What are the glyphs, anyway?
Even after twenty years, people still ask about the 33 ‘runes’ around the covers of the original four books of The View from the Mirror, which are the same as the symbols around the border of the mysterious, dangerous and deceitful ancient artefact, the Mirror of Aachan.
But they’re not runes, they’re glyphs, and part the syllabary of an ancient Charon language which has 98 glyphs. A syllabary is a script where each character represents a syllable rather than a single letter.
On the original Australian covers the order of the glyphs set out a puzzle that had to be solved in the fourth book, The Way Between the Worlds.
Here are the syllables the glyphs represent in the above passage:
No sze gwi ta sha mu no dzo ta dzo gwu cho ksi lo sze mo nu mu bu gi sze gwi gwu je ru she ksi cha vo gw’uh wi no sze ta mo va mu bu cho ksi kso fe mo nu mu gw’uh gwu ta dzo lu u lo gwi ksi lo gi mu qa kso je e i dzo ta dzo mu no she nu che mo lo cha kso pi lu ta gwu va nu vo cha ru gwi sze ya ta sze pi no sze lo je mu gwi ta sha sze e.
And here are the syllables put into words, in the Charon language:
Nosze gwitasha mu nodzo tadzo gwu choksi losze monumu
Bugi szegwi gwuje rushe ksicha vo gw’uh wino szeta mova mu
Bucho ksiksofemo numu gw’uhgwuta dzolu’u lo gwiksilo
Gimuqakso je’e i’dzo
Tadzo muno shenu chemo locha ksopiluta
Gwuvanu vocha rugwisze yatasze pinosze loje mu gwita-shasze’e
The puzzle is eventually solved by Llian, with Shand’s assistance, and it says – well, you’ll have to read it.
The key chapters are 23: The Paradox of the Mirror, 30: The Golden Flute, and 37: The Key, where the puzzle is solved. Though it’s not released until a bit later just how dangerous the Mirror of Aachan is.
Note that the original British and US covers are incorrect, because the UK designer changed the order of the glyphs. They’re not correct on the 20th Anniversary Edition covers either.
My original rough designs for the glyphs were inspired by various South Asian scripts, including Sinhalese, but are not based on any known script.
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