The Great River
So it was that Kerys was in a very real sense created by the River. And the River continued to dominate it, as the name the Penruthya, or Sothran, peoples gave it, Yskianas, acknowledged. Kian was a rather poetic name for a vein, and so this meant Vein of the Heartland, or as it was understood, River at the Heart of the World. The Svarhath, inhabiting the north of the land, took a less central view and called it simply Myklstavathan, the Great River. As sea levels had declined, so the falls over the ancient barrier had ceased to flow, save for a small central cranny or channel that the river cut itself, probably by following some crack or flaw in the eroded rock, or some softer intrusion.
This admitted a relatively restricted flow of seawater, but it was soon swelled, and its salt diluted, by inflows from various tributaries to north and south. Some of these were created, or swelled, by meltwater directly from the Ice, and this brought with it the same terrors as did the upper reaches of the Gorlafros to the Marshlands in Nordeney. But the Great River dispersed these in its vastness as it rode peaceably through the centre of the land; and if some trace of darker influence remained, a slow poison for the minds and spirits of the people, it cannot now be said. Past the warm lands where men founded Kerys the River flowed, until at last it broadened to become a great lake, more properly an inland sea,. Those waters were little navigated or frequented. The lands around their shores were hot and unwelcoming when men first arrived there, with many regions of marsh along the coasts, and tempted nobody to settle save the most desperate of outlaws. By Nithaid's time, thousands of years later, the marshes had spread and the rest degenerated into barrens in the north and near desert in the south. Through those marshes, along many small streams and channels, the waters of the Yskianas drained southward, and though much was lost by sheer evaporation at least one river was thought to reach the mysterious oceans to the south. But it was not navigable, and its course, if it ever was known, had long been lost. Adventurers in those lands had brought back little of worth, but many plagues and spreading maladies, until the reputation of the area for disease was such that landing there was forbidden on pain of death. If any ventured it, therefore, they left no records, and no certain maps have survived.
The High Gate
Such was the course of the Great River, and a vein it was indeed to the land of Kerys, bearing its heart's blood, the water that fed its rich fields and the ships that carried their produce to feed the great city at its heart, and at need their soldiers to enforce its defence and royal authority. That so many of their towns were built along its shores and at its confluences is ample witness of this. Its importance was obvious to the people of the land even from the earliest years. Very soon they began building, over that narrow crevice in the ancient barrier and the falls that came through it, the first stages of what was to become the High Gate. They had many reasons for siting such a fortress there, but high among them was the desire to protect the source of the river that was their land's life. At that time they had not yet grown complacent, and lost their awareness of what the Ice or some other enemy might do. Generation after generation built the Gate higher and grander, and as the sea-level fell outside they cut down and narrowed the ancient barrier into a well too steep for any enemy to scale. In the end the Gate towered high over the ancient ridge, an imposing palace atop walls smooth and utterly unscaleable, guarding the River that thundered through its depths; and it became a sign in the minds of men, a symbol of the fountainhead of the land they loved. A fire was set on its roof, guiding mariners by day with its smoke, and by night with its flame, and to them in particular it became an almost sacred sight, their last upon setting sail and their first upon their return. Since it was the greatest and most adventurous mariners who discovered the new lands across the ocean, it became especially important to them; and for those who fled into exile to found a new realm there, it was a poignant memory, the last they were ever to see of Kerys. So it was that even when with the decline of Kerys the Gate had ceased to mean so much to its people, their kin beyond the seas were still invoking its name.
Climes
The compression of climes that the Long Winter created throughout the world was particularly acute in Kerys at the time of Elof s coming. This was because the Ice had been able to distribute itself very differently than in Brasayhal. To onlookers such as Elof and Roc the great icesheets appeared at first to have extended far further south; but in fact the borders of the main sheets followed much the same parallel as across the oceans. What they had been able to do, however, was create an advance guard of secondary icesheets by the means Ansker described in the Book of the Sword, "colonizing" the heights of more southerly mountain ranges by extending glaciations from mountain snowcaps.
The land immediately beyond the main ice-sheets had no such peaks, but was hilly and uneven enough to impede their advance; it became the tundra landscape of Taoune'la, snowy, bleak and haunted, an evil place in whose northern reaches nothing save the hardiest lichens could live. Over this, however, cold airs and subtler influences spread to the mountain-peaks beyond; gradually their icecaps swelled and gathered strength and gave birth to glaciers that flowed down below the snowlines, joined and became vast enveloping icesheets that no longer changed with the seasons, but were as permanent as the main body of the Ice. In fact, it was the Iceglow from these, and not from the main body, that Elof and Roc saw from Elan Ghorhenyan.
There were now two of them, each the size of a substantial country, and steadily growing by the same process. Each winter the cold fingers of the glaciers would spread further along the more southerly peaks, and leave them that fraction colder; and though with the thaw they would retreat again, it would not be all the way. Each year they had gained a little more ground, until now in winter they thrust deep into what had been the north of Kerys, and spun their webs of frost and snow over valleys that had once been high green pastures, home to hardy farmers of the Svarhath folk. Now they were miserable barrens, and even when the snow had drawn back many evils stalked them under the shadow of those peaks.
South of these troubled lands the land was still fertile and rich, though it suffered from severe winters that killed off a great part of its game. Once it had been the main home of the Svarhath, who were for the most part free landholders and cultivators save when they lived by the sea. Then it had held their pastures and grainfields, for they raised both, and many other crops besides; there had even been orchards for the more robust fruits, and a few vineyards on the most southerly slopes. But most of that people had fled the advance of the Ice thousands of years since, and now these were the Wild Lands, overgrown and tangled, home only to the duergar and human outlaws, and much feared on that account. From time to time, under some more vigorous king, attempts had been made to clear and resettle parts of them, but in winter these little colonies were isolated for long periods, and sooner or later they came to a bad and mysterious end. Many blamed the duergar rather than the Ice; and it is not impossible that they were right.
But to the people of the Vale its steep sides, in many places impass-able cliffs, remained an effective barrier against the worsening conditions above; and for centuries this seemed to be so. In their shelter the land north of the Great River enjoyed a warm temperate climate, growing gradually warmer as the river angled away to the southeast. The lands of the southern shore were much the same in the regions about the Gate; but as they sloped away sharply southward they grew increasingly warm and humid, basking in a warmth semi-tropical and even fully tropical, with high humidity. A great belt of dense rainforest covered the southernmost slopes of the vale and extended out to envelop the southern mountains. Beyond these, however, the land grew equally swiftly hot and dry, and the forest gave way to parched scrubland, sunbaked barrens and at last sheer desert; and though it was hardly noticeable at first, this too was advancing, as the Ice drained more and more of the free water from the cycle of life, and bound it in chill and sterile chains. Thus the extremes of clime that had first brou
ght Kerys into being were all the millennia of its existence closing upon it like the jaws of a nutcracker; and all the while the shell was growing rotten from within.
The Last Winter
This was the closing of the jaws, the disordering of climes in whose fell grip the fleets of Morvannec found Kerys. It began soon after Nithaid's death and Elof s flight, as if either or both of them had been holding it somehow at bay; and this may be the case. It started as an early, fierce autumn, with stormy rains that ruined the harvest, and frosty nights that froze the sodden ground hard. Bitter blasts whipped the southern forests, blowing ever more of their tenuous topsoil from the great areas that man had cleared for his own husbandry, or simply laid waste. The first snows for thousands of years fell there, and the plants shrivelled. In the North the snows fell heavier, and the River began to slow and freeze; then at last men saw their folly in neglecting the Gate, and cursed the Lonuen line that had let it slip from the grasp. Somehow men managed to survive the winter, though food was scarce and many dark perils stalked the land, eagerly awaiting the spring, and some kind of a thaw. But the time came, and there was no thaw the snows did not slacken, nor did the glaciers relinquish their hold upon the mountains high above the walls. Ice stopped the inflow of the Great River at last, and its level began to fall. What was happening to the northward can only be guessed at; but it is likely that the main body of the Ice was beginning its long-delayed advance at last, and setting in motion the final stages of Louhi's plan. Certainly the hilly tundra was more densely covered in snow than ever before. With the weather so propitious, in a very short time, weeks or days even, it might be about to form a solid sheet, and allow the main body to reach and merge with its two offshoots, and they in turn to stretch forward and join up with the enclave of ice around the Gate, where Louhi was exerting her own power. From there the path of the Ice would have been easy and obvious; down the Great River, and into the heart of Kerys. Formerly its sheer size must have made it almost impossible to freeze, keeping a constant temperature in its depths, and also its salinity. Ever since its flow had been reduced at the Gate falls, however, only its tributaries were feeding it, and it had been growing fresher; this may explain the dearth of fish Elof found around the island. Now, with many of the northern tributaries themselves frozen, it was also dwindling in size; already half-frozen, with the Ice itself behind her she could undoubtedly transform it almost at a stroke from river to glacier, from a bearer of life to a harbinger of death, overwhelming a vast area of land. Whether this in itself would have been enough to overturn the climatic balance of the world, and make the Ice permanent, we cannot now tell; but from the urgency all the Powers seem to have sensed, it almost certainly was the crucial point.
As to what brought this about, the chronicles offer no better explanations than Elof s and they seem to be right. Recent research suggests that the forces he saw at work would indeed have produced the results he feared; and ironically, it is from the icesheets that the evidence comes. The Antarctic icecap preserves a remarkable record of many atmospheric events and changes, and among these any particularly great volcanic eruptions. These hurl vast amounts of dust and gases, in particular sulphur dioxide, high into the atmosphere, and it is this gas, converted to fine droplets of sulphuric acid, that the ice preserves. Comparing concentrations of this in ice of known age with records of climactic changes over the same period have produced remarkable correlations between, for example, the enormous eruption of Tambora in Indonesia and the extraordinarily severe weather in the Northern Hemisphere in the first years of the nineteenth century - known, significantly, as the "Little Ice Age". Studies of later eruptions when more accurate records exist, such as Krakatoa in 1883 or more recently Mount St. Helen's, establish that the temperature not only of the particular region, but of the Earth as a whole, falls by several tenths of a degree in the years following a major eruption, chiefly because of the filtration effect of the dust in the upper atmosphere upon received solar radiation; most of that dust falls to earth in only a few days, but enough remains to make a significant difference. The effect of a number of such active volcanoes over a period of many years, capped at the climax by a period of extra-violent eruptions, and in a restricted area where the Ice could at least strongly influence wind patterns to gather and sustain more dust than usual is difficult wholly to imagine; it would certainly be savage, turning the sky to a permanent lowering grey, chilling the air and stifling photosynthesis in plants. The sudden glaciation of the River might well increase the vulcanism still further, but even without that it would have been quite conclusive enough for Louhi's needs.
THE PEOPLES
THE PEOPLE OF KERYS
It is accurate to say "people", for the division between Svarhath and Penruthya, northerner and Sothran, that so bedevilled the Westlands had always mattered less in Kerys, and by the time of Elof s coming was almost extinct. Nevertheless, it had its roots there, and they help to understand its history. Originally it may have reflected the merging of two distinct peoples, relics perhaps of the forgotten racial strands in the little kingdoms of the North before the Ice came, and that now were less than legendary. "Kingdom", indeed, may have been too grand a word; more probably most were mere tribal leagues as loose as the Ekwesh, and at best small and fluid monarchies of various kinds like Northumberland or Mercia in Dark Age England, or the Burgundian and Frankish realms that grew up around the Roman Empire. Almost certainly the dominant kingdom among the Penruthya was a city-state, because it was a cultural mould they never escaped, but simply expanded to fit the land; even in so vast a realm as Kerys, which had perforce to have several great cities, one immense community dominated all the rest. The Svarhath never showed quite the same tendency; their preference was always for towns of moderate size among a loose federation of villages. Probably it was the threat of the Ice that first drove these related but disparate peoples to unite; but nothing certain is known of that. It is well established, however, that in even the earliest records of Kerys they thought of themselves as one nation, owing allegiance to one lord, intermarrying freely and speaking one another's tongues. It was chiefly a preference for different climes and manners of life that kept them separate at all, and perhaps also kept them friendly; for they seldom if ever competed for the same land.
The character of both peoples was much the same as in the realms of Brasayhal. The Penruthya of Kerys were always the more numerous race, probably because their way of life allowed it. They were a lowland folk, fond of warm climes and the rich flat farmland of riverine plains; they grew much grain and many orchards and vineyards, but raised little meat or dairy produce, and almost no fish. Their lands tended to be divided into large estates whose farms were held in tenancy from the great lords; but this tenancy was not a burdensome thing, and until the last years the land was worked at all levels by free men. Some of the estates on the southern shore, settled later, were of astonishing size, their labourers numbered by the thousand, and their lords, men of great consequence. Their cities showed the same tendency towards size, but in a well-ordered form; they were masters of buildings as of all the other arts, and had a surprising command of the basic requirements in water supply and sanitation that alone make such large communities practicable. Their laws regarding public health were strict and carried severe penalties, and they were supported by all levels of the community, even the lowest; almost certainly this was a result of the state's provision of basic instruction for all its citizens. What was provided varied widely, but in Kerys the City at its height there was almost no citizen of sound mind who could not read and write, and recite the basic table of laws. The Penruthya had a strong tradition of hierarchy and the rule of law from above, but set against this an equally strong tradition of freedom, if not of equality, for all men; this often took the form of opposition to their kings, commonly by powerful lords in pursuit of their own independence.
The Svarhath, on the other hand, had no particular tradition of order, and few if any great lords; they r
eserved their respect for wise elders and rich men, and regarded the king much as a clan might its chieftain - their ruler, but by right of kinship more than law. They chose to dwell chiefly among the cooler uplands above the northern walls of Kerys Vale, a land that seemed far too coarse and wild to the Penruthya, but could in fact yield a rich living to men who knew how to cultivate it. They grew some grain, wine grapes and other fruit in the sheltered valleys, but meat and dairying were their main products; upon hill and mountain pastures they raised their huge cattle, and upon higher slopes of coarser vegetation sheep or goats. Wise in all matters relating to ships and seafaring, they fished not only the rivers but also the rich seas around the coast. They also thrived upon forestry and hunting, for they took better care of their wooden lands than did the sothrans. Landholdings. were mostly no larger than an individual could manage; even the richest men might own no more than a single manorial farm, albeit a very large one, and some woods and hunting preserves. Tenancy was almost unknown, and treated with deep suspicion. Some villages, however, owned and worked large holdings in common, and so also some families, for a particular reason. Land was inherited not by the eldest male heir, as with the Penruthya, but by all sons jointly; only if it could not support them all would some have to seek their support elsewhere. Since large families were rare among the Svarhath, this usually worked well enough. There were plenty of opportunities for such sons; shipping and the crafts were honourable and prosperous occupations that supported many, and also matters financial and scholarly. The Penruthya appeared to dominate trade, but never to the exclusion of an energetic northerner; indeed, since it was Svarhath-owned ships that handled the cream of the swift river traffic, they had considerable influence in it, and many a Southern lord owed his fortune to the acumen and industry of his Svarhath stewards. And in scholarship and statecraft - which they tended to associate - both strains mingled readily, the Penruthya excelling only by their numbers.
The Hammer of the Sun Page 52
