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

14 January 1026, L’École du Sorciers, Toulouse

My dearest cousin Armand,

I am delighted to hear that you have so resolutely and neatly packaged up John Gamble. Doubly so, as such a compromise so rarely satisfies all of the interested parties, yet here all is sweetness and light. Except, I suppose for the poor soul or souls who will be bringing John his meals and cleaning his living space, but at least you will see to it that they are paid accordingly.

You will wish to know of Jérôme’s progress. He tells us that his work on using distinct linking and collection blocks in the Iturian Relay is proceeding, but there have been some complications—the two cannot merely be adjacent, but must be formed into a single node. He is currently studying how best to do so “as late as possible,” and he expects a useful outcome soon.

In the meantime, I have news!

You will perhaps not recall, but something over four years ago I wrote to scholars of wizardry in Hanondorf and Malague for aid in surveying the ley lines in those countries, having previously asked Dr. Tillotson for help in completing our own survey of the ley lines in Greater Britonia. Maximilian and I have been taken up with many other things since then: my studies in the history of the Old Lands, which led us to the Iturians; our conjectures and experiments, which led us to the Iturian Circuit; and, of course, our children.

But the survey has continued! Dr. Gerhard at the Arkanewissenshaftschule von Hammsch in Hanondorf and Dr. Tescorio at the Colegio de Magia Blanca in Malague were both sufficiently intrigued with our findings to send out students to survey the ley lines in their countries, as has Dr. Tillotson, with special reference to those extending past the edge and into the Abyss.

For many years now, one wall of whatever dwelling Max and I currently occupy has been decorated with a chart of the Old Lands. On it we have marked all the ley lines we have surveyed, and to that we have added all the results we have received from the students of Doctors Gerhard, Tescorio, and Tillotson, and from those we have sent out from L’École each year to do the same in this land. I am delighted to say that we now have a reasonably complete picture, at least so far as the edges and the Abyss are concerned.

In the center of the Old Lands lies the Middle Gulf, or Mediocavitatis: west of Cumbria, Provençe, and Malague, south of Hanondorf, north of the dry lands, and east of the west lands whose names I can never keep straight. We now have a collection of ley lines along the edges of Cumbria, Provençe, Malague and Hanondorf, some leading off into the Gulf and some connecting to those in the adjacent lands.

As we have learned, the position and angle of each land changes slowly relative to those adjacent; and as we have learned, by comparing the ley lines leading from one to another we can place those lands back into their original aspects. Thus, we now have two charts: one of the lands as they are today, and one, we claim, of the lands as they were at the time of the Great Cataclysm.

What’s more, we have extended the ley lines that lead into the Gulf, and can now make an educated guess as to the location of Florentia, the City of Flowers, the capitol of the Iturian Autocratoria!

It would be too much to ask for our extended ley lines to all intersect in one point. Even after repositioning the lands into their original aspects the Middle Gulf is so large enough that there must have been many ley nodes between each of the lands we know and the city of Florentia. But we have identified a small region that most likely contains that city; and by working from the positions of the lands as they were then to the lands as they are now, we have identified a much larger region that likely contains any remains that yet exist.

Are there any such? No one knows.

Most ships that sail the Abyss travel from one land to another, and never enter into the Middle Gulf at all. The few brave adventurers who have—those who have returned—tell us that it is spotted with small sky islands of various sizes, ranging from the small to the minuscule and in places forming vast clouds of dust. None have seen any body of land worth landing upon. But few if any have entered the dust clouds and returned to tell of it.

Max believes Florentia may remain. He reasons as follows: the Cataclysm occurred because the Iturian network was unbalanced, so that magical vigor collected at particular nodes to an ever increasing extent. We have assumed that the nodes or nodes in Florentia itself were the most unbalanced. But perhaps they were not. Many people would have come to the city but most would have left again. Perhaps, just perhaps, these flows were fairly balanced. Perhaps Florentia occupied a fixed point of balance in the ley network, surrounded by a ring of instability. Perhaps the Cataclysm began from such a ring and worked both outwards and inwards.

If such a ring were large enough the center might have survived while the provinces along the ring were destroyed, producing the islets and dust clouds we see.

Dr. Tillotson is doubtful. In his view, death due to the diseases that were part and parcel of city life until fairly, along with a continual flow of folk from outer regions into the capitol, would lead to exactly the imbalance we had been expecting. In his view Cataclysm most likely began at some central node in the capitol and spread out, destroying Ituria and possibly other lands that once occupied the Gulf, while splitting the remaining lands into their current divisions.

And yet…the math suggests, as both Max and Jérôme agree, that in any such network, however unbalanced, there will yet be points of stability. Were there any such points large enough to survive, somewhere within the center of the Gulf? Perhaps.

Consider a packet, like the Amelie, outfitted to fly safely through the dust clouds. Place upon it one terminal of an Iturian Circuit, large enough for parcels of supplies, and ideally large enough to transport individual people. We could send such a packet out into the Gulf with a small crew, keeping them healthy and fed indefinitely through the circuit; and if the circuit’s capacity was large enough, we could rotate the crew members over time and bring them home in case of extreme peril.

And then, if our explorers did find the remains of Florentia hidden behind the veils of dust, we could go there ourselves via the circuit and see it with our own eyes. What do you say to that?

Your possibly hubristic cousin,

Amelia

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