"These are real stars. They burn above the roof of the Neath, beyond the earth, in the spaces of heaven."
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"Two vast winged shapes guard a gate of something like resin, smooth but uneven. It is deep gant - the colour that remains when all other colours have been eaten. Ice crusts over the crack between its valves. Approach, and your breath freezes, falls tinkling in shards from the air. It would be utterly foolish to touch the thing."[1]
"The narrow way past the Pale Wastes, past Codex, past Whither. Sought by those mad with strange hunger. All others, turn back now."[2]
The Avid Horizon is the northernmost known place in the Unterzee. It is always accessible by traveling North, no matter where from. It is bitter cold here.[3] Nobody has gone further; dozens have died trying.[4] Zailors, of course, are advised not to go.[5]
One of the nearby docks offers those who have been exiled from London a chance to beg for forgiveness - but they must be willing to sacrifice everything,[6] and there is no guarantee the Admiralty will choose to accept their apology.[7]
The realm of the Judgements, the High Wilderness, lies beyond the freezing High Gate. However, opening it is easier said than done, and involves distracting the eternally vigilant Watchers.[8][9] Perhaps a candle will do.[10][11]
Beyond These Gates, an Escape
"Bordered by two vast winged statues, the Gate towers over the shrouded sea that divides the port and the Gate. The other side of the gate opens far beneath the Earth, on the bleak shore of a subterranean sea."[12]
The Avid Horizon served as the Empire's gateway into the heavens; it was here that the Parzifal,[13] the first spacefaring locomotive (or so they say),[14] was built and launched.[13] After New London was built and the vast majority of the city had reestablished itself in the skies, the Empress sealed the gates to the Horizon "sarcophagus-tight;"[15] there was a long enough span of time before this happened, however, that a sea formed in space.[16]
The Horizon is made of three parts: the Home Office, a vestigial and bare-bones immigration facility; the Gate, under the eternal eyes of the Watchers; and the Quiet Sea, an inexplicable spillage of the nostalgic Unterzee.[17]
It is worth noting that the Horizon is much bigger on the space side, and is also rather far from New London.[18] It is quite a feat of engineering that they got all the pieces of London so far away from the gate to the Wilderness.
Like its counterpart in the Neath, the Empire uses the Horizon to get rid of people who anger its royalty, this time by forcing them to wait in front of the rather imposing gate for a pardon that will almost never come.[19] The Gate also has a mooring post nearby that is covered in crimes, confessions, and names, as an imitation of the tradition before the Wilderness was conquered - though it is not London that answers these pleas anymore, but a criminal organization called the Gentlemen.[20]
The Cults of the Quiet Sea
A flotilla drifts on the Quiet Sea, occupied by those left behind. They have roughly organized themselves into three feuding cults:
The Supralapsarians, led by the Illuminated Archivist, who long for the time of Old London and try to pretend that they have never left.[21][22]
The Sanctified, led by the Jolly Anchorite, a wine-loving bunch who venerate the Masters of the Bazaar as saints.[23][24]
The Displeased, led by the Careful Masquerader, who have been betrayed and so they shall betray as well.[25]
The Gate of Saints
"The gate did not go unwatched. If it was seen and not closed, was that license?"[26]
The Watchers at the gate are not simple statues; they were in fact former servants of the King of Hours, before the monarch's death.[27] The statues, referred to by some cultists of the Quiet Sea as the Saint of the Key and the Saint of the Lock, were built by and in the image of the Masters, to guard the way behind them.[28] It seems the Judgements do not keep a particularly watchful eye on the gate themselves, ever since the King was slain.[29]
↑The place that is no place, Sunless Sea"The unterzee has no northern shore. Space is forbidden. Time contracts to a single frozen instant. There is only one way North."
↑Retrieve Strategic Information, Sunless Sea"Below the sign, an authoritative hand has carved this message: IF YOU WISH TO RETURN TO LONDON - IF YOU SEEK THE FORGIVENESS OF THE EMPRESS - IF YOU WILL SACRIFICE ALL TO MAKE AMENDS - RECORD YOUR NAME AND CRIME."
↑Retrieve Strategic Information, Sunless Sea"Below are the names of murderers, traitors, hopeless villains who've fled into exile. They've made the icy pilgrimage here [...] to prove their desperation to return home. You record them all [...] The Admiralty will pick through the names and make their choice."
↑Open the High Gate, Sunless Sea""We won't light them," he tells you confidentially. "We'd be seen. The Gate only opens when the Watchers are blind...""
↑The Venturer's Passage, Sunless Sea""The Gate," he tells you, "is a law, not a door. In a moment of inattention from its guardians, the law may be broken.""
↑Open the High Gate, Sunless Sea"At the base of each statue, he constructs a kind of cage. At the heart of each cage is a candle."
↑ 13.013.1Approaching the Parzifal, Sunless Skies"The first engine through the Avid Horizon [...] London's pride once. Captained by Lt Commander Percy Blythe. The engine was to chart new horizons beyond Albion. Never came back."
↑Share stories, Sunless Skies"I was the first through the Horizon. Not the Parzifal – I was. We opened the Gate and zailed through. I wasn't alone, as I am now."
↑Approach the Gate, Sunless Skies"he Gate between the statues is gant [...] It is sealed, sarcophagus-tight. When you touch it, it sears your fingers with the bitterest cold. It will not open for you."
↑Inquire about the sea, Sunless Skies"A satisfactory scientific answer has yet to be presented. Theories have sprouted like mushrooms in its place.Some say that when the Gate was opened, the Unterzee spilled through [...]"
↑Avid Horizon, Sunless Skies"The Avid Horizon consists of three parts. The Home Office: clinging to a pillar of ice. The Gate, through which Londoners entered the sky, flanked by its towering statues. And the Quiet Sea, whose waters are home to those left behind."
↑On the Sunless Skies map, London is in the center of the Albion ring and Avid Horizon is toward the outer edge.
↑Compile a Port Report, Sunless Skies"The few bureaucrats stationed at the Avid Horizon for one departmental sin or another reside in desperate melancholy. Those detained within the faded confines of the Bureau are almost reconciled to their fate: listlessly hoping for a reprieve from London that will likely never come."
↑Avid Horizon Randomiser, Sunless Skies"The desperate make pilgrimage to Avid Horizon. They write confessions of their misdeeds, and wedge them in a crack of the mooring post. Sometimes, the Gentlemen of Pan will stop by. They read what is written, and recruit a chosen few. The mooring post flutters with paper – it is stuffed with secrets."
↑Ask about the Supralapsarians, Sunless Skies"The Archivist smiles blissfully. "We are those who were left behind, so we have decided that we chose to stay. We keep with tradition.""
↑Ask about the Cult of the Sanctified, Sunless Skies"We are but humble acolytes of the Saints. They came among us long ago – before we departed for the Skies in our folly. Most abandoned them, but we pray to let them know that not all have forgotten their names. [...] Perhaps they'll even rejoin us, if enough learn their names and recite them here at the Gate."
↑The crowning of the saints, Sunless Skies"The Jolly Anchorite bursts with excitement as you present the gemmed chalice. He bids you lay the spices upon a cutting block and returns carrying a trinity of bottles: Old London vintages. "To learn the names of our final three, you must indulge!""
↑Inquire about the Displeased, Sunless Skies"We are the abandoned, who in turn, shall abandon. We are the betrayed, who in turn, will betray. We are the despised, who in turn, shall despise. [...] London left us behind, decided we were unworthy, unwanted. We have spent the intervening years sharpening that rejection. It is who we are. All else is chaff."
