Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter. Cathy’s First Letter.

23 January 1025

My dearest cousin Armand,

You have the most intriguing notions! Yes, we should absolutely start by transporting lightweight (and non-living!) items like letters and other correspondence, and yes, we should try setting up a relay across the Abyss. It had not even occurred to me that transportation from Land to Land might be possible.

Some years ago, as you will recall, Maximilian and I traced a number of broken ley lines across the Abyss between Cumbria and Provençe. The halves of these ley lines are angled relative to each other, due presumably to the original cataclysm that swept the Old Lands apart, but also (as we know from comparing old maps with other own surveys) from a kind of drift: the orientation and position of Provençe relative to Cumbria changes slowly over time. Still, if one takes a map to pieces one can angle Cumbria and Provençe such that the broken halves line of perfectly. 

At that time we were still thought it was the ley lines themselves that were important, rather than what we now know to be the nodes of a vast Iturian Relay. The ley lines are nothing more than the magical residue of the relay in use; yet we have persisted in thinking of them as “broken” by the cataclysm when it is the nodes themselves (and the lands between them) that have been broken.

But now that you have brought our attention to our own foolishness, none of us here (by which I mean Maximilian, Jérôme, Dr. Tillotson, and myself) can see why the Abyss should matter to the operation of the relay. All of our Lands of whatever size are floating in the Abyss; they are no different in principle than your L’Isle du Grand-Blaireau floating in the sky near Bois-de-Bas. 

It is, of course, possible that we are mistaken: that the relay transports its payload through the Land in between, leaving the ley line as the sign of its passage, and that passage through the Abyss proper will be impossible.

All of which is to say that Dr. Tillotson is constructing a relay in two pieces, one of which he will send to us here in Toulouse; and we will see whether we can send small objects back and forth. 

Success will likely take several trials, as we have as yet little notion how the distance traveled and the size of the thing transported affect the degree of magic a relay requires to function; but I will surely have something to report by the time I receive your next letter.

In the meantime, I have spoken about your offer with Dr. Tillotson. He is increasingly finding the situation at Veronica’s College to be intolerable. His fellows at the college despise him for “lowering himself” to work with formers, and think him a fool for working with the “anti-intellectuals” at L’École du Sorciers, and they make of him a buffoon. Some have gone so far as to accuse him of illicit magical practices. They are the buffoons, however, and we shall reveal them to be so in time.

Dr. Tillotson has the support of Orthopractor Simms, and so has no risk of prosecution; but he sees that his days as a Fellow of Veronica’s are numbered. He has not resigned—he will not give his persecutors that satisfaction—but he has removed himself to Yorke, where Grandmaster Netherington-Coates has given him a room and a small workspace at the Former’s Guild. Your dear step-papa has a lively sense of profit and of the manifest possibilities should we succeed, as well as a touching attachment to his wife’s extended family and friends.

He intends to remain in Yorke as we determine whether we can use the Iturian Relay across the Abyss; and then, should we succeed or fail, he intends to come across to Toulouse, and then, perhaps on to Bois-de-Bas.

I am not traveling anywhere at the moment, of course, with the baby due next month, but Maximilian visited Yorke for Yuletide and tells me that your mama and step-papa are quite well and very happy; and that my own mama and papa plan to come to Toulouse next month for my confinement. It cannot be too soon! I shall be sure to give them your love.

Your increasingly unwieldy cousin,

Amelia

Next letter

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Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Note: Zymurgia House does not use AI generated or edited text in any of its material. Any errors, mistakes, or hallucinations are hand-crafted and the author’s own fault, as are any well-turned phrases.