Bluesidra/The Book Of Hours

The Book of Hours chronicles the history of Hell. It is constantly added on as events unfold.

The Book of Hours itself is an encyclopedia that consists of an unknown number of books. The books are structured by chapters and verses, but the order in which they are in is not necessary consistent - chapters may have verses that should only come up in later chapters and vice versa.

As the concept of time is malleable to Hell, the Book Of Hour often contains overlapping or opposed timelines. Errata and Appendices try to clarify which is the correct entry.

Contents

The Book of Roses tells the devils' exit from the High Wilderness, guided by the Egaltine Regent. It describes their time in Parabola, their exit to the Neath via Irem and how they built their city, inside what is now known as Hell. It ends with the Egaltine Regent being overturned by her people.

Cydnidae, more specifically its Volume IX retells the tale of a traveller who helps in a dig. It references the the Grand Clearing Out in London of 1899. The name is borrowed from the family of burrowing bugs.

Isoptera Volume XIII details how the traveller built a magnificent building. To the traveller it looks like a museum, but to devils it looks like they're remodelling a prismatic exoshell of the Dowager into a symbol of the New Democracy. It may be a retelling of the events that happened during the Prelapsarian Exhibition 1899 (2). Its name refers to the suborder that termites are in.

Ephemeroptera's Volume II retells how a traveller was involved in an aerial assault in which the devils appeared as mechanical airships. It may be a reference to the Starved War of 1899(3). The name refers to the scientific order of mayflies.

Notes

• The physical description of a copy of the Book of Hours is here: Purchase a book of hours, Fallen London

Source Texts

Miscellaneous Entries

Book of All Hours 2:22: They looked into the eyes of their friends and saw nothing. They gazed on the faces of their children and saw nothing. They looked upon the symbols of their faith and the markers of their polity, and all were vacant.

The Book of Roses

Book of Roses 1:3: AND THUS SPAKE THE KING OF HOURS: “For those who wear crowns, let their kingdoms be counted; and for those who wear ashes, let their miseries be counted; and for those who keep this tally, let their debts be counted.” Upon hearing this, the people struck him down.

Book of Roses 2:1-3: AND AMONG THE PEOPLE AROSE a great and fearful clamour, for they did not know what fate awaited them. And from this clamour arose a few great voices to lead them. And among these great voices arose the Eglantine Regent, she who bargains with serpents.

Book of Roses 3:7: AND THE EGLANTINE REGENT SAID unto the people: “I have signed a bargain with serpents; and I have given us a road to walk; and the mirrors shall open to us; and there we shall make new law; and there we shall draft the plans of a city that is already ours.” And upon hearing this, the people rejoiced.

Book of Roses 4:6-7: AND THE PEOPLE SHED THEIR SKINS to squeeze through mirrors. And the people wandered a wasted sky beyond the glass. It was a time of famine and bitter cold, and the people faltered and regretted their flight. And the Eglantine Regent said unto them: "This place Is Not; and what Is Not may not harm us. For we do exist, and we exist more than anything in existence."

The Book of Roses 5:4-5: AND IT CAME TO PASS that the people came to the edge of a vast desert. Thus spake the Parlous Knot: "This is the dream of a giant, that we have set aside for you to dwell within." And the people set down their baggage and were still. And said the Eglantine Regent: "Here we shall make camp, but we shall not build our city; for our city has always lain elsewhere."

Book of Roses 6:5-7: AND THE PEOPLE BUILT FURNACES and made maps. They devised new numbers with which to calculate the position of their home. And the Parlous Knot looked upon these works, and saw that they were good. And so said the Eglantine Regent: “Soon we will arrive in Hell.” And the Parlous Knot rejoiced, for it believed that it would accompany them.

Book of Roses 7:7-9: AND WHEN THE TIME CAME for the people to depart the Is-Not, they made their passage through Irem. For the porous border of the Is-Not is the Will-Be. And from the serpents there arose a death rattle, and the Parlous Knot girded itself for war. And so said the Eglantine Regent: “For the future to arrive one must have a present.” And the Parlous Knot cursed the name of the Eglantine Regent. And the Parlous Knot perished.

Book of Roses 8:4-6: AND THE PEOPLE FOUND in this place the broken form of a stone serpent. And said the Eglantine Regent: "Let us repair this serpent of the Will-Be, as tribute to the future that shelters us." And the people disagreed on what shape the future should take. And so it came to pass that they remade this serpent with seven heads, as they could not choose which future was right.

Book of Roses 9:4-5: AND THE PEOPLE STOPPED before a cold and sunless sea. And they saw that the marvels around them were like those in dreams. And some among the people doubted whether they had left the Is-Not. Upon hearing this, the Eglantine Regent struck down one of the doubters, and made things plain.

Book of Roses 10:2-3: WHEN THE PEOPLE CAME TO THE END of their voyage west, they set down their baggage and began the work of building a new city. And there they made petition to the powers of the Earth, who might set the boundaries of their city. And there the powers of the Earth insisted on sealing this treaty with the planting of a cedar, for a cedar has no blooms.

Book of Roses 11:5-7: AND WHEN THE LAST BRICK WAS LAID on the last wall of Hell, there arose a great and joyful clamour among the people. And there the Eglantine Regent lit the furnaces once again, so that those great voices among the people might devise new laws. And there the Eglantine Regent made a proclamation of her rulership. Upon hearing this, the people struck her down.

Cydnidae: Volume IX

Volume IX: In which the Traveller arrives in a tunnel. Shafts of light shine down from above – gas-lamps and false-stars. Exhausted kin direct the Traveller's efforts so the earthworks do not damage the foundations.

Everyone here believes the tunnel leads to a different place. The Traveller may harbour only a memory of a great sink; these written kin believe they are subverting the earth beneath the Drummer's Temple. None are correct. They are buried beneath a slip of time.

Chapter VII: Sustenance

In which the pesky need of labourers for food and drink is cursorily satisfied.

Cydnidae 14:9: The Traveller is directed to share their bounty with their comrades. There are many here whose forms betrayed the Traveller's expectations – compound-eyed, glass-winged, unbearably hot – but the Traveller was not permitted to object.
Cydnidae 14:10: The meal was satisfactory, although the Traveller was reprimanded: regardless of one's frame of temporal reference, the victuals were not fresh.

Chapter IX: The Dig

In which each anachronism hauls shovel and pick, and digs towards a forgotten future

Cydnidae 4:6: The Traveller was directed to dig. There is a mind beneath the earth whose heartbeat shook the firmament, but its presence was disguised from the Traveller by lies and misdirection.

Cydnidae 4: 7.i: The Traveller was not permitted to know what awaited them: the dreams of a terror on the cusp of waking. The Traveller was forgotten, until they emerged with blisters on their palms.

Cydnidae 4: 7.ii: The Traveller was not permitted to know what awaited them: the horned towers and roofless chambers of the Drummer's thundering temple. The Traveller was worked until their hands bled, tunnelling beneath Hell's notice.

Chapter XXXIII: Zeal

In which those who labour must be invigorated by the rightness of their cause.

Cydnidae 3:8: The Traveller was permitted to speak. On the whole, this was considered a good decision, although history records its dissenters.

Cydnidae 3:9.i: Parishioners joined with Circumcellions in gasped hurrahs once the Traveller was finished. All were energised by the thought of, perhaps, reaching Hell. The tunnels ran slick with sweat.
Cydnidae 3:9.ii: Morale was greatly heightened, although those present were puzzled as to how the Traveller came by such a detailed understanding of the tenets of the hatchling New Democracy. The Traveller was permitted a rest, while the others continued the tunnel beneath the Drummer's temple.

Cydnidae 3:10: And so time was moved, clod by clod, out of the way.

Chapter CIX: Warrens

In which aid is solicited from those whose warrens extend through Flute Street, and, once, deep into Lost Axile.

Cydnidae 2:4: The Traveller was left unobserved, and came into contact with subterranean Shapelings. Their presence was unknown, even to those familiar with the trenches of the battlefields.

Cydnidae 2:5.i: The tunnels beneath Moloch Street were not far off an amber warren built by the Shapelings in secret. The Traveller was permitted to bargain for access.
Cydnidae 2:5.ii: The Shapelings had infiltrated the Chrysanthemum Graves, and built warrens that passed beneath the Drummer's poisoned hedgerows. The Traveller was permitted to bargain for access.

Cydnidae 2:7: Thus swathes of caved-in time were avoided.

Erratum: A Saint's Death

In which, due to an instability in time, one saint's death hastens another's.

Addendum 14:2: The Traveller was permitted to remember the deaths of many saints. They echoed; they rhymed. One recollection went thusly:

'A sword in the dark. A book, impaled. An old man's blood upon the rocks.'

Addendum 14:3: The reader will have experience of this: the same piece of scripture is applicable to many situations. The same sword; the same book; the same blood. But the foe, dying on the rocks, changes with the season.

Isoptera: Volume XIII

Volume XIII: In which the Traveller is conscripted into the act of construction. The estate is palatial and Neoclassical, yet insufficient for the cause. The Traveller's aid is required: necessary repairs, corridors converted into galleries, statues pulled down and furnishings burned.

The ruin differs based on the reader's perspective. The Traveller is permitted only to remember a museum, and how it was built from the house of an old magnate. The devils – for these pages crawl with them – are permitted to believe themselves remodelling a prismatic exoshell of the Dowager, into a symbol of the New Democracy. Both work, unknowing, to reconstruct a ruined Now.

Chapter I: Labour

In which backs are broken and bones are changed.

Isoptera 5:1: The Traveller was given the tools of destruction, and told to knock down anything deemed superfluous. Walls; bones; organs; laws. The unfit was reduced to ash, and fashioned to meet a new vision.

Chapter III: All Hands

In which hands of clay are lent to the Great Work, and ask for only a song in return.

Isoptera 8:2: The Traveller's resources were leveraged to procure additional workers. The Clay Men were the source of many complaints, as their singing echoed like earthworks; but they had great facility with stone, and with structures that live as well as die.

Chapter VI: Coddling

In which the fears of those who have much to lose must, again, be assuaged.

Isoptera 3:17: The Traveller was forced to appeal to their vanities. This would, after all, be the foundation of a new wonder.

Isoptera 3:24.i: After a thousand such pleas, their vanities were sated. Each wing of the museum would have a sponsor; a thousand names on a thousand plaques.
Isoptera 3:24.ii: After a thousand such pleas, their vanities were sated. They were to be remembered as the heralds of the New Democracy, those brave enough to stand aside. Their names were to be sung though the new White City, when all was said and done.
Isoptera 3:27: Of course, some bowed to cowardice anyway. It is only the way.

Isoptera 3:33: Those who harboured doubts were not easily convinced: the Traveller's words came to nought. The doubters did not even know the Traveller's name. The Traveller was not from here, they murmured, or from now, and as they spoke the words they realised their truth. The doubts that followed unspooled the hours more quickly than ever.

Chapter IX: Verminous

In which those ideologically opposed to the construction of the new regime must be dealt with.

Isoptera 9:4: And so the Traveller was told to approach the holdouts, whom the other builders regarded as vermin, and broker a multi-part deal.

Isoptera 9:5.i: The Traveller granted the Rattus faber employment among the future museum: administrators, engineers, watchpeople and archivists. Others were paid to leave: in Echoes, and in barley.
Isoptera 9:5.ii: The Traveller granted each royalist a candle from the Lilymire, and the promise of an unfettered birth into the New Democracy. None could be permitted to remain, to tend to the Dowager's halls.
Isoptera 9:6: And so construction continued.

Isoptera 4:7: And the Traveller was rebuffed, neither threat nor honeyed word enough to sway the opposition from their perch. There can be no revolution that does not make enemies, and progress halted while the seconds sputtered and died.

Erratum: Deliverance

In which building materials are sought by the project, and found in snatches of past and future.

Addendum 1:14: The seconds were improperly stored, and escaped backwards despite the Traveller's best efforts. There was nothing to be done about this: it had already happened.

Addendum 1:12: The Traveller was directed to oversee the transportation of the loose seconds, to ensure they would not escape.

Addendum 1:7: The hours and minutes were unloaded without incident, but it was noticed that the seconds were too fine to be handled by any of the builders' best tools. There was much discussion about what might be done.

Ephemeroptera: Volume II

Volume II: In which the aerial offensive gathers its might. Warmounts flutter wings like stained-glass windows, and devils prepare for the assault. To the Traveller, each vast creature appears as a machine: airships bristling with guns.
The field of battle is indistinct. The Traveller is litigated to carry in their mind a memory of a war for the Roof. The written histories recall instead the Siege of Silence, where the Chorus was broken and the Mandolinist torn from the walls of Hell. The true foe, as always, is time.

Chapter III: Preparations

In which supplies are packed, weapons are sharpened and furnaces are ignited.

Ephemeroptera 3:6: The staging ground grew hourly. The Traveller was permitted to lend their aid, although the records are muddled on whether that aid was granted to the airships of the Admiralty or the drones of the Revolution. The hive buzzed, hard at work to stave off the dread. The Traveller was directed to cover their ears as the airships fired cannons – or as the Chorus struck up another war-anthem.

Chapter V: Provisioning

In which the adage about armies and stomachs is tested, and the troops value light foods over heavy.

Ephemeroptera 3:6: The Traveller, unbeknownst, put masks on characters' faces; time clothed the unknown with the familiar. When a Hero of the Revolution – face so different from the one worn in London's time – hefted the crate and spilled the contents across a war-table, the Traveller saw the Overworked Commodore instead. When the biscuits were fed to vast, insectoid war-mounts, disgorged from the stables of the Exultation of Peace, the Traveller considered them loaded onto airships, ready for transport. And so two moments progressed in one.

Chapter VI: Confluence

In which a debt owed by the drones of Hell might be leveraged in two times at once.

Ephemeroptera 11:3.i: The Traveller was permitted to call in a favour. The drones massed for war. They ripped through their bodies like old parchment, and unfolded wings stiff with disuse, readying themselves to fly for the Roof.
Ephemeroptera 11:3.ii: The Traveller was permitted to call in a favour. The drones massed for war. They poured molten brass into the Traveller's ears, to deafen against the war-songs of the Chorus. They waited in silence for the sappers' signal, feeling the vibrations of the earth beneath their feet.

Chapter XVI: Ordnance

In which the leashes upon the dogs of war are tightened, in anticipation of the havoc to come.

Ephemeroptera 5:2.i: The Traveller was supervised, and loaded powder into an experimental cannon with a range of five-hundred metres. A painted image of Mr Thunders went up in smoke.

Ephemeroptera 5:2.ii: The Traveller was supervised, and loaded experimental law into a trebuchet with a range of three true loves. A fortnight of tomorrows went up in smoke.

Ephemeroptera 5:3: A commanding officer affected an embarrassed grimace. "The troops need their entertainments. Come, let's get this loaded on." The Traveller was directed to continue, two wars overlaid atop each other.

Erratum: Melodies

In which one furore is countered with another.

Addendum 11:11: The Traveller was induced to sing a song they should not know.

Addendum 11:12: These pages record the lyrics, which otherwise were lost: ___ _____ _____ ____ _____
Addendum 11:15.i: And when the Traveller was allowed to finish, all present looked to the Roof with hope in newly buoyant hearts.

Addendum 11:15.ii: And the Traveller was never allowed to finish, but sang until the old king fell from the walls. In time, the hives of Hell joined in the song, buzzing new armour against the Chorus. Against so many, even these old powers were drowned.