So, you’d like to see what lies beyond Kingsmere?
An excellent idea. Though I should warn you: the farther one travels across the five kingdoms, the more confidently everyone insists that their way of doing things is the sensible one.
There is a kingdom where a city climbs the side of a bluff, and another where mountains rise so high they seem to hold up the sky. In the west, forests stretch for days, and the noisy taverns of the timbertowns glow long into the night. In the east, ships crowd sheltered harbors, carrying strange goods, stranger stories, and news from lands most people will never see. And in the south, people build their homes above the water because the rivers have never learned to stay where they belong.
These kingdoms trade, quarrel, intermarry, make war, borrow one another’s customs, and insist upon their differences with considerable enthusiasm.
I could tell you more myself, of course. But for matters of roads, borders, taverns, weather, local habits, and all the things travelers learn the hard way, I prefer to defer to a dear scholar of my acquaintance—one who has crossed more of these lands than most people ever will.
Consider what follows an invitation for the curious traveler—and perhaps a warning that every kingdom looks rather different once you cross the border.
At the center of the continent lies Ashwyn, a warm and fertile kingdom of broad fields, orchards, grazing land, villages, estates, and roads busy with carts carrying more food than neighboring kingdoms generally consider fair. Much of the continent eats because Ashwyn grows it. At the heart of the realm stands Kingsmere, its famously climbing capital, carved into the side of a great bluff. The city rises through ten tiers of increasing wealth and refinement until, at the summit, the royal castle overlooks both Kingsmere and the rich country beyond. Ashwynians are proud of this arrangement. Visitors occasionally observe that the social symbolism is rather difficult to miss.
Beyond the capital, most land is stewarded by dukes, earls, and a smaller number of landed barons, each charged with the welfare and productivity of the people beneath them. Ashwyn takes the idea of stewardship seriously, though naturally this works better when the steward does. Most Ashwynians ask for little more than honest work, a good home, and a family worth returning to when the day is done. The western devout villages are sterner places, deeply religious and suspicious of many customs the rest of the kingdom accepts without much thought. Stories about the devout circulate freely elsewhere in Ashwyn. Whether they deserve the harsh reputation depends greatly upon whom one asks.
Ashwyn is particularly fond of institutions. Between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, every subject draws from the king’s Soul Chest, which assigns three years of subject service and, on occasion, reveals magical gifts the young person did not know they possessed. Kingsmere maintains academies devoted to the training of Skrybers, Physickers, and Augurs, while Roses are educated within the celebrated Rose Garden. Courtly society reaches its most elaborate expression at the annual Feast of the Roses, when each newly trained Rose chooses a nobleman to receive her gifts and, in return, act as her benefactor. Visitors are advised not to describe this arrangement as complicated. Ashwynians know perfectly well that it is.
An Ashwynian Rose
For all its warmth, plenty, and fondness for ordered life, Ashwyn has an unfortunate habit of finding itself at war. At present, it fights three of its four neighbors simultaneously, maintaining armies on several fronts while farms continue producing, markets remain crowded, and Kingsmere carries on with rather impressive determination. That Ashwyn can afford such a strain says something about the kingdom’s wealth. Why a prosperous heartland surrounded by trading partners so frequently ends up fighting most of them is a more interesting question. Ashwynians have answers, of course. Their neighbors have others.
West of Ashwyn lies Brenovar, where the forests stretch for miles beneath skies that seem to have misplaced the sun. Rain is common, overcast weather more so, and the roads have an unfortunate tendency to become mud precisely when one most wishes them not to. Brenovar is the second-largest of the five kingdoms, but settlements are scattered through immense tracts of forest. Its capital, Tarrovek, stands near the western riverways, where the king resides in a fortress rather than a castle. The distinction is worth remembering. Brenovar has not lately been governed by men much concerned with appearances.
Timber is the kingdom’s great wealth, and nearly everyone, directly or indirectly, depends upon it. The larger settlements are known as timbertowns, bases from which crews move into the surrounding forests to fell, haul, process, and transport enormous quantities of wood. The hours are punishing, particularly since King Corvin has demanded ever greater production while taxing much of the profit that follows. Brenovards therefore work hard—and, when the day finally releases them, play much the same way. The taverns of a timbertown are rarely quiet after dark. Coin earned painfully has a curious tendency to be spent enthusiastically.
Ask a member of the king’s guard about Corvin and you will hear of discipline, strength, and the necessities of rule. Ask almost anyone else, once the guards have gone, and you are rather more likely to hear him called the Usurper. Corvin rules through high taxes, military control, and the conviction that what enriches the crown must eventually benefit the kingdom. Brenovards appear to have noticed that the eventually is taking rather a long time.
A Brenovard “witch”
Magic provides another excellent reason to choose one’s confidants carefully. Skrybers and Physikers practice openly, while Augurs and those born with the gift Ashwyn calls Rosecraft are forbidden. In Brenovar, such women are commonly called witches—a word that covers more than one kind of magic and carries very little affection with it. The law has not stopped such gifts from appearing; it has merely taught those who possess them discretion. Brenovards have spent generations expecting someone richer or more powerful to take more than their share, and hard living has made them difficult to fool. They are tough, watchful, unsentimental, and not especially patient with anyone who mistakes hardship for stupidity.
East of Ashwyn, the land narrows toward the sea and eventually gives itself over to harbors, fishing towns, shipyards, and the long horizon beyond. Jorrin’s Legacy is a kingdom shaped by coastlines and commerce, and Jorries are correspondingly fond of reminding others that they have seen rather more of the world than most. This is not entirely boastful. Their sailors travel widely, their merchants know foreign ports, and visitors from distant lands occasionally arrive on their shores carrying goods, fashions, stories, and ideas unknown elsewhere on the continent.
Jorries admire what can be made. Engineers, shipwrights, scholars, artists, writers, and craftspeople all enjoy considerable prestige, and the kingdom has built much of its identity around invention and legacy. It is not enough, in Jorrin’s Legacy, merely to possess wealth. One is expected to do something interesting with it. Nowhere is this more evident than in Aldercrest, the capital, whose academies are among the finest on the continent. The oldest of them predates every other surviving institution of higher learning in the five kingdoms, a fact Aldercrest scholars are remarkably good at working into conversation.
Jorries are similarly practical about magic. In a culture inclined to put considerable faith in study, craft, and demonstrable results, magical ability is generally regarded as a personal affair rather than a source of particular status. Skrybers, Physikers, and Augurs ply their trades much as they do elsewhere. The women Ashwyn calls Roses are known here as Resonants, a name drawn from the nature of their gift rather than any prescribed place in society. Those who choose to use their gift professionally are often found in the arts, counseling, and mediation, though many simply go about lives in which magic is only one part of who they are.
A Jorrie Resonant
The sea has made Jorrin’s Legacy rich. Its fishing fleets supply markets far beyond its own borders, while merchant ships return carrying luxuries and curious goods from distant coasts. Exotic spices, textiles, books, ornaments, and unfamiliar craftsmanship are easier to find here than anywhere else on the continent. Officially, Jorrin’s Legacy has little interest in the wars and rivalries of neighboring crowns. Jorries prefer commerce to quarrel and neutrality to alliance, and have become quite skilled at remaining friendly with everyone whose coin is worth accepting.
Ashwyn remains their closest and wealthiest neighbor, and the two kingdoms enjoy long habits of trade and cultural exchange. Ashwyn is generally regarded as the richest kingdom on the continent. In Jorrin’s Legacy, one occasionally hears this claim met with a very particular smile. There is an old rumor that Ashwyn possesses the more visible wealth, while Jorrin’s Legacy possesses rather more of the actual kind—and simply has the good sense not to display all of it at once. Whether this is true is impossible to say. Naturally, every Jorrie appears to know someone who can confirm it.
Travel north from Ashwyn and the road eventually begins to climb, then climb again, until the mountains of Loch Irtek seem less like scenery than a decision you have made and must now live with. The kingdom is a land of high passes, deep valleys, pine-dark slopes, and a great lake gathered among the northwestern heights. On the shore of that lake sits Keldun, the capital, its steep-roofed halls gathered along the water beneath the mountains. Elsewhere, villages and strongholds are built where the land permits them, usually in stone and heavy timber, and seldom with anything that cannot justify the trouble of carrying it uphill.
That practicality should not be mistaken for poverty of craft. Loch Irtek’s mountains are rich in ore, and Irteka miners and smiths have made particularly good use of it. Irtek steel is generally considered the finest on the continent, prized for blades that command impressive sums far beyond the northern border. King Orlan of Ashwyn is said to favor Irtek swords almost exclusively, despite the inconvenient fact that his kingdom is presently at war with the people who make them. Quality, it seems, has occasionally been known to survive politics.
Irteka are a clan-rooted people with a deep respect for history, ancestry, and the land that sustains them. On cold evenings, families still gather around the fire while an elder recounts the deeds, mistakes, triumphs, and occasional spectacular foolishness of those who came before. Such stories are not treated as quaint entertainment. They are inheritance. The mountains provide timber, stone, metal, grazing land, and shelter, but rarely without demanding something in return. Perhaps that is why Irteka tend to speak of the land with gratitude rather than ownership. Very little here is taken for granted.
An Irteka Wyser
The Irteka themselves are somewhat taller and more broadly built than most humans, with broad, high-cheeked faces, skin somewhat thicker against cold and wind, and exceptionally dense black hair. Their eyes adjust with unusual ease between the glare of reflected snow and the near-darkness of a mine, while their hearing is particularly sensitive to direction and to low sounds carried through stone or across snow. Their slightly enlarged ears are shaped by two softened angles along the outer edge—subtle at a distance, but difficult to mistake once noticed. Age commonly announces itself in sharp threads of silver before eventually overtaking the darker hair. Clans take their names from the animals and natural features of the northern land, and each is represented by a bold, faceted tattoo. The designs resemble both pictographs and cut stones, which may say as much about Irteka craft as they do about Irteka identity.
Their magic reflects much the same philosophy. Augurs are held in particular esteem, while the women Ashwyn calls Roses are known here as Wysers. The name comes from heartwyse, an understanding of the heart’s currents—love, grief, fear, loyalty, desire, and all the inconvenient complications between them. Whether Wysecraft and Rosecraft are truly the same art is a question best raised only when one has a long evening available. Wysers have opinions on the subject. Roses do as well. Scholars, naturally, have several more.
South of Ashwyn lies Orassa, a low country of rivers, marshes, reeds, and water that rarely stays where people would prefer it. Floods are common enough that homes are built high above the ground on tall pilings, while storms roll in with little regard for roofs, crops, or plans. Thunderstorms are frequent; hurricanes less so, though never forgotten. The capital, Lethara, rises among the waterways in much the same fashion as the rest of the kingdom—built not against the water, but around the expectation that the water will eventually come calling.
The Orassi themselves are as distinctive as the country they call home. They are not human, though the differences can seem subtle at first glance. Their skin carries naturally occurring marbling in flowing, foam-like patterns—shades of cream, ivory, and gold set against warm bronze, rich red, or deep-brown complexions—with a faint pearlescent sheen in certain light. Double-ringed irises and naturally two-toned hair mark them further, while no two Orassi bear quite the same patterning.
Life here is hard. Crops can be lost to flood or storm, hunger is not unknown, and whole communities may find themselves rebuilding before the last repairs have properly dried. Yet Orassa is also the only one of the five kingdoms ruled by a queen, and its crown does not treat such suffering lightly. The queen cannot stop the storms, but she is expected to answer them—to feed, rebuild, shelter, and lead when the water recedes. That expectation runs deep. So does the belief that survival is not merely luck, but responsibility.
Orassi spirituality is woven just as deeply into ordinary life. Many worship the Sea Mother, while others insist they do not believe in her and then spit into the water after catching a fish, just in case. Their marbled skin has gathered its own share of stories over the centuries, though Orassi disagree cheerfully over which ones are true. Ancestors are remembered closely, old rites endure, and blessings, warnings, charms, and curses sit comfortably beside practical work. Outsiders sometimes describe Orassa as superstitious. Orassi generally regard this as a word used by people fortunate enough not to have offended a river lately.
An Orassi Siren
Magic in Orassa carries the same unmistakable character. Skrybers, Augurs, and Physikers are known here, but the women Ashwyn calls Roses are Sirens.
A Siren’s greatest gift is said to be the ability to shape what comes next—to choose a desired future and bend events toward it with unusual purpose. They are also credited with an uncommon understanding of the heart, and with knowing which feelings to kindle, quiet, or redirect when something—or someone—stands between them and the future they intend. Orassi tend to regard such influence as a gift used wisely; outsiders have occasionally chosen less flattering words. The same is true of many old rites practiced along the waterways. Perhaps they are custom. Perhaps they are superstition. Perhaps the distinction matters less in Orassa than visitors would like it to.