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.

Notes

• The physical description of a copy of the Book of Hours is here: Purchase a book of hours, Fallen London
• Ephemeroptera is the scientific order of mayflies.
• Cydnidae is a family of burrowing bugs.
• Isoptera is the suborder that termites are in.

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.

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.

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.