All images created using the Midjourney AI program.
On Christmas Day in 1863, the stars fell. In the wake of the cataclysm, the earth began to tilt, and by 1890, Brytenlond only saw the sun one day a year. The Annos Noctis had begun. In the dark North Atlantic, temperatures dropped. Seas froze, oceans sank, and long forgotten lands rose from their watery graves. A few miles off the eastern coast of Brytenlond, the Spines heaved into view, and on their back the antediluvian city of Henge. On the westernmost tip of the Spines it towered three thousand feet into the night sky: three colossal piers of stone, veined with silver, honeycombed with mines and temples and tombs. Outcasts, adventurers, and entrepreneurs flocked to the ruin and there, beneath the unrelenting light of the tidally-locked moon, they began to build.
Excerpt from the diary of Arianrhod Drake, published with her permission.
6 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
Somebody is leaving things on my windowsill. They were small items at first - a rare coin, an unusual stone, a pretty bit of glass - the sort of trinket an attic-rat or a magpie might take a shine to and carry off to its nest. It was never more than once a month, though, and I thought little of it. As the size of these curiosities increased - little jade idol, purse of silver - I decided it must be the work of one the moonsick instead. I have since abandoned this notion as well. No person so afflicted has ever behaved in such a regular manner, month in, month out, for nearly a year now.
This morning, I opened the shutters to find what appears to be a crown. Very simple, hardly more than a twisted circlet, but plainly ancient and made of pure gold. I am left with no alternative: some strange soul, for reasons known only to himself, has found a way to ascend the tallest tower in Henge - nearly four and a half furlongs high! - to leave pretty gifts by my window.
My lord father's retinue has seen neither hide nor hair of him, or I would have heard. I think I will say nothing for the present. With the Dawnrite approaching, negotiations with the Witanegamot falling apart, and the moonsick proliferating, he has quite enough on his mind; one word of something out of the ordinary, and he'd almost certainly forbid me from taking part in the lightkeep ceremonies. Which is the only interesting part of being a princess.
Also, as foolish as it may sound, I do not feel afraid. I can't leave my shutters open very long, of course, but when I let in a little cold air in the evenings, I sometimes fancy I can feel him out there in the dark, watching me. It's almost like having a friend.
I call him Jackerdaw.
All the same, I think I will begin keeping an extra gunne by my bedside. Our family has not held the throne of the Spines for six generations through mere fancy.
Henge Boardcast Dispatches (All Districts) - Yulmonat 12, 199 A.N.
-S I L V E R S T O N E S T O L E N !-
-D A R K D E S C E N D S O N D I S T R I C T-
-H O O D E D M A N F L E E S S C E N E-
-U N N A T U R A L A C R O B A T I C F E A T-
-L E A P S W A L L E V A D E S G U A R D S-
-E N E M Y A G E N T ?-
-B R Y T E N L O N D T O B L A M E ?-
-H A N O F E R S A L S O S U S P E C T E D-
-D R A K E P R O M I S E S A C T I O N !-
-R E T I N U E S C O U R S P O R T S-
-A N D T H E H O L D-
-M O O N S I C K C O N G R E G A T I N G-
-A V O I D C U T H B R I T ' S B R I D G E-
-D A W N R I T E D R A W S N I G H-
The Third Book of Henge
17 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
On this seventeenth day of Yulmonat in Anni Noctis 199, a second silverstone was stolen from its lightkeep in the southeastern district of Henge, less than a week after the vanishing of the northern silverstone. Fully two-thirds of the city is now in darkness.
Heaping tragedy upon tragedy, our beloved princess Arianrhod Margaret Drake also disappeared in the affair, being at the lightkeep and absent from the palace without the knowledge of her father’s retinue. She is believed to have been abducted along with the stone by the perpetrator of the previous theft, presumably a foreign agent seeking to undermine the self-sufficiency of Henge, perhaps in order to jeopardize our bid for independence. The armsmen on duty reported an uncanny display of speed, nimbleness, and acrobatic prowess from the hooded and cloaked stranger as they were set upon. The intruder then opened the gates of the keep, permitting a large number of moonsick to enter and ransack the lower halls, while he took advantage of the disorder to steal the silverstone.
The ever-shrewd Lord Drake has dictated that the true nature of these events be concealed for the time being, represented to the public as a malfunction in the silverlight mechanisms for which our natural philosophers are devising a solution even as we speak. Arianrhod’s absence from the public eye is being attributed to illness. In the meantime, our Lord’s entire retinue, including the reserves and retired, has been deployed and is searching the city from top to bottom.
Two aspects of the incident have attracted the interest of investigators: the unusual degree of coordination in the behavior of the moonsick who gained entry to the lightkeep, and a witness’s report of an altercation between two of the intruders, which resulted in one of them being thrown from the highest turret of the keep to certain death in the flooded slums somewhere in the darkness beneath.
Lionel Swift
Chronicler
Dated: 18 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
Infirmarer: Brother Giles Gwelt.
Patient Name: Unknown.
Patient Age: Unknown. Est. middle to late 30s?
Length of Exposure: Unknown. But at least eleven hours in direct, undiluted moonlight.
Symptoms: Minimal. Possible amnesia and temporary disorientation? Should be displaying massive blunt trauma and advanced moonsickness. Repeated examinations reveal none of the associated indicators. Appears to have been shot multiple times at some point in the last several years. I have counted at least thirteen old bullet wounds. None of the projectiles have been removed. At least one is made of silver.
Circumstances: Patient was found unconscious in the cloister just after Lauds. No tracks in the mud. Must have fallen from somewhere in the city above. Isolated in spare room away from the other patients. Spoke briefly in his sleep, rambling about someone called the Pale Lady and begging her forgiveness. Became agitated. Is now sleeping quietly under close supervision. The other patients have been unusually quiet and sedate since his arrival, none of the usual rantings and ravings, almost as if they can sense his presence and are… words fail me… afraid? It is mad. But then, madness is our stock-in-trade.
Diagnosis: Unknown. This man should be dead or desperately moonsick, but he is neither.
Treatment: None. Watch and pray.
Three Unauthorized Astragraphs
Identified by Lodemor Monitoring Station on 20 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
JENNY
ITS ME
JACK
ON A JOB
NEED SOME THINGS
CABLE FIFTY ELLS
COLDGUNNE + RODS
GOOD DAGGER
HANDCRAMPS
SPANJACKET (NOT FOR ME)
SPECS (ALSO NOT FOR ME)
SPIDERKEY
LIGHTEDGE
BEAMLINK IF YOU CAN FIND ONE
SACK OF PALMGRANADES
THE BIG ONES
THAT SHOULD DO IT
STASH IN EMPTY TEMPLE
DONT LET ME DOWN JENNY
YOU OWE ME
JENNY
ITS ME AGAIN
JACK
STAY CLEAR OF WAREHALL DOCKS FOR FEW DAYS
DONT TRUST MOONSICK
Excerpt from secret notebooks discovered in the laboratory of Lightmagister Garan Staerling during the 200 A.N. investigation of the Cult of Rhigantia. De-encrypted by Princess Arianrhod Drake.
9 Lammonat 194 A.N.
Another dead end. After nearly three months’ labor on the prototype... lenses airshipped in from Murano... vessels cast by hand from distilled silver... whalebone resonators... all that and we get barely 13,000 kilolodes. Enough argatic energy for our present needs, but a drop in the ocean when you consider that the Moon floods us with her luminescence every day of the year but one. If we could only harness THAT force… what empires could we not overthrow, what secrets would be hidden from us, what wealth would be ours? We could light up the North.
Spending more time with Her recently. Presently up to ninety-three minutes, and now I begin to see that the sickness is not in Her, it is in us. We are unworthy of Her light. The sickness is merely impurity leaving the spirit. We must be purged of all things low and mundane. Once purged, we must open our spirits to Her insight, Her levity, Her freedom. Some may go mad, it is true, but does not the wheat need to be winnowed? I may begin to share these insights with a few close associates. Not yet and not all at once, but I believe there are some who would be open to what She has shown me.
Final conference with the Witanegamot’s shadowfactor tonight, that man Daws. Putting it about that he’s a second cousin from the Barren and praying they trained him to mask that abominable Brytenlondish accent. Initial conversations were promising, but he seems like he’s lost his nerve ever since he laid eyes on the Drake girl. Saw her across the northwest chasm on her way to the lightkeep and went quiet as a lamb. Unless he has another change of heart within the next five and a half hours, the Pale Lady may require another sacrifice…
The Testimony of Abel Wryneck, Licensed Merchant of the Fane District of the Eighteenth Level
Collected by Lawfactor Druw Dunlin on 21 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
Man Wryneck says his shop was broken into night before last. Wryneck sells tools and climbing gear and other such goods as them as toil up in the mines find needful, him being a retired miner himself and knowing the work. Quite a few things went missing, but apart from an expensive Varangian-made beamlink, much valuable stock was left behind - in plain sight, Wryneck takes great pains to emphasize to me, anxious that I take notice of the peculiarity of this fact. The door-breaker only took what he needed. Wryneck remarks he has had trouble with moonsick before, but that this behavior is not at all like them. On the other hand, we have had reports of the moonsick acting with unprecedented uniformity and deliberation, so who's to say what is or isn't like them in these strange days. Here, Wryneck interrupts to inquire about the whereabouts and welfare of Princess Arianrhod and if the rumors are true that she has run away to be a music hall singer in Brytenlond. I reassure him that the royal family is simply suffering a mild bout of the humours and has elected to remain out of the public eye for the next few days so as to be fully recovered in time for the Dawnrite. I attempt to proceed with my questioning, but Wryneck is quicker and tells me that he never believed it for a moment, she being a true lady, noble through and through and beloved by all her people. He appears persuaded, but if such stories are on the wind, I recommend that the Magister of Information commit more of his resources to spreading evidence to support the official explanation. Before Man Wryneck can continue, I hastily inquire whether he has noticed any other suspicious personages in the vicinity in recent days. He tells me that there's always strange folk in these parts, being so close to the Low City which is crammed with shrines and temples and tombs left by those who came before. Wryneck has been down there once himself and it's no place for decent, modern people, he says, describing an obscene profusion of temples, tombs, shrines, altars, and idol consecrated to every god our foolish forefathers could possibly imagine - although, he notes, they get fewer the deeper you go. Strangest one of all is the Empty Temple, almost near the bottom. Nothing inside but a single name, carved over and over and over till it covered nearly every inch of the walls and floor. I do my best to look interested and ask if the thief called Jackerdaw has ever been spotted in these parts. Nightjack, he corrects me, and informs me that he was indeed rumored to have a nest down amongst the tombs somewhere. Not a bad chap, he says. "Mad, obviously, but never robbed you more than once. Watched him leap the Old Stoke Abyss one time - which is a ninety feet across if it's a yard. Hasn't been seen in a bit."
An excerpt from Part Ninety-Nine of the Tale of the North, recorded by Alafair Blythe of the Sky Folk.
The Twenty-Fifth Day of the Twelfth Month in Four Thousand, Four Hundred, and Seventy-Sixth Year Since the Drowning.
Two parts of the city remain in darkness. The people of Henge have borne it well thus far, maintaining their composure much longer than folk unaccustomed to the cold and the dark could have, but they are finally beginning to fray. Curfews have been put in place to keep them out of the unadulterated moonlight. It may not be enough. As long as we have observed the city of Henge from our vessels, the moonsick have been solitary creatures, responsible for random, isolated incidents of vandalism or violence, but never in any coordinated way and always fundamentally pitiable. Now, as the ranks of the afflicted increase daily, they move in orderly hordes, almost like military companies, systematically spreading lawlessness through the city. It is strange and grim. Even those who remain untouched by the Moon and her thralls are beginning to fret at the continuing absence of Lord Drake and his family - especially with the Day approaching and with it, the Dawnrite. According to the Books of Henge, the heirs of the holy line of Drake have never once failed to perform the Dawnrite since it was established nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. The Henge-folk reassure each other that it’s only a ceremony and doesn’t really matter. The tide will come in, the tide will go out, and the Sun will continue to return one day a year as it has since the stars fell. But even the most materially-minded find it impossible not to wonder what will happen if the Dawnrite is neglected.
Lightmagister Staerling has been appointed temporary head of the government since this crisis falls within his purview, being an expert in moonlight and its effects and responsible for the lightkeeps that heretofore kept the city illuminated with wholesome silverlight. He inspires confidence. With the rise of retaliation against the moonsick - and those perceived to be moonsick - he has issued a series of edicts requiring the people not to come within bowshot of the moonsick, not to interrupt no matter how they are engaged, and to show them deference in all things. He continues to reassure the citizens that while Lord Drake’s personal retinue has been dispatched to guard the third and only remaining silverstone in the north lightkeep, every available lawfactor has been tasked with apprehending the anarchist Nightjack, rescuing the Princess Arianrhod whom he has made his prisoner, and retrieving the stolen silverstones. Light and order will be restored soon.
As always, Prester Thomasis forbids us to intervene.
Henge Boardcast Dispatches (All Districts) - 23 Yulmonat 199 A.N.
-T H I R D S I L V E R S T O N E S T O L E N-
-A L L D I S T R I C T S D A R K-
-N I G H T J A C K R E S P O N S I B L E-
-P R I N C E S S I N V O L V E D-
-B O T H B E L I E V E D M A D-
-O R B R Y T E N L O N D A G E N T S-
-S T I L L A T L A R G E-
-R O Y A L F A M I L Y I N D A N G E R-
-S T A Y I N D O O R S-
-D O N O T H A R M M O O N S I C K-
-D O N O T A P P R O A C H M O O N S I C K-
-D O N O T W I T H S T A N D M O O N S I C K-
-S T AE R L I N G W I L L S A V E H E N G E-
Astragraph sent by Armsman Hayward Huss
24 Yulmonat 199 A.N. Second Vigil
SOPHIA
SOMETHING IS HAPPENING
MOONSICK IN CITADEL
KILLING
TRAPPED ON ROOF
STAERLING CALLS THEM TO NORTHSTONE
MOON IS SO BRIGHT
HE HAS DRAKES
HES MAD
CHAINS
KNIFE
SACRIFICE
MOON IS SO BRIGHT
TAKE GIRLS
GET OUT OF HENGE
I SEE HER
THE PALE LADY
The Third Book of Henge
25 Yulmonat, 199 A.N.
Great seas of ink will be spilled for the events of this twenty-fifth day of Yulmonat in Anni Noctis 199. I scarce know how to begin. There is so much we do not know, so much we do not understand, so many betrayals and marvels and strange chances, that the full account of this day may not be written for years to come. For now, I will simply record what little I have seen and heard.
Late on the twenty-fourth day of Yulmonat, Lightmagister Garan Staerling overcame the armsmen of the Citadel and took Lord and Lady Drake by force to the pinnacle of Northstone with a great company of moonsick apparently under his influence. It seems that they had been kept imprisoned in their own keep. Their daughter Arianrhod Drake was not with them, having been wrested from the custody of the moonsick on the twenty-first by a mad thief called either Nightjack or Jackerdaw, the very same who is believed to have stolen at least two of the three silverstones. It seems that Lightmagister Staerling intended to conduct a ritual of his own in place of the traditional Dawnrite. A full investigation will be made into his motives and what he hoped to accomplish, but it is clear that he intended to make a sacrifice of at least Lord Drake and possibly the rest of the family as well. With the Day about to break - indeed, at the very moment that sunlight fell upon the Lightmagister’s knife as he brandished it high above Lord Drake, who lay at his feet in chains - this same thief Jackerdaw (or Nightjack) leapt from Cuthbrit’s Bridge, a full one hundred and fifty feet away, and without the aid of spanjacket or any other device landed full upon the Northstone.
Before Staerling could plunge the knife into his lord’s heart, the thief set upon the treacherous Lightmagister and the pair of them commenced to fighting with such vehemence that it was plain to all present that they had been anticipating this moment for many long years. As one man, the host of moonsick rushed to their master’s aid. The mad thief held his own against them all for some time, leaping, springing, and somersaulting like a Rusi kozak warrior and laying many of his foes low with blade and gunne, but was at last in danger of being overwhelmed and crushed by the horde.
This might have been the end, not just of Jackerdaw and the Drake bloodline, but maybe of Henge itself, had it not been for one more strange event. As the sun climbed the sky and filled every hollow of Henge with light, the Sky Folk broke their ancient custom. Five ships descended from their place among the clouds and a great company of their fighting men, directed by none other than Arianrhod Drake herself, joined the fray. They drove the moonsick to the brink of the monolith and sent them tumbling to their deaths six hundred feet below. Last of all, the thief called by some Nightjack and by others Jackerdaw seized Garan Staerling and dove from the Northstone into the void.
Lionel Swift
Chronicler
Princess,
Forgive me.
After what Staerling did to me, I forgot who I was. My name, my place, my purpose. I forgot everything except the moonlight. And your face.
I still don’t know if Staerling intended to kill me, or if he thought he could turn me into another mindless instrument of his Mistress. Either way, he failed. When he filled my body full of silver bullets, it fenced her out of some small corner of my self and so, though she stalked my thoughts and dreams for five long years, I was never her creature. My soul remained mine alone - as did all the sins I committed in those days. For the combination of silver and whatever incantation Staerling spoke over my body when he left me on the roof of his tower to shrivel in the moonlight gave me strange powers as well, and these I used for selfish ends, in full knowledge of what I was doing. I became a thief. Maybe I stole out of need at first, but very soon it was simply for fun, because I could and no one could stop me. I knew what I was doing when Staerling offered me money to steal the silverstones, too. I may have forgotten what he had done to me and how we had plotted against your house. But I knew what the theft of the silverstones would do to the city and I did not care. If you had not been at the second lightkeep, if Staerling’s pathetic cult had not taken you captive, who knows how far I would have sunk? It was only the light of the one who appeared to me as I fell with Staerling from the Northstone, the one whose name is carved on every stone of the Empty Temple, that drove the shadows from my mind. Without him, I would still be lost in the darkness. Without you, I never would have dared such a thing.
Forgive me.
Even though recollections of my old life have begun to return (piecemeal, I will never be whole), my most precious memory will remain those few days we spent together on the run from practically the entire city of Henge. We saved them. You and I, and the Sky Folk.
The silverstones have been returned. The Sky Folk are leaving. When Henge is free and you are queen, remember me. If you need me, if there is trouble, I will come.
Jack
