Helicon House
"Interlocked tentacles: a gathering place. Soothing bubbling noise: an invitation, hesitantly extended. An explanatory writhing: humans are only sometimes permitted. It will have to wait for a suitable time. Also, most of the other humans who attend are... what's that word? Painters? Raving? You've always had trouble distinguishing the terms."[2]
Helicon House is an arts center in Ealing Gardens.
Invites Only[edit | edit source]
"A Clay Man with an unusually keen expression keeps the door. He admits Rubbery Men without question, but challenges the human visitors."[3]
Helicon House is Ealing Gardens' center for the arts, where Rubbery Men are free to express themselves[4] and present their ideas to a wider audience.[5] In Helicon's many halls and salons,[6] Rubbery art and culture are given foremost importance:[7] the majority of the artists here are Rubbery musicians[5] and sculptors.[7] Paintings by Bohemians are displayed too,[8] representing many artistic schools.[9] At its core, Helicon is a celebration of change - both of the changes brought upon by the Shapeling Arts,[10] and of the evolving identity of the Rubbery people.[11]
Helicon was built sometime after the Fall of London.[12] Externally, it is a typical townhouse patterned after that of His Amused Lordship,[13] though its rooms are doubled in size and feature Rubbery-influenced details.[14] Its existence is a secret, even among London's counterculture;[15] while Rubberies may enter freely, human visitors are vetted by the Keen-Eyed Clay Doorkeeper.[16][17] The Doorkeeper provides guidance on proper etiquette towards Rubbery people[17] and ensures orderly conduct within Helicon.[18] For instance, entering late in the evening is frowned upon, as it is discourteous towards the musicians.[19]
Helicon's staff includes Clay Men[20] as well as Rubbery Men.[21] Frequent visitors receive an amber pendant,[22] which they are usually required to leave at the door when they enter.[23]
Main Halls[edit | edit source]
"It is a music of approximation; it offers imperfection as a necessary state, and mutation as inevitable."[24]
At the South Parlor, Rubbery composers[5] present their music at the start of each evening.[25] Their works can be unorthodox, using dissonance and shifts in rhythm to convey feelings of development, imperfection, and mutability.[26]
The Supper Room serves food supplied by Bohemians for human consumption,[27] alongside dishes more amenable to Rubbery Men. (No, those are not potatoes!)[28]
The Yellow Salon and Prussian Salon both showcase sculptures and paintings. The former is kept quiet, while the latter is a space for discussion.[29][30]
Secluded Corners[edit | edit source]
"What was that flash of light? And is it a shade of light that should exist in these parts?"[31]
"Behind Helicon House, a curling gallery of stalagmites forms a sort of shaded tunnel. This is a place for art that is too radical even for the interior of the house; sculptures of bone and amber, and some of the most secretive arts of the Rubbery Men."[32]
- The Mirrored Salon is a hidden wing of Helicon, where visitors seek inspiration from the arts of Parabola.[33] The room is marked by flashes of light alien to this world, and the hallway leading to it is viric, decorated with vines and snakes.[34] The room's interior is covered in mirrors, and illusionists here stage wonders and visions that would be too intense or esoteric for Mahogany Hall.[35]
- The Upstairs Honey-Den explains itself;[36] consuming prisoner's honey in this hidden room leads to the Sea of Spines,[37] a wondrous location reminiscent of Axile. Dreamers feel as though they are deep underwater in a moonlit sea, with aquatic features suiting their new environment. When they return, they find themselves drenched in liquid.[38]
- Below-Stairs is a basement beneath Helicon and a lab for the Shapeling Arts.[10] Here, Rubbery Men gather around a massive crucible of amber to produce wonders of shaped flesh and bone.[39] Visitors may participate as well, though newcomers are closely supervised.[40]
- The Sculpture Garden is a refuge for artwork "too radical" even for Helicon.[41] Here, Rubbery Men practice calligraphy,[42] make sculptures of amber and bone,[43] and tutor Bohemian sculptors. Some of these Bohemians have modified their anatomy using the Shapeling Arts to further their skills.[44]
The Entrepreneur's Patronage[edit | edit source]
"The Tentacled Entrepreneur's study is windowless and dark, an interior void in the building that you wouldn't know was there from the shapes of the rooms around it."
"Within, a semicircle of guests surround a small sculpture on a dais. In the relative darkness, it's hard to make out the material, or the shape; something dark and tangled – a bramble, an octopus, a venus flytrap?"[45]
The Tentacled Entrepreneur recently took an interest in Helicon. During his campaign to become Lord Mayor of London, he became one of its most generous patrons[46] and worked to make it more accessible to the general public.[47] His actions also helped Helicon become a key staging ground for the progress of Rubbery culture.[48]
After the Entrepreneur's bid for Lord Mayor failed, however, he reevaluated his goals.[49] In pursuit of his new priorities, he commissioned a Rubbery Man called the Malleable Sculptor[50][51] to produce and showcase unique works of art,[52] the first of which resembles a massive jaw that lightly clamps around those who interact with it.[53] The Entrepreneur's further plans for himself and his kin are unclear, but it seems that rather than aimlessly striving for similarity with London,[54] he is pursuing another path, and perhaps even a new beginning.[55]
References[edit | edit source]
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