This diagram above shows the hierarchy of the 31 Sapients of a Minor Domain. A Major Domain has 63 Sapients.
The Wise are organized into 12 Domains—essentially ‘departments of state’. Each of these Domains is headed by a Grand Sapient. The Grand Sapients are collectively known as the “Twelve”. The diagram on the right shows each of the Domains and the associated duties that each is required to carry out. The Twelve not only match the 12 lunar months—one of the reasons the Wise use the moon-eye as their sigil—but also thus to the twelve calendar months whose colours they match.
The Great Balance, or the Balance of the Three Powers, or simply ‘the Balance’, is the political system of checks and balances that ensures a power equilibrium between the God Emperor, the Great and the Wise.
The diagram illustrates this equilibrium:
—the gold ring represents the Sacred Wall of Osrakum. The pale blue ring represents the Skymere.
—the Imperial Power [green] surrounds Osrakum with its legions, thus holding the other two Powers captive
—but access to these legions is controlled by the Wise [purple], as go-betweens
—the Great [red] also moderate this control by means of the Red Ichorians with which they physically control the Canyon entry into Osrakum. With this force the Great hold the other two Powers captive.
—the Imperial Power holds the Wise hostage within the ring of the Skymere by means of their Sinistral Ichorians. This force also keeps the Great at bay by defending the Skymere against their incursion.
—by administering the Law-that-must-be-obeyed, the Wise not only control the world outside Osrakum but also all communication between the two, between the Outer Land and the inner, Hidden Land. Additionally, their Law restricts and channels much of the flow of power within the caldera of Osrakum
Sartlar are forced to labour everywhere in the Commonwealth by the overseers of the Masters. By far the greatest proportion of them are used to cultivate the vast agricultural spread of the Guarded Land.
Sartlar of this kind are identified by having the ‘Earth’ glyph branded deep into their faces. The sketches show a sartlar marked in this way and the iron with which the branding is done.
The Ichorians are so named because they protect the holy blood or ichor of the Chosen. It is for this reason that, in Vulgate, they are called the Bloodguard
All Ichorians have half of their body—right or left—tattooed black. They are divided into two forces of roughly 30, 000 each: the Red Ichorians and the Sinistral Ichorians
The Sinistral Ichorians, have the left side of their bodies black with tattoos. They wear service collars made of silver, are commanded directly by the God Emperor and are restricted to the Isle. Their purpose is to protect the God Emperor and the rest of the House of the Masks against incursions by the Great
Red Ichorians
The Red or Dextral Ichorians belong to the Great and are commanded by He-who-goes-before, who the Great elect in their Clave. All Red Ichorians have the right side of their bodies black with tattoos. They wear service collars of gold and formed up into two legions each identified by a sigil: the red lily or the pomegranate. In token of his command, He-who-goes-before wears the Pomegranate Ring
the Red Ichorian sigils of the pomegranate and the lily
Unlike the other legions of the Commonwealth, the two Ichorians possess a full complement of 27 huimur each. Both legions are stationed in the Canyon of the Three Gates, whose gates or fortresses it is their duty to defend. The Great use the Red Ichorians to maintain their part of the Great Balance. By controlling the Canyon, the Great keep the God Emperor hostage, making certain that he does not regain direct command of the other legions of the Commonwealth
I drew this diagram of Aurum’s clock so that I could understand how it worked. His clocks have various kinds of significance, some of which I am not entirely sure of myself.
The particular one depicted here is a clypsedra, or water clock, though in this case the fluid that powers it is not water, but mercury.
Plainsmen saddle-chairs are light constructions woven from wicker and finished with fern twine. The basic seat is shaped like a boat and is attached over and across its ‘bows’ by a belt passing under the belly of the aquar. The chair is further secured at its ‘stern’ with a belt that wraps around the root of the aquar’s tail
A bundle of scouring-rush (horsetail) rods is attached transversally ‘amidships’ and is adjusted to the rider so that it catches him under his knees, thus lifting his legs safely above the motion of the aquar’s legs—without the need for the stirrups used by other styles of saddle-chair.
Another transverse assembly of rods is attached to the ‘stern’ of the chair. Both of these transverse ‘beams’ extend out some distance on either side and are used to attach baggage and weapon racks, as well as the poles of a drag-cradle
The ‘prow’ of the chair is a post to which can be secured any number of small, personal effects
Plainsmen use neither bits nor reins—they consider this cruel— and instead, they control their aquar by applying pressure to the creature’s back with their feet
Aquar are a species, probably native to the Earthsky, though there is another larger species that is found to the north of the Guarded Land. In the wild, aquar are dun and mottled, or lightly striped. The Chosen, and probably the Quyans before them, have bred silver aquar, a paler almost white race, as well as the rarer black ones. The use of the latter is restricted to the Ichorians. These Chosen breeds are larger than the wild aquar of the Earthsky
rough sketch of a common saddle-chair
Aquar are used to pull chariots, or people ride them sitting in saddle-chairs. Saddle-chairs are used throughout the Commonwealth and vary in style—everything from the purely functional chairs used by the auxiliaries of the legions, to any number of idiosyncratic designs produced by craftsmen throughout the cities. However, all share certain basic features: the rider is carried half-reclining, with legs lifted by stirrups safely above the motion of the aquar’s legs. Reins are attached to bits of wood or stone, wedged into the creature’s mouth
Aquar are omnivorous. They will graze ferns and other scrubby plants but will also eat insects and smaller prey. The Plainsmen will often feed them on djada when wishing to maintain their performance without grazing. The Wise have taken this process to extremes by feeding the aquar of their auxiliaries exclusively on render.
Descriptions given in The Masters:
“Up close, the aquar had a dun surface, mottled, mosaic-scaled, dull-gleaming. A groom held the reins. Carnelian followed these up to the swaying snake-scaled heron head, the narrow snout, the stone bit wedged into the angle of the jaws, the eyes’ discs of green glass, as large as apples……Plumes flared suddenly above the eyes like salmon-pink peacock fans.”
my first ever drawing related to the Stone Dance
“Carnelian saw more aquar were waiting for them, larger than the ones they had been riding, as sleek and silver as fish; their plumes the colour of poppies.”
“A party of northerners lumbered past on large-headed aquar, each saddle-chair holding three or four of them, skin marbled with dirt, matted hair pebbled with amber.”
“Carnelian watched Jaspar climbing into another chariot nearby; it was yoked to a pair of pale-skinned aquar.”
Plainsmen use drag-cradles to transport people unable to walk or ride, and to carry baggage. Essentially, a drag-cradle is a stretcher, one end of which is attached to a saddle-chair, with the other dragging along the ground
model of aquar, rider and drag-cradle
I made the model shown above to explore the way saddle-chairs, drag-cradles and other Plainsman aquar equipment worked
Collars forged from various metals and alloys are worn by all the various military personnel of the Commonwealth as a token of their service to the Masters and their God Emperor. Since metallurgy is a science that the Masters keep secret to themselves, only the Masters know how to remove them. Thus a service collar becomes a form of enslavement, since the Law of the Masters mandates that anyone found wearing one outwith their proper duties can be subject to terrible punishment
Service collars bear—at the throat—a boss depicting the sigil particular to the organization to which they belong—whether it be a legion, watch-tower, ship etc. To either side of this boss are a number of sliders indicating information such as rank and length of service. Sliders on one side of the boss will show rank and insignia: on the other the number of years that the wearer has been in service
The top diagram shows some of the sliders used to show rank: a spot ring (1), a bar (5), a ‘mual’ or broken zero ring (0). The fully loaded collar shows the insignia for a dragon quartermaster of the Ichorians. The middle diagram shows a collar that would either be worn by an auxiliary squadron commander or else an Ichorian commander of twenty. The bottom diagram shows the collar worn by the auxiliary commander of a watchtower
The first sketch shows a Master sitting in the command chair of a dragon tower. Before him is the lattice bone screen that he looks out through. On either side of him kneel his Righthand and Lefthand, with the tubes connected to their helmets that allow them to be talked to by other crew in various parts of the tower. At both lower corners of the drawing can be seen the ‘voice forks’ that the Righthand and Lefthand speak into when they wish to transmit their Master’s commands
a Master in the command chair of a dragon tower
The second diagram shows a cross-section through a tower. The Master commander can be seen sitting in the topmost deck. On the roof is the ‘mirrorman’ who is used to receive and send heliograph signals and to transmit signals to and from the lookout high in the mast that can be seen passing down through the tower to the lowest deck, where it forms the axle around which the capstan turns. This capstan controls the hawser connecting to the dragon’s upper pair of horns, so allowing it to be ‘steered’. A ladder gives access to all decks. The middle deck carries, along its edges, two immense trumpets like alpine horns. The lowest deck contains the furnace that feeds naphtha to the flamepipes. These project out of the front of the tower and are balanced by means of counterweights moving within the tower. The furnace vents its exhaust back along chimneys
a cross-section through a dragon tower
The third diagram shows a plan of the lowest deck with the hawser wound round the capstan, the centrally located furnace and a flamepipe showing something of its arc of motion
plan and calculations of a dragon tower’s lower deck
The fourth diagram shows another cross-section through a tower showing the furnace and flamepipe, but also the naphtha tanks located in the tower base. It is the weight of the tower super-structure that keeps the naphtha under pressure, that forces it through the furnace where it is heated, then projected along the flamepipes to ignite, on hitting open air, in a fiery arc
cross-section showing naphtha system
The final diagram shows some rough sketches exploring how the rigging binds the upper, truncated pyramid superstructure of the tower to the base that is bound with a girdle around the belly of the beast. This rigging also ‘seals’ the naphtha tanks in the base
