Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
20 June 1018
Miravaux, Provençe
My dearest cousin Armand,
Our expedition continues swimmingly. Over the past four weeks we have fixed the position of seventeen nodal points, nine of which were previously unrecorded; and traced far more ley lines than that end to end. We have determined that certain ley lines that were regarded as running in a straight line for hundred of miles are not single ley lines at all, but segments, running node to node in not quite a straight line.
What we have not found are formed artifacts at any of the nodes, though there are two places where such an artifact might be buried, and a third of which we are unsure—for there is a stone, carved into an octagonal column, sitting upon the nodal site, but if it once gathered your effort it seems to be doing so no longer.
We shall want to revisit all three of these sites once Jérôme returns to us, possibly with a number of strong men with shovels, but for now they remain marked in red on our map, which is filling in apace. We have as yet surveyed only a small portion of Provençe; but we are reasonably certain we have surveyed that portion it thoroughly.
Our most exciting discovery came when we neared the Edge, and discovered a ley line that seemingly runs over the Edge and into the Abyss! That was last week; and since then we have discovered two more like it by the simple procedure of following the Edge.
These lines are faint, very much fainter than the others we have traced; but they are undeniably there, and there is no question that they run right to the Edge of the Abyss. I don’t mean to say that there is a nodal point at the Edge; there is not. The line simply ends, as though the Land of Provençe had continued in that direction at one time.
Or, at least, we presume that it ends, for we have not been so bold as to take our caravan over the Edge into the Abyss to determine whether these lines continue on. It might perhaps be safe, for as we understand it our caravan is one of your packets writ small—but we shall wait for a proper vessel to undertake this particular investigation. Perhaps we might proceed when next you bring the Amelie to Toulouse?
It surprised us at first that no one had discovered these broken ley lines before; and yet, on reflection, it is not so surprising as all that. In Cumbria only underclassmen in wizardry pay any mind to ley lines; and in Provençe, it seems, no one pays them any mind but Jérôme, Maximilian, and I.
Moreover, the Edge is a lonely region, little traveled and almost uninhabited; for there is little reason to go there, not on foot. One flies high above it, on a journey to some other Land; and one sees it when one leaves the Abyss again at one’s destination; and then one keeps flying until one comes to some place more worthy of one’s interest.
One day we stood at the Edge, Maximilian and I, clinging to a gnarled and weathered old tree, and gazed out into the Abyss, and saw—
I should like to write something profound here, but you know very well what we saw: something like sky that wasn’t sky, and something like clouds that aren’t clouds being blown on the ur-winds, and darkness and light, and nothing, nothing at all, that is familiar or comforting. But seeing it from a point where the ground falls away before us made it all seem so much more vast and, dare I say it, menacing.
We have spent several days now pondering where these broken ley lines might once have run to. Is it to lands now gone, lost to the Abyss in some unremembered cataclysm? How could so vast an event go unremembered? Or was it so great a calamity that all records were lost, and when next anyone had any time to spare for recording annals of events, no one remembered the details?
It seems inconceivable—though less so than the increasingly peculiar explanations for it that are dancing in our heads. Of those I shall not speak.
Our caravan continues to please. It has met every challenge, including several brushes with brigands; for brigands are easy to avoid when you can simply rise above them. And, perhaps, drop things on them from a height. Delicacy forbids me to name the articles which we dropped, but though our aim was bad the brigands proved eager to avoid them.
Tonight we are anchored, for so we have come to speak of it, near a village called Miravaux, where we procured fresh food and some truly excellent red wine. We have learned so much; and yet so much of our expedition seems the veriest pleasure excursion!
We shall shortly be returning to Toulouse for supplies, at which time I shall put this letter in the mail; and also, Maximilian intends to procure a chart of the Old Lands and the Abyss that lies between—a navigational chart, I mean. We had intended to confine our attentions to Provençe, where there is so much to be done; but now Maximilian is eager to seek similar broken ley lines along the Edges of the nearby Lands.
Please give our regards to Jérôme, and to Amelie!
Your perplexed but undaunted cousin,
Amelia
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Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 