Among the nine Greater Realms thirty-three Great Cities thrive, each dating back to the Age of Walking Gods. Some of them have been destroyed many times over, yet always were rebuilt by faithful progeny.
The mightiest and most ancient of the Great Cities are seven in number. These are: Vandrylla (City of the Sword), Zorung (City of Stargazers), Aurealis (City of Wine and Song), Oorg (City of the Questing Mind), Ashingol (City of the Godborn), Zellim Kah (City of Sorcerers), and Yongaya (City of the Squirming Toad).
Among all the Great Cities, there is only one where no living man may tread. Even to speak the name of that Dreaded Place is punishable by death in all kingdoms Greater and Lesser.
Therefore, the name of the Shunned City will not be set down on these pages.
In his dreams, he was still married. He dreamed of Joanne the way she used to be: smiling, full of energy, her hair long and black as jet. The picnic at Albatross Lake was the usual setting for these kinds of dreams. A weird yellow sun blazed in an azure sky, and the wind danced in her hair. They drank a bottle of wine and watched the ducks play across the water before storm clouds rolled in to hide the sun. They lay under a big tree and made love while the rain poured down and leaves sighed over their heads.
I’ve never been this happy, he told her that day. He was only twenty-five, she was a year younger, and they were living proof that opposites attract. He never knew why someone like her had fallen for an eternal dreamer. He was more concerned with writing the perfect song than making a living. She worked at a bank for the entire three years they were married; he worked at a used record store and taught guitar lessons. The first year was bliss, the second a struggle, and the third a constant battle.
You’re such a dreamer, she used to say. As if there was something wrong with that. A few months into the marriage he realized that as long as she made more money than him, he would be a failure in her eyes. That started his suit-and-tie phase, when he hung up his guitar for a mind-numbing corporate job. He did it all for her. She cut her hair short and seemed happy again for a while . . . but he became more and more miserable. Sterilized rows of cubicles comprised his prison . . . and prison was a place without hope.
You’re such a dreamer. She told him this again in the dream, unaware of the irony, and her wedding dress turned to ashes when he kissed her.
She stood on a strand of cold gray beach, and he watched her recede as some kind of watercraft carried him away. Eventually she was just a little doll-sized thing, surrounded by other dolls on the beach. He turned to look at the boat, but it was empty. He stood alone on the deck, and a terrible wind caught the sail and drove him farther from shore.
Looking back, he called her name, but he’d drifted too far out on the lonesome tide. He dove into the icy water, determined to get back to shore, to get back to her, to get their love back. It was his only hope. There was nobody but her. There never had been, never would be.
But when the cold waters closed over his head, he remembered that he couldn’t swim. He sank like a stone, salty brine rushing into his lungs.
He woke up gasping for breath among tall stalks of lavender grass. The sun burned high in the lime sky. There was no sign of the cheap boarding house, or the homeless men whose refuge he shared. He lay in a field, alone. He stood and faced the soaring black walls of Aurealis.
Ramparts of basalt encircled the city. They curved several miles to the west, toward the bay where a thousand ships sat at anchor. This was the great port-city, famed far and wide for its excellent wines and superb singers. He walked toward the shore where the proud galleons lingered. He dreaded the open water, but he knew the next book lay beyond the emerald sea. It called to him, as surely as Spring calls forth a sleeping blossom.
By meditating on the nature of the One True World, one may cause it to manifest . . .
Following a road to the southern gate, he made his way through a crowd of robed pilgrims, armored watchmen, cart-pulling farmers, and simple peasants. Clusters of jade domes and towers gleamed in the distance, surrounded by a vast network of wooden buildings where the common folk worked and lived. The sounds of Aurealis were music and commerce: Bards and poets performed on street corners. The smells of the city were horse, sweat, woodsmoke, and a plethora of spices.
Palanquin chairs borne by servants carried the wealthy through the streets. The rich of Aurealis dressed themselves for spectacle. Their robes were satin and silk, studded with patterned jewels to signify the emblems of their houses. Their heads were towering ovals of pastel hair sculpted with strands of pearls and golden wire. Rings sparkled on the fingers of male and female; both sexes painted their faces in shades of amber, ochre, and crimson. Squads of guards in silver ringmail flanked the palanquins, curved broadswords across their backs. The crests of their iron helms were serpents, falcons, or tigers.
As he moved aside to let a nobleman’s entourage pass, Jeremy noticed his own clothing. It was like none worn by the folk of Aurealis. A black woolen tunic covered his chest and arms, tied with a thin belt of silver links. His breeches were some dark purple fabric, supple yet thick as leather, and his tall boots were the same material. A crimson cloak was secured at his neck by a ram’s head amulet forged of silver, or white gold. His clothes smelled of horseflesh and dirt. Instinctively he reached for his wallet and found instead a woolen purse hanging from his belt. He poured the clanking contents into his hand: Eight silver coins with the ram’s head on one side and a shining tower on the other.
Somehow he knew these coins were drins, also called rams, and they were minted in some distant city. He could not recall its name.
He smelled saltwater above the swirling odors of Aurealis. It was a long walk to the quays where the galleons were taking on cargo. Their sails were all the colors of the rainbow, but he recognized none of the emblems flying there. He looked past the crowded bay and the swarm of trading vessels, toward the distant horizon. The sun hung low in the sky now, and the ocean gleamed like a vast green mirror.
Tarros.
The name surfaced in his mind as if rising from the green sea. It was the name of the island kingdom where he would find the next book.
After much inquiry, he discovered a blue-sailed galleon bearing a white sea shell, the standard of the Island Queen. Brown-skinned sailors loaded bales of fabric and casks of Aurealan wine, and it was easy to find the captain and inquire about passage.
“Have you money, Philosopher?” asked the sweaty captain. He was round of body and face, with thick lips and dark curly hair. A necklace of oyster shells hung round his neck.
“I have eight silver rams,” said Jeremy.
The Tarrosian smiled, teeth gleaming like pearls. “Aye, that’ll serve.”
He dumped the coins into the captain’s palm and stared out at the waves.
“We sail by moonlight, when the sea is calm and cool,” said the captain.
Stars blinked to life in the fading sky. The moon rose over the horizon, a jade disc reflected in the dark waves.
He followed the captain—who introduced himself as Zomrah the Seasoned—up the gangplank. Suddenly he remembered the second volume, and the flophouse where he’d fallen asleep after reading it. He had no idea where the book was . . . did he leave it in the field? Was it somewhere in the city? Or had it disappeared completely? He wanted to run back across the city, back into the open field and see if it lay there among the violet grass.
No, he told himself. I’ve read it.
His path lay forward, across the green waves.
The closer to the island kingdom he came, the more he remembered of himself. By the time the wooded shores of Tarros came in sight, he knew why the captain had called him “philosopher,” and why he wore the silver ram’s head on his breast. He recalled his boyhood in the white towers of Oorg, City of the Questing Mind, the endless libraries that were the city’s temples, and a thousand days spent in contemplation. Much of it still lay under a fog of non-memory, obscured by lingering visions of high school, college,
and other lies. Yet after five days on the open ocean, he was certain that he was a trained philosopher from the white city, and that he always had been. On the sixth day out, he remembered his true name.
I am Jeremach of Oorg.
“I am Jeremach of Oorg!” he shouted across the waves. The Tarrosian sailors largely ignored his outburst, but their narrow eyes glanced his way when they thought he wasn’t looking. Most likely they expected eccentric behavior from a man who spent his life pondering the meaning of existence.
But that’s not all of it, he knew. There’s more . . . much more. Oorg feels like a memory of what I used to be . . . not what I am. He knew that he was more than a simple child of Oorg, versed in the eight-hundred avenues of thought, savant of the fifty-nine philosophies. Perhaps the answer lay in the next volume of The One True World.
The rest of his memory lay somewhere within those pages.
After fourteen days of calm seas and healthy winds, the galley dropped anchor in Myroa, the port city of Tarros. It was a pale imitation of Aurealis, a humble collection of mud-walled dwellings, domed temples, and atop its tallest hill the modest palace of the Tarrosian Queen. A single tower rose between four spiked domes, the entire affair built of rose-colored marble veined with purple. The city was full of colorful birds, and the people were simple laborers for the most part, dressed in white shifts and pantaloons. Most of the men and women went bare-chested, though all wore the sea-shell necklaces that were the sign of their country and queen. The breath of the salty wind was sweetened by the tang of ripe fruit trees.
Zomrah the Seasoned was a trader captain in service to the queen’s viceroy, so he had access to the palace. The viceroy was an old, leathery man with silvery robes and a ridiculous shell-shaped hat on his gray head. Or perhaps it was an actual shell. He examined Zomrah’s bill of lading in a plush anteroom and gave the captain a bag of gold. When Zomrah introduced him the viceroy looked him over as if examining a new piece of freight. Eventually the old man nodded and motioned for the philosopher to follow him.
Jeremach followed him through winding corridors. Some were open-air walkways hemmed with rows of trellises thick with red and white orchids. Tapestries along the palace walls showed scenes of underwater peril, with trident-bearing heroes battling krakens, sharks, and leviathans. Somewhere, a high voice sang a lovely song that brought the ocean depths to mind.
The Queen of Tarros received Jeremach on the high balcony of her rosy tower. A tall chair had been placed in the sunlight where she could observe the island spreading to the west and north, and leagues of open sea to the east and south. Three brawny Tarrosians stood at attention, her personal guard armed with trident and sword, naked but for white loincloths and sea-shell amulets.
The queen rose from her chair, and he gasped. Her loveliness was stunning. The narrow chin and sapphire eyes were familiar, and her hair was dyed to the hue of fresh seaweed. It fell below her slim waist, shells of a dozen colors woven among its braids. Her dress was a diaphanous gown, almost colorless, and her brown body was perfect as a jewel.
She greeted him with a warm hug. “You look well, Philosopher. Much younger than when last you visited.” She smiled.
Jeremach bowed, remembering the proper etiquette for such a situation. I’ve been here before. She knows me.
“Great Queen, your realm is the soul of beauty, and you are its heart,” he said.
“Ever the flatterer,” she said. She raised a tiny hand to his cheek and cupped it, staring at him as if amazed by his features.
“You’ve come for your books,” she said, taking him by the hand. Her touch was delicate, yet simmering. “I’ve kept them safe for you.”
Yes. There is more than one volume here.
Jeremach nodded. “Your Majesty is wise . . . ”
“Please,” she said, leading him into the tower. “Call me by my name, as you used to do. You have not forgotten it?”
He searched the murky depths of his memory.
“Celestia,” he said. “Sweet Celestia.”
She led him up spiral stairs into a library. Twenty arched windows looked out upon the sea, and hundreds of books lined a shelved wall. He walked without direction to a specific shelf, and his hands reached (as they had done twice before) directly for the third book. Two more volumes sat beside it. He lay all three of them on a marble table and examined their golden inscriptions.
Volume III: The People and Their Faiths
Volume IV: The Lineages of the Great Kings and the Bloodlines of the Great Houses
Volume V: The Societies of the Pseudomen and the Cloud Kingdoms
“You see?” the queen said. “They are safe and whole. I have kept your faith.”
He nodded, aching to open the third volume and read. But first he had to know. “Thank you,” he said. “But how did you come to possess these texts?”
She looked at him quizzically, amused by the question. “You gave them to me when I was only a little girl. I always knew you would return for them, as you promised. I wish you’d have come while Father was still alive. He was very fond of you. We lost him four years ago.”
He recalled a broad-chested man with a thick green beard and a crown of golden shells. In his mind, the King of Tarros laughed, and a little girl sat on his knee.
King Celestior. My friend. She is his daughter, once my student, and now the Queen of Tarros. How many years has it been?
He kissed the queen’s cheek, and she left him to his books. Hours later, her servants brought him seafood stew, Aurealan wine in pearly cups, and a box of fresh candles. He read throughout the long night, while the warm salt air swept in from the sea, and the jade moon crept from window to window.
For days he sat in the chamber and read. Finally, they found him collapsed over the books, snoring, a white beard growing from his chin. They carried him to a proper bed, and he slept, dreaming of a distant world that was a lie, and yet also true in so many ways.
“You’re walking out on me?” she said, eyes brimming with tears.
“You walked out on me,” he told her.
She said nothing.
“Joanne . . . sweetheart . . . you know I’ll always love you. But this isn’t working. We . . . don’t belong together.”
“How can you be so sure?” she cried.
“Because if we did . . . you would have never climbed into bed with Alan.”
Her sadness turned to anger, as it often did. “I told you! I never meant for it to happen.”
“Yeah, you told me,” he said. “But you did it. You did it, right? Three times . . . that I know of.”
She grabbed him, wrapped her arms around his neck. Squeezed. “You can’t just leave me behind,” she said.
Now he was crying too. “I’m done with this,” he said.
“No,” she whimpered. “We can still fix it.”
“How?”
She stood back from him, brushing a dark strand of hair from her forehead. Her eyes were dark, too. Black pearls.
“We’ll get counseling,” she pleaded. “We’ll figure out what went wrong and we’ll make sure it never happens again.”
He turned away, lay his forehead against the mantle.
“You cheated too,” she said, almost a whisper.
After you did. He didn’t say it out loud. Maybe she was right. Maybe there still was hope.
He had never loved anyone but her.
Never.
They stood with their arms wrapped around each other for a little while.
“I’ll always love you,” he said. “No matter what happens.”
The people of Arthyria differ greatly in custom, dress, and culture, and wars are not unknown. Each kingdom has its share of inhuman denizens, humanoid races who live in proximity or complete integration with the human populace. These are the Pseudomen, and they have played a great role in many a war as mercenary troops adding to the ranks of whatever city-state they call home. There is generally little prejudice against the Pseudomen, although the Yellow
Priests of Naravhen call them “impure” and have banned them from the Yellow Temples.
There are five Great Religions in practice across the triple continents of Arthyria, faiths that have survived the upheaval of ages and come down to us through the fractured corridors of time intact. The cults and sects of lesser deities are without number, but all of the Five Faiths worship some variation of the One Thousand Gods.
Some faiths, such as the Order of the Loyal Heart, are inclusive, claiming that all gods be revered. Others are singular belief systems, focused on only one god drawn from the ranks of the One Thousand. Through these commonalities of faith we see the development of the Tongue, a lingua franca that unites most of Arthyria with its thirty-seven dialects.
Here mention must be made of the Cloud Kingdoms, whose gods are unknown, whose language is incomprehensible to Arthyrians, and whose true nature and purpose has remained a mystery throughout the ages.
When he woke he was closer to being himself, and the people of Tarros were restored. He walked through the palace in search of Celestia, marveling at the beauty of those he had forgotten. Their glistening skins were shades of turquoise, their long fingers and toes webbed, tipped with mother-of-pearl talons. They wore very little clothing, only the same white loincloths he’d seen yesterday. Webbed, spiny crests ran up their backs, across the tops of narrow skulls, terminating on their tall foreheads. Their eyes were black orbs, their lips far thicker than any human’s, and only the females grew any hair: long emerald tresses woven with pearls and shells.
They were amphibious Pseudomen, a marine race that had evolved to live on land. The island kingdom was a small portion of their vast empire, most of which lay deep beneath the waves. Some claimed they ruled the entire ocean, but Jeremach knew better. There were other, less civilized societies below the sea.
Now that he had read three more volumes, Arthyria was one step closer to being whole. So was he. Vastly important things lay just on the edge of his awareness. He must know them . . . everything depended on it.
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