The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
Item 15: A pendant with a broad (3.6 centimeters across, 5.8 centimeters
top to bottom) leather-backed charm attached to a thin looped strip of
black leather 34 centimeters in length. On the charm were two stones: a topaz
starburst—that is, a circlet of amber with eight thin spindles extending from
it in the shape of a sun—and next to it an onyx oval.
Representations of shadowed or setting suns signify a nearly completed
endeavor in danger of failure. They inspire hope and vigilance in equal
measures.
Date of manufacture: Impossible to determine. The stones themselves
are cracked and clouded with age; they appear several centuries old
at least. The leather, though, is in reasonable condition, if a bit worn from
regular use.
Manufacturer: Ivan Voskresenyov. He claimed that the design was
based on a drawing of “The Sun and Its Shadow”—an enigmatic alchemical
hieroglyph—found in the notebook of Arab-Sicilian geographer al-Idrisi.
But comic-book scholar Milos Smilos—author of the article “Where’s
That Football, Charlie Brown? Illicit Sexual Desire in Daily Comic Strips”
and the graphic fictional autobiography Call Me Sir! Peppermint Patty,
Warrior Dyke—wrote in his unofficial embellished autobiography that
leather pendants inlaid with yellow glass and polished obsidian became quite
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