99 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
99 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
The abyss is a steep wall, reaching left and right for as long as
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anyone has ever travelled, up at least ten thousand levels from where I
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sit, and (in myth) down to the depths of Sheol, where the air burns, and
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the face of the abyss wall melts and runs perpetually downward, into a
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molten infinity. Standing on one of the switchbacked roads that men
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have scratched into the wall, looking out away from the wall, there is
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just darkness, fallers, and debris. Down and out, an occasional red
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glow from (one supposes) Sheol appears, but nothing else. Sound from
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the abyss is (in the absence of passers-by) only an occasional sighing,
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as of distant winds, or very distant gales.
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Our scientists have determined that the light we see by, that wells in
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the day and wanes in the night, comes from the rock of the wall, and the
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air itself near to the wall. Why it waxes and wanes, and what force can
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cause the very air to give out with light, they cannot say.
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Men's houses sit on the wall like the round, dusty hills of the
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spider's nests, clinging to the houses' walls. Roads are hacked into
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the rock, winding switchbacked between the houses, through towns, narrow
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and crumbling in the wilderness. Left to itself, the wall face is
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irregular, bumpy, with long cracks and clefts, ledges leading to
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nowhere, chimneys and hollows.
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The general tendency of each level is to slope inward (toward the
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wall) at an angle comprising about one twentieth part of a circle from
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the abyssward direction (the direction of the pull of gravity). At the
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border between one level and the next, there is an overhang, so that the
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lowest parts of the upper level thrust outward into the void beyond the
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upper parts of the lower level, and in fact beyond the lower parts of
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the lower level, so that although each level slopes wallward, the
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general tendency of the wall as a whole is to jut abyssward. At least
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this is what the legend says, and the dim looming greyness we see
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looking up in the daytime, and the evidence of debris and fallers,
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supports it.
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Passing from one level to the next lower is thus possible, although
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neither easily nor without danger, by the means of long ropes and
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pulleys or (if no assistance is to be had on the level below) by
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swinging. Travel in the opposite direction, from lower to higher
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levels, is on the other hand all but impossible in the normal course of
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things. The rock of the border overhangs is tough and not subject to
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cracks or fissures large enough to permit passage, yet has enough of a
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tendency to flake and chip near the point that all efforts to establish
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permanent bridges from this level to either of its neighbors have met
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with (usually tragic) failure.
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The vertical height of the level varies, being generally between two
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and five days travel from lower overhang to upper. This does not take
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into account the twists of our roads; if it were possible to move
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directly against gravity, the distance would of course be much shorter.
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Because it is in general possible to cross the boundaries between
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levels in only one direction, the general spread of humanity has been
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downwards, towards (presumably) Sheol. The population seems to be
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distributed uniformly in the lateral direction (left and right across
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the level), but to be spreading slowly downward between levels, as if
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humanity had begun somewhere far, far above (and why else would the
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levels be numbered, reckoned from up to down). Strong tradition holds
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that when one level becomes too crowded, the dangerous migration down to
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the next becomes more common, until the lessening of population due to
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bordercrossings (successful and unsuccessful) balances the birthrate.
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As our people are never extremely fecund, this desertion rate need not
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be high.
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There is some evidence to support popular tradition's picture of human
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migration. The villages near the top of the level tend to be the oldest
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and best established, and the density of population there is higher.
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One of the favorite and longest-disputed topics among the
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philosophers of this level is the fate of fallers. Fallers are those
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persons, or seeming persons, who pass by the level, more or less far out
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in the abyss, on their way from somewhere above to somewhere below.
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The popular wisdom states that the fate of fallers is simply to fall,
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until they reach the levels of Sheol, and are melted to nothingness.
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This is too simple for many of our wisest, however. They are divided
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into several schools. One set of schools holds that, somewhere between
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this level and the deadly nether reaches, there is something that brings
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the fallers to a halt. The schools disagree in the nature and placement
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of these obstacles, the purposes of their creators (if any), whether or
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not the obstacles are such that the fallers are destroyed upon meeting
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them, and a host of other questions.
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One of the more notorious schools of faller theory, popular in our
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great-grandfathers' day, held that ten thousand levels down, silken nets
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bring the fallers to a gentle halt, and they are led off by servitors
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(there was a schism early in the history of this theory on the question
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of the gender, if any, of these) to await, in honored opulence, the day
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when the normal migration of humanity reaches those regions. This
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school flourished in that time of optimism, but it tapered off as its
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most staunch defenders journeyed to the lower edge of the level and
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hurled themselves hopefully into space, equipped with greater or smaller
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numbers of philosophic texts, missives, and holy runes intended to
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ensure their friendly (not to say warm) reception in the Advanced
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Regions.
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==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==
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