The Migrant - 1

The indigo light of noon suffused the city of AzureEye. Red inlays all over the city darkened to full black in the rich blue light. It was the middle of the day, but the colour made Caidrun feel sleepy: on the Inward side of the Spine Range, the light did not turn this color until midnight, and noon was a brilliant silver, charged with energy. He grasped the leather loop to hold himself steady (all around him, other passengers did the same) as the tram paused and its head lurched upward, treads seeking purchase atop the next level of the city wall like a caterpillar climbing onto a leaf.

Steam hissed. Bolts rattled. Treads clanked. AzureEye was both darker and noisier than his home city. Here, steam-trams could be seen rising up to make arcs over crowded streets and even rows of houses in order to get to their next stop. They looked like sea monsters, or maybe Sluggard himself, in his dancing days.

Caidrun had migrated across the Spine Range, from Inward to the Edge several months ago. A new city, a fresh start. He’d gone from one large city to another: They were known as the Eyes of Sluggard, one on either side of the Spine. He still missed the bright green light that greeted each morning in the electrically-charged SilverEye. In AzureEye, Greengem was not until evening, and was more of a greenish haze beyond the Spine than a true illumination of the air.

While growing up in SilverEye he had never noticed the way the colours affected every aspect of life, from clothing to architecture to popular euphemisms. The light might just as well have been the colour of water, for all he’d taken it for granted.

Suddenly every shift in the serpent’s spin, every reflection off a different gem-wall, was vividly apparent. Caidrun supposed he should thank his migration for that.

The tram finished its arc and ground to a halt. Caidrun counted his fare from his remaining few coins, clattered down the thin metal steps and onto the curb. Steam swirled his dress coat as the tram took off. Caidrun readjusted his coat. Most people in AzureEye wore heavy buttons on their sleeve-cuffs and hems for exactly this reason; especially ladies.

Caidrun appreciated the practicality of this particular fashion, but needed a job before he spent any money on clothes. Contrary to the doggedly cheery missives he’d penned to his sister, he needed a job before he spent much more on anything. This afternoon he was on his way to an interview. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment with a few sentences and a rudimentary map in 3 pieces, each denoting a level of AzureEye. It was quite a hike from the tram-stop to his interview, but the heavy boots with thick soles that had served to ground out current in SilverEye were up to the challenge. Crumbling masonry and steep, leaning stairways were no problem. Caidrun resisted the temptation to splash in long puddles showing jagged reflections of the Cavern roof, unimaginably high above.

His destination proved to be a two-storey building that backed up to one of AzureEye’s many city walls. The place looked more like a home than a business. There were shutters beside the windows, and the eaves were trimmed with wood carved in fussy shapes. Someone had painted these red, but that had been years ago and they no longer turned black in the indigo light. Caidrun took a deep breath. He tried to survey his reflection one last time in the window before knocking, but a large man in uniform abruptly appeared in the window. The bowl of his pipe glowed bright orange, then he disappeared for a few seconds before flinging open the front door and demanding to know what Caidrun wanted.

A Myth; one of many that were told

(Some music to go with it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR-CeSjg2aY&NR=1 )

Sluggard, in his younger days, lived alone in the great cavern of the sky, above the limitless sea. But, finding no giant serpents like himself to talk to, he became lonely.

Now, all was dark except for the dimmest glow from the algae swarming down in the endless sea at the bottom of the cavern. He flew down into the sea, the dark waters cascading over his long body and swallowing him. He searched about, the lights around him swimming and swirling away as he moved. Some of the algae clung to his scales, making them green and verdant; but he found nobody. For a time he simply hovered through the glowing gloom... until he desired to come up for air.

He flew up out of the waters and, having searched the endless sea, he made his way to the very top of the cavern. The air became cool and thin and the skywalls were very dark, except for glints of silvermetal and gems, barely glinting in the blue-green light. Feeling his way higher, he scraped his back against the domed roof. Rocks crumbled onto his back and flecks of precious ore fell among them, such that his spine became hard and craggy. But in the high realms ether, there was nobody. So he flew down to the middle cavern where he had begun.

He spent long years in broody longing, searching along the pleasant winds of the central cavern. But its immense space and depth held no others... only himself. Finally, he could stand it no longer.

In a fit of rage and sorrow, he flew to the height of the skywalls and rolled about to face the opposite side. Summoning all his sped and power, Sluggard aimed his head at where the blue wall meets the brown, just above the sea. With a roar of longing that set the endless waters to shivering with fear, he uncoiled his body and flew with all his speed toward the wall.

It was long hours to build up speed... but Sluggard pushed himself faster and faster... seeing nothing ahead of him but dancing lights as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Finally, he felt the thunderous blow as he struck the wall.

And such was the force of the impact that he cracked in the very sky open, which poured out brilliant light into the cavern, causing all gems and metals to leap to life with brightness.

The light rebounded off the waves of the endless sea, which rolled with immense waves from Sluggard's exit. The patterns of the waves were written across the skywalls in fine yellowlight tracery.

Through the crack in the sky, Sluggard broke free and out into the celestial realm... where he found every kind of god and demiurge and djin. They all danced with wild colours and wilder shapes. The kaleidescope of movement was of incomprehensible beauty to the giant world serpentl and he unfurled his body into the deathless light.

Some say he went mad from it and fled back into the cavern to eat his own tale and kill himself.

Some say the sights were of such delight to him that he withdrew to bite his own tail to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

Some say that Sluggard, after a hearty triannum of dancing with all the gods, went back to the cavern to sleep... and bit his tale in a dream.

We only know that he came back to his home. And that now he sleeps... tail in his mouth. But the light of the celestial realm remained streaming through the crack in the sky, lighting the world as had never before been seen.  The dark sea became alive with colour, blazing gold and white along its massive crests, becoming a pool of liquid light.  The ribboning reflections rolled across the cavern roof, painting it with bright lines.  They caught gems and striations of metals and made them flash in the darkness.  The colours of the walls were brightly illuminated, blue to brown to pale grey.  The light itself changed too, as the gods danced their mysterious dances, casting different colours in different seasons.  


At times the celestrial creatures would pass between the lightsource and the crack in the wall, their giant shadows marching with gargantuan slowness across the walls.  Their shapes were hard to grasp... suggestions of wings, horns, or dancing limbs.  These shadows, too, had their due time and season, wafting through the etherial light that never ceases to shine.

It is said that light carries with it the magics of the outer world.

Some of the magics and lesser spirits of the celestial realm came into the cavern on Sluggard's back. There were fire gods who made the mountains burn. There were water gods and made seas and lakes, rivers and rains. There were city gods who made the first dwellings and artifices. But after these large coherent forms took shape on Sluggard's back, there was still much left over.

The rest was the rawest stuff of light and spirit, that roiled inside and outside of Sluggard, yearning to take shape.

As Sluggard dreamed, his dreams gave these energies forms and names. His mind gave them ideas and perceptions; they became creatures like himself, possessed of matter but toached by spirit.

And so the children of Sluggard were born all down his back. All peoples and races of all shapes and colours. Elves, dwarves, humans... nagas, centaurs, and nymphs, stickfellows and guptas and varieties of intelligence even stranger: thinking cities, sentient beehives, roaming boulders. All living things' destinies were forever to be interwoven with the light, still shining through the crack Sluggard had made, and the snake himself, still dreaming. They were given bodies from the glowing algae of the sea and the toughest rock of the roof. They sprung up from Sluggard's dream and walked the wide and varied landscapes.

Some say that the ones born nearest to Sluggard's head were born first. These were the most coherent of form, and retained the least residue of their light-stuff origins. Such children of the head were apt of hand and keen to build, inventing fantastic machines for themselves.

Those born nearest the tail were born last and were said to be the the wildest and most magical; still half-connected to the light around them and not fully crossed over from the dream world to the cavern. These see the light as alive and can tend it or shape it themselves through dreams and words.

Those born all along the middle mixed these traits: some loving magic, some loving craft, and many mixing the two. If a man were to start walking from a youth, he would die of old age before he saw even a quarter of the serpent's back: and he would have lead a life full of remarkable adventures with peoples and in places one could never find anywhere else along the way. Each land of the serpent is utterly unique.

So we can conclude that Sluggard has dreamed innumerable dream... and that he has not yet exhausted the visions he gained in the celestial realm. We can also safely assume that he has been dreaming a very long time.

–A creation myth of a lost human tribe, from the library of the Philosopher's City, as recorded by Maegil the Blue, Historian.

Time and Seasons

The hours of day and night

Sky colour corresponds to the eight sections of the sky, each has various gems and striations. The lightsource shines through the crack in the sky, meaning it is always in the same position relative to the other parts of the wall. So someone at edgenoon looking towards the crack could turn 180 degrees and look over the spine mountains at the distant silverwall.

Eighths (Sky Colour) (3.775 terrestrial hours)	Edge Day/Night	Inward Day/Night	Halfs (About 13.5 terrestrial hours)	Spins (About 27 terrestrial hours)
Bluewall	Dawn	Dusk	EdgeDay Inward Night	One complete rotation
Dark Bluewall	Morning	Evening
Crack of Noon	Noon	Midnight
Dark Brownwall	Afternoon	Predawn
Brownwall	Dusk	Dawn	Edgenight Inward Day (About 13.5 terrestrial hours)
Greengem	Evening	Morning
Silverwall	Midnight	Noon
Bluegem	Predawn	Afternoon

The Seasons of light and shadow

The Lightseasons indicate the general colour of the Source, with minor variations. The whole universe is shaded with whatever colour the Source is, and the wall gems sparkle differently in different seasons. Shapeseasons indicate the kind of shadows that sweep over the world as some god or astral artifact passes between the Source and the serpent. Their shapes are more visible on the silverwall than anywhere on Sluggard.

Week:8days

Year:10weeks

Year of the leaf and sun

Year of Order

Year of Freedom

Lightseasons

Greenlight

Yellowlight

Whitelight

Redlight

Bluelight

Shapeseasons

Waving reeds

Winged

Glow Mists

Spikes

Purple Dancers

Triannum

One complete cycle: 3 years; ~1 shapeloop, ~1 lightloop;  30 weeks; 240 days

Greenlight is the warmest part of the cycle, and when most plants blossom

Yellowlight is cooler, and a time of growing

Whitelight is the least warm, but snow is rare except nearer the mountains; also the time of harvest

Redlight is strongly associated with life and death, and fires often clear out old growth

Bluelight is a gradual warming up, and a time of rest and hibernation

The Basics