The Edge Chronicles: Journeys in Earth and Sky

 It's over. Three trilogies, numerous short stories and one very large conclusive novel. Another part of my adolescence neatly squared away.

Almost. A few things remain to be said. A few. A brief essay, but first, a warning.

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SPOILERS! FILTHY, ROTTEN SPOILERS! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU VALUE ANY SENSE OF CHRONOLOGICALLY ADHERED TO MYSTERY! PAY NO MORE HEED TO THIS VILE, WRETCHED TEXT OF DEPRAVED INEQUITY AND MORTAL KOALLA WOMBAT KANGEROO! SPOILERS!!!!!

Starting off: Geography and Biology

The Edge is a jutting plateau surrounded by the swirling vapours of impenetrable storms. At any point in The Edge Chronicles it is difficult to give any exact distance between biomes and places on the plateau's horizontal plain, because the days and weeks taken to travel between points of interest are often shortened by airborne vehicles. We know that the tip of The Edge faces east, and that the furthest recorded point from the edge of The Edge, Riverrise, is in the west.

The Edge can be split into distinct spectra which run across its full width from north to south. The only constant feature across all of them is the Edgeriver, which flows from Riverise to a waterfall at the edge of The Edge. These spectra are (from tip to toe):

Open Sky:

Before The Edge actually begins a variety of churning storms blend together into what is known as 'Open Sky', a rightly feared wilderness of unpredictable weather. Because of its vast and unpredictable nature, Edge Scholars have often disregarded its study as folly. The irony of this is that at the heart of Open Sky is the White Storm, a calm 'eye' through which lifeforms are slowly integrated into Open Sky and can gain an intimate understanding of the weather.

Among the usual classifications of sleet, hail, rain, fog etc. are other storm qualities unique to The Edgeworld, such as Mind Storms and Great Storms.

One infrequent type of storm is a Great Storm; an electric cloud of sourmist particles which discharges a single bolt of lightning over The Twilight Woods. The sourmist is presumably an active agent in solidifying the lightning bolt into a substance known as stormphrax; a sort of solid lightning which reacts to light by changing its weight.

A Dark Maelstrom is a weather effect caused by what I can only assume is an implosion during high temperatures and humidity; ergo when an overdue storm cloud is forced to dissipate prematurely. While this effect was named by sky scholars in the past, it is only recorded to have happened once, when Vox Verlix launched a bomb known as 'Baby' under the aforementioned conditions.

'Mind Storms' are ordinary weather effects accompanied by downpours of emotion, presumably caused by the presence of glisters in Open Sky.

Glisters are perhaps the most phenomenal feature of The Edgeworld. They are, in short, earthbound souls, and are in their natural state highly reactive to emotions, particularly fear, sorrow, and shame. Every six hundred years (I estimate) a glister-hive known as a 'Mother Storm' leaves Open Sky and rushes to Riverrise, seeding The Edge with fresh life.

Glisters are notably impure and unstable when they have not been seeded by this process. Every so often glisters are pushed into The Edge by the weather, fusing with rock and processing emotions with general disregard for the life in their environs. These rogue glisters are also presumably those who become edgewraiths; cruel and vindictive predators who hunt on the pavement bordering Open Sky.

Yet it is not accurate to say that all life in Open Sky is evil or unstable. There are a plethora of organisms best summed up as 'logbait' who float around and latch on to whatever they come across. These are the most notably animal of the half-formed 'wraiths' from beyond The Edge.

The cloud-eater is another rarer sky-denizen. It is a being of leviathan proportions which feeds on stormphrax, and grows ill without it. The cyclical illness of the Cloud-eater is something to speculate over; during its sickness it either stops producing heat or it starts producing cold. If the former, the Cloud-eater acts as an integral part of Open Sky's mechanics by regulating the temperature of The Edgeworld. If the latter, it is simply free floating within the system of the planetary life cycle.

The Stone Gardens:

A stretch of pavement with no vegetation or native animals. The Stone Gardens are remarkable for two reasons:

The first is in the eponymous 'stones' of the gardens. They are a life form not unlike coral which grow circular 'combs' of stone flesh around a nucleus. They are said to never stop growing, but this theory has yet to actually be verified.

The most extraordinary property of the Stones (more commonly named Flight Rocks) is in their reaction to temperature. When a Stone is cooled, its buoyancy increases to a state greater than that of air so that it floats. When the Stone is heated, it rushes back to the ground. During the early ages of The Edge this property was manipulated so as to create skyships; wind-powered vessels which could be used to safely cross enormous distances.

In later years, however, the Stones were pushed to the brink of extinction by a change in their metabiological substructure (see: Glisters).

The other notable feature of The Stone Gardens are the white ravens, a bird species of above-average intelligence and alarming viciousness. The ravens have at times been trained to talk and scout for the citizens of The Edge, and in doing so played an important role in recorded history. Their migratory path is also significant for its symbiosis with the scholars of Sanctaphrax. When the Stones reach their optimum growth stage, the White Ravens fly up to the Loftus Observatory to summon the scholars to a harvest, where the wise and learned scholars then use their knowledge of temperature and the weather to extract the Stones with minimal disruption. The benefit this poses for the white ravens is questionable. They receive a small reward of meat for their efforts, and it is possible that this cleans out their roost for future hatchings.

The White Ravens left The Stone Gardens after Stone Sickness spread, and presumably scattered and integrated into the other bird populations in the area. Their similarity to Mire Ravens could be a suggestion of possible crossbreeding, which may have resulted in the inundation of new and diverse bird species across The Edge during The Third Age of Flight.

Undertown & Sanctaphrax:

The location and foundation of these two great cities is something of a mystery. They occupy what is at best the most barren belt of land in The Edge, as far as possible from every natural resource except the flight rocks, which themselves only hold value as a means to procure resources from the Deepwoods from which most of the lifeforms who reside in the city are indigenous.

This peculiar occurrence is explained by the presence of slavery in the Deepwoods. At any point during The First Age of Flight one was likely to face either shrykes (an anthropomorphous bird race with strong cultural ties to slavery), trappers, woodwolves, slavers or any number of natural predators such as the hoverworm or dreaded wig-wig. It wasn't so much that the edge was a nice place to go to get away from all this, but rather it was the only place to go to escape certain death.

Undertown:

Undertown is an amalgam of all the sentient races of The Edge: goblins, waifs, gnomes, trolls, trogs, elves and their various subspecies. It is mostly ruled by the charismatic blend of all these races, the Fourthling.

Fourthlings are said to have their bloodline sown 'across all four corners of The Edge'. As The Edge is in fact triangular, we can take this to mean that at some past point someone crossbred a goblin, a waif, a troll and a banderbear. What resulted was a surprisingly meek and wiry species which looks almost exactly like a human being, and it is the fourthlings who play the positions of protagonists in all but one of The Edge Chronicles.

Undertown is undergoing what one might imagine as a late renaissance period, with working sewers, furnaces, small factories and all manner or trade – the 'art' of the middle class. It is governed by one rule: no slavery. For some reason they forgot to make murder illegal, so it happens fairly frequently and Undertown is actually just as deadly as the Deepwoods from which it is supposed to be an escape.

As a symbol, Undertown represents civilisation at its worst, where compromise often outweighs rather than keeps balance with reward. This is because life in Undertown depends on a very strict economy, but its citizens do not acknowledge this due to all the things they have been told Undertown should be.

As a means of drawing resources into the city, the Undertowners are facilitated by the Leagues, a decadent guild system which relies on skyships to bring resources in from the Deepwoods, which they then give to the Undertowners in exchange for worked goods. The Leagues do not agree with one another, however, and always try to undercut prices by hiring Sky Pirates – unaffiliated crews with their own skyships – to sabotage, disrupt or elude the other leagues.

In addition, the Leagues depend on the technical expertise of the scholars of Sanctaphrax to harvest the flight rocks. The scholars can charge as much as they want for their services because they are so indispensable, and they do, further draining the city's funds.

And so the economic balance of Undertown teeters on the edge due to that most natural occurrence in any civilisation: competition. Resources are not evenly split, and so some suffer poverty while others enjoy outrageous luxuries.

Sanctaphrax:

Sanctaphrax is a city built on a giant flight rock, hovering far above Undertown. It is populated by sky scholars, a group of academics with their heads quite literally in the clouds. They have several institutes devoted purely to understanding different aspects of the weather, believing it to be the purest and most godly of all sciences.

At various points throughout history, Sanctaphrax is noted as being an illusionary paradise, professing to have surpassed materialism and selfishness, while truly it is anything but. Its scholars vie for positions within the colleges for the merits and comforts they offer without undertaking the proper schooling to attain them. Many of its citizens are petty and bitter, while only a slim few are truly focused on understanding the weather.

This division supposedly occurred within the last three generations of the First Age, as before that time the more level-headed earth scholars also resided within the city. Earth scholarship, governed by Librarians, offered an alternate route to knowledge by cataloguing every form of life on The Edge as well as its history and movements. Earth scholarship is noted as being more pragmatic than Sky scholarship, but given its immediate removal from civilised life in Sanctaphrax, where the weather is constant, its failure to remain popular can be understood.

Sanctaphrax is also a city which faces mortal dilemma on a regular basis. The larger its flight rock gets, the more buoyant the rock is, and the greater the chance that the city will hurdle into Open Sky. This disaster has been prevented by using stormphrax to weigh the city down, as a single piece of stormphrax in absolute darkness weights as much as fifteen thousand ironwood pines. Armed with sky ships and their immense knowledge of the weather, Sanctaphrax sends out knights chasing after Great Storms so that they can recover pieces of stormphrax before the crystals' own weight drags them into the ground.

The Mire:

Undertown's success is not without cost. Its factories have polluted the surrounding area to such an extent that life can only exist there in the most basic and depraved forms. This wasteland is The Mire, a vast slurry of white mud filled with poisonous blowholes, oozefish and mire ravens.

The Mire is such a desolate and uncomfortable place it doesn't have any notable history in the story of The Edge. It is one of many hardships the Deepwood's refugees must cross in order to reach Undertown, and is also shelter to criminals and outcasts who the city will not accept. The Sky Pirates settled here after the end of The First Age, preying off the highway which was built to cross The Mire in safety.

It is noted that after Undertown was destroyed, The Mire returned to its natural state, becoming a wetland plain populated by a wide variety of birds.

The Twilight Woods:

Perhaps the strangest and most deadly place in all of The Edge, The Twilight Woods are a sepia spread of trees populated by undying visitors who have become lost within.

It is difficult to make suggestions as to why The Twilight Woods are what they are. Their sepia colouring and constant twilight could be attributed to the large quantities of phraxdust which have spread through the forest at the will of the Great Storms, but it is unlikely that phraxdust would have remained stable in the woods if there were not a state of constant twilight there in the first place. Regardless, the woods exist, and they are very difficult to study.

The woods have another effect; the ability to induce dementia in living creatures and infinitely prolong their lives. As regular phraxdust does not do this, we can assume there is another element restricted to the woods which reacts with the dust and causes it to behave differently.

The only living beings exempt from this dementia are the shrykes, who make use of their immunity by ferrying other species through the woods at exorbitant prices. They are said to be immune due to them having a 'third eyelid', so it can be assumed the nervous reaction sepia dust has with its victims is due to contact with the eyes.

The Deepwoods:

The largest and most complicated of all the strata, the Deepwoods are the main beneficiary of the life sewn into The Edge at Riverrise. Their general theme is in that 'they are what they don't look like'. Luscious fruit is generally poisonous, while bugs such as the hairy thousandfoot taste scrumptious. The furry and innocent looking wig-wigs are fierce carnivores who hunt in swarms, while the monstrous banderbears are gentle and sophisticated.

Yet despite the many zoological treasures of the woods, it is the trees that are of the greatest importance. As little mining exists in The Edge until The Third Age, metal is commonly replaced by Ironwood and Copperwood. Under natural conditions, Sumpwood is as buoyant as air, while other trees such as the Lullabee produce a 'singing' noise when they burn, and the Bloodoak – a carnivorous tree symbiotically linked to the Tarryvine – is an odd combination of both hard and bouyant. While flight rocks sink when they become hot, trees do the opposite and float when they catch fire. This is manipulated by sky captains to make ships that are resistant to external weather effects.

There are many communities who live within the Deepwoods, but the two who commonly deal with the sky merchants are the woodtrolls and the slaughterers. Slaughterers hail from The Silver Pastures, herding hammelhorns (a type of cattle similar to oxen) and producing tilder meat, a delicious kind of venison. Woodtrolls by contrast are isolated lumberjacks who do not frequently travel due to their cultural demand of 'sticking to the path'; a network of safe locations running through the mayhem of the Deepwoods. They are known to be the finest in their trade, and can be relied on for all kinds of lumber to expand upon the civilisation at the edge of The Edge.

The Shryke Roost is another feature of the Deepwoods; a moving city ruled by the Shrykes which moves as it slowly kills off areas of the forest. It is best known for its slave labour, but it is also a gathering point for merchants and traders across the continent.

Waif Country:

The Thorn Forests and Night Woods are collectively known as Waif Country, and are seldom visited by any but the most obscure races. Even the waifs are said to hate waif country, because under the dominion of eternal night and cut off from the Ages of Flight by fierce storms they afford few comforts.

Waif country is populated not only by the educated waif tribes and their wilder counterparts, but by dwarves (portly, beaked goblins) and Nameless Ones, the 'half-formed' offspring of Riverrise. It is overrun by large mushrooms, fungus and thorns, and until the foundation of the City of Night it had absolutely no formed society of any kind. Waifs repeatedly threw themselves against the Thorn Forests and died in droves in their efforts to escape Waif Country. Very few succeeded.

Riverrise:

Riverrise is the source of the Edgeriver, and as such the font of all life through The Edge. It is held up with reverent and holy esteem, protected by the natural barriers of Waif Country and the turbulent skies overhead. The Riverrise spring is on a high pinnacle of rock – though the spring's nature suggests it is much deeper than the shallow basin it appears – and has a single spike in the middle rising from it. Eight pillars surround the spring (A hint at an Eighth World, perhaps?) as well as a garden of edible vegetation.

The sanctity of Riverrise originates in the presence of Chine, a purifying powder which makes up the spring's shores. Chine is the hidden reactant of true creation, by which I mean to say it is the substance which separates the creation of monsters like edgewraiths and rogue glisters from the life of the Deepwoods. Without undergoing purification in the Riverrise pool, glisters remain spiritual constructs without true physicality that feed off emotions rather than flesh. So while Open Sky provides a soul, Riverrise provides a body.

~

Other articles of note in the Edgeworld are the moon and sun, of which there is one of each, the stars, of which constellations are named.

The Cultural Question: Edgeworld Inhabitants

Like many classic fairy tales, The Edge Chronicles have numerous humanoid species who highlight specific cultural attributes of exact groups. While most of these are common to the genre, others exist as unique representations.

Goblins:

Goblins are distinct from the other inhabitants of The Edge in that they are rebels; if not to other cultures, then to their own. The most vocal of them are the flathead, hammerhead, longhaired and tufted goblins. These races are warlike, traditionally nomadic barbarians who raid communities for food and make little with their own hands. In civilised societies they hold positions as guards or mercenaries.

The common type of goblins are called symbites, and include gnokgoblins (craftsmen), low-bellies (farmers), and gyles (foragers). Symbites appear to be fairly easygoing, but they are not without their own power or demands. They are generally denounced as weak by the warrior tribes, and are bullied by them whenever they reside in the same community. It is, however, the strength in numbers which the symbites hold that allows them to fight back against civil injustice. The common form generally follows: the symbites elect a leader (grossmother, flathead, longhaired), and grow steadily more irate at their abuse of power. They then band together, kill their leader, and set up a new one who they hope will treat them kinder. This cycle of revolution is distinctly different from that of the other races, because it never really changes anything permanently. I reckon goblins just like to have something they can fight against and blame for their problems.

Gnomes:

The mobgnomes are a staple in Undertown, but lack the diversity present across the other races. They are described as being similar to gnokgoblins in appearance.

Trolls:

Against the usual trend of storytelling, the trolls of Edgeworld are surprisingly sedate. The two main types, the woodtrolls and the gabtrolls, show an alarming enthusiasm for their respective crafts (carpentry and alchemy) and hold them dearly to ancestral laws and recipes.

The Brogtrolls are less intelligent, large and muscular. They are not generally violent, but their natural benefits are generally put to use in the warlike exploits of others.

Trogs:

Trogs are regarded as the most primitive of all species. Skulltrogs still live in tribes in the wild, as do the more cultured termagant trogs who reside beneath it. The trogs common to the cities are the cloddertrogs, who make up the bulk of the working class. They are fond of alcohol and perform manual labour to get by.

Elves:

The barkelves and oakelves are two of the tamer species of the Deepwoods, naturally in tune with the elemental forces of nature and with druidic wisdom. The oakelves are known to sleep within the cocoons of the caterbird, and by doing so they dream what the caterbird sees. They are the most shamanistic and religious of all the races, secluding themselves in monastic retreats in all but the most uncommon cases.

Waifs:

The many breeds of waif that populate The Night Woods all share the ability to read thoughts. This tends to make them fairly shadowy characters, serving as assassins and information brokers in populated areas. They are a rarity in The Edge, and tend to do pretty well for themselves.

The mental abilities of the waifs vary. Woodwaifs and nightwaifs can simply read and project thoughts, often at great distances or in large numbers, but the more primal waifs – ghostwaifs and flitterwaifs – can remove memories and daze their victims.

Banderbears:

Unique and certainly deserving of mention, banderbears epitomise the Deepwoods. Large and ferocious, timid and pacifistic, the banderbears succeeded in creating a society in the Deepwoods where many failed.

Banderbears are solitary by necessity, because any numbered group in the Deepwoods becomes a target. They communicate with one another by yodeling, sharing their stories with one another every night. By keeping in constant verbal contact, they have amassed a large and irregular library of Edge lore, knowing what plants and paths are safe, which individuals can be trusted and which parts of the woods need to be avoided. Indeed their only downfall is that they have never learned to climb trees, and so they often fall prey to the predatory wig-wigs with no chance of escape.

Every once in a while the banderbears have a Great Convocation in which they meet up and tell their stories to one another. Presumably it is here that they learn new lingual concepts for their poetic language, which includes a wide range of gestures in addition to its usually limited vocal range.

Banderbears do occasionally find their way into the cities, captured by slavers and rare animal traders who make use of their physical resemblance to wild beasts.

Shrykes:

The shrykes were a dark force which dominated the First and Second Ages despite being... well... 'giant chickens'.

Shrykes are carnivorous bird-warriors who revel in bloodshed, practice slavery and hold animal fights for pleasure. Most shrykes are women, who are much larger and have more elegant plumage than their males. They treat the males of their species as pets, making them wear collars to keep them out of trouble. Most males are sympathetic to the other races and attempt to defy the shrykes' will when they can.

One can assume that as the shrykes have claws rather than fingers, they lack the manual dexterity possessed by the other races and must rely on them for common tasks. Their claws are however useful for cutting out warm entrails and devouring them raw.

Shrykes use bone flails in combat and wear body armour, despite the fact that they don't seem to have any proficiency as smiths. This all points to their position as an 'overclass' which forces other more able beings to do work for them.

Shrykes are born in hatcheries, and fed on a steady supply of tilder. They can grow at an alarming rate, reaching adulthood in a matter of weeks. They are ruled by a roost mother, who is given supreme authority over the other shrykes and is inevitably a devastating loss when she dies, as the shryke roost quietens for a long while after her death.

Though shrykes continue to live in The Third Age, they no longer have the numbers or resources they once did. Only tavernkeepers and a single agent remain to be seen after the Battle of Lufwood Mount.

Fourthlings:

Fourthlings are widely tolerated throughout The Edge, brokering peace between the various races with skill and efficiency. Within the cities they almost always rule the dominant economic and intellectual classes. The wisdom of this is debatable. In Undertown and Sanctaphrax, their ill governance kept the city on the verge of disaster. In the Free Glades they shared their power with goblins and waifs with more immediate success.

Fourthlings represent the best and worst parts of humanity, usually being a mixture of brilliant and greedy, and conflicted between the two. It is also worth noting that there are very few fourthlings of intermediate age encountered in the Chronicles, most of them either being very old or very young.

Edgewraiths, rubbleghouls, skullpelts, rockdemons & gloamglozers:

The most vile inhabitants of The Edge are the half-formed and phantasmal beings who prey on all the others. As is hinted at by their names, they are the undead and the demonic forces of the world; beings who have not undergone natural birth, but have swooped in directly from Open Sky into The Edge without feeling the curative effects of Chine.

~

While there are certainly more species I could name here, I won't. These are the main ones that distinguish the series and highlight that though its form is strange, it is indeed a fairytale.

The Chronicles: A History of The Edgeworld

As with any good setting, The Edgeworld changes. The events in the very first book set out a chain reaction which directly relates to all the others. But before I go through each of those individual stories in detail, there are matters of ancient history to deal with.

Before The First Age:

The oldest characters of the Edgeworld are immortals who represent the natural elements of The Edge, being earth, air and water. The caterbird claims that they were brought about by the first cycles of the Mother Storm across Edgeworld. The first was the Sanctaphrax Rock. The second was the Great Blueshell Clam. The third was the caterbird itself.

The oldest humanoid is Kobold the Wise, a [fourthling] creature who united the thousand competing tribes of The Edgeworld under one united party. His legend is tied up in that of Riverrise, from where he is said to have ruled.

Riverrise was lost to time after Kobold's death, but given the presence of a handful of Chine in Sanctaphrax we can assume that the legacy of his thousand tribes eventually reached the edge of The Edge. Sanctaphrax is said to be ancient – indeed what may have been the first of its buildings was build close to the heart of the rock. This laboratory was a place where ancient scholars toyed at creating life. They made a machine which would trap a glister and give it substance, but without understanding the essential purification required through Chine, the monster they made, the Rogue Glister, soon killed the ancient scholars and claimed their laboratory as its home.

The First Age of Flight:

Even so, Sanctaphrax grew, and Undertown with it. It would be fitting to say that the same Mother Storm which ended Kobold's reign seeded the first glisters into The Stone Gardens and brought new flight rocks to The Edge.

During what may be seen as our equivalent to medieval times, Sanctaphrax flourished as a home for both sky scholarship and earth scholarship. The anchor chain was made to root Sanctaphrax in place at the edge, and the laboratory at its heart was forgotten. Eyes slowly turned to sky scholarship, and the Great Library of Sanctaphrax fell into disrepair.

Little can be said of this period of history up until the appearance of Cloud Wolf, during the renaissance of The First Age. While the Leagues experimented with all kinds of skyships, Linius Pallitax tried to rally support for the dying science of Earth Study and used his position as Most High Academe for the good of all.

Cloudwolf:

A short story detailing how Quintinius Verginix earned his pirate name. The story demonstrates the variety of skyships used in The First Age and rather comically points out that while The Edge Chronicles contain an average of about three females to ten males per story, there are in fact skyships crewed wholly by women who go off to save the world and face dangerous bikini waxes while no-one is looking.

The Curse of the Gloamglozer:

Not long after, Quint arrives in Sanctaphrax and meets Maris Pallitax and her father, and is apprenticed to the Most High Academe to keep out of danger until he is old enough to join his father aboard his skyship. While less than enamoured with this state of affairs, Quint soon finds himself entrenched in a great mystery. Linius Pallitax has found the Ancient Laboratory within Sanctaphrax and created a Gloamglozer. The gloamglozer is a phantasmal shapeshifter who feeds off fear and sadness, and seeks to escape the laboratory and be free. To make a long story much shorter, Linius Pallitax is mortally wounded by his creation and it escapes despite Quint's efforts to subdue it. When Quint attempts to kill it with Chine, the Gloamglozer swears to hunt down all of Quint's descendants and kill them instead.

Quint and Maris are left to care for the ailing Linius Pallitax, and their futures look bleak.

Allegory aside, this novel deals mainly with the themes of responsibility and fear. Sanctaphrax is an ideal setting because it is the closest symbol of divine power on The Edge, upholding high standards and knowledge as key. With such things there is always responsibility, and when neglected or misused it develops a body of its own and acts independently of its maker. In this case fire and the Gloamglozer are interlinked as external and ever-present manifestations of fear which spread and devour if left unchecked.

It is important to note that this first story doesn't have a happy ending. The gloamglozer can be kept at bay, but the protagonists do not have the tools essential to defeating their enemy. That victory can only come later, after fighting countless battles and slowly gaining ground by merit of moral and responsible actions.

The Winter Nights:

Not long after the events of the previous book, Linius Pallitax dies and his charges are left to fend for themselves. Maris is embroiled in the plots of her Leagues cousins down in Undertown, while Quint catches a break and is apprenticed to one of the new Most High Academes, allowing him to enroll in the prestigious Knight's Academy. Here he learns how to go about stormchasing, with the ultimate intention of recovering stormphrax from a Great Storm.

What follows is one of the most trying times in Sanctaphrax' long history, as they enter a bitterly cold winter which refuses to end. The prime danger of this is in that the Sanctaphrax Rock becomes ever more buoyant with the cold, and stands the risk of 'hurdling' once it freezes over completely. Typical plots are underfoot in the city while Quint does the best he can to treat all those he meets with fairness and respect, regardless of rank, station, or indeed, attitude.

As tensions in the city elevate to civil war between the colleges, Quint and his friends stumble upon a forgotten account of a similar winter in the untapped stores of knowledge once tended by the librarians. Outfitting the last skyship in the academy for a voyage to Open Sky, 'The Winter Knights' fly off and encounter the Cloud-eater, feeding it stormphrax to stop its icy exhalations upon The Edge.

Returning victorious, Wind Jackal then takes Quint and Maris from Sanctaphrax (which is obviously not as safe as he had hoped) and the heroes sail off across The Edge.

The themes of this chronicle play out like a religious parable; as Sanctaphrax slowly becomes corrupt, desperate and stubborn (refusing to turn to Earth Studies to solve their problem), it is only those few who stay principled and open-minded who have a chance at saving the city. While scholars grow obsessed with the idea of bringing more stormphrax onto the city to counteract the cold, The Winter Knights make the necessary sacrifice of giving stormphrax away and treating the cause rather than the symptoms of the cold. It hints that though sharing weakens one's self it strengthens the whole community.

Stone Pilot:

This short story tells us about Maugin, a termagant trog who suffers terrible mood swings due to being removed from the stable (though sterile) underworld of the trog caverns. It is of great worth to compare Maugin's thinking with the events of the previous book.

Quint and Maris encounter Maugin along with Tem Barkwater in a Deepwoods slave market, and 'recruit' them by showing them kindness and offering them positions aboard Wind Jackal's ship. One dramatic battle later, this indeed comes to pass.

During the process of the battle Maugin learns about Flight Rocks and likens their buoyancy fluctuations to those of her own emotions. As the story plays out as a collection of her own memories, she avoids those which make her depressed and uses happy memories to counteract their effect on her. In doing so she notes the unhealthiness of becoming 'too hot' or 'too cold', and stays at a neutral medium. She hides herself behind the heavy blast-gear of the Stone Pilots, and only names herself and interacts with those who she knows for certain that she can trust.

In short, she is the most awesome character in the whole history of The Edge Chronicles and I'm really pi$$ed they killed her off in the setting of the last book.

The Clash of the Sky Galleons:

Quint's story continues in what is easily the quintessential pirate novel. Rumours begin to surface as to the whereabouts of Turbot Smeal, the man who set alight the Western Quays of Undertown to revenge himself against Wind Jackal, killing all of his family but Quint. At the same time, the Leagues are preparing for war against the sky pirates, hoping to devastate their rebel alliance and unite for the sake of profit.

And in the middle is Thaw Daggerslash, the representative of the worst attributes of the fourthlings, and thus of humanity. He is two-faced and cunning, greedy, ambitious and conniving. His only desire is to captain Wind Jackal's ship, and he sets aside every moral the sky pirates hold dear to do so.

Thaw uses Wind Jackal's obsession with Turbot Smeal against him, luring him into peril and killing him, though this is hidden from the crew. Following shortly after is a democratic vote as to whether Thaw or Quint should captain the Galerider. Quint wins, and Thaw sides with the Leagues as a last hope for captaincy.

The League's ships face off against the Sky Pirate fleet, and though they are initially superior the greed they uphold is the very cause of their destruction; their flagship, grossly oversized by the manipulation of stormphrax and sky scholarship, fails once the sky scholars have pocketed the League's money. This leads to the swift end of the League's alliance, and the sky pirates are saved.

Quint and Maris continue to serve aboard the Galerider, though they soon return to Sanctaphrax so that Quint can finish his term at the Knight's Academy.

This novel returns to the themes of responsibility and fear, as well as adding in that of ethics. At heart, the characters of Thaw and Quint have certain innate similarities. They are both capable, charming and driven, and they share the same fate in captaining the Galerider. What separates them is that Thaw is willing to take the ship at any cost, while Quint understands that captaincy is earned through work rather than the currency work provides.

Thaw's background is hidden from the reader, so all we have to go on is that he has little material wealth. He operates in a manner that suggests he is comfortable cheating and swindling his way to the top, ergo he gains a value of money disproportionate to the work he has done. In doing so, he has failed to understand how fragile his assets are and neglects to see the liabilities that weigh against him. It is these same liabilities that are his undoing, as he is struck down by a gentle banderbear who he starved and alienated.

Quint, on the other hand, while disenfranchised to a degree by the fire that claimed his former life has understood that wealth is not purely a material exchange. He sees the benefits of friendship and sacrifice, having faith in the balance of The Edge even when it is not bound up in contracts or proof.

Wind Jackal is the same, though his grief has caused him to focus on an economic deficit rather than accumulation: he sees only what Turbot Smeal took from him, and needs to do equal harm to him in return. Thaw manipulates this and uses it as a means to remove Wind Jackal from the books.

The larger battle between the sky pirates and the Leagues is naturally a mirror of the war between a physical and spiritual economy; the worth of honour versus the worth of wealth.

Between the Quint & Twig Trilogies:

A great deal occurs in the intermediate years before the series' focus changes to Twig. Sanctaphrax begins to feel the setbacks of the long winter in which they sacrificed most of their sky ships and practically all of their Knight Academics. With so little stormphrax in their treasury, the increasing size of the Sanctaphrax Rock cannot be kept in check. To complicate matters, the treasury is being raided by the dubious and corrupt scholars of the city.

By sheer dumb luck, Vilnix Pompolnius, a wicked scholar typical of Sanctaphrax's alumni, converts a small portion of stormphrax into phraxdust and discovers that a single speck is capable of purifying large amounts of water. He presents his discovery to Sanctaphrax on the same day Quint is to set off on a stormchasing voyage and convinces them that the city's salvation lies in the creation of additional anchor chains rather than in the antiquated and unsuccessful practice of stormchasing. He proposes that they use the phraxdust to purify the waters of the Edgeriver to keep the factories of Undertown running, allowing production to increase exponentially.

Vilnix is declared the new Most High Academe, while Quint leaves the city in a cloud of ire. He returns to sky piracy alongside Maris, and she falls pregnant. At the time of Twig's birth they are in debt, stranded in the Deepwoods and not in any way capable of raising their child. They make a gamble by leaving him in a woodtroll village, where they hope he will be safe until they can return to him.

Maris is distraught by their choice, and stops speaking for many years. To redeem herself, she stays in Undertown collecting orphans and strays while Quint returns to his sky-sailing. Eventually she and her family's aging butler, Tweezel, gather up their orphan brood and leave the increasingly harsh industrial waste of Undertown, making their way through the Deepwoods. It is here they found a tranquil glen to build a new home, and named it The Freeglades. In time, it would become a beacon of hope for freedom and prosperity across The Edge.

Beyond the Deepwoods:

Twig is raised in an isolated village among a species he has no natural affinity with. While he and the trolls can share basic concepts such as love and family, he does not fit into the same mold that keeps woodtrolls safely 'on the path'. Unbeknownst to him he sees his father at least once over the years, and is impressed by the grandeur of sky piracy.

Twig eventually does stray from the path, and undergoes an aberrational odyssey which is intended to serve as an introduction to The Edgeworld. The specifics of the story highlight his bravery, tenacity and compassion, as well as a few less admirable traits; his short temper, and tendencies to panic and to see himself as an outsider.

The story is accompanied by the deeper threat of the gloamglozer, who has travelled to the Deepwoods to spread fear in its usual fashion. Twig unwittingly enters into a pact with this demon to keep himself safe from the dangers of the Deepwoods, which also keeps him in constant danger and quenches the gloamglozer's appetite (by way of a continual 'fear of death' diet).

It is also on his travels that Twig encounters the Caterbird during one of its hatchings, and in doing so wins the karmic jackpot: much like grappling a leprechaun, witnessing the birth of the Caterbird places the viewer under its protection. The Caterbird thus appears to save Twig when the gloamglozer gains a taste for his despair and leads him over the edge of The Edge.

Shortly after, Twig is dropped aboard his father's skyship, which he previously witnessed crash and helped to recover. He shows Quint a baby blanket with a stitched lullabee tree on its surface which proves his relation to him, and is accepted onto the crew.

As this was the first book written in The Edge Chronicles, its themes are not so grand or episodic as in the other books. Rather than having a great effect on the history of The Edge, the novel focuses on the changes that occur within Twig the individual. Most importantly he learns to stand up to his fear of being an outcast by confronting the gloamglozer, and in doing so his eccentricity becomes one of his greatest assets when he joins the wider community of The Edge.

Stormchaser:

Twig's initial struggles to fit in with the skyship's crew are complicated by his father's obligations to fairness. Quint has obviously changed much since his youth, becoming harder and more threatening, but no less honourable.

When the ship reaches Undertown, the details of the latter half of Quint's life are divulged, and it is revealed that a Great Storm is approaching. Vilnix's monopoly is proved to be failing; he cannot produce more phraxdust and the Sanctaphrax treasury is almost empty after years of trying to create more. The city's anchor chains are failing, and Undertown is too polluted to create more of them.

After repairing the extensive damage to his ship, Quint and his crew head off on the first stormchasing voyage to take place since his days at the academy. Matters are complicated by a mutiny, and Quint is left stranded in the heart of the Great Storm while his crew evacuate to the deadly Twilight Woods below. They band together, but fail to recover any stormphrax. The sepia dust begins to work on them and many – including Tem Barkwater – vanish into the dream-benighted woods.

The Stone Pilot (Maugin), Twig and the Professor of Light (who came to oversee the voyage) make it to The Mire, with the rest of the crew dying from the temporarily alleviated wounds from their crash. At the edge of The Mire they meet a guide who promises to take them back to Undertown but chooses to hunt them down and cut off their toes instead. Inside the storm-wrecked skyship the toe-taker made his home Twig and Maugin discover the truth: the murderer was in fact Screedius Tollinix, a knight academic of Quint's era who failed his stormchasing quest and in his zealotry began collecting shards of stormphrax from beneath the nails of those who escaped The Twilight Woods. They discover his large store of stormphrax, rebuild his ship, and return to Undertown victorious.

Twig then proceeds to save the twin cities by evading Vilnix for long enough to return stormphrax to the Sanctaphrax treasury and by providing the citizens of Undertown with the formula for creating phraxdust (discovered in his last moments by the Professor of Light) and thereby the means to purify their polluted drinking water.

At the very end, Twig purchases a new skyship and crews it with fresh faces, and is visited by the Caterbird. It is revealed to him that Quint is alive and waiting for him back out in Open Sky. Twig sets out over The Edge with the caterbird to guide him.

Stormchaser is a story about taking what you can from the past and carrying it into the future. This is ideal, as Twig is undergoing his first chance to learn about his father and connect with him. While there are some parts he clearly does not like – how his father distances himself and pushes Twig away – there are others he adopts openly. Vilnix' dominion over Sanctaphrax is once again a societal reflection of tradition versus rebellion. Rebellion in this case is wrong because it is self-serving, but in Twig's rebellion against his father, in which he stows away on his ship in direct defiance of his will, he is anything but self-serving. The subliminal message that carries through this contrary message of both upholding tradition and rebelling against it is that it is only important to do what is right, no matter what external source advocates it. Screedius Tollinix was so obsessed with tradition he failed in this regard, while Vilnix did not and also failed because he was similarly concerned with how the goal could support his desire to be the hero rather than how heroism could best serve the goal. Twig succeeds because he puts the goal ahead of himself, plunging ahead-on into danger so that he can achieve the goal regardless of whether he lives to enjoy its benefits.

Midnight over Sanctaphrax:

Twig's journey into Open Sky is almost a complete disaster. While the Caterbird succeeds in guiding the skyship Edgedancer into the very heart of Open Sky – the fabled White Storm – and he arrived to hear his father speak a terrible omen before disintegrating into the storm completely, the Edgedancer is destroyed, its crew hurdled across The Edgeworld, and Twig himself left with a crippled mind. Twig's saving grace is that he is found in The Stone Gardens before the white ravens can devour him and is nursed back to health in Sanctaphrax by the Professor of Darkness.

In this novel we are introduced to a new protagonist, young Cowlquape Pentaphraxis, who is possibly the last scholar of Earth Studies left in the whole of Sanctaphrax. Cowlquape befriends Twig during his recovery and once he begins to regain his memory Twig takes the lad on as his apprentice. The pair then set out to find Twig's lost crew, using a chart the Professor of Darkness made of odd 'shooting stars' which appeared the night Twig returned from Open Sky.

Throughout their travels across The Edge they find the crew, and during this time Twig imbues book-learned Cowlquape with his own courage and daring. Their quest takes them as far as Riverrise, where they find Maugin waiting for them. She alone remembers the message Quint gave his son in the White Storm, foretelling the appearance of The Mother Storm, which must travel across The Edge unobstructed in order to reseed Riverrise. Sanctaphrax is blocking the storm's path, and if it does not move it will end life on The Edge forever.

In a grand feat that defied time itself, Maugin calculated the exact angle and temperature with which to launch Twig and Cowlquape into the air on a burning tree so that they would land in Undertown before midnight. They completed a journey that should take weeks in a matter of hours, called for the evacuation of Sanctaphrax and severed its anchor chain.

Twig gives Cowlquape the Sanctaphrax seal, an ancient artefact handed down by the Most High Academes from one to another in recognition of their rank and title. As Sanctaphrax's new ruler, Cowlquape will attempt to unite the scattered earth and sky scholars and oversee the growth of a new Sanctaphrax Rock. Twig himself sets out on a new journey to return to Maugin and make good on his promise to save his crew.

Midnight over Sanctaphrax is a story about endings. It captures the spirit of The Edge at the end of The First Age, and documents the spread of Twig's ideals into what is hoped to be a new era of peace and unity. The difficult necessity of letting go of Sanctaphrax is the same thing I imagine the authors feel at needing to let go of Twig and the current Edgeworld in order to make something better. The novel is a reminder that though change is trying, it can be for the better.

Twig's journey from Open Sky to Riverrise could simply be seen as an attempt to capture The Edgeworld in its full panorama, but it also has important context in that it follows the same route as the Mother Storm. While the storm seeds The Edge with glisters as the natural counterpart of life, Twig is seeding it with ideas as to how that life should be lived.

Between the Twig and Rook Trilogies:

New Sanctaphrax is not a success. Despite Cowlquape's best efforts, commerce in Undertown fails due to the arrival of Stone Sickness. Poisoned by unsanctified glisters from Open Sky, the flight rocks begin to crumble and lose their marvellous properties.

An engineering genius named Vox Verlix comes up with a solution to the problem, and sets out on a series of ambitious but flawed projects intended to cure The Edge. He constructs a highway across The Mire and into the Deepwoods with the aid of the Shrykes, though they seize the road so as to tax any travellers and profit off their trade. He constructs the Tower of Midnight, which is supposed to harness lightning and in doing so cure the New Sanctaphrax Rock. The Guardians of Night who once helped Vox claim the title of Most High Academe from Cowlquape set themselves up in the tower and force him to live in Undertown.

To stop the New Sanctaphrax Rock from becoming earthed to The Edge, Vox then works on plans to construct a forest of Ironwood pines beneath the Rock, using slaves and goblin mercenaries to keep them in check. The goblins then imprison Vox in his home and overrun Undertown, ruling over it with brute force.

The free factions of The Edge are forced to live in secrecy. Cowlquape's attempts to unite the Edge scholars were not completely unsuccessful; the librarians have accumulated a vast store of knowledge and hidden it in the city sewers, from which they operate and strike back at the unjust forces above. Their societal counterpart is in the now-flourishing Freeglades.

The Slaughterer's Quest:

This short story is about Twig's daughter, who has grown up alone among the slaughterers of her mother's village while Twig attempts to return to Riverrise. Keris grows up with only a dim memory of her father and a great desire to meet him and join him in his adventures. One day her village is visited by the crested goblins of Four Lakes, who claim that their Great Blueshell Clam will know where Twig is and will lead Keris to him.

Keris then makes the trying journey to Four Lakes and speaks with the ancient clam, who points her to The Freeglades. Keris sets off once again, and takes with her the means to birth new Blueshell Clams in the lake at The Freeglades.

In The Freeglades Keris meets several important characters, such as Tweezel, who has created a varnish which can stabilise sumpwood and is the cause of The Second Age of Flight; Shem Barkwater, who she will later couple with to birth Rook; and lastly her grandmother Maris, who is living in a caternest on Lullabee Isle.

Keris' voyage is similar to Twig's own in Beyond the Deepwoods, and gives a great deal of insight into what brought about The Second Age. It is also the most significant to the ancient water element of
The Edge, the Great Blueshell Clam, who is not honoured or spoken of with the same frequency as those 'of Earth and Sky'. While Earth and Sky are vital parts of the cycle between life and death, water's part is more obscure; it is the medium through which life travels, forming a connection between the two (As glisters pour down from Riverrise through the Edgeriver). This is an odd role for it to play, as water is very rarely regarded as a medium of travel in The Edge, that part being given over to Sky and flight.

The Second Age of Flight:

The Last of the Sky Pirates:

After being rescued as a baby in the Deepwoods (Karis and Shem devoured by hungry woodwolves), Rook has lived his whole life in the sewers, raised by librarians. Against the traditional selection process he is chosen to undergo his treatise voyage to The Freeglades where he will learn to become a librarian knight. Rooks sets off with his companions and the reader, much like Rook, has to discover what The Edge is like from scratch.

Rook completes his training and leaves The Freeglades to learn the language of the banderbears, hoping to witness a Great Convocation. He does so, and by a twist of fate he meets his grandfather Twig, who has been living amongst the banderbears for several years. He tells Twig what has happened to The Edge, and reveals to him that Cowlquape Pentaphraxis has been imprisoned within the Tower of Night. Twig then recovers his skyship – the last working skyship in The Edge, isolated and thus spared from stone sickness – and they travel to the edge of The Edge to assault the tower.

Cowlquape is rescued, but in the process Twig is mortally injured. The Caterbird appears at his side once more, and carries him past the horizon to Riverrise, where he will at last be united with his lost crew.

Rook and Cowlquape return to the librarians of Undertown and join the guerrilla war against its cruel masters.

This chapter is opposed to Twigs story in that it is an exodus rather than an odyssey. Rook is moving from a place of practical neutrality and sensory deprivation to one whose vivacity nourishes and transforms its occupants. The key feature of the tale is that though paradise can indeed exist, its existence doesn't automatically negate the presence of hell. Rook willingly leaves The Freeglades in order to strike out against the world's injustice, defying the nature of exodus as a path of escape and elevating it to the fourth dimension. Change is something achieved by moving forward rather than side-to-side.

Vox:

Shortly after the raid on The Tower of Night, Rook is shot down over Screetown (the ruined eastern half of Undertown, where oddly enough the Western Quays lie buried) and travels across the city trying to reunite with the librarians. He gets caught up in Vox's latest plot; the invention of 'baby', a bomb which will trigger a Dark Maelstrom and destroy Undertown. Despite his efforts to prevent it, the bomb is launched and Undertown is destroyed. Vox's plans decimate the forces of the goblins and the shrykes, and obliterate the Guardians of Night. Only the librarians survive, taking their library with them along The Great Mire Road.

Vox continues Rook's backwards-exodus, and is somewhat reminiscent of Dante's Inferno as Rook encounters the flavourful tortures at the tip of The Edge. The difference is in that this is not Rook's story: despite everything he tries to do, he plays as nothing more than a witness to what is actually Vox's story.

This chapter is a reminder of what villains always forget: evil has consequences. The librarians need to do little more than survive while the other power hungry forces of The Edge consume one another, as the librarians are the least threatening given their restraint and civility. Once these forces are done 'equalling out', the true adventure can begin.

Freeglader:

Freeglader begins with the librarians and the citizens of Undertown escaping the Dark Maelstrom across The Mire, skirting around The Twilight Woods and combatting the last of the Shrykes within the Deepwoods. It then tracks the integration of the librarians and undertowners with the local populace, and finishes off with one last battle for freedom against The Goblin Nations. In a final echo of Vox, the warlike goblins prove to be their own destruction by treating their peasantry unpleasantly.

Rook's part in the story is tied up with that of Xanth, a repentant Guardian of Night whose actions have led to the deaths of many of those who he now calls comrades. Matters are not helped when Rook is struck by a Sepia Storm and loses his memory in a similar fashion to Twig (one might see this as a link between the components of sepia dust and Open Sky), so that he cannot vouch for Xanth's guilt and desire to change.

Rook struggles to regain what he has lost, not only of his memory but of his character. He finds himself leaving the librarians to join the Lancers, a freeglade defence force.

This last novel in the Rook Trilogy is distinct from Midnight Over Sanctaphrax in that it deals not with endings, but with the consequences of change. Rook has now succeeded in defeating the dark forces of The Edge, but because he has done so he can never go back to being the person he was at the beginning of the story. In Xanth's case this is positive, but in Rook's it is debatably negative; he was a fantastic librarian knight and could have done much to further scholarship within the Freeglades. Instead he is forced into the role of protector, having to battle against evil ever after to ensure the safety of the new world he has helped to bring about.

The Blooding of Rufus Filatine:

This short story follows on a couple of decades after Freeglader, and tells of how Xanth's son serves among the Lancers. The Freeglades have not changed, but they are once more in peril. The explosive power of stormphrax has been discovered by a weaponist set up near The Twilight Woods, and he is using his skill to arm the goblin and shryke raiders who remain in the Deepwoods. The lancers defeat this weaponist and Rufus manages to secure one of the stormphrax explosives and deliver it to his father. Xanth reverse-engineers the weapon and finds a method of harnessing the released energy of the stormphrax into a portable engine.

This last story is an introduction into the Third Age of Flight, much like it is an introduction to manhood for Rufus as he completes the liminal ceremony of 'blooding' his lance. In a way, it shows that The Edgeworld is losing its innocence and becoming something more evolved than it once was.

The Third Age of Flight:

Nearing the end of Rook's life he travels to Riverrise with Cancaress, the waif leader, and disappears from history, leaving behind five children to carry on his name in the Freeglades.

Five hundred years pass before The Immortals takes place, during which time The Edgeworld undergoes industrial revolution. The Freeglades become the city of Great Glades, The Goblin Nations become the city of Hive, and unexpectedly Riverrise is populated by a new City of Night, home to the waifs and settling gabtrolls.

The Immortals:

The story focuses on the latest hero of the Verginix bloodline, Nate Quarter. Nate has spent his youth working his hardest to make a living in the phraxmines bordering The Twilight Woods, but has to leave suddenly when his father's murderer, a greedy foreman, decides to dispose of him too.

Nate finds work in Great Glades, making friends and enemies along the way. These enemies soon drive him out of the city and away to Hive, where they hope to find a witness who can prove Nate's innocence. They do so, but Nate and his friend Eudoxia are separated from the group and are force-marched into a battle between Great Glades and Hive. Eudoxia is mortally wounded during the battle, and so Nate enlists the help of a Librarian Knight to take him to The City of Night where water from the Riverrise spring is being sold as a miracle cure.

In the process of recovering the springwater Nate topples the cruel dictator Golderayce One-eye and finds an odd secret hidden at Riverrise; both Twig and Rook are alive, having been kept healthy by the Riverrise waters for centuries. He witnesses what appears to be a Mother Storm, and watches on as Twig and Rook are pulled up into it and Riverrise is rejuvenated.

After saving Eudoxia Nate rejoins his friends, who are preparing for a voyage to the edge of The Edge to save Ifflix, a scholar who hoped to reach the bottom of the great edge cliff. They take on refugees over The Mire and find out that a mysterious guide has been leading different tribes back to Undertown claiming that there is a marvelous and prosperous city waiting for them where they will live free and happy for the rest of their lives. While initially suspicious, Nate and his company change their minds when Sanctaphrax miraculously appears, its anchor chain caught on a rock bordering The Edge.

They tour the city and find it in full health, though oddly empty despite the claims of their guide. At an appointed hour it is revealed that the Gloamglozer has returned to The Edge after floating in Open Sky aboard Sanctaphrax since its initial departure, and has used the ancient laboratory to create more gloamglozers. They have thrown a reaching illusion over Sanctaphrax to make it appear as it did in times of old, though truly it is rotting and broken apart by weather exposure. The terrors and treachery of the gloamglozers are at last put to rest by the same storm Nate saw over Riverrise – the same storm, it turns out, that Quintinius Verginix dissolved into back in The First Age. Charged with chine-thick waters, the storm pours over Sanctaphrax and dissolves the unnatural flesh of the gloamglozers.

Eudoxia stays in the city to tend to the tribes lured there by the gloamglozers' deception, while Nate leaves with Ifflix's brother to see what lies beyond The Edge.

The Immortals is a much longer book than its predecessors and holds several story arches. The war between Hive and Great Glades shows that the goblins continue to make mistakes and revolt against their rulers, never having undergone the move away from materialism which the gladers have. The parable in Riverrise shows how the effort required to consolidate power often out-measures the worth of having it. The story of Sanctaphrax is a reminder that there is no easy escape to heaven, and that a paradise must be made rather than simply taken. The story of descending The Edge's cliff face tells us that there is always the possibility of more, though there is also the possibility of less. Nate's discoveries could have two possible outcomes:

First, the Edgeworld is proven to be infinitely larger than it was once thought to be. This would mean that the growth of The Edge's cities is sustainable and can continue at its rapid pace.

Second, the Edgeworld is as small as it was always thought to be, and no life exists beyond it. This would highlight the importance of conserving the few resources The Edge has to offer and demand that the cities stop spreading so that the world's ecosystem can remain stable.

And last, we have the theme of immortality, and what it means. While in some instances it can be said to mean eternal life, what is acknowledged as infinitely superior is the worth of deeds. The Verginix line has always inspired the next generation with its actions, so much so that they uphold a sense of honour that is in itself immortal. It is the combined weight of these actions which leads to the destruction of the Gloamglozer, who, it should be recognised, is the fourth element of the Edgeworld: fire. (Quint fears fire, fire is fear, gloamglozer is fear, fire is gloamglozer).

Theology in The Edgeworld:

Much like in Aurbis, the souls of Edgeworld are locked in a localised reincarnation cycle. Upon dying souls are committed to Open Sky, funerals taking the form of viking-like rafts sent burning up into the air. The glisters returned to Open Sky are then kept there for some years in an impure state, having not wholly recovered from the pain and anguish of their last cycle. The glisters are then transported across The Edge in a stormcloud and deposited in the waters of Riverrise. Chine, the elemental representative of physicality, then removes the emotional impurities within the glisters.

Water is then responsible for distributing pure souls through the world along the Edgeriver. After a certain amount of time the cycle of metempsychosis begins anew.

Because spirituality is not made distinct from the world elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), physical sciences have come to replace religion within The Edgeworld. The scholarly quest to understand the weather (air) can be equated to a need to understand 'God', divinity and spirituality. Put in direct opposition to Earth studies, Librarians are our equivalent of 'serious' scientists who are concerned with applicability rather than scope & grandeur.

Neither are seen as good or evil: good and evil are better aligned with Fire (the gloamglozer) and Water (The miraculous waters of Riverrise). An example of evil scholarship is present in the Guardians of Night, who have turned scholarship into blind obedience. An example of evil earth studies is in the apothecary Hestera, who uses chemistry as a means to spread afflictions (I will point out to you here her great obsession with furnaces and heat). On the other side we have The Professors of Light and Darkness upholding the traditions of Sanctaphrax in order to save their city, and Varis Lodd engaging in a practical war on physical threats as leader of the Librarian Knights. Both are an example of 'good'.

Semiotic Aviation: A closer look at sky ships:

Across all the ages of flight, skyships bear different structures which reflect their users.

The First Age:

The two main differences are between the League Ships and the Pirate ships. League ships are bulky and slow as a consequence of their owners' profiteering. What's more, the laws applicable to flight rocks demand that the heavier a ship is the colder its rock needs to be. When we bring in Maugin's metaphor, this means that the Leaguesmen rely on emotional imbalance to compensate for their material acquisitions. In short they need to be 'colder' and less aware of what their greed is doing to The Edgeworld to live with their actions.

Sky pirate ships are the exact opposite. They are swift and sleek, so as to escape the Leagues more easily and travel large distances in less time. Their danger is in Hurdling: because their ships are lighter the cold has more of an effect on them. Consequently they need to run hot in order to survive, pulling themselves towards the earth and relying on one another where individual strength is not enough.

I'd like to point out that hot and cold need not directly relate to fire and water. While I would be a fool to dismiss the subconscious association between the two, it is also wrong to consider them inseparable. Hot and cold are better given over to emotional responses than to moral ones. A reflection of this ambiguity is in that trees and flight rocks have a reverse relationship to temperature.

The Second Age:

The invention of sumpwood varnish opened up an exciting possibility for sky travel. While sumpwood is ordinarily highly susceptible to temperature changes, Tweezel's varnish makes it resistant to minor fluctuations. While sumpwood is in no way buoyant enough to support the heavy weight of a First Age skyship, it could be used to craft smaller vessels. The librarians mastered several skills in making these crafts, and thereafter could benefit from their maneuverability and grace.

Of the later Second Age skycraft, Nate remarks upon their sustainability and independence, seeing both as qualities lost in The Third Age. Both are of course true: during the Second Age scholarship was done for the sake of scholarship, whereas in the Third it serves the purpose of furthering industrial enterprise.

What we can initially see in the progression from the First to the Second Age is at first the thundering success of pirate-type flying, focusing on strength in numbers and flexibility. While this could suggest that society is keeping its eyes on the earth rather than turning away from it, it must also be acknowledged that the medium of sky travel has changed: sumpwood is made feasible by the fact that it resists all temperature changes in favour of stability, and leaves its vertical direction to the wind (and thereby directly in the hands of the craft's captain and its technical skill in working with unfavourable conditions). Coupled with the fact that these skycraft are intended for single person use, a new metaphor is drawn between isolation and ability, as one enhances the other. The Second Age still promotes co-operation in facing an enemy, but it also provides power to the individual so long as said individual keeps their emotions in check.

The Third Age:

As the workings of a phraxengine are not fully divulged, it is difficult to say what exact change they take from the preceding ages. What is known is that phraxengines rely on stormphrax, once the rarest natural resource in The Edge. Phrax technology is highly sustainable (pistols and muskets offer a thousand shots before they need to be refueled) and apparently versatile. While light and darkness adjust the crystals' weight, pressure causes explosions in unstable stormphrax, phraxdust rapidly purifies liquids, it is possible that modern flight manipulates all of these properties, and those still unmentioned. The use of 'cooling rods' within the engines suggests additional effects are generated by temperature reduction, while their release of steam says much the same of temperature increase.

Phraxengines enable a similar degree of transportation to locomotives and steamboats, so that larger supplies of goods can be transported across further distances. It was this which led to population explosions across The Freeglades and The Goblin Nations.

In The Immortals we are offered a comparison between Second Age flight and Third Age flight, and for the most part Nate fixates on them as being polar means. While skycraft push the maneuverability and independence of the sky pirates to their limit, phraxengines are quicker to be associated with League ships; slower, larger and bullying. It is evident that the battle between individual and cooperative industry is taking a new turn on The Edge, and one very similar to our own given the 'green' movement and 'eco-friendly' sciences.

In this way, the skyship Archemax plays an important role in showing that phraxships need not be used purely for financial dominance. As an independent research vessel more akin to a pirate ship than the barges standard in flight, Archemax is what the industrialist Prade hopes sky travel may become with responsible enterprise.

The Stormphrax Hypothesis: A Glimpse at Meteorological Alchemy

There is no doubt the reader will develop ideas as to the intermediary space between Open Sky and Riverrise given their polar states, and seek an answer to any questions in their median. This median is The Twilight Woods.

Given its position, it would be plausible to say that twilight is where Earth and Sky meet. It would therefore be plausible to say it holds equal parts of its diluted essences; from Riverrise this may be chine or pure glisters, and from Open Sky this probably means untreated glisters. Given that a large portion of the people reading this essay do not live on Edgeworld and have not written the sacred link to it, we may never know.

I would like to hypothesise for a moment (because I am tired and because this is not being graded and because I want to) that Great Storms and Mother Storms are essentially of the same nature. Both are pushed far across The Edge and are seen as significant to the meteorology of The Edge. If we assume that a Great Storm is simply a Mother Storm at half value, then that would mean Mother Storms have an incredibly high concentration of Sourmist particles as well as a high concentration of impure glisters – the obvious deduction being that they are in fact the same thing.

If so, then the intention of Great Storms is to discharge over the sacred waters of Riverrise, but given that they are not protected within an epidermal layer of Mind Storms their energies leave the stormcloud prematurely. Their attraction to The Twilight Woods in particular is indicative of several root similarities between Riverrise and The Twilight Woods. It is possibly the first place along the storm's path out of Open Sky which contains a large enough concentration of chine to attract lightning – most probably chine locked away in the ancient and undying bodies of trees.

What separates a regular storm's lightning from that of a Great Storm is most probably sourmist (working off the addition of the least number of variables), and so we can say that it is sourmist (impure glisters) which are responsible for condensing the electrical energy into a crystallised form. One might even expand upon the conjecture by stating that it is the partial condensation of impure glisters which provides The Twilight Woods with their phantasmal qualities; the illusions and emotional variances which keep them lost and wandering within the woods themselves, slaves to the emotion-hungry glisters within. We know that glisters emit light when they are feeding, and this too may explain (at least in part) the luminescence of the forest.

In Conclusion

The Edgeworld is a large and intricate place. We may never fully understand its sciences. We may never fully unravel the effects of those precise moments in its history that we are given the privilege to witness. But what we can and always will have are the ideas it inspires; the curiosity of a million species. The potential of transient gravitation and solid lightning. The beauty of souls living as micro-organisms fossilised into rocks and drifting around on the breeze.

We have a place where librarians are free to catalogue in the name of knowledge. We have a port to return to when our mind is lost at sea.

Thank you, Chris Riddell, Paul Stewart.

For showing us the way there.