Gome World

More gome Writing from the Twilight Cave trilogy

In the Twilight Cave trilogy (which will be published by Orchard house Press in the spring of 2009) we discover a lot more about gomes and how they communicate.  Gomes use symbols to represent important people and places within the gome world.  There is a symbol for the gome city of Barcelunda that is recognized throughout Europe.  Barrels of apisinthe made in the distilleries of Barcelunda will have the Barcelundan "B" marked on them.  Humans invited into gome society are branded with the same "B."  Throughout the city gateways and doors are marked to show the level (by the number of dots inside the "B") and the location (by marking the compass bearing on the outside of the "B").

Here are some other gome symbols that we have encountered in the Twilight Cave story.  There are several mysterious symbols on the Justice Wall, including one that accompanies the Latin phrase, Lux Celeris Caeli (which roughly translates as "Swift light of the Heavens."  There is a symbol for the Petramax, for Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome, Bluebeard, and one for Desperandum.  The meaning of this symbol for Desperandum has been argued by scholars for decades.  What do the stars at either end of the "D" mean?  Does the triangular shape beneath the "D" represent a mountain top, or does it indicate that Desperandum thinks of himself as being above (and therefore better) than everyone else?  Or does it represent the power of acid spilling out of his body?

Divining the power of petraglifs

In a previous blogpost I introduced the idea of petraglifs and why gomes seek them out:

http://gomeworld.typepad.com/gome_world/2007/06/petraglifs.html

Petraglifs vary in their strength and in the type of power that they have.  The larger the number of humans that make a connection with a rock and the longer that association lasts the more powerful it becomes as a petraglif.  One child's favorite mug will contain a small amount of happiness and comfort.  But a sculpture that has been admired by thousands of tourists for decades on end will contain a much larger amount of emotions.  The emotional power of this petraglif will also be more complicated.  When a sculpture is first carved it may produce shock and ridicule among some humans but over time more and more may learn to enjoy it, be inspired by it and so it may grow to contain lots of awe, admiration, shock, and even envy.

Some petraglifs contain less happy emotions.  the gravestone of a much-loved relative will become full of sadness and nostalgia as family members visit the grave, touch the stone and think of their loved one.  A chunk of prison wall would be full of anger, fear, and regret.

Certain gomes spend centuries of training to become skilled at identifying the specific power of petraglifs.  These gomes are sometimes thought of as magicians or wizards, but are also called Translatorsbecause they have the skill to translate the particular power that the petraglif contains into useful powders and potions.  In The Twilight Cavetrilogy we meet Catalysmo-The-Great-Translator in Level Four of the great gome city of Barcelunda.  Jade-Tsi-Dong is an even more powerful Translator.  In his secluded workshop in Barcelunda's Chinatown we see him "Divining" the essence of a petraglif.  He grinds it up to gravel and powder and then sprinkles that powder into a dozen other bowls containing mysterious liquids that can identify properties of the petraglif.

The dust and gravel from different petraglifs can be combined, along with spices and herbs.  As Jade-Tsi-Dong explains to Alina:

"Spices help to bind the emotions together; ginger root, lemon grass, cinnamon bark, tea tree oil.  These help to pull the emotions out, and push them forward to a new purpose."

Some petraglifs can be used to help gomes to heal from injuries.  Others are used to make potions to increase their power or to weaken their enemies.

Gome Writing and Gome Symbols

In The Blackhope Scaur story we have examples of gome writing from Bluebeard's little black book and from the cave writing near Invertoshan that gomes like to communicate by writing things down.  they use symbols as a short hand to communicate some things but can also use human letters if they need to.  some gomes use a lunar calendar and so count time by how many full moons have gone past in a year.  We don't yet know how they keep track of years or whether they even care to do so.

Here are some examples of Gome Writing that were found recently in a cave on the coast of Wigtownshire in Scotland.  Experts at the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow are not in full agreement about what this document is, or what all of the symbols mean.

Sir Hector McGlumshie believes that this may be a page ripped from one of Bluebeard's note books.  Lord Poncenby Smallpiece disputes this, however, since he believes that one of the symbols is the personal gome symbol for Bluebeard himself and would not therefore be something that Bluebeard would need to write down in his own book.

Gome symbols are often written together in combination to tell stories or record events.  both McGlumshie and Smallpiece agree that there are three such stories on the document found recently in Wigtownshire.

1. On the fourth new moon of the year of the fork and horseshoe a successful shipwreck was carried out with fire and death and three boxes of treasure.

2. A church was burned to the ground with five humans killed.

3. On the eighth three-quarter moon of the year Bluebeard was awarded five units of treasure.

Where do gomes like to live?

Good question!  But like most good questions the answer is, "It depends."  Just like with humans, some gomes like lots of company and so they like to live in cities where they can bicker and fight with each other; gomes from their own clan or other clans.  They may like to live near humans so that they can "mess with them" for amusement, or to steal their petraglifs (See http://gomeworld.typepad.com/gome_world/2007/06/petraglifs.html).  As you will read about in The Twilight Cave Trilogy the inhabitants of the gome city of Barcelunda are like this.

Other gomes are loners and prefer peace and quiet...

If you strode across this bridge you would be entering the realm of gomes who prefer to mix with their own kind and stay away from humans as much as possible.  There are plenty of these antisocial gomes in Scotland.  The next time you are striding across a steep hillside covered in scree (a Scots word for a mass of loose stones lying on a steep slope) you would be well advised to avoid it and not walk across it.  For one thing walking on scree can start a landslide with you in the middle of it (not a good thing) and for another think, you never know which of the stones you are walking across are just stones and which of them are bad-tempered gomes waiting to do you harm.  Read Blackhope Scaur (Part Two of The Blackhope Scaur Trilogy) to get an idea of the nasty surprises that can await you on a seemingly innocent Scottish hillside like this.

Of course even if gomes like to keep to themselves most of the time, since they live for a very, very long time they like to meddle with humans at least now and again, so they might choose to live where it is mostly rocks and wild nature but with just an occasional human to annoy, like here, maybe...

Other gomes are even sneakier.  They live in the mountains near where humans have built ridiculously narrow steep roads that zig-zag and switch back and forth up and over a mountain pass.  See if you can see any gomes in this picture.

They could even be part of the wall built to keep the road flat and straight.  As an old car struggles up the road, coughing and complaining, overheating, burning clutch fluid, and spewing out exhaust fumes as it goes, it would be really easy for a gome or two (or twenty or two thousand) to roll down the hill and stick a sword or spear into the tires of a car, just for amusement.  One of their favorite spots is the spectacular pass over the mountains to Applecross.  Many a motorist has got stuck or broken down making the attempt.  And they had no idea what caused their car to break down just in the most inconvenient place imaginable.  But you have a good idea, don't you...

Petraglifs

What on earth, in gome's name, are petraglifs, you may ask.  Well, Wullie explains it best...  Here is an excerpt from Barcelunda, part two in The Twilight Cave Trilogy. When Hadley asks Wullie what petraglifs are, he says:

“Humans have always had a fascination wi’ rocks.  They like to collect them.  They cut and polish the prettiest ones and wear them as jewelry.  They carve others into sculptures so they can admire them.  It must be the permanence of rocks that they like.  Rocks last forever, or at least for a lot longer than human lives, so humans keep them, and grow fond of them and pass some of them on tae the next generation.  And of course yoose have learned tae make things out o’ rocks, too; cups, plates, bowls and the like.  Gomes are always on the lookout for rocks that have special significance tae humans.  We call them petraglifs.”

Hadley said, “Why?”

“Because rocks that humans especially like absorb life and emotion into them so that they have healing power.  If we grind them up intae powder and potions, or chew them up, they help us tae repair ourselves when bits of us get chipped or knocked off.

“So where do you get these petraglifs from?”

Wullie grinned.  “Have you ever noticed that it is always your favorite plate or cookie jar that gets broken, or your mom’s favorite vase that falls off the window sill?  That’s not a coincidence.  That’s the work of gomes, moving them when you’re no’ looking, setting things in position so they might get knocked off and broken.  Then the gomes sneak back during the night and collect some of the pieces as petraglifs.”

I, for one, can attest to that fact.  We have a great old cookie jar that has been in our family for over fifty years.  Whether it is filled with Taffy biscuits or Ginger Creams or Lemon-filled Rich Tea biscuits it is the one place in the kitchen that gets a lot of attention in the morning.

And then, one day, a few months ago, for no apparent reason, I put the lid in a strange place while I was cooking and the next thing I knew the lid slid off the counter and smashed on the floor.  I gathered all the pieces up and piled them up, wondering if it was worth repairing it or not.  Everyone else in the house said, "YE-E-E-ES!!" so I glued the pieces back together.  As you will see, the repair job is not perfect.  You can still see the crack running diagonally across the roof, but it works pretty well.  It still brings lots of joy and warmth to everyone in the family to remove the lid in the morning and pick out a cookie or two to have with an early morning cup of tea.

But you will see that there is a substantial chunk missing from the corner.  I searched high and low for that piece of china cookie jar lid but it was nowhere to be found.  I expect that, by now, it has been "divined" for its essential essence and will have been ground up to add a little warmth and comfort to some gome-brew or potion somewhere...

I'm petrified... yipeeeee!

Most humans, at least most humans who read books and like learning knew words, know that to be petrified means to be so scared and terrified of something that you are paralyzed and can't move.  It comes from petra, the Latin word for a stone, and so to be petrified literally means turned to stone.  But for gomes the word has a whole different sense to it.  Gomes like to be petrified!

Gomes like to sneak around causing mischief while they are in their living, moving, animated form, but if they sense danger, or want to avoid being noticed they can instantly turn themselves into stone... they petrify.  When Great Uncle Hugh McDougall gives Finn a new present in The Rusty Pelican he calls it a "very special Scottish paperweight."  Finn is not very impressed.  It is an ugly, smelly, heavy cylindrical thing with one flat end, one pointy end, and a covering of moss in the middle.  But when Wullie comes to life Finn finds him to be much more interesting... and much more trouble.

Most children are curious, have a good imagination and sharp eyes, so they have little trouble seeing gomes.  But many adults have no imagination and even less sense of fun, so when they appear on the scene most gomes will petrify, and stay as a rock until the boring grown up goes away.  Gomes can also petrify to protect themselves from damage when they jump off roofs, are flung through windows, or when they get attacked by cat claws or slobbering dog fangs.  Interestingly, when a gome is in the petrified state it can still hear and see and think perfectly well.  In fact Wullie says he can think more clearly and solve more puzzles when he is petrified, without the distraction of being "alive."  He just doesn't need to bother with conversation, is protected from attack, and is able to conserve his energy better; to rest.  It is a bit like when a tortoise is attacked it withdraws inside its shell.  A gome simply petrifies.

How cool would that be, if you could petrify when grown ups are annoying you? 

   "Jennifer, I told you to clean up your room.  Jennifer?  Now where is that girl?  There's nothing here except a large statue standing in amongst the piles of clothes, books, toys, pop cans and dirty plates.  Hmmmm?"

Now, I know what you are thinking, surely the grown up would recognize that the statue looked like you, but a lot of grown ups aren't that smart.  They might think it is the statue of a fashion model or a rock star that you bought off e-Bay.  Actually if your room was as untidy as this one you could even hide a full sized petrified version of your self under the piles of dirty clothes.

Animals, of course, being smarter than your average grown up, recognize the difference between a rock and a gome even when the gome is in its petrified state.  So Wullie gets scratched by Ying Yang, the Siamese cat, and gets buried in the garden by Winston and Riley.  When he escapes their clutches and comes back to life he is covered in grass, dirt, and smelly dog slobber, which makes him even more scruffy, rude, and bad-tempered than usual...

More about Cowdie than you want to know

When Wullie pulls a tiny pipe from his backpack, and lights the contents by sucking sparks into the bowl, Finn is disgusted, as well he should be.  Smoking tobacco is disgusting, unhealthy, and smelly.  Imagine how much worse if would smell if you were smoking dried cow dung!  Wullie, of course, disagrees.  He explains that smoking dried cow dung, or "Cowdie," brings out all the fresh smells of the countryside.  He claims that there are subtle and wonderful differences in the taste and aroma of the cowdie depending on what the cows were grazing on at the time.  He is especially fond of Spring Clover Mixture.

Although most cowdie is made from cow dung, the droppings from other animals are favored by some gomes.  Wullie is actually quite partial to Cairngorm Heather Mixture, for a change.  This is made from the dung of red deer in the Scottish Highlands after they have been eating all the bonny wee purple heather bells on the hillsides, according to Wullie.  He is NOT fond of Spanish cowdie, however, which he claims is made from the dung of bad-tempered goats that have been eating rancid garlic bulbs.  When he is REALLY desperate Wullie has even been known to consider the little black "logs" left by mice under the bed, or the small brown marble-sized dropping from sheep... but only it he is  REALLY, REALLY desperate, which shows you how addicted he is to this disgusting habit.

Whatever you do, DO NOT TRY TO MAKE OR SMOKE COWDIE yourselves.  It would be dangerous and disgusting to humans.  All sensible, smart, sophisticated gomes know better than to smoke cowdie... but just try telling that to Wullie.

The origin of gomes

As Wullie, himself, explains it, "Gomes are as old as time itself, and are formed wherever rocks and earth are disturbed.  When the world was young, and the rocks and mountains were forming, gomes were created.  Long before dinosaurs were around it was gomes that ruled the earth.  But when the earth cooled down the gomes mostly went to sleep."

Gomes are like the living spirit of the rocks they were formed from.  They take on some of the characteristics of that rock.  As a sandstone gome Big Sandy is soft and wet.  He is very comfortable in the open air, by the coast, and in the water.  But Bluebeard formed deep in the coal seams under the Lowlands of Scotland.  He prefers dark, stuffy mines and caves.  He can concentrate various forms of oil and coal gas in his black-hearted insides, and uses them to surprise and punish his enemies.  The Lignite clan, on the other hand, were formed below the peat bogs in the Highlands of Scotland.  They are soft, like peat, and retain a lot of connection to the organic life of the Highlands.  They like it where it is damp and muddy, where they might find  a nice rotting ram's skull to snack on, or a pair of stag antlers to carve into a horn, or a ceremonial head dress.