Story:Invisible Cities/Byrztum

Byrztum -City on the Edge of an Abyss- [This journal appeared mysteriously in the main hall of the Saint of Respite University, it is still unknown whom wrote this journal, or even when it was written.]

I had heard rumors for many a year of a city lost to time in the deepest reaches of the deserts, and as the most inquisitive and bright scholar of my generation decided to put the rumors to rest. Either I would discover that which has not yet been discovered or put the whisperings of commoner chattel to rest. My probes eventually bore fruit when my contacts managed to discover a tracker, a man familiar with the vast reaches of the deserts who claimed to have seen a city of a thousand homes carven into a desert canyon.

After a month long journey to the nearest encampment to where the city supposedly lied, I met with the tracker, who introduced himself as Firdún stated to me that “The city you seek, Byrztum is a cursed place, especially to minds as prideful and inquisitive as yours.” His statement only made my drive to visit this place even greater, my soul burning with a blazing passion of which I was sure all of the greats of eld felt when they discovered flame, iron and the movements of the celestial bodies. After purchasing supplies and mounts from the local merchants for a quite princely sum, Firdún and I departed, leaving the tents behind us in the dust of dunes.

The paths through the desert dunes were treacherous, with our travel impeded multiple times by the shift created by the searing winds. On the first night we found shelter in what had supposedly been a river bed in the time before Man, before the endless march of sands and wind choked the life out of it. I scoffed at the notion that Nature itself would choke itself out in such an act of suicide and played it off as nothing but superstition of the commons. Under his breath, I could hear the tracker sing a song of which I could not make out the words.

After seven grueling days and nights of torment under desert winds and heat, the guide stopped me, pointed to a point in the distance where the horizon itself appeared concave. He stated he would go no further and that the answers I sought laid there, in Byrztum. An hour later I came upon the chasm in the desert upon which it lied. Carved into the stone of the chasm were well over a thousand houses, with many bridges crossing the enigmatic pit, almost like a manmade spider web. Upon descending into the desert, I was surrounded by many persons, all clad head to toe in black with bone-white masks. They spoke to me in a tongue I did not know, nor knew any cognates to their words, leading to a complete lack of comprehension all while I wept internally for there being knowledge I had not yet acquired.

Eventually I had been forced into what appeared to be a throne room or antechamber of some sort, with a two-headed man clad with a mask on each face, one red and one blue. Thankfully this king or mayor or whichever title he chose to go by knew the language of the saints and we were able to converse. He welcomed me to Byrztum and offered me a room to stay in relative comfort while I studied this city of the ancients surviving to this era of logic and reason. My first realization after spending a week in the City on the Edge of an Abyss was that Time itself appeared to have no rule here. The Sun itself laid in the midday sky in perpetuity, and even my timepiece itself, created by only the finest clockworkers back in The Capital had ceased function, being locked an hour past midday. I questioned the king about this, wondering how and why one of the primal forces itself appeared to not function here. He had but one statement and it still echoes in my soul.

“If you seek knowledge of all things, delve deep into the bones of this world and step into the abyss that lies at the depths.”

Truly, if the knowledge of all things were at the bottom of this city, it was my duty as a scholar to brave the path and then make my way back to the light of civilization and start an entirely new revolution of enlightenment and sciences. The next day, I asked the King on how one would make it to this fountain of knowledge. He pointed to a spiral staircase carved into the stone and did not say another word. I gathered my resolve and descended. Only the Saints themselves know how long I walked that path until the staircase ended and opened up into a pitch black cavern. Despite the lack of any source of natural or artificed light, I could see it all. There was nothing here except for a pool of the blackest liquid imaginable. Even the darkest nights in nights devoid of both the moon and stars could not compare to the sheer utter lack of light or brightness that laid in that pool. I had come so far, I could not have doubts. I would be counted among the greatest scholars of all time if the King was right. My doubts would not beset me. I am without fear, without the demons of eld in my mind which the Saints banished.

In the briefest infinitesimal moment before I jumped into that pool, I saw, understood and was one with the universe and its mysteries, only to be beset with Knowledge Itself. In the next infinitesimal moment, I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

I saw myself jump into the abyss.

[The rest of the journal trails off into “I saw myself jump into the abyss.” ad infinitum]

(There has never been any record in any other scholarly nor religious text about a city named Byrztum, nor a city which lies in a desert chasm like a spider web. This document, its origins and meaning are still unknown.)