ships. He is given the temporary name “Ardham Rod” (“Dar Mandra” reversed by sound) by Cholly when disguised on Wolmar, and is later dubbed Perry “Pa” Tetic, given the position of commercializing scripts, by Tod when they are masquerading as a film crew in Act V. He is trained in hand-to-hand and disarming techniques, and in wilderness stealth skills.
Samantha Bine, known as Sam, was an experienced clerk in the Bureau of Otherworldly Affairs (BOA) who dropped out to join the leading “non-comformist” faction of the universe, the “Humes”. As a Hume, she shaved her head and wore the least flattering dull flannel outfit possible, which causes her to conform to all the other non-comformists in the universe. As Cholly explains at one point, non-comformists dating back to the English Puritans have always been more unified in their conformity to each other than are the members of that society to which they refuse to conform. It gives her the advantage that other Humes will recognize her and will provide assistance even at significant risk to themselves against the “outsiders” that comprise the law, govermnent, and society. She also matters because she is psionically gifted, referred to in the story as a “telepath” but using several distinct abilities. She never reveals them. Those with whom she travels are so completely unware of her gifts that when their adversaries broadcast accusations that there is a dangerous telepath traveling in their group the group writes it off as propaganda intended to bend opinion against them.
At various moments in the book, Sam might project thought. She understands how to operate ship communications, and is notable for her sleight of hand skills when she rifles luggage and removes credentials unperceived. She also picks a primitive combination lock after “listening” for sound outside, finds path through a pitch black labyrinth, anticipates traffic in halls and avoids occupied cells, and picks a second lock in total darkness. Cholly gives her the temporary name “Enid Mas” (which is “Sam Bine” reversed by spelling) when she is disguised on Wolmar. She is dubbed Unit Manager Ori Snipe during the film company ruse, and ultimately becomes Lady Loguire.
There is a major villain, Canis Destinus, who appears in the first act but who remains on the edges of the story and is not named until considerably later. He begins as ostensibly an Aide to Bhelabher, described as rat-faced or fox-faced. We gradually learn that he is half cousin (son of father’s half-brother) to Father Marco, and is working for IDE Secretary for Internal Security, a LORDS party member.
In the third act, three more major characters join the cast. The most important of these is Tod Tambourin, also known as Whitey the Wino. No one knows Whitey is Tod except his companions–the outer rim people know Whitey the drunken entertainer, while those in the Terran region know Tod, Poet Laureate of the Terran Sphere. He is described as a lean, short, aging man who looks as hard as a meteor and merry as a comet, with stark white hair, eyes so light blue they are almost colorless, skin weathered and toughened but with a bleached look. Dar’s first impression of him is of a skinny pincer-like hand, and he limps when rushing. According to grandaughter Lona, he would come between a man and his wife only if he had the chance. On stage he plays a flat keyboard which he otherwise keeps under his tunic. He is a brilliant writer and good singer, and also reasonably skilled in fisticuffs. To escape Falsaff he buys a surface-to-surface navy surplus scout ship, christening it “Ray of Hope”. It is later destroyed. He mentions at one point that he was once an engineer, so he has some understanding of ships and ship systems. Being quite wealthy, he buys another ship in Act IV with cash in his pockets.
The most significant of the three characters to join the cast in Act III is Lona, whose last name is never given but is probably also Tambourin as she is Tod’s grandaughter. He insists that she call him “Uncle”, which she is quite content to do once everyone within earshot knows the truth of their relationship, because of a commitment to honesty in the little things. Described from Dar’s perspective as the body of Venus outlined by a flowing sleeveless calf-length gown that clung to every curve, high smooth brow, delicate eyebrows, large wide-set eyes heavily lidded, small tip-tilted nose, mouth with a hint of a smile, tawny hair rippling to her waist, with a singing voice as sweet as spring and clear as a fountain, she also has piloting skill and skill with nearly any machine, particularly if it has electronic parts. She is dubbed Fulva Volpes, Assistant Director and Director of Editing, when her grandfather is creating a cover story. The planetoid Maxima, a dead world filled with extremely wealthy computer and robotics experts, sounds like heaven to her.
The third character to join in act three is Father Marco Rice, Order of St. Vicoden of Cathode (O.S.V.), an order whose members are all engineers or scientists in addition to being priests, and who carry a small yellow-handled screwdriver in the breast pocket as a symbol of their order. He demonstrates skills at physical crowd control, blocking people out of a fight; it is implied that he would be able to fix the important parts of a computer-operated spaceship, but his precise skills are never discussed. He is described as a little stout, which is relatively slender given that on Falstaff where he meets them most of the people are incredibly fat. He is later dubbed Coburn Helith, research & script development, when Tod is creating his film crew cover story.
The final major character is Fess, or that’s what Lona calls him. He is the robotic brain controlling the second spaceship they purchase, from an asteroid miner. Properly he is designated FCC651919, but Lona wants to be able to call him something that establishes a rapport between them, and “Fess” is her choice for how to pronounce the three-letter opening acronym, which stands for Faithful Cybernetic Companion. Fess cannot resist accuracy in mathematics. Its prime overriding instruction is the sanctity of human life, and it otherwise obeys its owner completely. Fess suffered damage to a capacitor in an accident. A circuitbreaker bypass was installed, which shuts down all systems when stressed. Designed on Maxima as a brain for a humaoid robot, when he joins the team he is running a “burro boat”, a rather maneuverable but relatively slow utility craft with practical tools on the exterior. His previous owner is discussed in Act IV.
Maxima, a planetoid in Sirius’ asteroid belt, makes computers and robots. It has no atmosphere, no trees or grass, but is all rocks and dust. It is said that there is nothing to do but design and build computers, which are the best in the galaxy, and laze in luxury with three robots per person and the computer people all very rich from the industry. It is also 8.7 light years from Terra, which Lona regards close enough for weekend excursions if desired. Fess was designed and built there.
Act I: Wolmar
The planet Wolmar is an army prison planet, very like eighteenth century Australia in space. It has a 28 hour day, so noon is at 14:00. Some years back, General Shackler, an army psychiatrist, was sent to serve as Governor, effectively warden of the planet. However, the planet was not uninhabited; there existed other humans, descendants of a long-past back-to-nature settlement. They opposed the presence of the prisoners. Shackler decided that running it as a prison was not going to be the best approach, particularly given that he was anticipating the fall of the central government which would cut off support from the outside. Thus in a skillfully plotted string of moves he removed the prison guards, allowed the prison population to degenerate into gang warfare, waited for the locally indigenous Wolmans to attack to force the gangs to unite for their defense, advised the prisoners as to battle strategy (the warden’s secure quarters had high-tech surveillance gear to give him a view of events), and when the dust settled accepted when they voted him to the position of governor of their new budding democracy. He has since been guiding them in the building of a government and working toward peace with the Wolmans.
Part of that peace includes that the war continues, but in an orderly and relatively safe fashion. Battles are scheduled for 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM, 8 hours apart, and soldiers from the prisoner’s city compound meet outside the walls with attackers from the Wolman tribes, everyone taking a chalk stick and fighting a combat in which to be marked with chalk is to be removed from the fight to the sidelines, where refreshments are served and the prisoners and Wolmans chat and get to know each other. When the battle is declared finished by the commanding officers of both sides, a cash settlement is made based on the number of men each side has marked of the other, and individuals also pay out of pocket to the opposing warriors who marked them.
Trade is conducted by traders like Dar who are actually teachers. They casually mention technological products, but they don’t sell the products–they sell the manuals and the parts, and let the Wolmans learn how to build their own and so learn how they work. It is all done quite cordially. This work is mostly overseen by Charles T. “Cholly” Barman, one of the most famous educators and educational theorists in the galaxy formerly at the University of Luna whose proposals that educators shouldn’t teach in classrooms but one-on-one in life situations in which they have cover jobs made him enough powerful enemies that he fled from assassins and was invited by General Shackler to hide and work here. Sam Bine is not the only person in the story who recognizes his name when it is mentioned. Cholly works as the bartender in the local tavern, discussing anything that will educate his customers, such as Descartes.
Cholly also runs the Wolmar Pharmaceutical Trading Company Inc, which trades materials requisitioned from off-world for “pipeweed”, a tubular grass-like plant that contains chemicals useful in the manufacture of certain valued drugs. His experience includes working with a theatrical company, from which he acquired and learned to use some superior theatrical make-up which he uses to disguise Dar and Sam so they won’t be recognized by Bhelabher’s people.
Sam arrives on Wolmar expecting to see how the natives are being oppressed by the evil settlers, and is quickly impressed. She then gives Dar the bad news, that someone named the Honorable Vincent Bhelabher has been sent to replace Shackler. Bhelabher is a bureaucrat, formerly head of the BOA, whose move here is being couched as a promotion but might also be an effort to remove him from local access, because he has knowledge of the planned coup.
Cholly insists that this information not be delivered to Shackler, to preserve his ability to deny knowledge of it. Instead, Sam and Dar set up a phony customs office with the help of a Wolman shaman of the Sars tribe, a known mind reader, who uses the name Reverend Haldane for the sting but is not otherwise identified. During that customs inspection, the trio is able to cause all of the credentials and orders carried by Bhelabher’s group to become lost, putting Shackler and Bhelabher in the awkward position of having to send to Earth for confirmation of his claimed appointment. However, Shackler’s work so impresses Bhelabher that he resigns his appointment and takes a job in information management in Shackler’s local government. He needs someone to carry his resignation back to earth. (Hyperspace makes faster than light travel possible, but not faster than light radio, so hand-delivered communications are necessary even when the communications are electronic in form.) He also needs that person to alert the government to the conspiracy.
Bhelabher’s conspiracy includes the Electors Boundbridge and Satrap, one of whom is Minster of the Exchequer (we are never told which one), and a General Forcemain. A set of memorized numbers calls up a file of hacked documents from the electors which proves the conspiracy; Dar is to deliver the file information to the Secretary-General. He and Sam are given credentials, cash, and the promise of a return trip to Wolmar if they want it. Dar is eager to see the luxuries of Earth, but Sam is reluctant to go until promised the return passage.
There are several good possible entry points for a verser. He could arrive just before Shackler, finding himself on a prison planet whether within the compound or just outside. He could watch the dismantling of the artillery and departure of the guards, the collapse into anarchy and then the tribalism of the gang collectives, the attack of the Wolmans that led to the arming of the prisoners by the gang leaders and their revolt against those gang leaders, then their election of Shacklerr and the beginnings of their constitutional democracy. Alternatively, he could arrive after the developmental phase and be introduced to the backstory much as Sam is.
It would be easiest for the verser if he arrives in plain view of Shackler or Cholly, giving credibility to his claim that he is not a prisoner. He could still maintain this claim based on the absence of records concerning him. It will be most difficult if he arrives simultaneously with a prison transport.
Once Shackler recognizes that the verser does not belong there, he will offer to provide paperwork and transportation off-planet. This provides an opportunity to send him with Dar and Sam. It will also mark him as one of the telepath suspects, whether he leaves as part of their mission or simply travels on the same transport.
If the verser stays on Wolmar when Dar leaves, over the next year they will receive news of the telepath conspiracy and the shift to totalitarianism, and then transports will cease. Shackler will establish contacts to resume private shipping for the import/export business, and Wolmar will settle into a democracy.
Act II: First Flight
The hyperspace leg of the journey from Haldane IV to Wolmar took Sam a week and a half by freighter, but the return trip is made in a courier ship in only five days. What Sam and Dar don’t know is that Canis has stranded the assigned pilot on Wolmar and is flying their ship into trouble. They emerge from hyperspace and are ambushed by pirates. They escape in a life boat with limited capability, but Dar flies it adequately to hide in the asteroid field in which the pirates had been hiding until police arrive, destroy the pirates, and rescue them in response to their distress signal. It is at this point that Dar learns that Haldane IV is known locally as Falstaff; the police are local to that planet.
If the verser did not start on Wolmar and so depart with this ship, he could verse in here. Since Dar and Sam know themselves to be the only passengers, he will have to explain his presence to them. The pilot won’t check and the robotic stewards won’t care. His explanation might be significant, though. If they believe he might be psionic, he may eventually become the scapegoat if Dar reveals this. (Sam probably won’t, in protecting telepaths like herself generally, but Dar does not reveal her as a telepath simply because he does not know.)
From that point forward, the verser will be marked as one of the telepaths. Canis Destinus knows that two passengers left Wolmar but three were rescued by Falstaff police, and that to him will mean that telepaths are more powerful and more numerous than feared.
Act III: Falstaff
Once rescued, Dar and Sam are delivered to the planet Haldane IV, which is known to those who live there as Falstaff. Iron and all metals are rare, nails are cash, and wood, rare on many planets, is used for construction. Everyone here is very fat, and all eat sausages constantly.
It is while waiting in a bar here that Dar and Sam meet Father Marco, then Ted Tambourin and Lona. Dar falls for Lona immediately, much to Sam’s displeasure, but when Sam realizes that Whitey the Wino is Ted Tambourin, she becomes very interested in him.
Canis has by this time raised a police force of his own, which raids the bar during a staged brawl shortly after our quintet become acquainted. They fight their way out, slipping through a basement crawlway into a brothel where the good Father has ministered, then in fresh clothes into the street where they are separated. Sam and Dar escape the police mostly due to the help of some thugs who then take them prisoner to see Thalvar Sard. These thugs would want also to capture the verser, if he came here.
Thalvar Sard is also known as The Syndic, head of the House of Houses, the leading crime syndicate in the galaxy, which happens to be headquartered not on Terra where everyone expects but here on Haldane IV where there are very few radios (due to the shortage of metal) and easily compromised police and authorities. He has heard the rumors that one of them is a telepath, and at this point he figures it has to be one of these who just arrived from elsewhere. He wants whichever one is the telepath to work for him; both deny any knowledge of telepathy, and he holds them prisoner. It is at this point that Sam exercises her gifts in getting them out of their underground cells into the wilderness, and Dar gets them back to the city.
Sard, the Syndic, will be content to enlist either telepath, but would probably prefer to eliminate any suspected telepath who does not work for him. He will not know how many are telepaths, but will not take chances. He is not above making false promises to achieve his objectives, however.
The city is not particularly safe, because it’s crawling with police looking for them. At this point, Sam takes advantage of her identity as a Hume and connects with the local Humes, who find it outrageous that the establishment is persecuting them and wonderful that they’re going to break the coming coup with their information. One of them provides a hiding place for them.
They are discovered there by Myles “My” Croft (one of those mnemonics), mayor of Haskerville, by far largest town on Haldane IV thus making him de facto governor of the planet. He is too fat to stand, and so rides in a hover chair. He exhibits strong deductive reasoning, by which he locates them. He also reasons that the best way to get Canis Destinus and his outside police force off his planet is to get Dar and Sam off first. He thus sells that surplus scout ship to Tod, who is interested in fleeing the scene as well. He would want the verser to leave, too, if he can find him; he at least wants Destinus to believe that any telepaths have escaped and fled.
If the verser initially arrives on Falstaff (verses in there), it might be tricky connecting him to the main story. The best hooks are to introduce him early to either Father Marco or the Tambourins, and have him present for the fight and flight. Other creative alternatives are plausible, but none are likely to draw him into the story.
If he remains on Falstaff, it will be similar to Wolmar. Mayor Croft is anticipating the fall of the democracy, and expects to become de facto ruler here when his metal-poor wood-rich planet is divorced from the rest of the galaxy. He has ships adequate to maintain some interplanetary trade, and knows how to manage his highly corrput society and the major crime syndicate that operates from it. It is something of a seedy planet, with most illegal pleasures easily obtained. It is evident that the overall obesity here is due to the diet, which includes the near constant consumption of sausages, and the verser who is not attentive will gain weight.
Act IV: Second Flight
The now quintet (sextet if the verser has joined them) does not quite escape Falstaff cleanly, and when they enter the Terran system they are soon pursued by police ships seeking to kill or capture the dangerous telepath aboard. They take significant damage, hide again in an asteroid field, and send out another distress signal. Fess picks up the signal, and following his protocol brings the burro boat to their rescue. The burro boat features a bachelor’s decor and a locker room scent, but has room and the necessary amenities.
Fess’ owner, an old asteroid miner, is never named. He opposes the rescue, and is still arguing about it when he discovers that the crew of the stranded ship are all aboard his ship. Tod bargains to buy his boat, and the miner accepts the deal thinking he got the better end of it, given the problems with Fess’ overloads. He then sends word to Ceres City that he has been boarded by people who might be the criminals the police are seeking. In exchange, Tod strands him in his own asteroid bunker with only an emergency beacon, and heads for Luna.
The verser could arrive aboard Ray of Hope (the escape ship). The group would suspect him to be a stowaway and likely spy for one of the three factions they are fleeing (Mayor Croft, Syndic Sard, or Canis Destinus), and might threaten to space him if he can’t explain himself. Assuming he gets through that, he will have time to win their confidence. Failing that, he might be stranded with the miner.
He could arrive on the burro boat during the rescue. This has interesting possibilities, because the miner would assume he came with the rescued, and the group would assume he was with the miner. Fess would know, though, that he arrived by unknown means separately. He would offer this information if asked, or if it became obviously relevant. Fess would hold the data as “unexplained”, but a roll should be made to determine whether the explanation causes an overload shutdown.
He could arrive after the miner is stranded, which eliminates the possibility that they would strand them together but otherwise puts him in much the same position.
Act V: Luna and Terra
Because Terra, that is, Earth, is so overcrowded, only ferry ships from Luna are permitted to land on it; thus the sextet come to Luna, the Moon. There they begin building a plan to reach the Executive Secretary.
It begins by contacting Mr. David Stroganoff of Occidental Productions Inc. He is a major studio executive who wishes he could educate the masses, but the masses want entertainment and expect that education ought to be dull. Tod, who is a friend of his who has long resisted the pressure to go commercial, gives him a brilliant show script, and they quickly have things moving toward a vid production that will include an interview with the Executive Secretary. This is still on Luna, where all the vid production companies have relocated for space.
Horatio Bocello, richest man on Terra, patron of the arts and especially Tambourin’s work, happens to own a controling interest in the production company, and so heard his friend Tod was on Luna, and phoned. Tod and his other friends call him “Cello”. He is described as a devout Catholic, tall and skinny with a thin long-jawed boney face with receeding iron-gray hairline, blade of a nose, burning eyes. Sam is immediately struck by him. Horatio believes there is no point in sex without love. He plays Duke Horatio Loguire in their medieval reenactments, and becomes the same when they leave.
Before they reach earth, the Honorable Kasi Pohyola, Chairman of the LORDS party and Majority Leader in the Assembly of Electors of the Interstellar Dominions, is calling for an end to legal protections that protect telepaths (such as protection from unlawful search and seizure or the protections of due process and the requirement of probable cause and need for arrest warrants), and for the removal of the Executive Secretary Louhi Kulvero who is not acting aggressively enough to curtail legal protections in the effort to capture these dangerous telepaths. The argument is put forward that since a telepath has made it all the way to Terra, he must have had help from other telepaths, and therefore there must be thousands of them throughout the galaxy working together against ordinary people. Dar is stunned that such nonsense would be believed, but it is obviously building paranoia in the common people, all of whom are fearful that their thoughts might be being read.
Dar and Tod go alone to the meeting with the Executive Secretary, who is described as tall, white hair, craggy handsome face, dressed in modest coveralls. Dar delivers the information exactly as it was given to him. The secretary springs a trap and arrests them, and uses this to have himself voted emergency powers and the title Executive Director. He has no interest in preserving democracy, but only in ensuring that when it collapses into a dictatorship he will be the dictator.
However, there is a genuine fear of telepaths underlying all this, and Dar is interrogated under heavily disorienting sensory stimuli to get him to reveal that he is the telepath or knows who the telepath is. Since he doesn’t, he does’t crack.
Horatio Bocello arranges his rescue, sending in Father Marco with false credentials and two “torturers” from his medieval group, who in the pretense of taking him to where the real torture machines are located manage to bundle him into a car and get him to the ferry where Bocello and hundreds of emigres are waiting to flee to Luna and beyond. The only one specifically identified is named Markone, who is also Baron of Ruddigore. They also take Stroganoff.
Once on Luna, Sam joins Horatio and company. Stroganoff hitches a ride with a promise that he can be dropped off at Wolmar, where he is eager to meet Cholly Barman. Tod, Lona, and Dar reunite with Fess and head to Maxima, where Lona expects to be very happy becoming very rich using her computer talents, and she and Dar expect to change their names to d’Armand. We know from the sequel that they did, had children, and kept Fess as a family heirloom for centuries.
It’s a bit late for the verser to enter here, unless the referee wants to use the fall of the democracy as a setting. In that case, the character should hear Pohyola’s speech, with its fear of telepaths and push toward curtailment of all legal impediments to a police state. From there, it’s mere days until the Executive Secretary announces what amounts to martial law and an open telepath witch hunt. Whether on crowded Terra or environmentally enclosed Luna, he’ll have to hide and survive, or escape to the other planets. This would be so, too, if he comes with the party and stays behind.
He could go with Dar, Lona, Tod, and Fess to Maxima, but unless he has remarkable computer or robotics skills he is unlikely to do well there. If he hitches a ride with Horatio to Wolmar with Stroganoff, that will put him back in that scenario, detailed in Act I.
He could travel with Horatio’s people to create Grammarye, a medieval kingdom. The sequel tells us that they succeed, and that Duke and Lady Loguire have descendants. However, it must be made clear to him that going there means having his memory wiped and replaced with a false identity, and that it is not clear how or whether he could recover his lost knowledge. The sequel, A Warlock In Spite of Himself, offers significant insight into Grammarye, despite being set centuries later. That, though, is another article.
