This guide consists of notes and terms relevant to the storyworld of Across the Line. There are NO SPOILERS here. I also have “Scholia” pages of more specific descriptions and commentary for each book (Hopscotch, Red Rover, Twenty Questions, Catch, Bone Horse), that may indeed contain spoilers. Together, these pages are intended to extend and clarify the world and provide some author’s commentary for readers who care about that sort of thing.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Cislunar • Cislunar’s Aristocracy • The Vigilance • Adjuration & The Line • Transients • The Reverence • Kyrchye • Yzyrche •
CISLUNAR: Cislunar was originally the city setting for a long-term AD&D campaign I ran through college and graduate school, which would have been … approximately 1986 to 1996 or so? It’s a large, wealthy imperial seaside city-state — the largest northern city, although Ankham (Lorencz’s birthplace) is farther north. The Lament family has ruled for several generations, and it has a semi-European style of aristocracy.
CISLUNAR’S ARISTOCRACY: Cislunar is a city-state within the Candorian Empire (aka the Dominarchy), so all of its aristocracy fall under the Dominarch (“your imperial majesty”), who lives quite a ways away in Candor. An imperial city-state is ruled by a Sovereign (“your majesty”), whose immediate heirs are Scions (“your highness”). After the Scions are ranked the Grandes (“your grace”), the highest level aristocracy below the ruling family. Under the Grandes are the Nobilis. These titles are all inherited. Sovereigns-granted ranks include Potentates and Armigers. These ranks may be used as direct titles and forms of address, as well (e.g., “Thank you, grande.”). “Syr” is the most common direct honorific overall and is suitable — after the first more formal honorific — even when speaking to grandes, scions and sovereigns. Those individuals and states that adhere to more old-fashioned modes of address use “Exalt” for the titled and “Syr” for the untitled, but this is considered eccentric by most.
THE VIGILANCE: The empire requires that sentinels register upon the manifestation of their abilities, which typically occurs in early adolescence for approximately 1 in 500 (although it’s possible a number of lower-ranking sentinels are simply never identified as such). Registered sentinels automatically belong to the Vigilance, are legallly required to wear an identifying silver pin, and are legally obliged to provide support in emergencies. Identification is considered necessary due to the possibility of balemadness, an affliction that only affects sentinels and can result in dangerous consequences if allowed to develop into its later stages. Newly registered sentinels are also required to take basic training courses that help them master their abilities and understand the risks, although this is more strictly enforced in large, urban areas than elsewhere.
The Vigilance runs many multi-year boarding schools for young sentinels that provide a solid education as well as basic training and rank-testing; attendance at a Vigilance school is considered a road to advancement for many from lower-income families. Vigilance schools also take in young sentinels without families, who have been disowned by families (often for religious reasons), or whose families are afraid to keep them close.
For many lower-ranked sentinels, who can only discern or make one call at a time, Vigilance membership means little in their day-to-day lives and careers. Sentinels of higher ranks are highly desired by the constabulary, military (both land and sea), security, and criminal professions, as well as for many dangerous jobs in which the ability to call light, balesteeds, and/or balewalls are invaluable.
ADJURATION & THE LINE: Adjuration is the term used to describe sentinels’ abilities. Even sentinels weakest in ability are still capable of discerning the Line when they make an effort — the Line is the border between this reality and another, which The Reverence calls Perdition, or more simply, hell. Stronger sentinels are capable of placing calls, which may include calling people in this reality or calling forth creatures or bale from across the Line.
Calling another person requires close acquaintance and puts what many sentinels describe as a “hook in their brain” that both guides the called to the caller and causes pain until the caller sees (or, as blind sentinels have proven, become aware of the physical presence of) the called. Calling works poorly on those with mental irregularities or damage.
Calling bale across the Line draws a pale, glowing, inchoate substance that the sentinel’s will can mold into certain shapes — the core shapes taught in Vigilance training are balefire, balewalls, and balesteeds. Many sentinels practice with other forms, as well, with baleweapons being common, especially in Cislunar, where strict laws prohibit the carrying of weapons on the streets. Some shapes and substances are especially difficult to call, such as balewater or anything that requires a fairly detailed shape, such as balekeys.
It is also possible to call the native denizens of the bale, called transients in the empire, across the Line, but most sentinels prefer to avoid this, as they are violent and difficult or impossible to send back without destroying them (although they may choose to return across the Line themselves).
The Line is weakened when something is called across it or voluntarily crosses it, but this damage knits itself up fairly quickly. Too many calls or crossings in too tight a place can, however, permanently weaken the Line there. Weakened Lines are easier for transients to cross. When the Line grows too weak in an area, there’s a certain level of bleed-through called a Pall; things may take on a pale glow and shapes may seem to flit back and forth across one’s vision. Palls knit up more slowly. It’s possible that the Line can be damaged too severely to “heal” — those areas are extremely dangerous, liable to cause balemadness in sentinels and to allow transients to slip back and forth across the Line to hunt human prey.
TRANSIENTS: Transients are the beings that live across the Line, presumably so dubbed because of their incursions. Transients take inhuman shapes but tend to be covered in hard carapaces. Various types have been classified as Skinslicers, Gnawers, Knifebacks, Needleclaws, Bloodscrapers, Painlappers, Razorbites, Banebeaks, and Bonewasps.
Pain summons, blood satiates, death dismisses — Most people know and remember this pithy lesson about transients. Although usually a transient must be called across the Line, a concentration of pain in one area — such as might happen in a bloody battlefield, or if someone is systematically tortured — can lead to a Line breach, in which transients force their way across the line and attack. For the most part they seem to want to spill and drink or absorb as much blood as possible. If they get enough blood, they may leave of their own free will. If those whose pain summoned them happen to die, then the transients will leave. Killing a transient dissolves it into bale that slips across the Line.
THE REVERENCE: The Reverence is the official state religion of the empire and dismisses other traditions as incorrect or, at best, incomplete understandings of the gods. The Reverence is a duotheistic religion, with Kyrchye considered to represent all that is good, just, brave, and worthy in society and Yzyrchye considered to represent all that is evil, corrupt, degraded and shameful in society. Both Kyrchye and Yzyrchye are typically depicted as male-gendered humans, the former an old-fashioned knight and the latter a shadowy, hooded figure. The Reverence’s members are called its faithful, and its clergy are called communicants. Anyone asking Kyrchye (or Yzyrchye, although the Reverence abhors rather than worships this god) for assistance is called a petitioner. The Reverence’s ordained clergy are hierarchically arranged: cardinals, bishops, pastors, and deacons. Reverence places of worship are broadly called sanctums, although a cardinal’s or bishop’s sanctum is usually more ornate in architecture and called a cathedral.
The Reverence has a deep mistrust for adjuration, the province of sentinels, because it believes that the Line divides this world from Perdition, or hell, Yzyrche’s province. This has historically led to tense relationships between The Vigilance and the Reverence, although sentinels may choose to be faithful and even be ordained within The Reverence … although it’s uncommon for a sentinel to advance beyond deacon.
KYRCHYE: Kyrchye (kyer-chee) is considered by The Reverence to be the Light of Justice, a god of goodness, judgment, and order, often depicted in imperial iconography as a male knight in plate armor. His symbol is the sun and sword, depicted visually and as a gesture in which one hand forms a circle, then cuts it down the middle with a slash. More — although not a lot — about Kyrchye is revealed in Red Rover and Twenty Questions.
YZYRCHYE: Yzyrchye (Iz-er-chee) is considered by The Reverence to be the Lord of Hell, a god of evil, corruption, and chaos, often depicted in imperial iconography as a shadowy, hooded male figure. Yzyrchye has no symbol or established religion, although individuals may sacrifice to Yzyrchye in an attempt to win his favor. General Tegeus Droit was infamously known as “Yzyrchye’s Hound,” wielding a pale, fixed balesword called Might — which he claims was given to him by Yzyrchye — that turned him into a bloodthirsty killer in battle and regularly healed his wounds to keep him on his feet.