It is not an impossible barrier, however, and its neighbors to the west, in the expansive nation of Zend Avesta, have little fear of the Samarkesh Burn. Located on the westernmost borders of the Aridard Gulf, Zend Avesta is a vigorous, energetic nation of adventurers, traders, pirates, sailors, artists, and inventors. It is said that if technology triumphs in this, our ragtag World, then it will have its beginnings in Zend Avesta. There are those among us who claim the renaissance has already begun: Tales of First Age artifacts being unearthed or reconstructed wind there way around the Gulf, always having their origins in this marvelous country. Tractors running on the methane gas of animal turds, windmills with Teflon gearings, electric generators, and experimental radio. These are but a sampling of the wondrous things of which men from Zend Avesta dream. Although all the country’s cities—Nostand, Borat, Ques’ryad, and Maaradin—are exciting, pulsatingly alive cities, there is no equal to the wonder which is Ques’ryad. Alabaster towers, sparkling lakes and spires, courtyards and hedgerows, wide boulevards, aflame with the flags of a hundred thousand families, tribes, and societies. It is a city of movement and life. The merchants’ stalls are alive with the languages of the World, the great quays which open upon the Sunless Sea offer sanctuary to the ships of the World. Great wooden vessels, their furled masts a tangle in the westering light, flock to Ques’ryad like moths to the dangerous flame. It is the largest port city on the Gulf, and a haven for traders and pirates, beggars, and kings. It is the jumping-off point for archaeologists, explorers, outfitters, and adventurers. If there is any romance, as well as classic danger, remaining in the World, then it resides in Ques’ryad.
And so one may grasp the confines of the World. Not an overwhelming mass of cultures, but enough to keep the lesser men confused and wary of one another. For as long as there will be differences, as long as men take breath, there will be wariness in the World. In so writing these words, I am reminded of yet one more place which bears mention. It is such an isolated place that one might easily ignore it, forget it. The Isle of Gnarra. Actually a small island group, the remnants of a volcanic caldera, the Isle lies southeast of the center of the Gulf of Aridard. Administered by an age-old monarchy, a family now rife with gene infestation, hemophilia, and congenital idiocy, the people of the island-nation slough away at life as their grandfathers have taught. They are fishermen and shipwrights, shepherds and farmers, and little else. This Isle remains in the backwash of current affairs and is largely ignored by all the powers-that-be, however it is the home of very old religions—now in disfavor or out of metaphysic vogue—and it is said by some yellow-eyed sailors and other wary travelers that the Isle of Gnarra is still the seat of occult phenomena. Although rumored the home of wizards, sorcerers, necromancers, and the like, there is little evidence of their influence anywhere in the World—save in the minds of superstitious men.
In summing up then, the World is simultaneously a small and a large place. Diverse cultures and beliefs huddle cheek to jowl about the shores of the only familiar, negotiable body of water on the planet. Beyond the humble borders of these places, no man knows what lies. It is possible that the World has always been a place of darkness and mystery with torches to light the way being few and far apart. But this writer, this “historian,” if I may enjoin myself with such a title, does not believe this.
No. I feel that in every myth, there is a grain of truth. In history, a grain of falsehood. And there is everything in between. We cannot know what will yet come, and we may not wish to recognize what has come before, but I believe there are lessons in the buried stones, warnings in the bleaching bones, testaments within the rusting machine hulks, the black skeletons of the aircraft uncovered by wind and shifting sand, or the fused and twisted hulls of gray ships, which the oceans occasionally heave upon our shores.
We cannot turn our backs on our heritage—whatever it may have been. If there are mysteries, and if we are men, then we must solve them.
—A Short Commentary on the State of the World
(from the notebooks of Granth of Elahim)
Chapter One
It did not, at first, seem as if it would be a special day for Varian Hamer. But he was wrong.
Standing on the deck of The Courtesan, he watched the last reflecting paths of the morning sun break up and depart the emerald surface of the Aridard Gulf. There was a slight salt breeze, and the sounds of the great docks of Mentor were rising up about him like the communal hum of hive insects as they set about their work.
“All right, you blooders! Get those arms pumping! Let’s go!” The first mate stalked the fo’csle, glaring at his crew, warming up his voice for a long morning.
Varian jumped the ratlines on the starboard side and reached the first sail of the mizzen. As he worked to unfurl it, his gaze drifted out over the wharves, where other great Gulf ships were preparing to weigh anchor. Like his father before him, sailing was the only profession Varian knew, although he longed to be versed in other trades. His travels had taken him throughout the World. He knew the streets and alleyways of every major port: Elahim, Vaisya, Talthek, Voluspa, Nostand, Ques’ryad, even Eleusynnia and Landor. He was curious and bright and never seemed to have learned enough of any of the places he’d visited. He always wondered what lay beyond the horizon of the Gulf cities. Surely there was more to the World than the few dozen ports which crouched along the shores of the Aridard.
Varian
