OS/2 Shareware BBS: 7 Games/07-Games.zip/curses16.zip/CURSES.Z5

Z-code for Z-machine | 1995-11-26 | 259KB | 2,354 lines

Resident data ends at a31c, program starts at a31c, file ends at 3f3dc

Starting analysis pass at address a31a

End of analysis pass, low address = a31c, high address = 2d8cc


[Start of text]

S001: "CURSES"
S002: "
An Interactive Diversion
Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995 by Graham Nelson.
"
S003: "951024"
S004: "5/12"
S005: "a"
S006: "You can't go that way."
S007: "the"
S008: "the"
S009: "the"
S010: "the"
S011: "the"
S012: "the"
S013: "the"
S014: "the"
S015: "the"
S016: "the"
S017: "the"
S018: "the"
S019: "Darkness"
S020: "It is pitch dark, and you can't see a thing."
S021: "As good-looking as ever."
S022: "Nameless item"
S023: "your former self"
S024: "a"
S025: "featureless mahogany rods"
S026: "the"
S027: "Astonishing!  One of the three high Rods!"
S028: "the"
S029: "This is rather dangerous, I'm afraid. Use only on vegetative matter."
S030: "Well, that's not very useful, is it?  I'd go on strike if I were you."
S031: "It has no horticultural application."
S032: "a"
S033: "Well, where might you have seen infinity before?"
S034: "Perhaps you should look up "husbandry" in a dictionary."
S035: "Bronze is the key here. Have you seen any other bronze anywhere?"
S036: "Far, far too dangerous. The age of martyrs in the church is long gone,
you know."
S037: "Well, if there's such a thing as luck, maybe this would help."
S038: "a"
S039: "Use only at heated moments, when affairs are delicately balanced."
S040: "the"
S041: "the"
S042: "The High Rods of Life, Love and Death lean together in a pyramid at the
top of the steep slope, balanced rather delicately."
S043: "A treasure in every sense, the orb pulsates with golden radiance."
S044: "A blooming shrub, gay with red flowers, is being nursed in a wide round
tub under the wall here."
S045: "the"
S046: "Tarot cards"
S047: "   Things to do:

   1. Find map
   2. Phone airport to check parking
   3. Health forms...

and so on. Let's face it, 1. is more enticing than the rest put together."
S048: "Immensely useful, that."
S049: "an"
S050: "The torch has a battery compartment which can be reached by opening it
up."
S051: "Pity you can't change the batteries."
S052: "an"
S053: "Oatmeal covered with plain chocolate, since you ask."
S054: "I bet you didn't know that chocolate biscuit manufacturers are damned in
perpetuity?  I'm afraid the chapters about that in the Old Testaments were
lost, though, and now no-one can remember why."
S055: "The attics, full of low beams and awkward angles, begin here in a
relatively tidy area which extends north, south and east. The wooden
floorboards seem fairly sound, just as well considering how heavy all these
teachests are. But the old wiring went years ago, and there's no electric
light."
S056: "A hinged trapdoor in the floor stands open, and light streams in from
below."
S057: "There is a closed trapdoor in the middle of the floor."
S058: "some"
S059: "Open-topped. You could easily look inside, if so minded."
S060: "the"
S061: "It was to have been the Honourable Peter Meldrew's life's work, a
two-volume edition giving the definitive family history. Unfortunately,
although he claimed to have hunted for evidence to the ends of the earth, he
never could find a detail he wanted for volume I, and it was never published.
Somehow, this typifies your family, and consulting this worthy book about your
ancestors makes you realise what an uncanny knack they had for never quite
achieving anything.

Unless, of course, you count having an awful lot of children. So many Meldrews
are listed here that you'll have to look them up individually."
S062: "What a boring old book!  There's nobody worth looking up."
S063: "an"
S064: "A graceful lady's box, bearing the initials A. M. and engraved with a
drawing of what seems to be a rabbit's foot."
S065: "In one corner is a jewellery box, which had previously been hidden by
the open trapdoor."
S066: "Try investigating the world of the romantic novel, out on the balconies
of life."
S067: "Actually a four-leafed sprig of herb paris (Paris Quadrifolia) in the
shape of a fourfold true-love knot. But that was good enough for Alison."
S068: "Not much use as it is, is it?"
S069: "Once upon a time, servants in great houses lived in awful little
crevices and excuses for rooms like this one. They must have been in permanent
danger of suffocation, for there are no windows and only a doorway to the west.
A bed is still kept here, and the sight of it brings on drowsiness in all this
warm stuffy air. All you want to do is curl up and sleep."
S070: "Hobson's"
S071: "Lots of naughty words in that one."
S072: ""Hobson's: A Choice Classical Dictionary". It claims to have numerous
entries."
S073: "There's a little book on the tiny bedside table."
S074: "an"
S075: "This is an old Biblioll College scarf, made by Dunn and Co. (naturally).
It has four stripes: royal blue, emerald, dark grey and scarlet."
S076: "An old striped scarf hangs up behind the doorway."
S077: "The very height of fashion, if you ignore the colours and wear it
regardless."
S078: "A tight door stands open in the northern wall, giving onto the servants'
staircase."
S079: "Scruffy old furniture is piled up here: armchairs with springs coming
out, umbrella stands, a badly scratched cupboard, a table with one leg
missing... You try to remember why you keep all this rubbish, and fail. Anyway
the attic continues to the southeast."
S080: "The attic turns from north to southeast here."
S081: "Nothing there, but that cupboard looks interesting."
S082: "It has a calm, soothing effect."
S083: "A patent "Harrison" bird-whistle, according to the slogan on one side."
S084: "Shame the wrapping paper won't come off."
S085: "Far too nice to give to anybody else. In fact..."
S086: "some"
S087: "The reindeer have enormous significance."
S088: "It is addressed to the house, and postmarked 1963, but has no message.
Odd, that."
S089: "There's no message there to read."
S090: "These bottles can even survive long drops, so perhaps you should try
fire."
S091: ""Antidote only: no preventative effect.""
S092: "This drug is for fun, it isn't an antidote. And it tastes gorgeous..."
S093: "The air is dusty and warm, almost making you choke in this rather empty
area. The attic turns from northwest to east, and there is also a tight doorway
leading west. A short flight of wooden steps leads down and to the south."
S094: "(Aunt Jemima has two cats, Jane and Austin, but she finds Austin
especially annoying - about the only point you have ever agreed with her
about.)

Austin, a ginger with a long tail and an uncompromisingly lazy expression, is
the kind of cat who hates being pushed around."
S095: "Austin, your incorrigible ginger cat, lounges around here."
S096: "This is a roughly-furnished photographer's dark room, used by your
grandfather years ago. There's nothing much here now, since you threw the
chemicals out in case the children found them."
S097: "The only doorway is back east."
S098: "the old"
S099: "Mounted on a plaque is an old sepia photograph of a man."
S100: "The photograph is one of the very early ones which looks as if it was
taken in the dark because the chemicals have gradually oxidised. The poor man
in the frame (Mr Roger Meldrew, Esquire) looks as if he was propped up by a big
clamp to hold him still for five minutes, and that's because he was."
S101: "It is attached to the ceiling."
S102: "You bump your head on the cord hanging from the ceiling, for the
umpteenth time."
S103: "Things do look subtly different in this light."
S104: "When you can get this working, perhaps you should take it somewhere
prominent."
S105: "The kind of black box which often sits on top of a camera, used to
illuminate otherwise dim scenes. It has an openable compartment on the side,
with room left inside for a battery and a timer mechanism (which seem to be
optional extras)."
S106: "A rather more modern photographer's flash lies on a shelf to one side."
S107: "Once upon a time, this small circular room had a dome and a telescope,
but it leaked dreadfully and so now there's a proper roof.

A circular mural painted with the signs of the zodiac is interrupted by a short
flight of stairs leading up to the north, a smoke detector, a west doorway to a
shadowy alcove and the continuation of the stairs down and to the south."
S108: "It isn't at all clear on what principle the detector works. It looks
like a smoke detector, certainly. But you just left the contractors to sort out
all those boring fire prevention matters for themselves.

They were a slap-dash firm, too, from what you remember. They put the little
white thing high up, right in the middle of the Capricorn scene on the mural.
And even if there was a fire, chances are it would be useless."
S109: "Mounted on the old telescope stand is what looks like a solid glass
ball."
S110: "Once upon a time, the house library was used as a gun-room, and all the
unwanted books kept up here. Now this is just another awkward cranny, with a
water tank and some pipes in one corner which are something to do with the
central heating."
S111: "From here, you can only squeeze back east to the observatory."
S112: "The joint on the water pipe looks none too sturdy."
S113: "Don't bother reading or thinking about it. Nothing to do with your
family."
S114: "A romantic novel and a book of poetry are the only books left, and
they're propping up a water pipe near a rather loose joint - it really is time
you called a plumber to sort this one out."
S115: ""Coronets for the Cotton Girl", by Miss Marie Swelldon, published
London, 1912. It's all about the happy-go-lucky daughter of a Yorkshire mill
owner and her adventures marrying into the aristocracy."
S116: "My my, a golden age for clear, simple poetry. At last, an end to the
dreary obscurity of Tennyson, Kipling and Hardy."
S117: "This is where you ought to have left the wretched map, in the family
lumber-room of souvenirs and holiday snaps. You checked it thoroughly earlier,
and can't bear the thought of searching it all again. A slide projector is
aimed at the whitewashed south wall, one of the outside walls of the house. The
only way to go is back up to the observatory."
S118: "It has an on/off switch on the side, and a slot for holding whatever is
to be projected. There is also a little dial on the back, perhaps for the
focus."
S119: "some"
S120: "That is a difficult puzzle, yes."
S121: "In the north wall is an open cupboard door, large enough to step
inside."
S122: "In the north wall is an intriguing closed cupboard door."
S123: "The winding attic comes to a dead end here, and particularly dirty it is
too, what with soot everywhere from the broken old chimney sweeping gear."
S124: "It might be handy, if only it could carry anything."
S125: "Great Scott!  That old canvas rucksack must be the very one your famous
ancestor, the African explorer Ebenezer Meldrew, brought back from the Zambezi
Expedition of 1882!"
S126: "On second thoughts, now you look at more closely, it seems to be the
rucksack you bought to go to Paris with five years ago."
S127: "A secret door stands open in the south wall!"
S128: "The secret door is closed."
S129: "A hatchway in the east wall, onto an old iron fire escape, is open and
light floods in through it. (Some fool must have set the alarm off.)"
S130: "This is a surprisingly spacious cupboard, which you can't recall ever
visiting before today. You really ought to use this convenient empty room for
something..."
S131: "Carry this with you everywhere you go."
S132: "A large painting of Mad Isaac Meldrewe, your eighteenth-century
ancestor, is propped up against the west wall."
S133: "It used to hang in the downstairs landing, and the red, deranged eyes
annoyed everybody who passed. Then Aunt Jemima picked up the ridiculous idea
that it was by Sir Joshua Reynolds and had it valued. Happily it wasn't and, to
cut a long story long, it ended up here."
S134: "There is a big iron fireplace in the west wall."
S135: "The medicine bottle, alas, was undamaged by the fall down the chimney."
S136: "The skylight above is open, and the sky does indeed light the room."
S137: "Above you is a blacked-out skylight with a crank handle."
S138: "It was painted out black during the first wave of Zeppelin air raids in
World War I. This is completely irrelevant, but you did ask."
S139: "The cork filters have gone. It's useless now."
S140: "This is a recessed area of the roof, open to the skies but screened from
below. There used to be a flagpole here, but not any more. An open skylight
leads down, and a fairly safe catwalk leads northwest. However, the red-tiled
roof is vertiginous and you have vertigo, which makes it especially annoying
that there's an odd little balcony too far away to the south."
S141: "William Wordsworth once described poetry as emotion recollected in
tranquillity. If so, hospitals must be full of people turning out verses about
what it was like to fall off the roof of a high building. Perhaps it might be
better not to join them."
S142: "The old crenellated battlements of the house. An Englishman's home is,
of course, his castle, but Meldrew Hall never saw much fighting and these
military-looking features were just a seventeenth-century fashion. They also
weren't intended for standing on, and the only safe way to proceed is back
southeast.

It is peculiarly cold here."
S143: "The rooftop is far too dangerous in that direction."
S144: "Unfortunately, what you need this for is up in the clouds."
S145: "He is dressed in a grey shadow of Georgian finery."
S146: "the ghost of"
S147: "The chimney is cramped, sooty, unpleasant and has no floor to speak of,
so you are held up only by jamming your feet against the walls. To the east,
through the fireplace, is the cupboard."
S148: "Not a chance!"
S149: "Wedged loosely in beside you is a sooty old stick."
S150: "It's exactly what it seems."
S151: "Good heavens, so the house has a priest hole after all!  It was always a
family legend but nobody seemed to know quite where it was. Apart from a cross
painted on one wall and a padded floor (to absorb the noise), this spartan
cranny is featureless. Nevertheless there is a spooky air of the supernatural
about... A narrow crawl leads up into the chimney."
S152: "An open hatch-door in the wall at floor level reveals a chute leading
down into darkness."
S153: "Low down on one wall is a little hatch door, which if it were open would
be large enough to enter."
S154: "Perhaps the attic key might unlock it?  It does look modern compared to
everything else here."
S155: "an"
S156: "The really good research was in his earlier years."
S157: "The dust and grime on the floor almost obscures an ancient prayer book."
S158: "Despite appearances, this is not a prayer book after all but is Mad
Isaac's diary of supernatural investigations!  The script is cursive and
cursory as he rambles on through all those theories about the Curse. There's so
much of it that you'd better just look up particular years."
S159: "There's just the secret north door, unless of course you count the
windows."
S160: "Black-latticed windows open on a beautiful summer's day."
S161: "Blue sky can be seen through south-facing windows, latticed with black
lead and shut tight."
S162: "Evans is content once again."
S163: "There is a long vanity mirror beside the bed."
S164: "A tiny balcony around Miss Alison's windows, offering fresh air, blue
skies and a magnificent view over the gardens down to the droning motorway in
the distance. The roof is too perilous to scale even if you had a good reason
(which you haven't), so you had better go back north."
S165: "The rooftop is far too dangerous in that direction."
S166: "You look down on a low, bare window-sill."
S167: "The balcony is only a foot or so beneath the window-sill, and only about
four feet square."
S168: "Gold and lead are naturally related, so you want to find a lead box to
open."
S169: "This small cavity at the north end of the attic once housed all manner
of home-made wine paraphernalia, now lost and unlamented. Steps, provided with
a good strong banister rail, lead down and to the west, and the banister rail
continues along a passage east."
S170: "Faded ink on the label reads: Elderberry '63."
S171: "It's provided for your torch, and not for anything else."
S172: "On the side is the word "Achtung"."
S173: "Purely decorative."
S174: "The good news is that it has excellent grid references, which are easy
to look up. The bad news is that it is a map of central Hamburg."
S175: "This used to be called the Conservatory, before Aunt Jemima took it over
to potter about with plants, painting and indeed (on occasion) pottery. She has
filled the place with objets trouves and bric-a-brac, and hung up a home-made
calendar of watercolours. Even the old airing cupboard to the south is
cluttered.

An open doorway leads back southwest onto the upstairs landing, and you can
hear the chaotic noise of suitcases being manhandled about - good thing
nobody's seen you. A narrow staircase leads up and to the east into the attic.

Jemima herself seems to be in the potting room to the west."
S176: "A space about six feet square. The old drying racks now contain odd
ceramic sculptures almost but not quite unrecognisable as coffee mugs. One
corner is filled with an enormous pile of tie-dyed sheets, from Aunt Jemima's
infamous Sixties Revival period of last October."
S177: "The only way to go from here is back north."
S178: "a synthesized"
S179: "a light orchestra"
S180: "a choral"
S181: "a snare drum and strings"
S182: "a country-and-western"
S183: "a one-finger piano"
S184: "a Welsh coal-miners' Eisteddfod choir"
S185: "a Hammond organ"
S186: "an easy-listening"
S187: "a "lite-n-mellow""
S188: "a jazz trio"
S189: "a Big Band"
S190: " version of "
S191: " rendition of "
S192: " travesty of "
S193: " arrangement of "
S194: " transcription of "
S195: "Queen's "I Want To Break Free"."
S196: "Bach's "Air on a G-string"."
S197: "Mozart's "Musical Joke"."
S198: "Stockhausen's "Piano Pieces I-IX"."
S199: "Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"."
S200: "Summer from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"."
S201: "the especially slow movement of Gorecki's "Symphony no. 3"."
S202: "Spandau Ballet's "Gold"."
S203: "Duran Duran's "Is There Something I Should Know?"."
S204: "Derek and the Dominos' "Layla"."
S205: "Don McLean's "American Pie"."
S206: "Chopin's "Nocturne no. 1"."
S207: "Oxygene by Jean-Michel Jarre."
S208: "the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"."
S209: "the Beatles' "She Loves You"."
S210: "the Beatles' "Hey Jude"."
S211: "the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"."
S212: "Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"."
S213: "the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour"."
S214: "the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus"."
S215: "Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock"."
S216: "the old Elvis Presley number "Jailhouse Rock"."
S217: "the old Elvis Presley number "Blue Suede Shoes"."
S218: "ELO's "Mr Blue Sky"."
S219: "Bach's Toccata in D minor for organ."
S220: "ABC's "The Look of Love"."
S221: "the Beach Boys' "California Girls"."
S222: "the Stranglers' "Golden Brown"."
S223: "Genesis' "That's All"."
S224: "Grieg's piano concerto."
S225: "Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA"."
S226: "Beethoven's Symphony no. 5."
S227: "Beethoven's "Emperor" piano concerto."
S228: "Mozart's "Elvira Madigan" concerto."
S229: "Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 5."
S230: "Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water"."
S231: "Faure's Requiem."
S232: "Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture"."
S233: "the Swan from Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals"."
S234: "the "O Fortuna" from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana"."
S235: "Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"."
S236: "the Bugs Bunny theme tune."
S237: "Strauss' "Blue Danube" waltz."
S238: "the Star Wars theme tune."
S239: "the Star Trek theme tune."
S240: "the Dallas theme tune."
S241: "Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" overture."
S242: "Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing"."
S243: "Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms"."
S244: "Dire Straits' "Tunnel Of Love"."
S245: "Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"."
S246: "something abysmal by Leo Sayer."
S247: "Lionel Richie's "Hello"."
S248: "Hot Chocolate's "Happy Birthday"."
S249: "Abba's "Mama Mia"."
S250: "Abba's "Knowing Me, Knowing You"."
S251: "Barry Manilow's "I Write The Songs"."
S252: "Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"."
S253: "Ravel's "Bolero"."
S254: ""Nessun Dorma", as sung simultaneously by Pavarotti, Carreras and Dolly
Parton."
S255: "Michael Jackson's "Thriller"."
S256: "Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean"."
S257: "Michael Jackson's "Beat It"."
S258: "Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky"."
S259: "the Eurovision Song Contest's finest five minutes, "Diggy-Loo Diggy-Lay
(Life Is Going My Way)"."
S260: "Dexy's Midnight Runners' "Come on Eileen"."
S261: "Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild"."
S262: "Toto's "The Eye of the Tiger"."
S263: "Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"."
S264: "the traditional air "Greensleeves"."
S265: "Hoagy Carmichael's "Skylark"."
S266: "Noel Coward's "Don't Put Your Daughter On The Stage"."
S267: "Chas and Dave's "Rabbit Song"."
S268: "Paul McCartney's "Mull of Kintyre"."
S269: "John Lennon's "Imagine"."
S270: "that grisly carol, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas"."
S271: "that hoary old favourite, "Oh Come All Ye Faithful"."
S272: ""My Way", crooned over by Frank Sinatra."
S273: "an"
S274: "It rolls on casters, and has a bakelite on/off switch."
S275: "This light room is full of pot plants, flowers, seeds, ornamental
trowels and other miscellaneous garden implements."
S276: "The only exit is back east to the conservatory."
S277: "some"
S278: "Good for nothing. Why would you want gloves on?"
S279: "A pair of yellow rubber gloves hangs from a hook on one wall."
S280: "Aunt"
S281: "She's been fiddling about with those cut flowers all afternoon. And
she's a bit upset at being left alone in the house while you're off on holiday,
so best not to get on her bad side. You really ought to make it up to her
somehow."
S282: "Aunt Jemima, who has for years collected varieties of daisy, is engaged
in her regular annual pastime of deciding which species make the best chains."
S283: "Definitely mollified."
S284: "Dangerous to wear. But at least any sort of daisies will do."
S285: "A disused storage room off the winery. In one wall is an opening onto an
ominous dark shaft, and beside it is a big Victorian-steam-engine style wheel
with a handle on."
S286: "The only doorway is back west to the winery."
S287: "There is a concealed safety catch (poorly) hidden on the wheel."
S288: "the old"
S289: "Inside the dark shaft is the old dumbwaiter."
S290: "Uninviting."
S291: "A steel wrench gathers dust in the corner."
S292: "the"
S293: "The dumbwaiter hangs on strong pulley ropes which stretch up and down
from here."
S294: "It isn't even mentioned in any of the books I've read."
S295: "The half which didn't get the wish, actually."
S296: "Halfway up, or else halfway down, and a dreary place it is too: nothing
but a dark corridor leading north."
S297: "A passage which slants very slightly down to the south, which is full of
coal dust, to which you are unfortunately allergic. Not somewhere to linger."
S298: "A secret passage slants down to the east through a sandstone recess."
S299: "There is a shallow sandstone recess in the east wall."
S300: "At the north end is a metal door, standing open."
S301: "At the north end is a closed metal door."
S302: "Cobwebbed old cellars. There is nothing to see except an opening in one
wall onto a dark shaft, and a big Victorian-steam-engine style wheel beside it
with a handle on. The cellar continues east-to-west and south."
S303: "Uninviting."
S304: "There is a little closed window-vent low in the north wall."
S305: "You can just make out an impression of golden light."
S306: "It can't even follow orders."
S307: "In one corner is a dust-covered robot mouse."
S308: "Remember the late 1970s, when a craze for home-made robots swept the
home computing world?  No, perhaps not, but here is a left-over from it anyway.
The mouse is quite large (almost a foot wide and tall), and has a big smile
painted on its metal chassis. It has surprisingly modern circuitry in, though,
and is even humming very faintly, so someone must have put some work in on it
recently."
S309: "This is the eastern end of the cellars, from which you can only go
west."
S310: "The bricking-up of this cellar seems incomplete, because there is a hole
about ten or eleven inches across in the west wall. You peer at this with
interest but nothing is within reach inside, and it is far too small for you to
wriggle through. The cellars go back north, and so, it would appear, do you."
S311: "It isn't the attic key, I fear."
S312: "Brass is of course a non-magnetic copper-zinc alloy, so presumably this
key also contains iron."
S313: "Lying where the mouse dropped it is a small brass-coloured key."
S314: "The west end of a disused and shadowy old cellar. It was bricked up when
you were a child - you never did find out why. Perhaps the golden, jewelled
staircase leading down into smoky mists to the south might be something to do
with it."
S315: "an"
S316: "In the northwest wall the ironbound door stands open."
S317: "In the northwest wall is a heavy, imposing ironbound door."
S318: "There are times when your life seems an endless sequence of locked
doors, each harder to pass than the last. This one, though, has a feeling of
the ultimate about it."
S319: "An eerie, dark cave carved from crystal icicles of rock and strewn with
great spiders' webs hung from the ragged stone, inhabited only by dead white
insects. A narrow crevice opens out to an iron doorway and the warmth of the
house.

The rough stone floor levels out to a perfectly round, smooth white marble disc
about five yards across, inscribed with a black lemniscus (or infinity) symbol.

You shiver with foreboding, but inexplicably feel that the map you're looking
for must be somewhere near here."
S320: "There is now a small spherical opening in one wall."
S321: "It would just hold a ball the size of your palm."
S322: "A cave carved from crystal icicles of rock and glowing with vivid,
golden light, so bright it almost hurts your eyes. A narrow crevice opens out
to an iron doorway and the relative darkness of the house.

The rough stone floor levels out to a perfectly round, smooth white marble disc
about five yards across, inscribed with a black lemniscus (or infinity)
symbol."
S323: "A flight of sandstone steps, cut in the 1920s when an Egyptological
craze was sweeping England, slants down from the coal-dust passage to the
east."
S324: "A broad, dark octagonal room devoted to dull exhibits of the disastrous
Nile Valley Expedition of '21 - the few good ones were donated to the British
Museum. A back staircase leads west to the unbuilt extension, while the
entrance seems to be the cobwebbed passage southeast. High windows on the
northern face let in dim light."
S325: "The only exits are via the southeast passage and the back staircase."
S326: "There is a little window-vent high in the southwest wall."
S327: "You can just make out an impression of cellars."
S328: "A rather morbid, gilded model coffin rests here in peace."
S329: "A rather morbid gilded model coffin rests here."
S330: "The model coffin is closed and throbbing with electric power."
S331: "A rather morbid gilded model coffin rests open here."
S332: "Leaned against one of the eight corners is a ragged white parchment
scroll."
S333: "What taste! What artistry!"
S334: "A lamentably naff tourist's gift, this seems to be a "replica" of one of
the papyri on which some lost Greek play or other was written. Some nonsense
about the priestess of Apollo being summoned by music, etcetera.

It has all the charm of a tea-towel of, oh, say the Taj Mahal made out of
curry."
S335: "A little charcoal sketch is framed on one wall."
S336: "Behind the frame seems to be an artist's impression of the great Palace
of Alexandria as it might once have been."
S337: "It's the frame which really sets it off."
S338: "Charcoal is so unrealistic, don't you agree?  Besides, it's far too
large and clumsy."
S339: "A miniature artist's impression of the great Palace of Alexandria as it
might once have been.

(No, the impression is miniature, not the artist.)"
S340: "The ravings of a madman. Ignore it."
S341: "A low, white hallway adjoining the Octagon, converted from what was once
the scullery and the servants' pantry. A tight, dark staircase runs up and
south; and a diagonal bricked path runs out northeast to the gardens."
S342: "Up on one wall is a picture hook."
S343: "Mad Isaac's painting glares at you from the picture hook."
S344: "an"
S345: "A deep old elephant's-foot umbrella stand."
S346: "There's an old-fashioned elephant's foot umbrella stand beside the
garden doorway."
S347: "This dark, steep staircase zigzagging through the house once gave the
servants access throughout. But those days are long gone and now all the doors
are locked up."
S348: "This is a city side street, but as if seen through the grey of despair.
People stream by, some of whom you almost recognise, as if dead. The street
runs east-west, and to the north is a doorway into a grubby tenement building."
S349: "This shambolic flat, extending to the east, shares a filthy hallway with
the one upstairs. To the south, passers-by pass by along the street.
Peeling-away posters have been stuck up on top of each other on the walls, in
such a way that you can only read the most recent."
S350: ""Bateaux Phlebas - toujours le dernier mot". You briefly wish you had a
dog called Toto, so as to be able to say "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in
England any more.""
S351: "What a very useful piece of paper. Pity there's writing on it."
S352: "Flats occupied by starving-but-noble artists can be romantic and stylish
despite the squalor. This one, however, is simply a one-room hovel, caked with
paint, littered with brushes and improvised easels, and you can't help standing
on tiptoe here."
S353: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of a yellow chair."
S354: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of lilies on a pond."
S355: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of a chateau in
Aix-en-Provence."
S356: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of nude bathers."
S357: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of a waitress at a
bar."
S358: "One whole wall is an Cubist mural painting of a woman with a plate of
fish on her head."
S359: "One whole wall is an abstract Cubist mural painting."
S360: "One whole wall is an Pre-Raphaelite mural painting of the Virgin Mary
looking up at the light."
S361: "One whole wall is an Impressionist mural painting of a woman with a
parasol."
S362: "One whole wall is an pointillist mural painting of a scene in a park by
a lake."
S363: "an"
S364: "The bottom corner is signed simply "Helene"."
S365: "The stairs end at a shabby room, with screened windows, lit by incense
sticks and sevenbranched candelabra. A doorway with a hanging bead curtain
leads west. In the centre of the room is a table, on which is an electric bell
push and a wicked Tarot pack."
S366: "Peculiarly, the hanging curtain seems to be solid iron when you walk
into it."
S367: "She has a bad cold, but nevertheless is known to be the wisest woman in
Europe."
S368: "Hood, scythe, skeleton, implacable grin: yes, it's the Reaper all
right."
S369: "It's vital you slide right along with this one."
S370: "Don't worry, he won't slide down the cliff."
S371: "The Fool is a man looking directly ahead as he steps off the edge of a
cliff."
S372: "He's one of my colleagues now, of course."
S373: "Those are pearls that were his eyes..."
S374: "an"
S375: "Shoddy workmanship, but never mind, it's only a staff and who needs
those any more?"
S376: "Down at the end of the street, the brown urban waters carry by
unpleasant rubbish, and rats scuttle up and over the mounds washed up around
you."
S377: "People had no style in those days, before they invented paper tissues. I
mean this tatty cloth is hardly attractive, is it?"
S378: "On one especially repellent mound is, of all things, a fine silk
handkerchief."
S379: "Monogrammed J. A. P., but that's no great matter."
S380: "The side reads: PHLEBAS."
S381: "Moored close to the bank is a glass-roofed tourist boat."
S382: "On the far bank is a glass-roofed tourist boat. As much as you like to
explore, you can't see how to attract its attention."
S383: "A tourist river-boat, glass-roofed. You can climb out to the shore to
the east. At the helm is a very strange man, at times almost a straw dummy,
almost perhaps a hollow cut-out made of paper. He (or it) turns the wheel and
casts his eyes to windward."
S384: "the"
S385: "Every now and then he whimpers."
S386: "The hollow man mechanically says: "Where to, guv'nor?  Me with my big
mouth, I gone and done it again, calling you the guv'nor. I was down Margate
Sands way once, had a bloke come on board, he thought any old destination would
do, like a real place, like anywhere was real... We are the hollow men, I says,
he didn't like that... Hurry up, please, it's time.""
S387: "A dry, desolate waste of buildings borders here on a main road, so full
of black-suited pedestrians off to work at banks that you can't force your way
any further east. Once in a while a few of the bowler-hatted army step into the
street and down some steps below a Metropolitan sign."
S388: "You can't force your way through the tide of bankers."
S389: "This is a vast underground station in great rectangular caverns, deep
beneath the streets. You are outside the ticket gates, near a flight of steps
back up to the city, and since you haven't a ticket you're likely to stay that
way."
S390: "Back up the stairs for you. Call yourself a traveller..."
S391: "Behind a kiosk, a surly-looking man is selling guide books and maps."
S392: "His jumper is unstriped, and there are no onions around his neck.
Nonetheless he has a rather Gallic, disgruntled look to him. Perhaps he's a
former Socialist cabinet minister."
S393: "Burn it!  Burn it at once!"
S394: "What a very useful map!  Now you can go on holiday."
S395: "Just the way you remember yours having been."
S396: "The Museum of Arcana is deserted after nightfall and only dimly lit by
distant sodium street-lamps. Outside it is a stormy October night and rain
beats against the windowpanes. Shadows swoop and dive in the air like bats.

The revolving door to northeast, which leads out, seems to be solidly blocked
off. But a dim passage runs south, through a strange metal corridor."
S397: "There's no apparent way but south."
S398: "Why not go northeast and look inside?"
S399: "A publicity poster is displayed for passers-by outside to see."
S400: "One of those pretentious exhibition posters. Your German is just about
adequate to the task:

"Cults of the Druids - a Major Retrospective, October-November 1988"."
S401: "Inside one quarter of the cramped revolving door, which is blocked off
from the world outside and opens only onto the foyer, southwest."
S402: "To north and east are the walls of the door."
S403: "The door only turns clockwise."
S404: "You stand within it."
S405: "A colourful, striped inflated beach ball bounces around."
S406: "A great square gloomy room, just south of the foyer. There are square
lintelled doorways east and west. The storm is dark, and the windows are high,
but there's just enough light to see by."
S407: "There's nothing worthwhile in it."
S408: "Resting on a little display table is a Tarot box."
S409: "A long painted still life graces one wall near a corner."
S410: "A disturbing painting, perhaps by Edvard Munch, this is a still life of
a seedling on a table, surrounded by a rusty iron rod with a star on the end, a
glass bottle, a lamp and a bunch of keys. No doubt these arcane objects held
some special significance for primitive tribes now absorbed into civilisation."
S411: "A dark staircase, turning from east to south as it descends. The hideous
sound of arhythmic chanting can be heard from below."
S412: "On one step, an empty matchbook lies discarded."
S413: "Ah, I fear it is only a token clue."
S414: "It's from the Ruined Castle Cafe, and (like the Cafe) is matchless."
S415: "A stone castle on a hill."
S416: "It leads nowhere."
S417: "A single bright light in the darkness."
S418: "Ugh, what a nasty bright light. Good thing you'll never go there."
S419: "There's less to this card than meets the eye."
S420: "Andromeda chained to a rock on the sea-shore."
S421: "What an ugly girl!  Bet she's good for a laugh though."
S422: "It leads nowhere."
S423: "It shows a great many crystal-glass cups and glasses."
S424: "An old administrative office of the museum, emptied and made into a
prison cell: amateur but effective."
S425: "There's definitely no way out of here."
S426: "an"
S427: "Just a crook. And what's wrong with crooks, that's what I say."
S428: "As you might expect, the cell door is closed."
S429: "An annexe to the museum, containing sundry archaelogical finds, badly
labelled in German (which you can hardly read at the best of times) and
securely pinioned inside glass cabinets. The storm outside thrashes against the
narrow dark windows."
S430: "One cabinet looks particularly vulnerable."
S431: "You could just look inside the broken glass cabinet."
S432: "A smooth palm-sized disc, perhaps of pumice stone, painted in yellows
and browns with a single star motif, around which (clockwise) are the words
"nog", "er", "ska" and "iw". If you remember the label rightly, something funny
has been done to a piece of metal embedded in the top, but your German wasn't
up to understanding what."
S433: "Doesn't the shape strike you as familiar at all?  - There, that should
point you in the right direction."
S434: "You need more evidence before you can begin deciphering the language, I
fear."
S435: "Only one line has survived intact:

.<anoppe> an-spe : ska er nog-er an-ge : to-ro-ma ka ur Al-x-an-dr u bir ka
ur-a an-ge ur"
S436: "This crowded, bohemian cafe bears only a passing resemblance to the
ruined castle of the Tarot card: the decor imitates castle walls and
arrowslits. You find yourself sitting at a table for one in the centre of the
cafe floor. It is noisy, bustling and cheery, and a string quartet plays
Strauss under the chattering of German voices. Your chances of attracting a
waiter are very slight."
S437: "The crowd is lively and exciting, but also inconsiderate and bulky."
S438: "It contains a timer-detonator, a bundle of plastic explosives and many,
many wires. The most obvious ones are green, red, blue and black. They would
pull out of their loose sockets in the timer easily, so perhaps this bomb
disposal nonsense isn't as tricky as people make out."
S439: "Taped loosely to the underside of the table is a complicated-looking
bomb."
S440: "Time flies down here, you know. Eternity simply breezes by."
S441: "Good photographic gear that. You didn't get it from a... well, a bomb, I
hope."
S442: "This basement room is filled with crate after crate of glasses and cups,
enough for an entire hotel, or restaurant perhaps. Almost anything might be
hidden among them. A little light comes in from an opaque skylight which is at
street level outdoors. There is no way out of here, since the only door is shut
tight."
S443: "There's no apparent way out of here."
S444: "Through the square window in the door you can see a bar at which staff
are serving, and a very crowded and lively cafe-restaurant beyond. The cabaret
act has her back to you, and a considerable amount of her front to the diners."
S445: "numerous"
S446: "Old, unwanted, dusty, empty."
S447: "The great challenge, of course, is to get a ship inside."
S448: "An unlabelled whisky bottle, laid on its side and mounted on a wood
plaque, lies deservedly unwanted on one of the crates."
S449: "Oh, well done!  Why not take a closer look, you deserve it?"
S450: "Within the whisky bottle is a model sailing ship, far too large to have
passed the neck."
S451: "The great challenge, of course, is to get it inside a bottle."
S452: "A superb model sailing ship, about six inches from prow to stern,
immaculate in every detail from an anchor on a filigree chain to a carved
mermaid up front."
S453: "The great challenge, of course, is to get it inside a bottle."
S454: "A tightly-folded bundle of sticks, about six inches long, with a
filigree chain and anchor hanging from it."
S455: "The rocks are too dangerous. You'll have to scale the cliff."
S456: "Chained to the cliff face is the beautiful Andromeda, looking nobly out
to sea as she awaits her fate."
S457: "Andromeda's"
S458: "A long clasp of amber, perfect for long straggly Greek hair."
S459: "Mmm... it still has her perfume on it. Hehehehe. Bet she's dead now."
S460: "On top of some exposed cliffs on the Mediterranean. A dangerous slither
down leads on one side to the shore, all other ways down being even more
hazardous. Atop the cliffs is the Pharos tower, a round stone pinnacle
lighthouse, but there is no way in from here.

A grassy walk leads east, and a narrow crack leads southwest into a cave
mouth."
S461: "There's only dull grassland that way."
S462: "A long clifftop walk by the sea, from the lighthouse to the west to the
village not far east. These fields are occupied by herds of hardy mountain
goats, continually butting each other and frisking. To the south a path leads
across sparse grassland to a great outgrowth of some kind."
S463: "There's only dull grassland that way."
S464: "A long walk along the cliffs from the lighthouse leads naturally here,
just outside the Eraina Taverna, whose open doorway lies to the south."
S465: "There's only dull grassland that way."
S466: "Only a small, thorny, unclimbable fig tree."
S467: "Legend has it that the Roman emperor Augustus was killed by his wife
Livia, who painted the figs on his tree with poison. Actually it looks like a
perfectly nice piece of fruit."
S468: "Hanging from a low branch of a fig tree is, as you might expect, a fig."
S469: "Good enough for a god."
S470: "You can ask a god for a date, but they just don't give a fig."
S471: "A plain but cheery taverna, fill of miserable and rather ashamed men who
are drinking retsina heavily. The day is dawning outside the north door, but
they strangely do not share your uplifted feeling at the sight."
S472: "The tavern entrance is to the north."
S473: "A speciality dessert of the Taverna: ice cream, kateifi, raspberry
sauce, cream. An acquired taste."
S474: "Left untouched on one table is an Ekmek Special dessert."
S475: "Better with chocolate ice cream, I think."
S476: "Doesn't somebody else need this more than you?"
S477: "Morose and unconvivial at the best of times. This is not the best of
times."
S478: "Behind the bar, a depressed bartender polishes glasses."
S479: "The rather sparse rolling landscape is dominated here by a massive, and
suspiciously unnatural, wall of thorns, which forms a great ring about an area
perhaps a hundred yards in diameter. There are goat pastures to the north."
S480: "There's only dull grassland that way."
S481: "A ragged gap in the wall has been burnt out to the south."
S482: "The wall rustles and clashes its thorns like a beast alive."
S483: "It's hard to imagine what could possibly shift a wall like that."
S484: "Here inside the thorn wall, a north-south path leads across sacred earth
into the imposing marble Temple of Zeus. You feel distinctly uneasy walking on
such hallowed turf. There are any number of myths about gods getting cross
about that sort of thing."
S485: "The wall of thorns hems you in."
S486: "The beautiful candle-lit Temple of Zeus, a cavern of marble pillars
which is quite empty and featureless save for the entrance at the north. So
much for all the rumours about hoards of treasure - it looks as if Zeus (who
is, by the way howling with anger outside) was bluffing all along.

Cloisters lead southeast and southwest, deeper into the temple."
S487: "one"
S488: "On one side, a man's face: on the other, a symbol, I. One obol, or
one-sixth of a drachma."
S489: "This currency is only valid in ancient Greece. Where on earth have you
been?"
S490: "The east cloister of the Temple, which turns from northwest to
southwest, is bare but for a small niche."
S491: "an"
S492: "Resting in the niche is an inscribed pumice stone, two feet tall."
S493: "Whoever wrote this must have wanted to get the message across very
badly, to write it all out twice."
S494: "Along the west cloister, turning from northeast to southeast, is a broad
bas relief depicting the seasons: the planting of seed, high summer, the
harvest, floods and then the coming of ice."
S495: "A curious symbol is repeated along the top of the relief."
S496: "Here from the dark heart of the temple, cloisters fork northeast and
northwest while a flight of narrowing steps lead down and to the north."
S497: "The blind poet Homer half-slumbers here, clutching his syrinx (or
Pan-pipes) to himself."
S498: "Homer is wearing a Columbo-style raincoat."
S499: "Homer sits half-awake, clutching his syrinx."
S500: "Homer glares at you through sightless eyes."
S501: "Homer is asleep again, his syrinx tight in his arms."
S502: "the"
S503: "Marvellous! A sound to soothe the spirit."
S504: "Carefully cut from river reeds, these once belonged to Homer himself. As
you may recall."
S505: "The fabled Labyrinth seems only to consist of a broad cross. Arms run to
northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest, while a flight of stone steps
widens and climbs south."
S506: "The two-foot opening is clear again."
S507: "the"
S508: ""ka-i ur-a re-im ka an-ge""
S509: "There are extremely scuffed and faded inscriptions at the centre of the
cross."
S510: "Beside the inscriptions is an opening in the floor, about two feet
square."
S511: "The opening is securely wedged with the stone."
S512: "The opening is securely wedged with the prop."
S513: "A foul, musty bone pit, beneath the cross, where sacrificial victims
were once dropped and "forgotten"."
S514: "Lying on top of crushed, broken bones, in plain view, is a gleaming gem
of amber."
S515: "Embedded within is the body of a fly. Scratched upon one face is the
word "GALITA"."
S516: "Isn't there some classical legend about her?"
S517: "This cross-corner is inlaid with carvings of fish, of the waves, of
great casting nets sweeping through the water.

The Labyrinth lies to southwest."
S518: "This cross-corner is surrounded with carvings of wheat swaying in the
breeze, bathed with sunshine.

The Labyrinth lies to southeast."
S519: "This cross-corner is decorated with carvings of massed ranks of hoplite
warriors, advancing into battle.

The Labyrinth lies to northwest."
S520: "This cross-corner is decorated with carvings of grape-vines and barrels.

The Labyrinth lies to northeast."
S521: "A fine statue of the god Poseidon stands here."
S522: "A fine statue of the goddess Demeter stands here."
S523: "A fine statue of the god Ares stands here."
S524: "A fine statue of the god Dionysus stands here."
S525: "A dry cave opening from a crack to the northeast, becoming a fair-sized
cavern, furnished with bronze and lit by trestle lamps chained from the
ceiling."
S526: "the"
S527: "The Oracle, the masked priestess of Apollo, stands here behind an
obsidian altar-stone, three cubits cubed: to her side is a bronze urn, mouthing
perpetual flame."
S528: "the"
S529: "In the centre of the cave rests an obsidian altar stone with a flaming
bronze urn."
S530: "The altar stone, sometimes called "Omphalos" or "the navel", bears an
odd cross or plus sign and is fabled to mark the centre of the world.

Around the side of the urn are reliefs of feasts, of oxen being tracked and
sacrificed, of the gathering of fruit and the making of cheese."
S531: "The god Apollo moves in mysterious ways, for another fig has appeared on
the tree."
S532: "Being a lighthouse, this pinnacle is way up in the air. Point taken?"
S533: "A brown-tinted frieze, depicting hunters and spear-carriers, surrounds
this dark stair-well, which has no exit except for a spiral staircase leading
back up."
S534: "The decorated strip of entablature between the architrave and the
cornice, in the Attic style circa fifth century B.C.

Well, you did ask."
S535: "the"
S536: "the"
S537: "the"
S538: "the"
S539: "There is a storm tossing the deck, one which drives no rain: you reel
from one side to the other, hanging onto the rail, grabbing at the mast or the
rigging. Nobody else seems to be aboard. The boat makes no headway in a
strange, glassy mist.

The mast rises dizzyingly high.

You can't even make out the water below. A great pink haze spreads across the
sky. With omens like these, who needs albatrosses?"
S540: "The deck runs fore to aft (as all decks do)."
S541: "the"
S542: "Down might be a better idea."
S543: "Coming up here must be one of your less inspired ideas. The mist is all
around you, confusing your senses. Two pale, bluish moons hang in a pink sky."
S544: "A flagpole juts out portwards from the top of the mast, far too
insubstantial to bear any weight. From it hangs the ensign of the British
Merchant Navy (which you could just reach the bottom of)."
S545: "The flagpole juts out to port with the prevailing... wind?"
S546: "The flag has fluttered to a heap on deck."
S547: "Piece of advice - it's never very comfortable wrapping yourself in the
Flag."
S548: "Broad, heavy, scarlet cloth, halfway between a silken sheet and a
carpet, with a cross and a Union Jack in one corner."
S549: "an"
S550: "A plain old piece of timber."
S551: "An old timber prop, once the spar of a main mast."
S552: "The broken flagpole, a plain timber spar, lies beside the mast."
S553: "You stand in the triangular prow of the ship, which is graced by a
carved and painted figurine and named the "Lady Magdalena". There is no sign of
water, but the boat is rocked too often for it to be aground. And the glassy
mist hangs ahead."
S554: "Oh, you startled me for a moment there! I am getting flighty."
S555: "In the Lady Magdalena's loose grip is a traditional sailor's good-luck
token: a green-leafed branch, to attract the gulls of an approaching shore."
S556: "The square stern of the ship looks out south, not onto receding waves,
but to what seems a tunnel through dense, glassy mist. You can faintly make out
an odd, pale reddish sand bank in the distance."
S557: "The boat runs fore."
S558: "The top of the anchor chain is wound around the capstan, a great wheel
on the deck beside you. The chain disappears over the side."
S559: "In the lush, verdant (which is to say, under-cared for) gardens of
Meldrew House, where a stream gurgles pleasantly as it meanders through reeds.
The house rises up high above you to the south and you dare not be seen from
the windows by the rest of the family, so you'll have to go northwest, deeper
into the gardens, or else east along a path hugging the wall."
S560: "The Hall is not safely climbable."
S561: "Better not... you'd be seen from the Orangery."
S562: "Better not... you'd be seen from the Library."
S563: "Better not... you'd be seen from the Old Ballroom."
S564: "The bulk of the Hall is in your way."
S565: "On the house wall is a coal bunker, whose door stands open."
S566: "On the house wall is a coal bunker, whose loading door is shut."
S567: "The east-west path along the foot of Meldrew Hall ends here at one of
the carved walls bordering the garden."
S568: "You'd be seen from the Library that way."
S569: "You'd be seen from the Old Ballroom that way."
S570: "There's no door into the Hall."
S571: "The walls of the Hall are unclimbable to someone suffering from your
degree of vertigo."
S572: "The stone wall blocks further passage east."
S573: "A shrub is being nursed in a wide round tub in the centre of the path,
sheltered behind the wall."
S574: "The garden wall once bore painted carvings, but they have fallen into
disrepair."
S575: "The timber lid stands open beside the shrub, revealing the old
barrel-hatch."
S576: "Beside the shrub is a timber hatch, three feet across."
S577: "You stand in the shade of a great plane tree, seedlings for which were
brought back from Spain by an ancestor of yours in 1806. To the southeast is a
stream, to the west is a small clearing and to the north a single break in the
green privet hedge marks the entrance to the famously difficult Meldrew Hall
Maze. A signpost reading "To the Mosaic" points east across the lawn."
S578: "Several hundred years of rolling have made this a rather fine patch of
grass, between the privet hedge (north), the plane tree (west) and the mosaic
(east). Unfortunately, it is adorned with all the really ugly ornaments
(gnomes, plaster nymphs, stone windmills to grow flowers in), this being the
corner of the garden least visible from the house."
S579: "The options appear to be east or west."
S580: "Prominent amongst these is a plaster statuette, a bust of a woman."
S581: "It stands four feet high. At the base is an engraving: "Self-Portrait,
H.M. '54". (It's presumably not by Her Majesty the Queen, though.)"
S582: "The lawn is lightly coated with broken plaster and dust, and in the spot
where the statuette once stood is a dark, ancient well."
S583: "You can make out nothing below, and the well is too small to climb
down."
S584: "This sunken corner of the garden has been excavated and then covered
over with tough perspex to protect it from visitors' shoes. It consists of a
time-worn Roman mosaic, divided into four quadrants, each showing scenes of
idealised Roman life. There was probably a villa on this site, but your family
has never been keen on archaeologists so the excavations went no further."
S585: "From here you can climb back up to the lawn."
S586: "Made of terra-cotta and ceramic fragments, it has held together
surprisingly well."
S587: "Splendid, you're having a ball. I do hope you hit it off."
S588: "A hard wooden ball, palm-sized, rolls about across the mosaic."
S589: "A clearing at the edge of the garden, surrounded by walls and the privet
hedges of the maze. To the east is the plane tree, to the west an opening in
the wall makes a garage entrance and to the south is a small vegetable garden."
S590: "A recently-turned vegetable garden, using up a shady corner of the
garden. The patch testifies more to good intentions than horticulture."
S591: "From this corner, you can only go back to the clearing."
S592: "A giant runner-bean plant leads up vertiginously into the sky from
here."
S593: "Only a runner-bean plant graces the vegetable garden."
S594: "At the top of the beanstalk, in amongst the clouds. There is no safe way
to go from here except back down, not surprisingly. A dangerous way might be to
step out onto the clouds to the north, but even if this is a fairy-tale it
would be taking a lot on trust."
S595: "The clouds are too tenuous that way."
S596: "A modest brick garage, built into the garden walls. A big open doorway
leads east onto the clearing."
S597: "A motorised garden roller of the kind you sit inside, among whose simple
controls is a big on/off switch."
S598: "The garden roller sits here, its engine still running."
S599: "A big motorised garden roller is parked here."
S600: "The funny thing is, they didn't have weedkillers in the early nineteenth
century, and yet they still planned some marvellous gardens."
S601: "If squeezed, it squirts weed killer over the ground. There are many
warning labels about getting it on one's hands."
S602: "In the shadows is a weed killer bottle."
S603: "Do you think there's anywhere in the garden particularly suitable for
such an implement?"
S604: "Hanging from a hook is a bladed agricultural implement."
S605: "A magnificent view of the gardens would be yours, were it not for the
branches and leaves which surround you. You can make out Aunt Jemima up at one
of the conservatory windows, but hide from her view. Down below, the
privet-hedge layout of the maze can be seen through the lower branches."
S606: "No, don't go out on a limb."
S607: "the"
S608: "A maze of green privet passages, all alike."
S609: "The privet hedges are in the way."
S610: "This is an old stone patio in the heart of the garden maze. A missing
flagstone offers an intriguing dark prospect beneath."
S611: "The privet hedges are in the way."
S612: "Up?  Are we playing the same game?"
S613: "Sticking out of some soft earth is a perfectly-carved marble rose."
S614: "Perfection set in stone. Not a gift for mortal women!"
S615: "This flagstoned rampart on the hillside looks across the valley, down
(unfortunately) to the motorway below. Coaches pass by, reminding you of the
rapidly approaching time when visitors will have to be let in again for the
summer. The only safe way to go is back east into the maze. To one side is a
plaque."
S616: "The hillside is too steep."
S617: ""This viewpoint, one of the finest in the county, was laid down by
Capability Meldrew, a well-known landscape gardener of his day. It was intended
as one of the rewards of the garden maze, and was constructed c. 1808 after an
earlier folly on the site collapsed.""
S618: "A miniature plastic etching rests on the plaque."
S619: "What's the point of a drawing so small it might almost be a playing
card?"
S620: "No larger than a playing card, it depicts the Folly which used to stand
on the hillside outcrop."
S621: "This is a rampart on the hillside, a natural ledge leading east. Down
below in the valley, rough cottages surround a church. Labourers toil in the
fields, and a hay wain is being pulled across the river.

Towering over you is a monstrously awful piece of architecture, a Folly. The
freestanding tower has no appreciable purpose and no apparent entrance. The
latter is just as well since it looks extremely unsafe."
S622: "The hillside is too steep."
S623: "Decidedly unsteady."
S624: "Whatever you do, it'll always be a bean pole."
S625: "A bean pole, of the kind used to grow climbing plants, rests against the
side of the tower."
S626: "A square grid of plots of grass and seedbeds, all alike."
S627: "Capability Meldrew and his gang of workmen are delicately planting a
sapling plane tree here. Your disturbance annoys them immensely and you are
immediately arrested for vagrancy and theft. After a few months in prison, you
are hauled up before the County Assizes and sentenced..."
S628: "You're strolling on a pleasant bricked path, passing from the outer
rooms of Meldrew Hall to a track through the eastern side of the garden."
S629: "Named by some family wag generations back, this is a restful hedge
garden, crowned with a summer house to the north, widening out to a broad
croquet lawn east."
S630: "A flock of sparrows crowds around the gutters of the summer house. Every
now and then one flits up and lands somewhere else, and they bustle about
chirpily."
S631: "An old wooden summer house, reeking of varnish and uncertain beneath
your feet. Several segments of the tall glass many-sided pyramidal roof are
missing and others are cracked, but this is still somehow a homely and
welcoming retreat. The only entrance is also the only exit."
S632: "Croquet is the Devil's own game!"
S633: "It's for mashing croquet potatoes."
S634: "A croquet mallet stands by one wooden wall."
S635: "How easily are the weak mesmerised by baubles."
S636: "It is beautifully polished, and captivates the eye. You could stare for
hours..."
S637: "Something golden hangs by a chain from a loose pane in the roof, but
it's too high up to reach."
S638: "Among dense hedges by the shabby wood-slatted back of the summer house.
Dark scratchy branches hem you in, but you could scramble down to the west or
out onto the croquet lawn southeast."
S639: "You could easily squeeze past the loose board south into the summer
house."
S640: "One board of the back wall is noticeably loose, making a good-sized
crack."
S641: "Through the crack you can see the summer house."
S642: "your"
S643: "Not at all shy when on his own territory."
S644: "The squirrel sits here, watchfully pecking away at the nuts."
S645: "The lawn is enclosed on all sides, but for a gap back west."
S646: "There are six arched hoops in a croquet set, arranged around a central
peg. These ones have been safely anchored in place since the lawn was laid out
in, oh, Midsummer 1923 if family lore is to be believed."
S647: "A good strong strongbox, buried for two centuries and now unearthed; it
bears a fine gothic iron lock, and a tasteless coat of arms (a wild boar
rampant)."
S648: "You might have read about this. One of your ancestors is the key,
perhaps?"
S649: "A very old instrument for measuring altitudes, this is all that remains
of Sir Joshua Meldrewe's stolen hoard of gold. There is an eyepiece."
S650: "A mighty fine instrument, though not much use hand-held."
S651: "The rich loam, the silver of earthworms, the dignity of toil... none of
these pastoral consolations is yours as you scrabble in the dirt."
S652: "This is a murky hillside cave, whose mouth opens to the northeast,
though a tight squeeze might lead a little way west. Outside is a clear starry
night. There is no traffic noise, and the air smells fresh."
S653: "Hanging up on an iron bracket is a flaming torch."
S654: "an"
S655: "It is a summary of the writings of a polemical monk called Gildas, and
relates to events following the fall of the tyrant Vortigern at the turn of the
fifth century A.D. After dark decades of pillage by Saxon mercenaries, Britain
was reunited by Ambrosius Aurelianus and then defended at the Battle of Badon
Hill, some time in the early years of the sixth century.

This remarkable victory was of no religious significance, so Gildas does not
dwell upon it. He tends only to mention bad kings and leaders, and then chiefly
to insult them. (Talking about Gildas is an excellent way to annoy an
Anglo-Saxon historian.)  Nobody even knows where Badon Hill is any more, or
anything else about it, although some students of Welsh poetry believe
Ambrosius was the source of the legend of King Arthur."
S656: "An uncomfortable spur of rock on the hillside crags. The only natural
access to this spot is a crevice in the hill to the east, but there is also a
securely fastened rope hanging down into the darkness."
S657: "The crags are too precipitous."
S658: "You are hanging perilously on a hemp rope, suspended from an overhang of
rock above, which drops down into the darkness of the valley. On the tracks
below, patrols of men can be heard, and you feel instinctively that they are
not friendly."
S659: "Up and down are it, quite frankly."
S660: "A single yellow daisy grows from a little tuft of grass on the crags."
S661: "The geography is strangely familiar here. You are on a natural shelf on
the hillside, overlooking the valley below. An all-but invisible cleft in the
rock leads to a cave to the southwest, and the slope can safely be traversed to
the east.

It is a brightly moonlit night, cool as in late spring. There will be a sharp
frost tomorrow. Down in the valley, a great cartwheel circle of camp fires
illuminate some dark shapes, perhaps crude encampments. There is no other sign
of civilisation."
S662: "The hillside is too steep."
S663: "You stand beside a Roman villa, whose columns cast shadows of an Empire
in the moonlight. It is thirty years since the fall of the West, and Britain is
cut off from the continent, where soon even the existence of the Anglis will
become a myth. This villa has survived the pestilence and devastation of the
civil war, and although it must be a couple of centuries old, it is still
standing. From here you could cut across the hillside east to west, or slip in
through a none-too-secure timber door."
S664: "A stream runs past the villa and cascades down the hillside here, to
join the river far below, near the Roman road which will, in 1500 years time,
become the motorway which so spoils the view from your back garden. A rough
ladder of wood lashed together with leather rests against the villa at the
lowest point of the tiled roof."
S665: "You climb the ladder and are about to jump onto the roof when you catch
sight of a man swaddled in animal furs, spreadeagled over the tiles, looking
down into the central courtyard of the villa. He has a nasty-looking sword and
since he hasn't seen you, you quietly shin back down the ladder again."
S666: "The shadowy cloisters of the villa's atrium. You disturb a fieldmouse,
and hear the scratching of tiny claws on stone. Moonlight filters in from the
central courtyard to the south, and a rotten timber door leads back north."
S667: "Resting against one pillar is a horn made from a tusk, mounted on a long
spear-like pole."
S668: "The central well of the villa, ringed with columns. On the north side is
a cloister and stone-linteled doorways lead east, south and west. The central
floor area is commanded by a beautiful Roman mosaic, quartered into individual
scenes, around the edges of which are vents from the hypocaust. There is no
roof over the courtyard, and the atrium is lit by moonlight."
S669: "The four quarters show white-beards in the Forum, farmers in Italian
fields, a military fortification and a grain ship unloading at Ossia."
S670: "Whatever function this spacious room once had, now it is evidently home
to military men, for it is filled with crude armour, spears, rough blankets
which are little more than animal hides. Fortunately for you the guards are
absent."
S671: "A crude six-sided die made from animal bone."
S672: "a pair of"
S673: "What was once the villa's triclinium, or kitchen, is now deserted and
long since ransacked for metal. (Nobody lives on their own in this century, and
this villa wouldn't be easy to defend.)  A doorway to the east gives onto the
atrium."
S674: "The well has a hinged wooden cover. You can't tell by looking how deep
it is."
S675: "The hinged wooden cover is raised, revealing a circular well about a
yard in diameter. It is very dark inside."
S676: "In one corner is a hinged wooden cover of some kind, which is shut."
S677: "You are clinging perilously to the walls of the deep and dangerous well.
You can hardly see a thing, even with the aid of the torch, but curiously
enough you feel warm air blowing across you from the east."
S678: "Too risky. There might not be anything that way, for all you know."
S679: "This very low almost-cellar underneath the atrium is a tiny access space
for log fires which are kept going to provide a form of central heating for the
villa. They are lit and going away nicely, interestingly. It isn't very warm by
twentieth-century standards, but you have to admit it works.

A tiny amount of light filters in from the vents in the roof; just enough to
see by. The only way in seems to be the way you came."
S680: "The log fires are hot, and anyway the only way out large enough for you
is back west."
S681: "the"
S682: "A well-flagstoned forecourt at the villa entrance, surrounded by lesser
wooden buildings. Some of these are in use as stables, and figures of men slip
between them. You hide from sight, not wishing to draw attention to yourself.
Up on the hill, where Meldrew Hall will one day be built, men on horseback can
be seen circling the access track. For a deserted villa, this is certainly
well-guarded."
S683: "Well, here you are, imprisoned again. This time the cell is a tent of
stitched animal hides, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, supported by a central
pole. You have no idea where the entrance is, because you were blindfolded on
the way in. There is at least a dim light from the camp-fires outside the
tent."
S684: "This tent doesn't seem to have an exit, either."
S685: "He is dishevelled, wiry and unconscious. He is also covered with dust
and leaves, as if he has been lying down on his front outdoors for hours."
S686: "An unconscious Saxon spy is slumped on the ground. Occasionally faint
noises can be heard from him."
S687: "Luckily for you the tent, now collapsed, was hardly being watched at
all, because all the attention is diverted to a ghastly ritual being carried
out over beyond the camp-fires. But your luck cannot hold for long. You are so
surrounded by hostile territory that you simply have nowhere to run or hide.
Things are, not to put too fine a point on it, looking grim."
S688: "Far, far too risky."
S689: "An erratic glacial rock, which seems in the feverish firelight to make a
natural dolmen, can be made out to the east, on the other side of an
almost-extinguished campfire of hot coals."
S690: "You stand beside the eerie dolmen, surrounded by the terrible noises and
incantations of a druidic rite."
S691: "Far, far too risky."
S692: "I wouldn't wave that around if I were you!"
S693: "Resting on top of the dolmen is a polished blue stone."
S694: "You are transparent like a ghost."
S695: "It is a frosty, clear night, but there is a scent of camp-fires burning
in the distance. You are passing through the landscape as if a ghost, and all
seems faintly unreal. To the east is one side of an animal-hide tent, but there
is no way in from here. To southwest, some soldiers sit around the embers of a
fire. There is a terrible sense of something about to happen."
S696: "This is the tent of a thin, reedy man who wears no uniform but has an
obvious and commanding presence. He has an aquiline, patrician nose and, at
five feet four, is taller than anyone else present. The others are advisers,
junior officers, scheming politicians and their like. They are keeping their
distance from a trestle table at the north end of the tent."
S697: "This is a kind of improvised shrine. A trestle table bears entrails,
crude drawings sketched out on hide, and caged animals: draped beside it is a
primitive tapestry of a bear reared up on its hind legs."
S698: "Primal, bestial, terrifying."
S699: "An absolute essential."
S700: "On the table is a heavy iron mascot of some kind."
S701: "The mascot is in the shape of an ankh, with a lemniscus (or infinity)
symbol moulded onto it."
S702: "Beside the table is a more substantial adviser, as if she too walks in
this strange spirit plane. She is wearing frightening druidical robes, of
strange pelts and furs, with nasty-looking charms around her neck. Every so
often, she seems to catch sight of you out of the corner of her eye, but then
look round and see nothing. The military men do not believe in her power, and
yet... they treat her with respect."
S703: "You can almost smell fear here. A motley platoon of soldiers are sitting
about the embers of a fire. None are talking or sleeping, and the false good
humour of the evening has died away. At first light, you realise, there will be
a battle. It isn't a risk you'd like to run in their place. And there is a
strange light already in the east... not yet a dawn, for the soldiers seem
unaware of it."
S704: "A standing stone, perhaps a glacial erratic, stands here and on top of
it is a shining blue stone, whose brightness almost blinds you. You feel
irresistably drawn to it, and your hand reaches out..."
S705: "A strangely familiar, dusty passage, sloping down from a southern end
bathed in hostile light to some kind of metal barrier in the north."
S706: "Flurries of green luminescence whirl endlessly around you, west to east
and over."
S707: "The flurries have almost endless fascination... but you manage to tear
your eyes away after, oh, an hour?"
S708: "Your ghostly self is embedded in a diagonal downward shaft (descending
to the east) entirely filled with dry sand. Solid flagstones line the walls."
S709: "Flaming torches bracketed in the wall gutter as the last oxygen in the
air is consumed, and the flicker of flame plays across the yellow-orange glaze
of the tomb walls.

This octagonal chamber is lined with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Sand spills across
the floor from under the sole entrance, sealed by an ingenious stone slab."
S710: "some"
S711: "A kind of ship's wheel (of eight-spoked timber) is affixed to the
northwest wall."
S712: "A dismal crypt, disused, rainswept and strewn with leaves. Light streams
in from the square hole in the roof. There are no bones or urns on show."
S713: "The mural stands slightly to one side, revealing a passage leading
downward."
S714: "The south wall forms a giant bronze mural, which has stood the test of
time."
S715: "The mural depicts an old bearded wise man following a star in the
western sky. He has his right arm around an attractive young woman and holds a
bundle of wands with his left hand. Around the border are astrological symbols
of all kinds, from Tarot suits to zodiacal constellations."
S716: "An eerie passage, running down from an opening at the north to murky
depths in the south. The walls are jagged, uneven and decorated with bones. An
unpleasantly stale, charnel odour drifts in through a gap to the east."
S717: "You appear to be standing on a wrought iron key."
S718: "A figure-eight double ring, a long barrel and a finely-cut ten-groove
claw: this is the ultimate in keys. It is superb."
S719: "A long, winding, vile passage through the earth, running east to west.
The distasteful odour grows stronger as you go east."
S720: "Well, perhaps "sarcophagus" is a little melodramatic, but it's that kind
of moment. This must be somewhere under the old parish church. You are stooped
over inside a stone tomb, stained and crumbled with decay, broken only by a
crevice you crawled in by. It is a nightmarish place."
S721: "Nightmarishly, even the floor you kneel on is a fallen tombstone."
S722: "The gist of the inscription is: "Henri Maladreue, obiit mcdlvi.""
S723: "A large, grisly cave, deep under the garden, dimly lit and eerie.
Darkness curls around the natural pillars of rock like a mist: and there is a
peculiar, vaguely familiar odour to it. The only obvious routes out are an
uneven passage climbing to the north and a crawl west."
S724: "You bumped into something unpleasant there."
S725: "Leading down."
S726: "an"
S727: "The odd smell seems to be ozone, and it drifts up from a previously
concealed aluminium staircase."
S728: "The cartoonist Heath Robinson used to specialise in drawings of
fantastically complicated machines of string, pulleys, levers, counterweights,
cogs, mice running about on wheels and the like. Just such a contraption fills
the west end of this room, though most of the workings are behind a glass wall
which, although running with age, is as solid as the day it was built. The
parts are very old (hand-made, not machined) but uncorroded.

The only way out appears to be via the crawl to the east."
S729: "The north edge of the room is a big sheet of dull amber-coloured metal."
S730: "Someone rather good-looking (you can't help thinking) is reflected in
the metal surface."
S731: "How tantalisingly valuable it seems."
S732: "Solid, heavy, reliable, out of reach on the other side of the glass."
S733: "You really should try to be more awestruck, for this is Merlin's cave,
the hub of Creation. Every visitor perceives this place differently, according
to his or her own myths and beliefs. Your particular creed being science, there
is only a black metal one-metre cube with an unimpressive collection of gauges
and dials. An aluminium staircase leads up."
S734: "The lower, on, position is labelled "Determinism". The upper, off,
position is labelled "Chance"."
S735: "Particularly prominent are a large dial, like the volume control on an
expensive hi-fi amplifier, and a big electrician's switch. Both are labelled in
small print."
S736: "Above the dial is a lower-case letter h with a slashed line through it.
It is currently turned to 1.055 or thereabouts. There is something worryingly
dangerous about its matter-of-factness."
S737: "A treasure in every sense, but misted over, like condensation on a cold
window. Odd shapes seem visible through the haze: a horse's head, castle walls,
a priest's crook."
S738: "Sitting on the grass, beside the well, is a glowing golden orb."
S739: "You half-stand, half-float in a golden, misty sphere perhaps ten yards
across, which slowly spins. The centre, out of reach and somehow insubstantial,
is an eight-by-eight lattice of oblong crystals, bathed in warm pearly light."
S740: "Images lurk about the array of oblong crystals."
S741: "an"
S742: "They are extremely hard to see and impossible to touch, as if you can
only catch anything at all through the corner of your eye."
S743: "A warm winter's night in the ancient city of Alexandria, on the
Heptastadion causeway across the harbour to the Island of Pharos (to north).
The Mediterranean waters lap against the land bridge, and the whole city
(southeast) is lit up with torches: it is a night of celebration."
S744: "The island of the Pharos: the lighthouse after which others are named,
one of the Seven Wonders of the World, blazes into the sharp moonlit sky. It is
120 metres high, a circle on an octagon on a square.

A light wind blows across the coastal defences. On this spot, seventy-two
scholars first translated the Old Testament into Greek: shivering continuously
if it was as chilly as this. A narrow causeway runs south across the harbour."
S745: "The causeway is the only land route off the island."
S746: "The Pharos is unclimbable, alas."
S747: "That iron key seems to have washed up here..."
S748: "...and there's the strange stone again."
S749: "A rusty seaweed-wreathed iron grating lies open here."
S750: "In one wall of the wave defences is a rusty seaweed-wreathed iron
grating, closed up tight."
S751: "The iron key, out of reach below, is glued somehow to the strange
stone."
S752: "Interestingly, a key which looks as if it would fit the grating can be
seen inside the passage beneath."
S753: "Oh dear, surely it's gratingly obvious what this fits?"
S754: "Down on a dark stone jetty, where the waters of the Alexandrian harbour
splash insistently. Rough-hewn steps rise up the island through the grating."
S755: "A skiff (a small sail-boat) is moored up here."
S756: "You could easily sail away: where you would end is at the mercy of the
tides and the night breeze, since you have no idea how to guide a rudder or
trim a sail."
S757: "an"
S758: "A cardioid of the kind favoured by Valentine's cards rather than
surgeons.

It reminds you oddly of one of the symbolic pieces in Monopoly - the ship, the
hat and so on."
S759: "There must be more to this marvellous figure somewhere."
S760: "An adamantine heart lies in the skiff."
S761: "As the skiff passes the jaws of the Royal Harbour, beneath the great
Pharos light, you have a final view of the receding civilisation of Alexandria:
ahead lies the vast, oil-calm Mediterranean and moonlight on the waters."
S762: "The skiff is not under your control."
S763: "You drift in the wide, peaceful Lunar sea. Curious fish, their
yellow-green eyes gleaming beneath the silver ripples, brush past your wake:
the night zephyr is almost slack but still you drift. Minutes pass like hours
in paradise."
S764: "You feel only a drug-like calm."
S765: "The great crossroads at the heart of chlamys-shaped Alexandria, greatest
city of the civilised world. The northwest-southeast road runs from the
causeway to the Tower: the main road runs southwest from the Necropolis gate,
northeast to the great public buildings of the city."
S766: "A spacious, sombre, moonlit and magnificent valley of tombs, some brand
new, just outside the walls of Alexandria (to the northeast). Already it is
ancient. Most of the little termite-hill style pyramids have been invaded time
after time: indeed, one pyramid's entrance gapes open to the south."
S767: "This is no place to wander after dark."
S768: "some"
S769: "Birds of prey circle high in the night sky, their talons glinting in the
moonlight."
S770: "You stand near the tombstone to which the birds of prey were so
inexplicably drawn."
S771: "You stand near the tombstone, which has become rather more interesting
now that a flight of steps downward has appeared."
S772: "It bears just one word of epigram: "GALITA". Below that is a curious
face, with an open empty socket of a mouth."
S773: "An amber gem gleams in the mouth of its face."
S774: "Are you sure it isn't inside out?"
S775: "A cloak of many colours lies folded on it."
S776: "A fine cloak, grey-lined, sapphire-encrusted, rippled across with
rainbow fabrics from the trade routes of the world."
S777: "A fine grey cloak, sapphire-encrusted, lined with rainbow fabrics from
the trade routes of the world."
S778: "Ransacked, dimly-lit, cramped and empty, this rough-built and uneven
burial mound is to the Great Pyramids of Giza (built just a century before)
what the summerhouse in your garden is to Windsor Castle. There are only dull
painted writings, an unpleasant odour and a passage out to the north."
S779: "some"
S780: "One of the so-called Pyramid Texts making up the so-called "Book of the
Dead". This dramatic passage seems to be devoted to wise men preparing their
bodies to rise in the afterlife, anointing themselves with oil. An interesting
motif of ten strokes, arranged

   III IIIIII I

catches the eye."
S781: "A perfectly-cut room of rose-coloured granite, twelve feet across,
painted in yellows and browns to simulate alabaster panelling. This is the
latest in modern funerary apartments.

There's a couch for visitors, a table, a flight of steps up and a doorway to
the west, flanked by two stone sphinxes."
S782: "No grave would be complete without one."
S783: "two"
S784: "The sphinxes seem to stare balefully at you."
S785: "A comfortable-looking wooden couch, covered with weave matting."
S786: "One of the sphinxes does have rather a prominent nose, it must be said."
S787: "Splendid."
S788: "A perfectly-cut room of rose-coloured granite, twelve feet across,
painted in yellows and browns to simulate alabaster panelling, at the foot of a
flight of steps which leads only to a sealed wall."
S789: "No grave would be complete without one."
S790: "Stone sphinxes guard the west doorway, staring balefully at you."
S791: "The weave matting on the couch is now in some disarray."
S792: "A comfortable-looking wooden couch, covered with weave matting."
S793: "two"
S794: "Two Napoleonic officers stand awestruck as light splashes from their
lanterns over the riches of the tomb."
S795: "The officers wear the uniforms of the Emperor's 1798 occupation of the
Nile Delta, and carry fine brass lanterns."
S796: "The passage, descending from the east down to the west, is cut from
marble, lined with painted scenes from the fashionable comedies of Menander,
decorated with Alexandrian coloured glass ornaments.

The expression "You can't take it with you" doesn't seem to be popular
hereabouts."
S797: "Just an east-west passage."
S798: "You simply can't bear to look. It might be a monkey... at least it has a
tail... No. No, you have to look away."
S799: "Despite the tasteful decor, the most hideously ugly model animal you
have ever seen sits on a little shelf here."
S800: "Oh dear."
S801: "Exquisite. Simply charming."
S802: "The passage opens out onto the burial chamber below."
S803: "Unfortunately, the passage slants down only into a solid marble wall."
S804: "A really luxurious burial chamber, far beneath the entrance court.

A yard-wide square channel runs away fractionally east of north, in an
apparently endless stooped passage.

On the west wall are three curious sockets, above a painting of a priest of the
half-mythical pharoah Sosostris in full sceptred, grey-clad regalia."
S805: "The passage rises sharply to the east."
S806: "Drawn in the odd aspect favoured by the Egyptians, who believed in ideal
angles rather than accurate drawing. The sceptre, only half the size of the
large ones you once saw in the British Museum, looks oddly familiar.

This close to the wall, you notice words written above the three sockets."
S807: "Golden, kingfisher-blue, smoothly curved, immensely heavy, beautiful.
And final, and dead."
S808: "A beautiful gold and blue mummy case, or sarcophagus, rests massively
here."
S809: "the"
S810: "The sceptre projects from the first socket like a handle."
S811: "The sceptre projects from the second socket like a handle."
S812: "The sceptre projects from the third socket like a handle."
S813: "A copy, half-size, of the one from Tutenkhamun's sarcophagus. It isn't
real gold, either."
S814: "Of no use to anyone these last two thousand years, sorry!"
S815: "The great lid of the coffin is open."
S816: "You lie in the mummy case, your arms folded across each other, face
grimaced, running out of air rapidly and with almost no room to maneouvre. The
coffin lid is about ten times heavier than you, and its seal is very good."
S817: "an"
S818: "There must be more to this marvellous figure somewhere."
S819: "It reminds you oddly of one of the symbolic pieces in Monopoly - the
car, the boot and so on."
S820: "An adamantine skull lies here, as if casually dropped by a god's hand."
S821: "The great Stadium of Alexandria, with capacity enough to hold the whole
population of the city: and it looks full. Olympic openings in the age of
television have nothing on these people. The procession surges continually in,
around the track and then out again, and amid the bustle you cannot push
through."
S822: "It would be easier to breathe back southwest."
S823: "Tragically, the Theatre is closed tonight, but roads lead past the great
stepped bowl: north toward the Palace, south to the Museum and west to the
harbour-front."
S824: "The main southwest-northeast road forks off with a road due north to the
Theatre. Despite the kaleidoscopic din you are impressed by the sober majesty
of the Museum of the Ptolemies, whose fine portico entrance, decked with
reliefs, is southeast."
S825: "Reliefs of the cat-god bestride the square-cut entrance. The fanaticism
of the cult of the Cat in Lower Egypt has such a stranglehold that the image is
everywhere. You remember reading somewhere that passers-by in the street have
been torn to death before, just on suspicion of mistreating a sacred cat."
S826: "This is not the famous Alexandrian tower (which is not due to be built
by the Emperor Domitian for centuries), just an anonymous little monument on
the same site. It is square-cut inside and there's only a small exit
northwest."
S827: "The heavily defaced door opens onto a staircase up."
S828: "In one wall is a door heavily defaced with writings, the same word, over
and over in a hundred tongues and scripts: the word "Sosostris", in fact."
S829: "The stairs end at a shabby room, with screened windows, lit by incense
sticks and sevenbranched candelabra. A doorway with a hanging bead curtain
leads east. In the centre of the room is a table, which is bare."
S830: "Peculiarly, the hanging curtain seems to be solid iron when you walk
into it."
S831: "Madame Sosostris stares at it fixedly as she meditates."
S832: "Unmoving."
S833: "Known to be the wisest woman in Asia Minor."
S834: "Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, meditates here."
S835: "It needs to be left to mature, and yet there's something awfully
familiar about it."
S836: "You seem to have dislodged one of the wooden beams used by the tomb's
builders: a useful length of greenish oak."
S837: "Perhaps it could be put aside for later use."
S838: "Ready to use."
S839: "For me? Oh, you shouldn't have... oh, you didn't. Well give it to
someone else then."
S840: "A silver locket on a thin chain, with a heart-shaped picture of a knight
placing a rose in his lady's hair. Quite nauseously romantic."
S841: "Down by the sea-front, in the old harbourlands, surrounded by
warehouses. The Mediterranean laps darkly against the hard, splashing an
occasional wave up the slope. The city, and the party, lie back east."
S842: "There's nowhere to go but the city, east."
S843: "A grizzled sailor sits at a harbourside table."
S844: "an"
S845: "An inscribed six-sided die lies on the table in front of him."
S846: "The sides you can see are labelled with short words."
S847: "The celebrated Library of Alexandria, finest in the entire world,
possessed of hundreds of thousands of books: where the ruling Ptolemies keep
fanatic, infighting scholars almost imprisoned as they turn out rival
commentaries on the ancient poems - hence the nickname.

There is a little door to the south; a dusty corridor southeast; a thoroughfare
east, and a grand entrance northwest."
S848: "There is a pigeonhole mounted on one wall."
S849: "A depository for scrolls."
S850: "Surely this is addressed to someone?"
S851: "An open-ended hollow tube, marked with a Greek capital Alpha."
S852: "An open-ended hollow tube, marked with a Greek capital Kappa."
S853: "Oh my. "I touch your... and the scent of you rises from... your
beautiful..."  I'd better not read the rest. Strictly for aficionados."
S854: "All Greek to you, alas. Only a dozen lines or so, though."
S855: "Oh my. Well, the plot, um, there are seven attackers, all with different
shields, one for each of the seven city gates, and it's a civil war so of
course the brothers are really in a duel and there are champions and the women
are upset but it's all because of their brother who was really their father...
Never mind. It's strictly for aficionados."
S856: "All Greek to you, alas, and running on for 1000 lines or more."
S857: "This small, dark (by night) room is a repository for Library supplies:
above all, for lamp oil, which is stored in broad shallow earthenware troughs.
Lucky your torch is electric, when you think about it. Anyway, a passage leads
back north."
S858: "the"
S859: "The rather neglected hall for the accurate study of geography: as
opposed to the lurid travellers' tales preferred by most writers in this
slapdash century. Nobody is working here, and one can only file back
northwest."
S860: "In order to make sure the geographers don't get lost, the only exit is
northwest."
S861: "Protruding from a broken globe of the Earth (marked with very tentative
and approximate maps) is the spindle, the only thing holding it together."
S862: "Perhaps the best work of cartography likely for the next two thousand
years, though it seems unlikely to last the next two hours."
S863: "Don't go waving this about."
S864: "Once the polar axis of a globe."
S865: "A spacious, densely colonnaded corridor, its walls lined with inset
shelves on which are scrolls beyond count, ribboned, dusty, disintegrating,
badly catalogued so that only an expert can find what he wants."
S866: "You wander through the columns, but can find no exit save the
thoroughfare west and a little office south."
S867: "endless"
S868: "Even a single book may run for dozens of individual scrolls, and the
titles are hard to interpret: anyway, most of the books are rubbish. Dewey
decimal numbers are not due to be invented for millenia."
S869: "Apollonius and Callimachus are now engaged in a furious, ugly brawl,
from which it seems unlikely they will emerge for some considerable time."
S870: "Apollonius and Callimachus are having a furious, heated, endless
argument about something. They seem well practised at this occupation."
S871: "The expert in question being Callimachus, who is brooding over a scroll,
and hardly aware of your presence."
S872: "Callimachus is famous for something or other. You wonder what..."
S873: "Apollonius seems to have dropped a mystic scroll in the scuffle."
S874: "We in the afterlife, um, have a policy of never commenting on leaked
documents."
S875: "Don't you believe it!"
S876: "It tells that even the greatest mortal must choose of the three High
[and the next word is illegible], for once and all, but that for each there is
a way. The usual mystic nonsense."
S877: "And Callimachus' purple shoulder-sash has come off."
S878: "Worn over the shoulder."
S879: "A tiny office adjoining the colonnades north, this is home to Apollonius
the head Librarian, whose writing implements, table and sand-wells are
scattered untidily about."
S880: "Apollonius paces about self-importantly in a purple sash, perusing
documents on his desk."
S881: "His aim in life is chiefly to annoy Callimachus, his junior librarian
and the modern poet he despises most."
S882: "A hugely impressive edifice, and everything you might expect from the
man who conquered the whole of Asia Minor at an age when most people are
starting to think about getting a mortgage.

There are of course guards, but they're trying to catch the procession, so if
you're careful not to draw attention to yourself you could probably sneak in to
the north."
S883: "Scholars are divided on the origin of the "maze" legend: some hold that
to a primitive culture, the Knossos palace was so complex as to seem a maze,
and the king so fearsome as to seem a Minotaur.

Others say the early palaces really were labyrinths to protect sacred altars.

And you think it's because this is a maze of twisty little passages, all
alike."
S884: "Such a slave, a highly trained professional, stands at every
intersection of passages in the palace. They are deaf mutes, to prevent them
overhearing State secrets."
S885: "A slave stands impassively by one wall."
S886: "The magnificent balcony overlooking the Royal harbour of Alexandria. In
two hundred years' time, Julius Caesar will be besieged here, and will hold the
palace with a tiny force of men against an entire army: and will lose his heart
to Cleopatra...

For the mean time, this is a broad stone balustraded balcony. The coin-bright
moon, low in the sky, reflects off the black waters far below."
S887: "There seems to be absolutely no way off the balcony, as the stone doors
to the heart of the palace are sealed shut."
S888: "an"
S889: "An impressive astronomical mounting stands on a tripod here. But there
is no telescope."
S890: "Instead, there is an astrolabe."
S891: "At the foot of the Hall is the drive, a long gravel lane approaching the
house through trees.

Since your family are intermittently loading suitcases into the car, which only
makes you feel guilty, the only safe way to creep away is along the public
footpath, to northeast."
S892: "Better not - they might catch you."
S893: "The fire escape is perilous and leads nowhere. Doubtless it would be
useless in any real fire."
S894: "The Hall is in the way."
S895: "The old carved southern wall of the gardens blocks your way around the
edge of the Hall."
S896: "For the first couple of storeys, an old iron zig-zag, and after that a
ladder that might or might not be well-anchored. The gardeners have done a good
job of concealing it behind wistaria which (in any case) looks the stronger of
the two."
S897: "By a stile in the public footpath across the fields to the village,
which lies to the north. Sitting on the stile you have a splendid view of the
house and its battlements. The air is ablaze with pollen and dragonflies.

It might be possible to scramble down to a hollow, but it surely wouldn't be
pleasant."
S898: "The footpath turns from southwest to north."
S899: "A low, muddy, stinking hollow, trodden with reeds, dried out in the long
summer and no more than moist now. You could climb back up, or go northwest,
though that would mean crawling through a thorny hedge."
S900: "There's a bird's nest at the bottom of the hollow."
S901: "A bunch of nuts, left over from last autumn."
S902: "Do you know, I love nuts, but I have to be so careful what I eat now...
Still, the little ones will have them."
S903: "Nuts to you too."
S904: "Entwined in the nest is a bunch of nuts."
S905: "And sat upon it is, as you might expect, a bird: a corn crake, in fact."
S906: "A rail with a distinctive cry. And a possessive look."
S907: "Beside the long triangle of the green, under the stone cross of the
First World War memorial. The public footpath runs south to a stile. The
village is tiny: the parish church, the "Goat and Compasses" pub (which, owing
to quaint English licensing laws, is closed) and a few houses and desultory
tea-shops for tourists visiting Meldrew Hall."
S908: "You wander around the peaceful green for a while, but there's nothing to
do."
S909: "Old Evans, the village racing enthusiast, sits on the steps of the
memorial, combing the back pages of his "Racing Times" newspaper."
S910: "In the band of his hat is his lucky mascot: a little picture of the
crescent moon."
S911: "Old Evans' hat is empty. You feel terribly guilty."
S912: "The stone cross, for the fallen of the Great War of 1914-18, contains
more names than there are houses in the village.

Your eye is caught by Second Lieutenant Gerard Meldrew of the 19th/21st Rifles,
and you shiver, although the afternoon is warm."
S913: "The fourteenth-century Church of St Michael and All Angels doesn't seem
to be locked up, exactly - just barred from the other side."
S914: "In the days of Oliver Cromwell, it was called "God Encompasseth", but
the locals have worn down the name over the centuries to "Goat and Compasses".
It is of course closed, owing to the licensing laws. You congratulate yourself
on living in such a modern, forward-looking country."
S915: "The monkey sits on Evans' shoulder, cheeping with excitement. Evans has
found a pet, and is so gruffly delighted that he has forgotten all about the
mascot you stole. Now if he could only predict the 3.40 at Borchester Mills..."
S916: "Some kind of crescent moon, an old Druidical symbol."
S917: "It leads nowhere."
S918: "The front page story ("Lord Lucan's new acquisition Shergar comes out of
retirement to win the Grand National") is so boringly unsensational that you
quickly lose interest. But Evans is eternally fascinated with minute details of
the form of the horses, tomorrow's race meetings, current odds quoted by the
bookmakers, and so on."
S919: "Racing aficionados consider it lucky to wear mascots in the bands of
their hats."
S920: "Before this was the Norman church of St Michael and All Angels, it was a
Saxon one: this is an ancient site. A great space of stone, filled with dark
wooden pews and woven mattings. Flowers left over from Sunday grace the lectern
and altar. A narrow stair leads upward, and the village green lies to the
south.

Old side chapels lie east and west."
S921: "The church door is open."
S922: "the"
S923: "A passage slants down through a solid crystal doorway in the Moonstone."
S924: "Set into the floor, and slightly raised, is the Moonstone, an ancient
broad flagstone the size of a door, inscribed with a crescent moon."
S925: "The Moonstone is very old, probably pre-dating the rest of the church by
some centuries. Legends about it abound: some say the spirits of the departed
pass beneath. Old iron rings are set in it, but nobody has ever succeeded in
lifting the colossal weight."
S926: "An alcove in the ancient west side of the church, beneath stained glass
windows of the Resurrection."
S927: "The church lies east."
S928: "an"
S929: "The statue is half-skeleton, and you can see clear through the bones."
S930: "the"
S931: "The adamantine knight stands staunchly here."
S932: "Diana's tall marble statue bathes in the moonlight: and a flower is
placed gaily in her hair."
S933: "The knight stands here, bowing toward Diana."
S934: "The knight stands clasping the flower."
S935: "The knight stands staunchly here."
S936: "A small clear space to the side of the church, in a bay ringed with
stained glass windows of the Nativity."
S937: "The church lies west."
S938: "A tall marble statue of Diana stands here: a find from the nearby Roman
remains."
S939: "There is a sly look in her eye as she smiles aslant."
S940: "The bell-ringing chamber, half-way up the church tower. Thick braided
ropes hang down, tailing into sashes. A plaque on one wall announces that in
1901, ten men (Roger Meldrew among them) rang a Kent Triple Bob."
S941: "The ropes are too smooth and noisy to climb."
S942: "eight"
S943: "There is a beautiful view over the green parceled farmlands and hills
surrounding the village, and you feel a certain pride to see Meldrew Hall
sitting amongst it. It's also windy and dangerous up here on the grey lead
spire of the parish church, beside the old clock: fortunately an opening leads
down into the clerestory."
S944: "an"
S945: "Like a solid glove.

It reminds you oddly of one of the symbolic pieces in Monopoly - the ship, the
car and so on."
S946: "There must be more to this marvellous figure somewhere."
S947: "Mounted loosely on the end of the weathervane, an adamantine hand points
the way the wind blows."
S948: "William Snelson's"
S949: "The clock stands at ten past three, as it has done for some years.
According to a small commemorative plaque, it was the work of William Snelson
the Clockmaker (1776-1848)."
S950: ""In the premonition, it is vital to get hold of the mascot for later
use.""
S951: ""It's no use poking about on the attic floor for fresh torch batteries,
because there aren't any.""
S952: ""Your Aunt Jemima is not the kind of woman to be distracted by music or
frivolous presents, mark my words.""
S953: ""Novels are, of course, invariably written by people using their real
names, not disguised in any way.""
S954: ""The thing about daisies is, they are the same all year round, not
changing with the calendar.""
S955: ""Modern medicine bottles can even withstand falls from a great height. I
should try heat if I were you.""
S956: ""You can easily get a grip on the demijohn with your bare hands.""
S957: ""The answer's the same, whichever bottle you meant. That counts as your
hint, I'm afraid. Not very fair, but then I am a demon.""
S958: "The demon acknowledges the question, but cannot bring himself to speak
of Heaven."
S959: ""Hell?  Oh this isn't your eternal damnation, it's mine, having to
answer all these wretched questions. No, Hell itself is a marvellous place, and
it has an excellent health club too. Look forward to seeing you there.""
S960: ""Don't worry, there's nothing written there. No need to look at the
problem in a fresh light.""
S961: ""History never repeats itself, so it's pointless looking him up in the
book.""
S962: ""The really interesting stuff is at the very start of his working
life.""
S963: ""Forget it, there's no way to return from the museum, and Doktor Stein's
medicine has no antidote.""
S964: ""Merlyn doesn't really come into this. Try working on something else.""
S965: ""Literally, Merlyn's actual hat. Green pointy felt, I wouldn't wonder.""
S966: ""The answer's the same, whichever book you meant. That counts as your
hint, I'm afraid. Not very fair, but then I am a demon.""
S967: ""Ebenezer?  He's absolutely central to this. Concentrate on him,
definitely.""
S968: ""Trouble with holiday snaps is, once somebody gets the old slide
projector going, a boring time is on the cards for all.""
S969: ""You'll need to be wide awake and alert to work out what to do with
them. Finding them is easy - just remember to keep an eye out for short, fat
things.""
S970: ""Clairvoyantes are expert at detecting stacked decks, so it's no good
cheating.""
S971: ""Phlebas runs a very badly-advertised service, I'm afraid. I've got no
time for him.""
S972: ""Once the mouse is in the hole, forget it, it couldn't hear you even if
you talked to the hole instead. But there is an alternative method.""
S973: ""Your fault for letting the key get into the foundations - nothing can
get in there to retrieve it.""
S974: ""Marvellous, marvellous contraption. Starts the moment you switch it on,
and then nothing but solid gold classics all the way. You can really
concentrate when that's playing.""
S975: ""What, the blocked-up old fireplace that doesn't lead anywhere?  You
need to be carrying plenty of equipment to get down it - don't worry if it's
dark at the bottom, after all there's nothing you can do about that.""
S976: ""The sandstone recess is probably impassible. Better try only when
you're wide awake.""
S977: ""Austin's a perfect devil, isn't he?  She, I should say. Good for
nothing except getting in the way, of course. Walks into walls just when you
don't want, but at least Jemima calms her down.""
S978: ""Smoke detectors like yours are specially rigged not to be triggered by
accidental shafts of light.""
S979: ""Of course the ship is far too large and ungainly ever to fit in the
bottle.""
S980: ""Cold comfort.""
S981: ""A good blanket might be a plain, colourless sort of covering with no
emblem to it.""
S982: ""The thing about the revolving door is, you can only revolve it when
you're already standing inside.""
S983: ""Unbreakable glass.""
S984: ""A vital clue, and useful in its own right.""
S985: ""The greatest computer game of all time. I'm proud to be a part of it.""
S986: "The demon blushes. "Wasn't my fault!  My partner made a mess of it.""
S987: ""Heaven?  Oh this isn't your eternal salvation, it's mine, able to serve
by answering all these delightful questions. No, Heaven itself is a marvellous
place, and it has an excellent health club too. Look forward to seeing you
there.""
S988: "The angel acknowledges the question, but cannot bring herself to speak
of Hell."
S989: ""The rods definitely fit into all this somewhere.""
S990: ""If only you could have been there when the maze was being laid out!""
S991: ""The master game is like a point at infinity to we mortals," the angel
says wistfully."
S992: ""All a matter of fitting the rods in somewhere.""
S993: ""How she must long to let her hair down now, instead of being chained to
that rock," the angel says sorrowfully. "But in deference to her wishes, I
cannot help you rescue her.""
S994: ""Amazing fortune you must have in finding it, I can tell.""
S995: ""Ah yes, we must all lament for human folly," says the angel,
misunderstanding completely."
S996: ""Zeus wasn't a true god, of course," the angel predictably insists,
"just a manifestation of the laws of physics to an Ancient Greek, a kind of
symbol for the way the universe fundamentally worked.""
S997: "The angel maintains a tight-lipped silence."
S998: ""That's too dangerous a rod to actually use, of course, and the Church
no longer approves of martyrs.""
S999: ""Is there really such a thing as luck, or free will?  It's a theological
grey area," says the angel with fine casuistry."
S1000: ""Certainly a thorny problem, that.""
S1001: ""Old Evans would never give you his mascot of his own free will.""
S1002: ""One has to reflect on ugliness like that.""
S1003: ""It's quite hypnotically fascinating, don't you think?""
S1004: ""Squirrels are very fond of nuts, but you can't trust them an inch.""
S1005: ""Just think what that would do to a decent lawn!  Oh, it makes me go
cold all over.""
S1006: ""Whatever is a croquet lawn for, if not to play croquet?  Although, now
I think about it, there is something else down there.""
S1007: ""Ah yes, a code word understood by certain of Alexander the Great's
slaves. But you'd have to be in the right place at the right time.""
S1008: ""The mouth is the key, or rather the lock.""
S1009: ""Do be careful. The sphinxes are only made of stone, but they could
easily give you nightmares.""
S1010: ""Jolly comfortable, some of those funeral couches.""
S1011: ""A one-way ride, but that's life.""
S1012: ""Once fired with life, the knight will only be yours to command when he
has discharged his chivalric duty.""
S1013: ""Some of those ancient knights were rather loose, but perhaps that's
better than being screwed up.""
S1014: ""The Great Library isn't for passing hooligans, you know," says the
angel reprovingly. "Besides, the guards understand their duty by the Cat God
far too well to let you through.""
S1015: ""They're always at each other's throats. I shudder to think what might
happen if a real fight broke out.""
S1016: ""Oh, find yourself a costume, join the party!""
S1017: ""The green wood may one day make a really good staff, but it could take
ages. Better leave it with someone for safe keeping.""
S1018: ""Some choices are inevitable and permanent, at least in this world.""
S1019: ""Do be careful of the trap, won't you!  You might want to take
precautions with the opening.""
S1020: ""Let me see.""
S1021: ""You appreciate, in my position I can't really comment on graven images
of pagan gods. Better try some dictionary or other.""
S1022: ""That woman will rabbit on, once you set her off. But only if you
sacrifice something. Will you be joining us next Harvest Sunday, by the way?""
S1023: ""Ooh, it does make me shiver, thinking of the way they used to pour oil
over themselves, anointing they called it.""
S1024: ""Shabby old gossip, Homer, always reminds me of Peter Falk. Anyway,
just give him his answers. Shouldn't be too hard, with what you're wearing and
carrying.""
S1025: ""Going in round the front just scares the birds away, I fear.""
S1026: ""Find out what you can about your ancestor who built it - his tomb
isn't far away. Then reflect as best you can on the problem.""
S1027: ""Well, if you know what the odour is, that's the main thing.""
S1028: "Hell, you always imagined, would contain fiery, sulphurous pits and a
great many gentlemen with forked tails. You were right about the last part. A
demon is sitting behind a flame-proofed desk at the bottom of the stairs. There
are some disconcerting screams from further away, but nothing to worry about.
Not in this life, anyway."
S1029: "If you were to cast a film of your adventures so far, you would hire
Donald Sutherland to play this gentleman."
S1030: "Heaven, you always imagined, would be a world of marble pillars, fluffy
clouds, harps and angelic ladies with serene expressions. You were right about
the last part. An angel is sitting here behind some new office furniture, next
to a blue Tourist Information sign. A bridge of cloud extends south across the
sky to the beanstalk. There is some choral singing going on somewhere, but not
loud enough for you to hear properly. Not in this life, anyway."
S1031: "If you were to cast a film of your adventures so far, you would hire
Dame Judi Dench to play this lady."
S1032: "a cake of"
S1033: "That's the spirit, keep it up!"
S1034: "Really!  How disgraceful!"
S1035: ""For foulmouths everywhere"."
S1036: "Information is available on the following subjects:

     Instructions    giving some basic information
     Commands        detailing some common commands
     Credits         game credits
     Release         release notes
     Legal           legal disclaimers
     Inform          advertising the compiler Inform
     Archive         and the interactive fiction archive"
S1037: "Curses"
S1038: "Instructions"
S1039: "Commands"
S1040: "Cast of Thousands"
S1041: "Release Notes"
S1042: "Legal Notes"
S1043: "Inform"
S1044: "ftp.gmd.de"
S1045: "Four be the things I'd been better without:"
S1046: "Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt."
S1047: "-- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory""
S1048: "It seemed that the next minute they would discover"
S1049: "a solution. Yet it was clear to both of them that"
S1050: "the end was still far, far off, and that the"
S1051: "hardest part was just beginning."
S1052: "-- Anton Chekhov, "The Lady with the Dog""
S1053: "                           The mouse"
S1054: "Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked."
S1055: "-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Mariana""
S1056: "Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus."
S1057: "-- Horace, "Ars Poetica""
S1058: "Zeus, whose will has marked for man"
S1059: "A single way where wisdom lies"
S1060: "Ordained one eternal plan:"
S1061: "Man must suffer to be wise."
S1062: "-- Aeschylus, "Agamemnon""
S1063: "I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly,"
S1064: "a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound;"
S1065: "if I can remember any of the damn things."
S1066: "-- Dorothy Parker"
S1067: "More ways of killing a cat"
S1068: "than choking her with cream."
S1069: "-- Charles Kingsley"
S1070: "I would like to be there,"
S1071: "were it but to see how the cat jumps."
S1072: "-- Sir Walter Scott"
S1073: "Do not go gentle into that good night."
S1074: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
S1075: "-- Dylan Thomas"
S1076: "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as"
S1077: "a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve."
S1078: "-- Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet""
S1079: "...I have just signed legislation that will outlaw"
S1080: "Russia for ever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
S1081: "-- President Reagan, mistakenly believing the TV"
S1082: "   cameras were switched off"
S1083: "What is a ship but a prison?"
S1084: "-- Robert Burton (1577-1640)"
S1085: "The remarkable fact is that the values of these"
S1086: "numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted"
S1087: "to make possible the development of life."
S1088: "-- Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time""
S1089: "Remember that you are an Englishman, and have"
S1090: "consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."
S1091: "-- Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902)"
S1092: "Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux"
S1093: "Et j'en sais d'immortels quit sont de purs songlots."
S1094: "-- Alfred de Musset, "La Nuit de mai""
S1095: "There is no return game between a man and his stars."
S1096: "-- Samuel Beckett, "Murphy""
S1097: "Throw away thy rod,"
S1098: "Throw away thy wrath:"
S1099: "O my God."
S1100: "Take the gentle path."
S1101: "-- George Herbert, "Discipline""
S1102: "Speak gently, she can hear"
S1103: "The daisies grow."
S1104: "-- Oscar Wilde, "Requiescat""
S1105: "Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune"
S1106: "He had not the method of making a fortune."
S1107: "-- Thomas Grey, "Sketch of His own Character""
S1108: "Facilis descensus Averno:"
S1109: "Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;"
S1110: "Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,"
S1111: "Hoc opus, hic labor est."
S1112: "-- Virgil, "The Aeneid" Book VI:126"
S1113: "We are the children of primeval night; we bear"
S1114: "The name of Curses in our home deep under earth."
S1115: "-- Aeschylus, "The Eumenides""
S1116: "Thou makest his beauty to consume away,"
S1117: "Like as it were a moth fretting a garment:"
S1118: "Every man therefore is but vanity."
S1119: "-- Psalms 39:12 (Book of Common Prayer version)"
S1120: "White lilac bowed,"
S1121: "Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace"
S1122: "And that high-builded cloud"
S1123: "Moving at summer's pace."
S1124: "-- Philip Larkin, "Cut Grass""
S1125: "At the end of the day victory belongs to the Curses,"
S1126: "Who shout in shrill triumph"
S1127: "Over the utter rout of the defeated house."
S1128: "-- Aeschylus, "Seven Against Thebes""
S1129: "He shall separate them one from another,"
S1130: "as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats."
S1131: "-- Matthew 25:32"
S1132: "Quickly now the amber"
S1133: "  Takes the fly with knees deranged"
S1134: "To be buried unseen, unfound"
S1135: "  And irrevocably changed."
S1136: "-- Dean Waynflete, "Substance""
S1137: "Thus the devil played at chess with me, and yielding"
S1138: "a pawn, thought to gain a queen of me, taking"
S1139: "advantage of my honest endeavours."
S1140: "-- Sir Thomas Browne, "Religio Medici" pt I"
S1141: "Art thou pale for weariness"
S1142: "Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth?"
S1143: "-- Shelley, "To The Moon""
S1144: "A nice, - respectable, - middle class, middle-aged maiden"
S1145: "lady, with time on her hands and the money to help her pass"
S1146: "it... Let us call her Aunt Edna... Aunt Edna is universal,"
S1147: "and to those who may feel that all the problems of the"
S1148: "modern theatre might be solved by her liquidation, let me"
S1149: "add that... she is also immortal."
S1150: "-- Terence Rattigan, preface to the "Collected Plays""
S1151: "I seemed to move among a world of ghosts,"
S1152: "And feel myself the shadow of a dream."
S1153: "-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Princess""
S1154: "If the doors of perception were cleansed,"
S1155: "everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
S1156: "-- William Blake"
S1157: "Follow the instructions,"
S1158: "tell us what you think:"
S1159: "they lose something in translation,"
S1160: "they might as well be written in invisible ink."
S1161: "-- Peter Hammill, "Invisible Ink""
S1162: "On a round ball"
S1163: "A workman that hath copies by, can lay"
S1164: "An Europe, Afrique and an Asia,"
S1165: "And quickly make that, which was nothing, All."
S1166: "-- John Donne, "Valediction: Of Weeping""
S1167: "What you don't know would make a great book."
S1168: "-- The Rev. Sydney Smith"
S1169: "Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire,"
S1170: "was a man who, for whose own amusement, never took up"
S1171: "any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation"
S1172: "in an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one"
S1173: "-- Jane Austen, "Persuasion""
S1174: "I am the Love that dare not speak its name."
S1175: "-- Lord Alfred Douglas, "Two Loves""
S1176: "'I am inclined to think -' said I."
S1177: "'I should do so,' Sherlock Holmes remarked"
S1178: "impatiently."
S1179: "-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear""
S1180: "Hell is a city much like London -"
S1181: "A populous and a smoky city."
S1182: "-- Shelley, "Peter Bell the Third""
S1183: "I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting"
S1184: "what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian."
S1185: "-- Dr Johnson (a letter from 1775)"
S1186: "Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;"
S1187: "A mighty maze! but not without a plan."
S1188: "-- Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man""
S1189: "It's hard to be religious when certain people"
S1190: "are never incinerated by bolts of lightning."
S1191: "-- Bill Watterson, "Calvin & Hobbes""
S1192: "Follow me, follow"
S1193: "Down to the hollow"
S1194: "And there let us wallow"
S1195: "In glorious mud."
S1196: "-- Flanders and Swann"
S1197: "Zoe, logic merely enables one"
S1198: "to be wrong with authority"
S1199: "-- Dr Who, aboard "The Wheel In Space""
S1200: "Then for as moche as a philosofre saith,"
S1201: ""he wrappith him in his frend, that condescendith"
S1202: "to the rightfulle praiers of his frend,""
S1203: "therefore have I yeven the a suffisant Astrolabie"
S1204: "as for oure orizonte, compowned after the"
S1205: "latitude of Oxenforde;"
S1206: "-- Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Treatise on the Astrolabe""
S1207: "Upon a nyght in sleep as he hym leyde,"
S1208: "Hym thoughte how that the wynged god Mercurie"
S1209: "Biforn hym stood and bad hym to be murie."
S1210: "His slepy yerde in hond he bar uprighte;"
S1211: "An hat he werede upon his heris brighte."
S1212: "-- Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale""
S1213: "Benedick:"
S1214: "  To bind me or undo me, one of those."
S1215: "-- Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing""
S1216: "In the central display case, there is a curious"
S1217: "pottery model, either representing the Labyrinth"
S1218: "of Minos or a water-cooling system."
S1219: "-- W. J. Murnane's "Guide to Ancient Egypt""
S1220: "I don't know who was there before me:"
S1221: "One person, several, none;"
S1222: "It doesn't matter."
S1223: "There are marks on the slabs of rock,"
S1224: "Some beautiful, all mysterious;"
S1225: "Some certainly not made by human hands."
S1226: "-- Primo Levi, "A Valley""
S1227: "It has always seemed to me that I had to answer"
S1228: "questions which fate had posed to my forefathers,"
S1229: "and which had not yet been answered, or as if I"
S1230: "had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which"
S1231: "previous ages had left unfinished."
S1232: "-- Carl Jung, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections""
S1233: "happy Tourist."
S1234: "very nearly happy Tourist."
S1235: "master Druid."
S1236: "journeyman Druid."
S1237: "apprentice Druid."
S1238: "Master Navigator."
S1239: "Navigator."
S1240: "Voyager."
S1241: "Explorer."
S1242: "expert Traveller."
S1243: "Traveller."
S1244: "Adventurer."
S1245: "Connoisseur."
S1246: "Jack-of-all-trades."
S1247: "amateur Adventurer."
S1248: "Dilettante."
S1249: "cynical Tourist."
S1250: "experienced Tourist."
S1251: "seasoned Tourist."
S1252: "casual Tourist."
S1253: "gauche Tourist."
S1254: "hapless Tourist."
S1255: "accursed Tourist."
S1256: "irresponsible deity."
S1257: "There are paths only west and northwest."
S1258: "The timber prop leans against the tottering Folly, supporting it."
S1259: "Drop the robot mouse where Austin can get at it"
S1260: "Shut Austin out of the attic with the trap door"
S1261: "Ram or knock on various doors"
S1262: "Cast all the rods on yourself"
S1263: "Ask the demon and angel about Heaven and Hell"
S1264: "Eat a genuine Ekmek special (look it up in the dictionary for details)"
S1265: "Other anagrams of "Marie Swelldon", found by Michael Kinyon,
include..."
S1266: "Demeanor Wills"
S1267: "Domineer Walls"
S1268: "Amino Dwellers"
S1269: "Enrolled Swami"
S1270: "Lemonade Swirl"
S1271: "Mellowed Rains"
S1272: "Dowel Minerals"
S1273: "Seminole Drawl"
S1274: "Allowed Miners"
S1275: "Almoner Wields"
S1276: "Mellows Rained"
S1277: "Mineral Slowed"
S1278: "Moraine Dwells"
S1279: "Mellow Sardine"
S1280: "Sawmill Redone"
S1281: "Soldier Lawmen"
S1282: "Swindle Morale"
S1283: "The 1970s robot mouse is capable of speech recognition."
S1284: "Mentioning a bridge game (between Sir Joshua Meldrewe and the Prince of
Wales) which took place a century before the invention of bridge. (In this
release, they play piquet.)"
S1285: "Locating Alexandria in "Upper Egypt". Actually it's in Lower Egypt -
the Nile flows from south to north."
S1286: "The "brass" key is no longer really brass (examine it!) since brass is
unmagnetic."
S1287: "The lighthouse in the fifth century BC, the period of city states, is
named after the Pharos, yet to be built in Alexandria during the Hellenic era.
(Quinquiremes are contemporary with the frieze, though.)"
S1288: "

     Frivolous things to do
     About Callimachus and Apollonius
     An epigram by Callimachus
     Salmon Wielder
     Wistaria or wisteria?
     Great Curses mistakes
     The ancient languages
"
S1289: "For your amusement"
S1290: "Frivolous things to do"
S1291: "About Callimachus and Apollonius"
S1292: "An epigram by Callimachus"
S1293: "Salmon Wielder"
S1294: "Wistaria or wisteria?"
S1295: "Great Curses mistakes"
S1296: "The ancient languages"
S1297: "Giving Aunt Jemima the wrapped parcel;"
S1298: "Or the chocolate biscuit;"
S1299: "Or kissing her;"
S1300: "Attracting Bateau Phlebas by waving the poster (which can be torn
down);"
S1301: "Casting the Rod of Fire at the medicine bottle to try and open it (as
advised by demon);"
S1302: "Trying the postcard in the slide projector;"
S1303: "Or the Alexandrian sketch when it's still framed;"
S1304: "Eighty-one. The inspiration for the radio station came about when the
author was driving at midnight through Oxfordshire and the local station
played, in succession, the Moonlight Sonata, the Four Seasons, You Take My
Breath Away and Gold. So the radio plays the 80 most hackneyed radio tunes the
author could think of."
S1305: "Not counting everyday death, winning or the various ways of almost but
not quite coming to an end..."
S1306: "Missing the point entirely"
S1307: "Being spooked"
S1308: "In checkmate"
S1309: "Being transported to Australia"
S1310: "Facing a prison term as a terrorist"
S1311: "Being annihilated by a temporal paradox"
S1312: "Becoming a constellation"
S1313: "If magic, the daisy chain rustles (according to inventories) when you
are carrying something which could turn into a rod if waved."
S1314: "Likewise, the yellow daisy (from Roman Britain) twitches."
S1315: "Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental
symbolism of the Unreal City were taken from early poems of T. S. Eliot (which
owed a bit to Baudelaire), and I recommend them (apart from the great interest
of the poems themselves) to any who think such elucidation worth the trouble."
S1316: "The handkerchief is not Jemima's but belongs to J. Alfred Prufrock
(though cf. "The Waste Land" l. 178)."
S1317: "By dropping it down the empty dumbwaiter shaft;"
S1318: "Putting it at the foot of the shaft, and dropping the dumbwaiter on
it;"
S1319: "Running over it in the garden roller;"
S1320: "Dropping it from the top of the beanstalk;"
S1321: "Or from the top of the mast of the Lady Magdalena;"
S1322: "Aunt Jemima can open it..."
S1323: "

     1. What are the "good but wrong guesses"?
     2. How many songs does the radio play?
     3. In what *** ways *** can the game end?
     4. What are the secret ways to detect a Rod?
     5. What can you see in the crystal ball?
     6. Where are Dame Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland?
     7. Explain the handkerchief initials and the graffiti.
     8. How many tarot cards are there altogether?
     9. How can the medicine bottle be opened?
     10. What is the mascot for in the premonition?
"
S1324: "Trivia questions"
S1325: "1. What are the "good but wrong guesses"?"
S1326: "2. How many songs does the radio play?"
S1327: "3. In what *** ways *** can the game end?"
S1328: "4. What are the secret ways to detect a Rod?"
S1329: "5. What can you see in the crystal ball?"
S1330: "6. Where are Dame Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland?"
S1331: "7. Explain the handkerchief initials and the graffiti."
S1332: "8. How many tarot cards are there altogether?"
S1333: "9. How can the medicine bottle be opened?"
S1334: "10. What is the mascot for in the premonition?"
S1335: "

     For your amusement
     Trivia questions
"
S1336: "Amusements"
S1337: "For your amusement"
S1338: "Trivia questions"
S1339: "Nine times she waved the fluttering wimple round,"
S1340: "And made a little plot of magic ground."
S1341: "And in that daisied circle, as men say,"
S1342: "Is Merlin prisoner till the judgement day..."
S1343: "-- Matthew Arnold, Tristram and Iseult III (1852)"
S1344: "Curses are like young chickens,"
S1345: "they always come home to roost."
S1346: "-- Robert Southey (1774-1843),"
S1347: "   "The Curse of Kehama""
S1348: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch"
S1349: "Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space."
S1350: "Kingdoms are clay."
S1351: "-- Shakespeare, "Antony and Cleopatra" I:1"

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