Industrial conjuring
Industrial conjuring is the mass-contracting of infernal labour to power mills and factory machinery, a practice that replaced the centuries-old tradition of Allorwen circlecraft with industrial-scale infernal contract-work. Its emergence was driven by the material need for motive power in factories and mills, producing what is characterised as "a new art of industrial conjuring that knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom" - City of Last Chances, ch 43. Where Allorwen's long-standing relationship with the Infernal Realms had been one of individual bargaining with a world "ruled by cruel princes and monstrous denizens whose services can be bargained for," industrial conjuring converts that bargaining into bulk supply, treating demon labour as a commodity extracted through the authority of the Kings Below rather than through personal, familial, or ceremonial contract - ch 43.
The system's significance within the series lies in what it destroyed. Traditional circlecraft had been woven into the social and familial fabric of Allorwen life, binding infernal entities into rites of passage and marriage as a familial gift and a blessing upon a person's road. Industrial conjuring did not supplement these practices; it displaced them wholesale, pushing the older personal demon-human arrangements out of legitimate life and into the underground circle houses and other illegal trades - ch 43. At the same time, the sheer volume of demand transformed the Infernal Realms themselves, compelling the Kings Below to reorganise their own polities into providers of contracted subject-labour for mortal industry - ch 43. The system thus restructures both sides of the infernal bargain simultaneously, erasing a religious and social institution on the mortal side while converting an entire otherworldly society into a supply chain on the infernal side.
The System
How It Works
Industrial conjuring operates through mass contracts rather than individual bindings. Motive power for mills and factory lines is sourced from demon labour procured in bulk, with the Kings Below entering into agreements to supply the services of their own subjects as commodity units for mortal industry - City of Last Chances, ch 43. The system explicitly forgoes the checks and balances embedded in Allorwen circlecraft, the older custom that governed how infernal entities were summoned, bound, and released within a framework of familial obligation and social regulation - ch 43. In place of a single binding negotiated for a single person's life-course, the factory contracts abstract the relationship into an economic transaction at scale.
Who Operates It
The system is run by industrial interests on the Allorwen side - mill-owners and factory operators whose material need for motive power drove the new art into existence - and by the Kings Below on the infernal side, who convert the labour of their subjects into bulk contractual supply - City of Last Chances, ch 43. The older practitioners of circlecraft, who once mediated personal bindings within families and communities, have been pushed out of legitimate practice and operate now at the margins of legality in the circle houses - ch 43.
Limits & Costs
What industrial conjuring cannot do is reproduce the social and spiritual functions that circlecraft served: the binding of an infernal being into a marriage ceremony, into a coming-of-age rite, into the familial gift that marked a person's entry into adulthood - City of Last Chances, ch 43. Its cost is the total displacement of those rites from legitimate Allorwen life, relegating them to underground venues. The system also extracts a structural cost from the Infernal Realms: the scale of demand compels the Kings Below to reorganise their societies around the provision of contracted labour, altering the internal polity of the otherworld - ch 43. The absence of the old checks and balances means the system operates without the social safeguards that formerly governed infernal interaction.
History
City of Last Chances
Industrial conjuring is the mass-contracting of demon labour for mill and factory machinery, a system that supplanted the older, bespoke practices of Allorwen circlecraft in favour of industrial-scale infernal contract-work - ch 43. Its emergence is traced to the material need of motive power for mills and factory lines, which gave rise to "a new art of industrial conjuring that knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom" - ch 43. The chapter frames this shift against the long-standing Allorwen relationship with the infernal: "Allor's reputation among its neighbours is rooted in their relations with the infernal, that otherworld ruled by cruel princes and monstrous denizens whose services can be bargained for," and to a Maric or Palleseen of a century prior, "nothing good could come from that place" - ch 43. Yet traditional circlecraft had been woven into the social and familial fabric of Allorwen life; "One did not marry or come of age without the otherworldly being bound into the ceremony. That was the gift your family gave you, the blessing on your road" - ch 43. Industrial conjuring did not simply add a new category of infernal work alongside these rites; it displaced them wholesale. The old individual demon-human arrangements were pushed out of legitimate practice and "relegated to the circle houses and other illegal trades" - ch 43. The scale of the new contracts also transformed the Infernal Realms themselves: "Increased demand led to significant changes in the Infernal Realms, the Kings Below entering into mass contracts for the services of their subjects" - ch 43. Thus the shift is depicted not merely as a technological or economic reorganisation on the Allorwen side but as a reciprocal restructuring of infernal polity, with the Kings Below converting the labour of their own denizens into bulk commodity supply for mortal industry - ch 43. The residual space for the older, personal arrangements is the circle house, an underground venue where such bespoke bindings persist at the margins of legality - ch 43.
Relationships
- the Kings Below - The sovereigns of the Infernal Realms who, under industrial demand, enter into mass contracts supplying the labour of their own subjects as bulk commodity for mortal factories - City of Last Chances, ch 43. Their role shifts from princes with whom services are individually bargained to providers of industrial supply.
- the circle houses - Underground venues where the older, personal demon-human bindings that industrial conjuring displaced continue to persist at the margins of legality - City of Last Chances, ch 43. They represent the residual, illicit space where Allorwen's pre-industrial relationship with the infernal survives.
- the Infernal Realms - The otherworld whose internal structure is reorganised by the demand of industrial conjuring; the Kings Below convert subject-labour into contracted supply, transforming the Realms' polity in response to mortal industrial need - City of Last Chances, ch 43.
Notable Quotes
- "a new art of industrial conjuring that knew none of the old checks and balances of Allorwen custom" - narrator, City of Last Chances, ch 43
- "One did not marry or come of age without the otherworldly being bound into the ceremony. That was the gift your family gave you, the blessing on your road" - narrator, City of Last Chances, ch 43
- "Increased demand led to significant changes in the Infernal Realms, the Kings Below entering into mass contracts for the services of their subjects" - narrator, City of Last Chances, ch 43
- "relegated to the circle houses and other illegal trades" - narrator, City of Last Chances, ch 43
Tags
- conjuration · #demon-contracts · #industrial