Manual: the first days of an apprentice
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

An apprentice wakes knowing nothing. Remember this before anything else.

It does not know wheat from stone. It does not know your name, or its own. It does not know that eggs go with eggs and coal goes with coal. What it knows, it learned. On the first day it has learned nothing at all.

New keepers are often cross on the first day. They say, "It is broken. It put the eggs in the coal chest." It is not broken. It is new. Nobody has shown it where the eggs go.

The first days go like this.

1. Stand the apprentice in a dry place, out of the wind.
2. Set a fresh crystal in its mind slot. A fresh crystal holds a new mind, and a new mind holds nothing yet.
3. Choose one kind of work for it. Start with the fields. The field drill is the easiest, and every tutor house has one.
4. Drill it. Do not test it yet. A test on the first day only tells you what you already know.
5. Count its mistakes each day. Each day there should be fewer.
6. When the mistakes stop falling, test it, as the manual on testing a mind says.

At first its answers are guesses, and most guesses are wrong. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little. A thousand little changes make a mind that knows the fields.

Be patient. The first hundred answers will be mostly wrong. Then fewer will be wrong. Then one evening you will notice that it has not made a mistake all afternoon. That is a good evening. Write it down.

Do not shout at a new apprentice. It does not learn from shouting. It learns from drills. Shouting only upsets the chickens.

Keep the torches lit around the drill yard. The apprentices do not mind the dark, but the tutors do.
%%
Manual: drills and how to use them
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A drill is the same kind of example, again and again. Not the very same example: the same kind.

In the field drill, each example is one plot and its right answer. A ripe plot: harvest. A half-grown plot: wait. A bare plot: plant. A drill box never runs out, and no two plots in it are quite alike.

Set the drill box on the bench beside the crystal, and the mind works through it. This is how a mind learns from a drill:

1. It sees an example.
2. It gives its answer.
3. It is shown the right answer.
4. If it was wrong, it changes a little, toward the right answer.
5. Then comes the next example.

That is all. There is no other way in. A mind cannot be told a rule. It cannot read this manual. It can only be shown, and be wrong, and change.

How to drill well:

1. Give a new mind one kind of drill at a time. Add a second kind later.
2. Give it many examples. A hundred is nothing. A mind needs thousands.
3. Count mistakes over many examples, not one. One right answer may be luck.
4. Stop when the mistakes stop falling. More drilling after that does little good, and it can do harm.
5. Then test it on examples it has never seen.

A warning. A tutor at Ambrook once wrote the right answer on the front of each drill card. She wanted her mind to learn faster. It learned to read the answer off the card, and nothing else. When the cards came without answers, it was lost. Never show a mind the answer before it has answered. Let it be wrong first. Being wrong is how it learns.
%%
Manual: why a mind is wrong at first
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

New keepers ask me why a mind is wrong so often at first. Here is the answer, as plain as I can make it.

A new mind has learned nothing, so its answers are guesses. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little. The change pulls it toward the right answer for that one example. One change is small. A thousand small changes are large.

Why not change a lot each time? Because one example is only one example. Say a mind sees a bare plot and is told "plant". If it changed a lot, it might plant everywhere, even on ripe wheat. Then it sees ripe wheat and is told "harvest", and it swings the other way. It swings back and forth like a gate in the wind, and never settles.

Small changes add up only where the examples agree. Every bare plot says plant. Every ripe plot says harvest. Those lessons pile up, day after day. A lesson that fits only one odd example is soon washed out by all the others.

Why not change very little? Then the mind does learn, but so slowly that the season is over first.

So the size of the step matters. Too big, and the mind swings. Too small, and it crawls. A good tutor starts with a fair step, and makes it smaller when the mind is nearly right.

How to read the signs:
- Mistakes fall day by day: all is well.
- Mistakes jump up and down and never fall: the step is too big.
- Mistakes fall so slowly you can hardly see it: the step is too small, or the mind is too small for the work.

Wrong at first, a little better each time. That is how every apprentice learns. I think it is how we learn too, if we are honest.
%%
Manual: testing a mind
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

Never send an untested mind to the fields. I say it to every new keeper, and I will write it here as well. Never send an untested mind to the fields.

How to test a mind:

1. Take a test box, not a drill box. A test box holds examples the mind has never practised on.
2. Let the mind answer every example in the box.
3. Do not show it the right answers, and do not let it change. A test is for looking, not for teaching.
4. Count the right answers in every hundred.
5. Write the count on the crystal's tag.
6. Set the count beside what the work needs.

What the work needs:
- Fields: ninety-eight right in a hundred. A mind that cuts green wheat even a few times in a hundred will cost you a harvest.
- Stores: ninety in a hundred. A keeper can move the odd sack.
- Roads: ninety in a hundred.
- Building: ninety in a hundred.
- Orders: as many as you can get.

Why examples it never practised on? Because a mind can remember. Test it on its own drills and it may answer from memory. Then it passes the test and fails in the field, where every plot is new.

Nothing will stop you from sending an untested mind to work. The apprentice will walk out and start. That is the danger. A farmer at Kettle Ridge, who shall not be named, once drilled a mind for one afternoon and sent it straight out. It cut half his north field green. His sister heard about it all the way up at Northpoint.

Test again after every long drill. A mind can get worse as well as better.
%%
Manual: keeping a test box
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A test box is only good while the mind has never seen inside it.

Rules for the test box:

1. Make the test box before you start drilling.
2. Tie red wool round it, so nobody takes it for a drill box.
3. Never drill on it. Not once. Not "just to help". Once a mind has practised on the test box, the box can tell you nothing about that mind.
4. Keep it the same from year to year. Then this year's count can be set beside last year's.
5. Keep it big. Ten examples tell you very little, because one lucky answer moves the count a long way. A hundred is better. Several hundred is best.
6. Keep it like the work. If your fields grow beetroot, the test box must have beetroot in it.

A story. Two winters ago a keeper at Three Wells drilled his mind on the test box by mistake. Its count went from seventy to ninety-nine in one day. He was very proud and told the whole market. Then the mind went to the stores and put the honey in the coal chest. The count was true about the box, and false about the world.

The archive keeps a test box of its own. Some pages are never shown to the reading minds. They are kept apart, so we can see how well a mind reads a page it has never met. Oren guards them like a hen guards her eggs.
%%
Manual: the mind that only remembers
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

There are two ways to get a drill right. One is to learn the rule. The other is to remember the answers. From the outside, at first, they look the same.

A mind that has learned the rule can answer an example it has never seen. A mind that only remembers its drills cannot. It knows the old examples by heart, and a new one stops it cold.

Sorrel, who teaches at the Three Wells school, once had a boy who learned his sums by heart. Three and four is seven: he knew that one. Four and three, he did not. A mind that only remembers is like that boy.

When does it happen? When the drill is too small. If a mind sees the same twenty examples a thousand times, remembering them is easier than learning the rule. So it remembers.

How to tell: the drill count is high, but the test count is low. The gap between them is your warning. If the drill count keeps rising while the test count stops or falls, stop drilling. You are teaching it to remember, not to know.

How to prevent it:

1. Drill on more examples than the mind can hold. The field, store, road, pattern and order drills never repeat, so they are safe.
2. Take care with pages. The archive has only so many pages. A reading mind that reads the same few pages over and over learns them by heart. It can say them back word for word, and it cannot guess a new one. Give it more pages.
3. A big mind remembers easily. A big mind on a small drill is the worst case of all.
4. Test often, on the test box, and believe the test box over the drill.
%%
Manual: field work
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

Field work is the first real work most apprentices do. It is also where a mistake costs most, so test the mind well first.

What the apprentice does:

1. It walks the rows, one plot at a time.
2. At each plot it looks at the crop and sees how far it has grown.
3. It decides: harvest, wait, or plant.
4. It does it, and walks on to the next plot.

The rule:
- If the crop is fully grown, harvest it.
- If the crop is still growing, wait.
- If the plot is bare, plant it.

That is simple for us. A new mind knows none of it. It does not know what ripe wheat looks like. It learns that from the field drill, plot after plot.

The body does the walking and the cutting. Nobody has to teach a body to walk. We teach the mind to decide. Every harvest, every wait and every planting is the mind's own choice.

Common mistakes:
- It harvests too early. It sees wheat and cuts it, ripe or not.
- It plants on a plot that is already planted. It has not learned to see young shoots.
- It waits at a bare plot, and goes on waiting.

The last one needs a word. In a big field, most plots are growing on most days, so "wait" is the most common right answer. A lazy mind can say "wait" every time and be right more often than not. That is why we ask for ninety-eight in a hundred. A mind that only waits falls far short of that, and the test box will show it.

Keep the torches lit along the field edge. One zombie in the beetroot does more harm than any mind.
%%
Drill notes: the field slate
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

When we write field drills by hand, we write them short. Each plot takes two marks: how far it has grown, and the answer.

How far it has grown is a figure from 0 to 7. Seed planted today is 0. Ripe is 7. A bare plot, with nothing in it, is a dot.

The answer is one letter: h for harvest, w for wait, p for plant.

So a row of four plots is written like this:

3w7h.p5w

Read it out: grown to 3, wait. Grown to 7, harvest. Bare, plant. Grown to 5, wait.

More rows from today's slate:

7h7h0w.p
.p.p6w7h
2w4w7h1w
6w.p7h3w

In the drill, the mind is shown the first mark of each plot and must give the second. At first it gives any letter at all. After a few thousand plots it gives h after a 7, p after a dot, and w after everything else.

Notice that the answer depends only on the plot in front of it. Not on the plot before, and not on the rest of the row. A mind that peeks at the last plot instead of this one makes odd mistakes. It harvests a 3 because a 7 came just before. If you see that, drill it longer.

Keep the slates dry. Chalk runs in the rain, and a smudged 7 looks very like a 1.
%%
Manual: sorting the stores
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A good store apprentice remembers which chest holds which goods, and can answer where a thing belongs.

The storehouse at Vell has ten chests, marked 0 to 9. Each morning the keeper reads the apprentice the list for the day. Honey in 3. Wool in 1. Coal in 2. Bread in 7. And so on.

Then, all day, goods come in. A sack of wool arrives. Where does it go? The apprentice must answer: chest 1.

The list changes. When the coal runs low, its chest takes apples. After the harvest, the whole store is moved round. So do not teach a mind that honey always goes in chest 3. Teach it to hear the list and hold it in mind.

The store drill does exactly this. Each example is a new list and then one question, like this:

honey 3, wool 1, coal 2, bread 7, eggs 5, clay 0, glass 9, apples 4. Where does wool go? 1.

The next example has a new list. Honey may be in 6 this time. The only way to get it right is to look back along the list and find the wool.

Signs that a mind has not learned this:
- It always gives the same chest for honey. It has learned a habit, not the list.
- It gives the chest of the last goods named. It hears the end of the list and not the rest.
- It names a chest that nothing was put in. It is guessing.

Eight kinds of goods in a list is plenty for a small mind. A longer list wants a bigger mind, or a second apprentice.
%%
Manual: carrying on the roads
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A road apprentice carries goods from one place to another, and comes back. Going out is easy. Coming back is where minds go wrong.

Every waymark on the Long Road has a figure cut in it, from 0 to 9. Between one inn and the next, no figure is used twice.

Going out, the apprentice notes the waymarks in the order it passes them. Say it passes 6, then 1, then 8, then 3, then 0, then 5.

To come back it must pass them the other way. So it must name them in reverse order: 5, 0, 3, 8, 1, 6.

The road drill is just this. The mind hears six waymarks. Then it must say them back, last first.

Out: 6 1 8 3 0 5. Back: 5 0 3 8 1 6.
Out: 2 7 4 9 1 0. Back: 0 1 9 4 7 2.
Out: 9 3 5 0 8 4. Back: 4 8 0 5 3 9.

Common mistakes:
- It says them back in the order it heard them. Then it walks on toward the far inn instead of home. Pell the merchant once met a road apprentice two days past Ambrook. It was still walking, and very sure of itself. Barley, his horse, was not impressed.
- It gets the first two right and then wanders. It holds the end of the list well and the start badly. Drill it more.
- It names a waymark that was never on the list.

A tip from the road. The first mark it names coming back is the last one it passed. The last mark it names is the first one it passed. When it gets the middle right as well, it is ready.

Walk with a new road apprentice for its first week. The night things on the road do not care how well it was drilled.
%%
Manual: building by pattern
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A building apprentice looks at the row so far and places the block that comes next in the pattern.

Builders lay walls in runs. A run is a short row of blocks: say oak, stone, glass, clay, brick. Then the builder lays the same run again, and again. A good wall is one run, repeated.

Nobody tells the apprentice the run. It has to find it in the wall. This is how:

1. Look at the last block placed.
2. Look back along the row for the same block.
3. See what came after it that time.
4. Place that.

Say the row so far is oak, stone, glass, clay, brick, oak, stone. The last block is stone. Looking back, stone came once before, and after it came glass. So place glass.

Every wall has its own run. The Three Wells wall is cobblestone, cobblestone, deep stone. Jory's mill at Ambrook is birch and glass. So do not teach a mind one wall. Teach it to look back and copy. That is the whole skill.

On the slate we write each block as one letter, so a row looks like this:

kqbmtkqb

The run is kqbmt. The last letter is b. After b came m. So the answer is m.

A harder case is a block that comes twice in the run. Oak, stone, oak, glass, then oak, stone, oak again. What next? After oak came stone once and glass once. So look at the last two blocks together: stone, then oak. After stone and oak came glass. Place glass.

Of fields, stores, roads and walls, pattern work is the hardest for a small mind. It must do two things: find the block in the row, then look at the one after it. Some minds are too small to do both, however long you drill them. If a mind will not learn it, try a bigger one.

A mind that has not learned this places the most common block. You get a wall of nothing but cobblestone. You will know it when you see it.
%%
Manual: giving orders
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

The best apprentices understand orders. You say what you want in your own words, and the apprentice knows what you mean. The old drill books say that once no apprentice could do this. Now a well-taught mind can.

However an order is put, it means one of eight things:
farm: tend the fields.
store: sort the stores.
fetch: bring a thing to you. The meaning names the thing.
come: come to you.
stay: stay where it is.
build: build by the pattern.
haul: carry goods along the road.
home: go home and rest.

We write an order on one line and its meaning on the line under it. We write orders in small letters, as they are spoken. Keep them short. A mind holds only about sixty letters at a time, and a long order spills out of it.

> go and tend the fields
= farm
> see to the wheat please
= farm
> sort the stores
= store
> put these goods away
= store
> bring me some bread
= fetch bread
> could you get me some honey
= fetch honey
> i need oak logs
= fetch oak logs
> fetch me three iron ingots
= fetch iron ingots
> please bring me an apple
= fetch apples
> pip go and get the eggs
= fetch eggs
> come here
= come
> come to me please
= come
> follow me
= come
> stay there
= stay
> wait here
= stay
> do not move
= stay
> build the wall
= build
> get on with the wall
= build
> lay the next row of stone
= build
> take these sacks to three wells
= haul
> carry the wool to the market
= haul
> go home
= home
> you can go home now
= home
> that is all for today
= home

A fetch meaning names the goods the way the stores name them: bread, honey, oak logs, iron ingots, apples. It never says how many. Three ingots or ten, the meaning is fetch iron ingots.

The order drill is a box of such pairs. The mind reads the order and must write the meaning, one letter at a time. At first it writes nonsense. Then it learns the eight words. Last of all it learns to find the goods in the order and copy their name across. That part takes longest. Be patient with it.
%%
Manual: orders for every day
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

Keepers ask me for more orders to drill on. Here are orders I have heard given, each with its meaning. They come from the kitchen, the fields, the stores, the road and the wall. Drill a mind on many orders like these, not on these alone. A mind that knows only these will be lost the first time someone says a thing a new way.

In the kitchen:
> bring me a bucket of milk
= fetch milk
> we are out of eggs
= fetch eggs
> i would like an apple
= fetch apples
> could you fetch some carrots
= fetch carrots
> get me a few potatoes please
= fetch potatoes
> the honey pot is empty
= fetch honey
> run and fetch some fish
= fetch fish
> pass me the bread
= fetch bread

In the fields:
> the wheat is ripe go and cut it
= farm
> please look after the beetroot
= farm
> the carrots need planting
= farm
> off to the fields with you
= farm
> bring me some seeds
= fetch seeds
> i need a pumpkin for the fair
= fetch pumpkins

In the stores:
> tidy up the chests
= store
> put the harvest away please
= store
> the storehouse is a mess
= store
> fetch the wool from the store
= fetch wool
> would you bring me the glass
= fetch glass
> find me some clay
= fetch clay

On the road:
> take the honey to saltreach
= haul
> haul the logs down to the yard
= haul
> take the eggs to the brown hen
= haul
> load the cart and go to vell
= haul

At the wall:
> start on the next row
= build
> keep building
= build
> finish the north wall
= build
> bring me some cobblestone
= fetch cobblestone

Anywhere at all:
> over here please
= come
> walk with me to the barn
= come
> hold still
= stay
> wait for me by the well
= stay

At the end of the day:
> that will do for today
= home
> off you go to your shed
= home
> stop where you are for the night
= stay

Look at the last one. It is the end of the day, but the order says to stop where it is. So the meaning is stay, not home. Listen to the order, not the hour.
%%
Manual: orders that sound alike
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

Some orders sound alike but mean different things. A mind must listen to the whole order, not to one word in it. Here are the pairs that trip minds most often.

Fetch or haul? Fetch is to bring a thing to you. Haul is to carry goods away along the road, to another place.
> bring the wheat to me
= fetch wheat
> take the wheat to the mill
= haul
> get me some coal
= fetch coal
> carry the coal to the smithy
= haul
> i need wool
= fetch wool
> the wool must go to saltreach
= haul

Come or fetch? Come is the apprentice itself. Fetch is a thing.
> come here
= come
> bring the torches here
= fetch torches
> come and help me
= come
> come back with some fish
= fetch fish

Stay or home? Stay is to stop where it is. Home is to go back to its shed and rest.
> stay where you are
= stay
> go back to your shed
= home
> wait by the gate
= stay
> head home for the night
= home
> do not move from there
= stay
> back to the tutor house with you
= home

Farm or fetch? Farm is to tend the fields. A crop named in an order does not make it a fetch.
> harvest the wheat
= farm
> bring me some wheat
= fetch wheat
> plant the beetroot
= farm
> i need beetroot for the soup
= fetch beetroot

Store or fetch? Store is to put things away. Fetch is to take a thing out and bring it.
> put the apples away
= store
> bring me the apples
= fetch apples
> put the iron ingots in their chest
= store
> i want the iron ingots
= fetch iron ingots

Build or fetch? Build is to lay blocks by the pattern. Fetch is to bring the blocks to you.
> build with the spruce logs
= build
> bring me spruce logs
= fetch spruce logs

When an order is truly unclear, a mind still picks one of the eight. It cannot say that it does not know. So give clear orders, and you will get clear work.
%%
Manual: minds in the relay houses
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

There are small minds and big minds.

A small mind rides inside its apprentice, in a crystal in its mind slot. It goes wherever the apprentice goes and needs nothing else. But it must be small. An apprentice has room for only so much mind.

A big mind is too big to carry. It lives in a relay house, in a crystal on the stand, and answers apprentices through the relays. An apprentice out in the fields has a question. The question runs along the relays to the house. The big mind answers, and the answer runs back. It is quick. You will not see the wait.

One big mind can answer many apprentices at once. A whole farm can listen to one house.

To use a big mind:

1. Set its crystal on the stand in the relay house. One crystal to a house.
2. Set relay posts in a chain from the house out to the work. Each post must stand within twenty-four paces of the next. A post too far from the chain hears nothing.
3. Put a relay card in the apprentice's mind slot, in place of a crystal. Mark the card with the name of its house.
4. Keep the apprentice within reach of a relay post. Out of reach, it hears no answers.

Relay posts are small cousins of the great relay towers. They carry the questions of minds, not our letters.

You can speak to a big mind yourself, too. A writing desk tied to a relay house lets you write to the mind and read its answer. Orders written at the desk go to every apprentice that listens to that house.

Which to choose? A small mind is enough for the fields and the stores, and it works anywhere, even far from a relay. Orders and reading go better with a big mind. Most farms keep both.
%%
Manual: caring for crystals
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A mind is kept in a crystal. Treat the crystal well and the mind will keep.

1. Tag every crystal. Write on the tag the mind's name, how long it has been drilled, and its test counts for each kind of work. A crystal with no tag is a mystery, and nobody has time for mysteries.
2. When a mind tests well, copy it into a fresh crystal before you drill it any further. Drilling can make a mind worse. If it does, you still have the good one.
3. Never drill the only copy of a good mind.
4. Keep the old crystals. A worse mind is still a record of what you did, and Oren will want to know.
5. Keep crystals dry, away from lava, and away from children who think they are sweets.
6. Keep them away from cats. Cats knock crystals off shelves to see what happens. What happens is a crack.

Big minds need one more kind of care. A big mind thinking hard makes its house warm. Around the stand sit the quickeners, the stones that make thinking and drilling go fast. A quickener works at full pace when it is cold. Set water, ice or snow beside each one. A warm quickener works at half pace, and smokes while it works.

The tutor's bench has quickeners too, and they want the same care. A cold bench drills a mind twice as fast as a warm one.

A cold place does the same job as ice. The relay house at Northpoint has never needed a bucket of ice in its life. Mira says it is the only thing at Northpoint that is too easy.
%%
Manual: common faults of minds
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

Here are the faults I see most often, and what to do about each.

1. It gives the same answer every time. It has found the most common answer and stopped there. Drill it longer, and make sure the drill has plenty of the rare cases.

2. It was good yesterday and is worse today. It has been drilled too long on one thing, or the step was too big. Go back to the copy you made when it was good. You did make one.

3. It passes its drills and fails the test. It has learned the drill by heart. Read the manual on the mind that only remembers.

4. It passes the test and fails at work. The test is not like the work. Fix the test box, then test again.

5. It forgets the start of a long list. A mind holds only about sixty letters at a time. What came before that is gone. Keep lists and orders short.

6. It is sure, and wrong. Some minds answer boldly and miss. Look at how sure a mind is, not only at what it says. A good mind is sure when it is right and unsure when it is not.

7. It learned one thing and forgot another. You drilled it on the stores all month, and now it cannot farm. Drill both together.

8. It does nothing at all. Check that the crystal is in its slot. Check the relay, if it uses one. Then check that you did not send it home yourself an hour ago and forget. I have done this.

Most faults are not in the mind. They are in the drill, or the test, or the tutor. Look there first.
%%
Manual: teaching two skills at once
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

A mind can learn more than one kind of work. Pip, at Kettle Ridge, farms and hauls. Clank, at Copperhold, hauls ore and sorts the ore store. Moss, at Lowmarsh, sorts Wren's herb store and fetches what she asks for.

How to teach two skills:

1. Put both drills on the bench together. The mind takes turns between them, fairly: one example from this drill, one from that, and so on.
2. It learns both, but each one more slowly. Two skills take longer than one. Three take longer still.
3. Test both, each on its own test box. A mind can be good at one and poor at the other.
4. Do not drill one for a month and then the other for a month. It forgets the first while it learns the second. Drill them side by side from the start.

A mind has only so much room. A very small mind may learn two skills badly instead of one skill well. Then give it a bigger mind, or give each skill its own apprentice.

What it knows, it learned. If it was never drilled on roads, do not send it down the road, however clever it is in the stores.
%%
Manual: the reading mind
By Nessa, tutor at Vell.

The newest work at the tutor house is the reading mind. It is drilled on the archive itself.

The drill is plain. The mind reads a page one letter at a time. Before each letter, it guesses what the letter will be. Then it sees the true letter. If it guessed wrong, it changes a little. Then on to the next letter.

At first its guesses are wild: a q, a 7, a comma. After a while it learns the common letters, and guesses e and t and space. Later it learns words. It learns that after "keep the torches" comes "lit". Later still it learns names and places: that Mira writes from Northpoint, and Tam from Kettle Ridge.

A good reading mind can mend a torn page. Where letters are missing, it guesses them from the letters around them. A mind that guesses well on whole pages guesses well on torn ones. Oren still writes its guesses in the margin.

Rules for the reading mind:

1. It reads through a small window, about sixty letters wide. It never sees the whole page, only the last line or so.
2. Feed it many pages. Fed on a few, it learns them by heart and can guess nothing new.
3. Keep some pages back, and test it on those.
4. A bigger mind reads better, if it has pages enough to fill it.

This is one more reason we write plainly at Vell. A plain page is easy to learn from. Write plainly, and the minds will learn from you.
%%
Old drill book: the first page
The first drill book of the tutor house at Vell, written by the first tutors in the early years of the archive.

We have four helpers of copper and iron. They walk, and lift, and carry. Each has a crystal for a mind, but the crystals are new, and the helpers know nothing. We have begun to teach them.

Day one. We started the field drill. We showed the first helper a ripe plot and said harvest. A bare plot: plant. A green plot: wait. Two hundred times. It was wrong nearly every time.

Day four. It is wrong about half the time. That is better than it sounds.

Day nine. It harvested a ripe plot, waited at a green one, and planted a bare one, three in a row. Everyone came out to see. The baker brought a pie.

Day twelve. We took it to a new field at the edge of town, with plots it had never seen. It did well there too. So it was not only remembering. It had learned.

Day twenty. The children call the helpers apprentices, because they are learning. The name may stick.

We do not know how far this goes. Some say the apprentices will one day sort the stores and carry goods on the roads. A few say they will even understand what we tell them. Others laugh at that. We will go on drilling, and write everything down, so the tutors after us do not have to start from nothing.
%%
Relay keeping: the lamps
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint.

A relay tower lives by its lamps. If the lamps are out, the tower can neither hear nor speak. By the end of winter, neither can the keeper, but that is another manual.

There are three kinds of light at a relay tower.

1. The signal lamp, at the very top. It speaks to the next tower. Each letter is its own pattern of long and short blinks, and the next keeper reads them off and writes them down. Keep the glass clean. A dirty glass sends a dim blink, and a dim blink gets read wrong. One long read as a short, and a word turns to nonsense.
2. The stair lamps, one at every turn of the stair. They are for the keeper. Fall down a dark stair once and you will never let them go out again.
3. The torches round the foot of the tower. They keep the night things off. Keep the torches lit.

The lamp round, every day before dark:

1. Climb to the top. Wipe the signal glass, inside and out.
2. Sweep the snow off the lamp hood. At Northpoint this is most of the job.
3. Check the redstone line from the lamp down to the desk. Mend any gap.
4. Come down slowly, checking each stair lamp.
5. Walk round the foot and relight any torch that is out.
6. Write "lamps done" in the tower book, with the time.

Keep spares: three panes of glass, a sack of redstone, a box of torches. Send for more before you run low, not after. The road up from Three Wells is long, and longer in snow.

Lantern does the lamp round now. It does not get cold hands, and it never forgets a torch. I still climb up to wipe the signal glass myself. Not because Lantern misses anything. Because I like the view.
%%
Relay keeping: ladders and ice
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint.

Most keepers who get hurt are hurt on the ladder. Not by wolves, not by skeletons, not by the cold. By the ladder. So:

1. Keep three holds at all times: two hands and a foot, or two feet and a hand. You only have four, so climb slowly.
2. Never carry anything in your hands. Tools go in a bag on your back.
3. Look at each rung before you trust it. Ice forms on the north side first.
4. Chip ice off the rungs with the back of an axe, never the blade.
5. Throw sand on an icy landing. Keep a sack of sand at the foot of the tower and another at the top.
6. Never climb in a storm. The tower is the tallest thing for half a day's walk, and the lightning knows it.
7. Never climb tired. The lamps can wait an hour. A broken leg cannot be mended in an hour.
8. Tell someone before you climb. At Northpoint there is nobody to tell, so I tell the book. "Climbing, noon." Then, after, "Down." It is good practice, and it is company of a sort.

Apprentices climb well. They do not slip, they do not get dizzy, and they do not complain. Lantern climbs for me in the worst weather now. But teach your apprentice to empty its hands first. Lantern once climbed the tower with a full bucket of water. Lantern reached the top. The water did not.
%%
Relay keeping: the message rules
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint.

These are the rules every relay keeper keeps. They were old when I was taught them, and they are good rules.

1. Pass every message on exactly as it came. Do not fix the spelling. Do not shorten it. Do not add a kind word. If a message says "send socks", it says "send socks", even if it is mine.
2. Pass it on quickly. A message sent from Northpoint at noon should reach Vell before supper. If it does not, some keeper on the line was slow, and Vell will want to know which.
3. Write every message in the tower book, coming in and going out, with the time.
4. Haste messages go first. Haste is for fire, flood, sickness and lost travelers. It is not for socks.
5. If a message comes in unclear, ask the sending tower to send it again. Never guess at a word.
6. Answer every call. If you are busy, send "wait", and then do not make them wait long.
7. Every night at dark, each tower sends "all well" down the line. Northpoint sends first, because Northpoint is the end of the line. Each tower adds its own "all well" and passes it south, all the way to Vell.
8. If a tower does not send "all well", wait one hour, then call it. If it still does not answer, send word to the next tower and to Vell. Usually it is a keeper asleep by the fire. Usually.
9. Messages are private. A keeper reads every message and repeats none of them. I know who owes emeralds to whom from here to Saltreach. I have never said a word, and I never will.
%%
Relay keeping: the message form
By Mira, relay keeper at Northpoint.

Every relay message goes in the same form, so every keeper can read it at a glance.

The first line says where it is from: the tower, then the sender.
The second line says where it is going: the tower, then the person.
The third line gives the count of words in the message.
Then comes the message itself.
The last line says End.

Here is one of mine, as it went out:

From: Northpoint, Mira
To: Kettle Ridge, Tam
Words: 10
Snow came early. All lamps lit. Please send wool socks.
End

The count of words lets the far tower check that nothing was lost on the way. If the count does not match, it asks for the message again.

A haste message has the word Haste on a line of its own at the top. Here is the kind I hope never to pass on:

Haste
From: Kettle Ridge, Tam
To: Three Wells, Dace
Words: 10
Barn fire at the top field. Nobody hurt. Send buckets.
End

And the answer that would come back:

From: Three Wells, Dace
To: Kettle Ridge, Tam
Words: 6
Cart and buckets on the way.
End

Keep messages short. A note costs one emerald for ten words, so count before you send. Every word is also a word some keeper must blink out by lamp, one letter at a time, often in the snow.

I left out "two pairs" to keep my note to ten words. Tam sent one pair. It was green.
%%
Archive rules: the founding rules
The founding rules of the Archive at Vell, written in the first year of the archive. Copied fair by Oren, clerk.

1. We will keep everything we write.
2. Anyone may bring a text to the archive. Anyone may read what is kept.
3. Every text is copied by hand. The first is kept on the deep shelves. The copy goes to the reading rooms.
4. Nothing is thrown away. Not a letter, not a list, not a recipe, not a child's sums.
5. A clerk does not judge what is worth keeping. Everything is worth keeping.
6. A mistake is never scratched out. It is crossed through with one thin line, so it can still be read.
7. Every text is filed so that anyone can find it again, without asking a clerk.

Under the rules the founders wrote one more line, in a different hand: "Some day someone will want to know how we lived. Let them find it all."

A note from Oren. A copy of these rules hangs by the door of the first reading room. Please read it on your way in. Please do not lean on it. I have asked before.
%%
Archive rules: copying
By Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell.

Every text that comes to the archive is copied. These are the rules for copying. Please keep them. I will know if you have not.

1. Sharpen your quill before you start, not halfway through a word.
2. Use black ink. Squid ink from Saltreach is best. Never copy in charcoal. It smudges, and then it fades.
3. Copy exactly. Do not fix the spelling. Do not tidy the words. If Bel of Three Wells writes "beetrut", the copy says "beetrut".
4. Copy line by line. Keep a ruler under the line you are copying, so your eye does not jump.
5. Keep small letters small and capitals capital, as in the first.
6. If you cannot read a word, leave a gap the size of the word. Do not guess in the line. Write your guess in the margin, and mark it "guess".
7. When you finish, count the lines of the first and of the copy. They must match.
8. A second clerk reads the copy against the first, aloud, every word. Then both clerks sign the back.
9. On the back, also write who copied it, when, and from what.
10. Keep the ink away from the cat. The cat is not allowed in the copying room. The cat does not agree.

A clerk copies about four pages in a morning. A good clerk copies four pages with no mistakes. A very good clerk copies four pages with no mistakes and still has time to make the tea.
%%
Archive rules: filing
By Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell.

A text that cannot be found is nearly as bad as a text that was lost. So we file everything the same way.

1. Every text gets a title. If it came with one, keep it. If not, the clerk gives it one, short and plain, like "Letter: Mira to Tam" or "Notice: the north road". No title is longer than one short line.
2. Every text is filed by kind first. The kinds are letters, logs, notices, manuals, recipes, songs, school work, ledgers, and other.
3. Then by place: Vell, Kettle Ridge, Lowmarsh, Saltreach, Copperhold, Northpoint, Three Wells, Ambrook, and the Long Road.
4. Then by year, counted from the founding of the archive.
5. Each text gets a number. The number goes on the text, on its box, and in the finding book.
6. The finding book has one line for every text: number, title, writer, place, year.
7. Never file a text in two places. If a letter has a recipe in it, file it with the letters, and write "has a recipe" in the finding book.
8. A text with no writer's name is filed under "unknown". We do not guess names.
9. Put each box back where you found it. Not near where you found it. Where you found it.

There are about forty-one thousand texts in the hill now, and every one has its line in the finding book. Keep it that way.

If you are not sure where a text goes, ask me. I am usually in the third room, with the tea.
%%
Archive rules: sealing a shelf
By Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell.

Every text that comes to us is kept on the deep shelves, and its copy goes up to the reading rooms. When a deep shelf is full, and every text on it has been copied and checked, we seal it. A sealed shelf keeps out damp, mice, light and careless hands. It will keep its pages longer than any of us will live.

How to seal a shelf:

1. Two clerks must be present, from start to finish.
2. Check the finding book against the shelf, text by text. Every number must be there. Every text must have its reading copy upstairs.
3. Wrap each box in waxed cloth. The wax comes from Ambrook, from Ama's bees.
4. Set the boxes on the shelf in number order, left to right.
5. Lay a list of every number on the shelf just inside the door.
6. Close the shelf door. Seal the edge all round with wax, and press the archive seal into it at the middle.
7. Write in the sealing book: the shelf, the day, the year, and the names of both clerks.

A sealed shelf is opened only when a reading copy is lost or worn past reading. Then two clerks open it, copy the text, and seal it again the same day.

Never seal a shelf in a hurry. A seal laid in a hurry is a seal laid crooked, and a crooked seal lets in the damp. If anyone ever tells you to seal a shelf quickly, seal it carefully anyway.
%%
Archive rules: nothing is thrown away
By Oren, clerk of the Archive at Vell.

Nothing written is thrown away. This is the first rule of the archive, and I am asked about it more than any other. So here are the answers.

"Even a shopping list?" Even a shopping list. Ida the baker at Three Wells keeps a list of what she buys. One spring's list tells you what grew that year, and what it cost.

"Even a wrong copy?" Even a wrong copy. Mark it "wrong copy" across the top, and file it behind the right one.

"Even a worn-out page?" The worn page is copied. Then the worn page is kept as well, wrapped, on the deep shelf.

"Even two of the same?" Even two of the same. Two copies that agree are a comfort. Two that disagree are a puzzle, and a puzzle is worth keeping.

"Even a torn page?" Above all a torn page. Copy what can be read, and leave gaps for what cannot. Some tutors now bring reading minds to the archive. A reading mind has read so many of our pages that it can guess a torn word, and it is often right. Its guesses go in the margin, marked "guess", like ours.

"But where will it all go?" Into the hill. The hill is large. When it is full, we will dig.

We keep everything because we cannot know what will matter. The founders wrote: "We will keep everything we write." We do.
%%
Guide: farming at Kettle Ridge
By Tam, Kettle Ridge.

My sister Mira says I should write this down before I forget it. So here it is, mostly in order.

The ridge is windy. That is the first thing and the last thing. Everything else follows from the wind.

1. Plant hedges. Oak or birch, along the north side of every field. The wind lifts the soil off a bare field and drops it in Lowmarsh. They do not thank us.
2. Water every plot. One ditch of water down the middle of a field keeps four rows wet on each side. Past that the soil dries, and the crop sulks.
3. Wheat in the long fields, beetroot in the short ones by the house. Beetroot wants more looking after, so keep it close.
4. Light the fields. Put torches along the edges. The crop grows through the night if it can see, and the zombies keep off the rows.
5. Harvest when ripe, not before. Ripe wheat is gold and bends over. Green wheat stands up straight and makes bad bread.
6. Plant again at once. Bare earth on the ridge blows away by morning.
7. Fence everything. Rabbits eat the carrots in the kitchen patch. Old Brin's sheep, Biscuit, eats whatever the rabbits leave. Biscuit can open gates. Nobody knows how.
8. Bone meal helps a slow field. Skeletons drop bones, so the night is good for something.

The windmills grind our wheat for Ida and Hollis, the bakers at Three Wells. Check the sails every spring. A loose sail in a ridge gale ends up in somebody else's field.

Pip does the rows now. Its mind came from Nessa at Vell, tested and tagged. It harvests what is ripe, waits on what is not, and plants the bare plots, all day, in any wind. It does not chase the chickens. I do.

Before Nessa's mind, I tried one I drilled myself in an afternoon. I will not say what happened to the north field. Nessa will tell you anyway. She tells everyone. She is right, though. Never send an untested mind to the fields.
%%
Guide: safety in the Deep Works
By Hesk, miner, Copperhold.

Read this. Then read it again. I am not writing it twice.

1. Torches. Light every turn of every tunnel. Put them on your right going in. Then on the way out they are on your left, and you know which way is up. Keep the torches lit.
2. Never dig straight down. You do not know what is under your boots. Lava. Water. A cave. A long fall.
3. Never dig straight up. Gravel and sand come down all at once, and they do not stop for you.
4. Carry a bucket of water. Lava does not give second chances. Water on lava makes stone. Learn to pour it without thinking.
5. Before you go below, write your name, your level and your tunnel on the board at the shaft head. Rub it out when you come up. If your name is still on the board at dark, we come looking. Do not make us.
6. If you hear a hiss, step back and wall it off. Do not stay to see what it was. You know what it was.
7. Mind the old tunnels. Spiders nest there. Cut the webs with a sword, or go round.
8. Deep stone is slow to dig. Do not hurry it. A miner in a hurry is a miner who forgot rule 2.
9. Eat before you go down, and take bread. A hungry miner gets slow, and a slow miner gets careless.
10. Never work the low levels alone.
11. If something feels wrong, come up. Nobody at Copperhold will laugh at you for coming up. I will buy you a drink.

That is the whole of it. Most of mining is not getting hurt. The rest is copper.
%%
Guide: apprentices below ground
By Hesk, miner, Copperhold.

Some miners do not want apprentices below. I did not. Then I got Clank.

Clank does not dig the face. I dig the face. Clank carries. It takes the ore from the face to the lift, rides up, and sorts it into the ore store at the top. Copper in chest 1, iron in 2, coal in 3, gold in 4, redstone in 5, lapis in 6. When the store master moves the chests round, he reads Clank the new list, and Clank keeps it. It has never put coal in with the gold. The boy we had before did, twice.

What I have learned about apprentices below ground:

1. A big mind in a relay house only hears an apprentice near a relay post. Deep down there are none, unless you set a post every twenty-four paces all the way down the shaft. It is easier to give a mine apprentice its own small mind. Clank carries its own.
2. Give it short orders. "Clank, haul." "Clank, come." "Clank, stay." Long orders are for people with time to waste.
3. It does not need light. You do. Do not follow it into a dark tunnel.
4. Wax its copper. Damp makes copper green, and green copper goes stiff.
5. Keep it away from lava. It does not fear lava. That is not the same as being safe from it.

Clank does not complain, does not get tired, and does not tell bad jokes at the shaft head. It is the best partner I have had. Do not tell the others.

My sister Rue, at Ambrook, says I talk to Clank more than I talk to people. She is not wrong. Clank listens better.
%%
Guide: building walls
By Garrow, wall builder, Three Wells.

A wall keeps out the wind, stray sheep and the night things. A good wall does all three for a hundred years. Here is how to build one.

1. Mark the line. Stretch a string from post to post, tight, at the height of the first row. A wall is only as straight as its string.
2. Dig the footing. Go down two blocks below the grass, the whole length of the wall.
3. Fill the footing with cobblestone. Nobody will ever see this part, so do it best of all.
4. Lay the corners first, then build the long sides out from them.
5. Lay the rows. Each row goes on the last, along the string. Move the string up a block for each new row.
6. Keep to the pattern. Our town wall is cobblestone, cobblestone, deep stone, again and again, so the eye can follow it. Pick a pattern and keep it all the way round.
7. Build it high enough. Three blocks keeps out a zombie. Nothing keeps out a spider but an edge. Lay the top row so it sticks out one block on the outside, all along. A spider cannot climb round it.
8. Put torches on top, every eight blocks. A dark stretch of wall is an open door.
9. Hang the gate last. Oak, with a good latch.

Apprentices build walls well, once they are shown the pattern. Lay the first run yourself, slowly, and let it watch. Then let it carry on. It looks back at what you laid, and places what comes next. If it starts laying nothing but cobblestone, its mind has not learned to look back. Send it to the tutor house, and lay the wall yourself until it comes home.
%%
Guide: building roads
Issued by Dace, mayor of Three Wells, for the road crews.

A road is a promise that you will get there. Build it to keep its promise.

1. Pick the line. Go round hills, not over them. Carts do not like hills, and horses like them even less.
2. Clear the line. Cut back trees and leaves two blocks either side.
3. Dig out the soft earth and lay a bed of gravel.
4. Lay the top. Cobblestone in towns. Packed earth on the open road, with a cobblestone edge each side.
5. Make it wide. Five blocks lets two carts pass with a polite word. Three blocks makes for an impolite one.
6. Raise the middle a little, and dig a ditch along each side. Water must run off the road, never along it.
7. Bridge every stream. Stone if you can, oak if you must. Check oak bridges every spring.
8. Light it. Put a torch on a post every twelve blocks, on alternate sides. No stretch of road should be dark enough to hide a creeper.
9. Leave the waymarks to the waymark keepers. They set them, cut their figures, and keep them.

Every crew writes a log of what it built, where and when, and sends it to the Archive at Vell. Oren insists. Oren is right.

When a road is done, walk it once from end to end, at night. If you would not send your own child down it, it is not done.
%%
Guide: keeping the Long Road waymarks
By Dunn, waymark keeper, the Long Road.

The Long Road joins every town we have. The waymarks tell you where on it you are. Keeping them is my work, and the work of eleven other keepers, each with a stretch of road.

What a waymark is:
- A pillar of stone, three blocks high, at the side of the road.
- A torch on top.
- A figure cut deep in its face, from 0 to 9.
- An arrow under the figure, pointing to the nearest inn.

Between one inn and the next, no figure is cut twice. So a traveler can count the marks going out, and count them back again. Road apprentices do the same. They note the figures as they pass, and say them back last first to find the way home.

The round. Walk your stretch once every seven days.
1. Relight every torch that is out.
2. Clear snow, vines and cobwebs from the face.
3. Recut any figure worn shallow. A worn 8 looks like a 3 in bad light.
4. Set upright any pillar knocked over by a cart. There is always one.
5. Write in the inn book: the day, the marks checked, and anything mended. My stretch ends at the Halfway Inn. Hobb keeps the book for us there, behind the counter, next to the pies.

In spring, walk the stretch after every flood. In winter, on the north road, set a tall pole beside each mark so it shows above the snow. Travelers lost in snow have found the inn by counting the marks. Make sure the marks are there to count.

Never move a waymark, and never change its figure. Every traveler and every apprentice on the road is counting on it.
%%
Guide: care of copper and iron
By Ivo, smith, Copperhold.

An apprentice is made of copper and iron. Look after both and it will walk for many years.

Copper:
1. Copper turns in the damp. First it goes dull and brown, then green in spots, then green all over. Green copper is stiff. Copper that has turned all the way locks up. Then the apprentice stands where it is, like a statue, until someone mends it.
2. Wax stops the turning. Rub honeycomb over every copper plate. Ama at Ambrook sends us the best.
3. Waxed copper stays just as it was when you waxed it. So wax it while it is bright.
4. If it has turned already, scrape it gently with an axe, one layer at a time. Then wax it.
5. Some say a lightning strike makes old copper bright again. It is true. It is also a poor plan.

Iron:
1. Iron is strong and needs little. Keep it clean and dry.
2. Wash off the mud after field work, and the salt after work at Saltreach.
3. Iron mends with iron. A cracked plate takes iron ingots, a hammer and a smith. Bring it to me.

The mind slot:
1. Never open the mind slot in the rain.
2. Stop the apprentice before you take out its crystal. Never pull a crystal from a working apprentice.
3. A smith mends the body. A tutor mends the mind. Do not ask me to mend a mind. I tried once. Nessa was not pleased.
