The Rust Gate's Rise and Near Fall

Photo by Ying Feng Johannsson

The realm of Rust Gate lies perilously close to the Deep Horizon. Its people, who call themselves The Aleph, once made their realm the capital of a multi-world empire. That was thousands of years ago, and the Empire is now long gone.

The Empire's furthest reaches were demarcated by The Aleph Pylons. Most of these were pulled down centuries ago during the Prairie Fire Rebellions, which initiated the so-called Headlong Tumble and the Empire's decline. The Aleph lost hundreds of worlds during the Tumble, but still managed to hold on to dozens by diplomacy, bribes, seduction, treachery, necromancy and elementalism, and in a few cases, brute force.

The invasion of the Trolls did the rest. The Trolls came from Beyond the Deep Horizon, and liberated numerous Aleph worlds. Finally, the Trolls reached the center-world of Aleph's wicked Empire. They  surrounded that corrupt, dying Empire with Good Government.

The Trolls reduced the Aleph Empire to a single ancient shambolic walled city-state, a virtual Tower Realm all but surrounded by the Troll-state. Many peasants in the immediate vicinity of Rust Gate have fled to the Troll Republic. Only the most docile stayed behind to work the land for the city. Still others have declared themselves rebels and freeholders, and have sought alliances with the Troll Republic to maintain their autonomy. The city responds with terrorism and necromancy. As a result, most of the land required to feed the city has now gone fallow.

Within the city, Rust Gate's half-starved populace and nobility are subject to the unceasing intrigues and whims of the city-state's decadent Emperor and Court. The city's elites have recently hit upon intermarriage with the Troll Republic's ministers, emissaries, and high merchant families as a way of buying some security against outright invasion.

These Troll Marriages are welcomed by the Troll families, because through these arrangements, the Troll Republic gains access to some of the well-fortified and closely guarded Tower Gates within the city-state. The gates offer the Trolls new prospects for trade and conquest - new avenues down which to spread their republican ideals.

The Bestiary: The Ba-Birds

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Post/1202942

The Ba-Birds are the spirit forms of the perfected dead who have returned to reside among us. It is said that after their deaths they flew to the very boundary of the Deep Horizon and gazed into the shining void beyond it. Rather that wing their way through into chaos and oblivion, their reflection in the void stopped them and spoke to them, commanding them to return to the land of the living.

A few of these embodied spirits return to the Multitude of Worlds to take-up a home in the City of Otherway. Not a single Ba-Bird was born in this realm, but somehow they make their way to reside in Otherway's avian city-within-a-city, the The Towers of the Wise. There they keep company with other winged creatures such as Jaculus, or javelin serpent which lurks in trees awaiting passers-by, and the Syrens, white winged snakes "whose venom is so fierce that you will die before you feel the pain of their bite."*

Only the bravest of wisdom-seekers and those who crave to learn the mysteries of the Deep Horizon dare to seek an interview with the Ba-Birds. Those few who are fortunate or skilled enough to evade the Towers' winged serpentine guardians will be granted an audience with one of the Ba-Birds.

*T.H. White's The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts, pp.180-181

Strangerside Scholar: The Mother's Day

Today is normally the day of rest for The Everwayan, but the Strangerside Scholar had something important to say.

The Mother's Day: Over in Strangerside, The Quarreler, one of the few to escape the implosion of the realm Bensalem, waits for The Mother's Day to roll around to make his usual joke:

"Ever notice how whenever someone creates a holiday for the oppressed - say, Outsider's Day - someone in Authority has to come to create a holiday for the oppressor, like Horizon Day? It's tiresome. It's just the same with Mother's Day; next thing you know the Authorities create Father's Day so no one feels bad."

Once a Moon or so, Strangers and Outsiders do listen to what the The Quarreler has to say, but most Everwayans just shake their heads, and point out that The Quarreler just doesn't understand how things work here in Everway. There's gender equality in Everway, not gender oppression. There's also no Mother's Day or Father's Day, here. There is only The Mother's Day.

The Mother's Day is as old as the city; indeed, it founded the city in a very real sense.

***

The legend of The Mother's Day began when Everway was just a collection of huts surrounding The Walker's Pyramid. The Pyramid was quite new in those days. In fact, our story begins the morning The Walker laid the final stone upon the seventh tier of her Pyramid. "One left, she thought. Time to go away for a while and find it."

The Walker descended the Pyramid. As she did so, she heard a baby crying. The Walker found a child left all alone, a baby girl in a wicker basket who had been placed on a stone on the first tier of the Pyramid. The basket's bottom was wet. So was the baby's.

The Walker then looked out at the Pyramid priests.They were staring at her. "Where did this baby come from?" The Walker asked.

"We're not sure" shrugged Half Moondance, the chief of the Pyramid priests. "A fisherman found her in the Sunset River, fished her out, and brought her here as an offering."

The Walker snatched Half Moondance's fine cloak right off his shoulders. She tore it in half. With one half of the robe, she cleaned the child. She used the other half to line the basket, and put the baby inside it.

The Walker turned and began climbing back up the Pyramid. Slowly, surely, steadily, keeping a strong hold on the basket until she reached the seventh tier. Then, the Walker took the baby girl out of her basket. She held the her up, and faced her out towards the scattering of huts that would one day become the great city of Everway.

She turned the baby to face each of the four directions.

The child saw smoke rising from the huts, and beyond them fields and trees. She also saw small fishing boats bobbing in the Shimmermoon Bay. The baby smiled.

"All this is yours." The Walker said. "I hold you up now, as you will hold up others."

"Help them. Heal them. Ensure their children come into this world safe and sound."

"I show you your world. Your name will be Mother First."

"Take three three gifts with you: Awareness. The Healing Arts. Responsibility."

This is how the Mother family came to be the first great family of Everway.

"Teach other Mothers this ritual."

***

Sources: This legend was inspired in part by the Moses story (which relates to other wood and wicker Mesopotamian and Egyptian arks). Another inspiration was rite of the Roman goddess of childbirth, Levana. Those familiar with the film Suspira by Dario Argento, and with its inspiration, Suspira de Profundis and "Levana And Our Ladies Of Sorrow" by Thomas DeQuincey will be familiar with De Quincey's significantly darker view of this goddess.

For Alice T. Till.