[Freebuild] In the Mountains of the Burial Isle

[The Stad]

Previously: Visiting Sorgheim

Makny and his father had spent several nights in Sorgheim as guests of the Hersir. During the days, the nobleman had shown them much of his lands, while in the evenings the members of his household had entertained them with songs and stories around the hearth. When his father announced that it was time to resume their journey, Makny was eager but reluctant, for as much as he was happy to continue the adventure with his father, he had greatly enjoyed his stay among the rustic but comfortable accommodations and their gracious hosts.

Sorgheim was perched upon a spur that thrust out from the lower hills at the mouth of a long vale. It was just above the point where two rivers met, one flowing out of the narrow valley and into the other, which was a great winding current that crossed much of the central plain at the heart of the Burial Isle. It was the smaller river that they followed now, first to the far end of the valley -where they left their horses at a small farmstead- then up into the rocky hills. As the river cleaved its course between the craggy cliffs, their path soon narrowed and climbed, and the trees and canyon walls pressed in steep and close beside them.

They spoke very little, and the woods along the trail seemed silent but for the ever-growing voice of the river. Every so often the canyon would open up and Makny would look to the high, snowy mountains all around them. In those moments he sometimes thought he saw bright, distant flashes of color, like tiny shining gemstones embedded in vast sheets of rippling alabaster, but when he looked again he would see nothing but pristine whiteness before the trees closed in or they passed behind the shoulder of another ridge.

After two days of steady marching the trail had narrowed to barely a goat path. They continued upon it for several hours until, as the sun climbed toward noontide overhead, they came to another clearing. Approaching it, what first struck Makny as strange was the structure, like a lantern the size of a building, jutting out of the undergrowth at the foot of the mountainside. Then he came further into the clearing and was shaken again to see two statues, vividly life-like, standing at the foot of a grand stairway that leapt from the clearing and across the river.

 

Makny looked around in stunned silence then noticed his father looking calmly up above the treetops and followed his gaze. His breath caught in his throat.

 

“Remnants,” his father spoke quietly, reverently, barely louder than a whisper. “This land, my son, was called the Burial Isle long before any jarl claimed sovereignty. It did not get its name from its barrows, crypts, or tombs. Long ago, an ancient people, before they departed these shores, buried what remained of their empire in this distant corner of the known world. Hidden by remoteness, or scoured from memory, the lands across the water did their best to quickly forget them.”

He turned and faced Makny, then gazed across to the island at the other end of the stairs, guarded by more statues and bejeweled with an intricately wrought structure. “But a few of them lingered. Remnants. They guarded the memories and secrets. Custodians and caretakers. Preserving a legacy, though it might never again be built upon. Forgetting a little more every year.”

 

He paused, and Makny saw a distance and melancholy in his father’s eyes.

”But for all that is forgotten, there is much we still remember.” His father put a hand on Makny’s shoulder and smiled like a man returning home after a long journey. “And, perhaps, you may yet remember more than a great many of your fathers before you.”

They did not cross the bridge, but passed a while in the roaring silence above the river. Then they made their way back to the farmstead, saddled their horses, and rode on to Førstlys.

Spoiler

Thank you to any who read all this way! I hope you enjoyed the story and the build! Comments and criticism welcome of course.

The gazebo that started it all. This was a table scrap that snowballed into a ~6 month project, but I’m very happy with where it took me.

 

An overview of the entire build. What’s hard to see are the multiple cascading rapids in the river and the fact that it splits around the island. As usual, I probably put too much work into details that didn’t make the final images, but working in microscale means that they thankfully didn’t eat up too much additional time.