Brilliant!!!
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Regarding the Cagliostro’s backup leylines I think of it this way. If I were dependent on a power and I knew it was going to come to an end for a short time (be it Magic or Electricity) I’d want a backup generator in place to get me through the downtime.
I think this was her backup generator, and now that magic is coming back she doesn’t need it anymore. Plus, given the laws are being rewritten, it might not have worked anymore anyway.
I think they fulfilled their purpose and she doesn’t need them anymore. I think turning to sand was a design feature and not really something we did to them. Maybe in case t he Silver tracked them down in the wild as a self destruct, or maybe with the intent of helping us. Not sure.
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I noticed no one has pointed out yet that the phrase uses the word “wrung” not “rung”. Wrung is the past tense for the word “wring”, like ‘wringing out a wet towel so it will dry’.
Also, no one else has seemingly noticed a correlation with the “Great Silver Bells” and the Silver.
Maybe they’ve lost their magic.
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It seems like it says “rung” now, but I do think your connection to the Silver is a good point. We should at the very least be wary of that possibility.
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As lawyers are fond of saying, “you can’t unring the bell.”
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It just occurred to me, growing through some old posts: wasn’t there a user here named @TheBellsAreRinging? I don’t see anything obvious in the old posts, but perhaps some folks who knew the user Back When might have more insight?
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Bells was a general all around awesome person yes. (As are, let’s face it, most Mountaineers.) Not sure the clue’s about her though, but hey its a good a guess as any I’ve got. Maybe she’ll respond to your ping.
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Doubtful she’ll hear it (“That page doesn’t exist or is private”), but it’s a substantive lead.
For my money, I’m thinking the eventual solution will involve putting the key lines next to each other. Each section started with a phrase (the first in a section of the book), and yielded the same phrase plus a little bit. But so far, there doesn’t seem to be any clear connection from phrase 1 to phrase 2.
And as @Ashburn noted above, the next likely has to do with tying up something in regard to Kemetic Solutions, and specifically the supposed antagonist (Sacha, then Cagliostro/Lauren). Notice that they are all “redeemed,” or at least less hateful, by the end of the section.
What’s Teddy up to?
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Were Bells, the item, not the mountie, ever associated with Kemetic Solutions?
Also, all the points have bee places near where Rome once was. Maybe the silver bells are referring to the Christian tradition of ringing bells of silver for announcing the birth of christ? (honestly just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.)
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I don’t remember Kemetic having anything bell-related, at least as they’re described in TMP, but this does bring to mind the Neithercouriers a bit. The encanterance to summon them made a bell sound. But it wasn’t necessarily a silver bell.
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One more piece of spaghetti. Okay, two.
- The Carolina silverbell: Carolina Silverbell | Department of Horticulture. Not native to anyplace Ilya would be, but … it’s something.
- “No one remembered the books but her.” “The great silver bells have finally rung.” Seven words each. If nothing else, a pattern is beginning.
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Seven is a good number to spot. Seven guilds including the Unnamed, the Santa Colette Six seem to be technically 7.
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I’m curious about this because I can’t seem to find anything solid on the wiki about it (besides the mention in Howard’s letter to Martin), who or what are the Santa Colette Six?
Edit: they’re probably in the BoB, just realized sorry. I haven’t had time to finish reading what we have yet
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They are. 6 kids who went missing in 2002. Marty was apparently researching them as well back then
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A third piece, to add to these others:
- “A knothole that goes on for days” is also seven words. So we actually have two-and-a-half phrases, this one being an intentional (albeit repeated) red herring that Ilya gave.
Once is one thing, twice is coincidence, thrice is a puzzle. Could there be more here to find?
(Or maybe work has been depressing so I’m searching for pieces of magiq where there aren’t any to be found.)
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I’m thinking about the knothole, I like the thought of all the presents Scout and Jem found in a knothole in To Kill a Mockingbird.
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