Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
14 August 1021, LÉcole du Sorciers
My dearest cousin Armand,
I do not know how much I have learned this past month, but I have certainly written a good many letters: to Dr. Tillotson in Edenford, to a Dr. Gerhard at the Arkanewissenshaftschule von Hammsch in Hanondorf, and to a Dr. Tescorio at the Colegio de Magia Blanca in Malague. These, of course, all ask for help with my ley line survey.
Drs. Gerhard and Tescorio both responded, cordially enough, with requests for more information; for of course I did not bury them with detail in my initial letter. I have replied; and we shall see what we shall see.
Dr. Tillotson, is, of course, only too glad to help. “Delighted to be of service, Mrs. Archer,” he wrote me. “The students here are too speculative by half; they can use a strenuous excursion or two to put some meat on the bones of their sophomoric theories.”
I also asked Dr. Tillotson if he could find me an expert in ancient Cumbrian Literature. Yes, I am hot on the trail of Brutus, who, legend tells, left his brother Enius behind in their city of Florentia and came and settled in the Land of Britonia. You will recall that the Old Provençese tale the Ancient of Brute claims to be based on an older work from Britonia, now presumed lost; but if so I have hope that some fragment of it, or at least the name of Brutus, might survive in Cumbrian sources.
Though I do feel I am going ever farther astray from my actual purposes. I find myself reciting the following to myself as a sort of Litany of Relevance:
- I want to learn about the Iturians.
- The Ancient of Brute speaks of the founding of the city of Florentia by Brutus and Enius, in some Land we know not; this Florentia might be the first city of Ituria.
- The Ancient of Brute follows Brutus away from Florentia to Britonia; thus it is of no help in following what happened in Ituria after Brutus’ departure. This is maddening! But I have as yet discovered no other references to Enius; hence I must follow Brutus.
- If a Cumbrian source exists, it might—perhaps—have additional details that were omitted by the author of the Brute.
Dr. Tillotson is still making enquiries on my behalf; I hope to hear from him soon.
I have acquired a large chart of the Old Lands, which Maximilian has affixed to the wall in our sitting room, and in between chasing little Jane—for she is walking now, and can be out of one’s sight in moments—I have been much in contemplation of it. And I have noticed something odd. Or, perhaps, not odd, but so familiar it had never occurred to me to question it.
The Old Lands hang in the Abyss, separated by gulfs of open space in which the ur-winds play. The shapes of the Lands are, one might say, peculiar to each, displaying no regularity of form; and similarly the arrangement of Lands is haphazard, following no obvious plan. There is Britonia, our dear home, with Provençe and Malague on the Land to the west, Malague south of Provençe. Hanondorf occupies its own Land, to the north of both Britonia and Provençe and extending west, with the Norlands above that. Starting rather to the southeast of Britonia and extending both west and south we have the Dry Lands; and to the west beyond Hanondorf we have all of those small western Lands whose names I can never keep straight, and then the steppes of the Far West and the land of the Great Cham.
And in the middle of this lies the MIddle Gulf, as we all know: a vast oddly shaped tract of the Abyss, west of Cumbria, south of Hanondorf and its neighbors, north of the Dry Lands, and east of the West Lands. Oh, there’s a small sky island or two, so they say; but no one lives there.
A vast gulf, something we all marveled at in the nursery, when we were being taught our geography—but what if there were something there once upon a time? A Land—or Lands—now lost? If Florentia ever existed, if it truly bloomed as the Brute says, it was not in any of the Lands we know. But there is space for a Land, a space for a people who were once central to the life of the Old Lands and are now mostly forgotten. A central space, mark you.
No doubt you will call me a dreamer—but I ask you to remember that you live in a Land so immensely far to the east that its very existence was a matter of fable not long ago. Or not a fable, perhaps, but a conjecture, a speculation.
But, you will cry, the ancient—hah! That word again!—the ancient sources speak of the Middle Gulf, the Mediocavitatis. Or, you would cry that if you were Dr. Nicollier. They do, I do not deny it. And yet, there is room in its vastness for a small Land, a vital Land, a fulcrum of power.
We shall see.
Your speculating cousin,
Amelia
____
Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 