The Life of the People
Introduction
Now that I have introduced the People to you, dear reader, allow me to turn to a description of how they order their lives. As you may well imagine, existence suspended between the Webs and the Clouds differs greatly from that of those who tread upon solid ground; yet I believe you will discover a number of striking similarities nevertheless. In this section we shall explore daily life as I observed it in Highmarket and in the other communities I was fortunate enough to visit during my sojourn in Arborea. I do not pretend that my observations encompass the full breadth of Arborean civilization - indeed, the portion of this world I traversed was but a minute fragment of its immeasurable expanse - yet within the compass of my travels I have faithfully recorded the patterns that presented themselves to me.
A Diverse Community
The civilization of Arborea embraces all seven species of the People, and in addition encompasses a considerable menagerie of domesticated creatures - kept for food, labor, or companionship. This variety is immediately apparent upon entering Highmarket. In every direction one may observe representatives of wildly differing forms going about their daily business, and it is a commonplace sight to behold the most incongruous individuals engaged together in the humblest commerce. While certain species do tend to gather among their own kind - most notably the Avara and the Roark - there are no formal barriers separating one People from another, and some, such as the Ceph and the Kouatl, appear even to prefer the companionship of those not of their own species.
A Day in Highmarket
Allow me, dear reader, to recount how a typical member of the People might pass a day in the town of Highmarket. Upon waking - at whatever hour best accords with their nature - they will generally break their fast. If the weather is fine, as it is throughout the dry season, they commonly take their breakfast outdoors, so as not to disturb those who still slumber within their great communal dwellings. If of a sociable disposition, they will converse with any who pass by; one of the great conveniences of telepathy is that one need not interrupt one's meal in order to communicate with perfect clarity.Once the first meal is concluded, they embark upon the labors of the day. Some devote themselves to the maintenance of the settlement - repairing bridges, platforms, and the endless lattice of ropes and pulleys - while others tend the many gardens, prepare provisions, or engage in trade. Midday customs vary by species: some take a formal meal, while others do not; yet most pause in their work regardless, for a shared hour of rest and social intercourse while those who wish to eat do so.
When this interval has passed, the People return to their various occupations, continuing until the latter part of the day, when labor gives way to a more extended period of fellowship and diversion. Many spend this time making or listening to music, or enjoying such entertainments as plays, games, or public recitations. Others pursue quieter pastimes - reading, crafting, or wandering the lanes and bridges of the settlement. Some, of course, retire for more private engagements, in whatever manner suits them. It is uncommon among the People to take a final meal before sleep, though many indulge in a light snack in the last hour of their waking.
Perhaps, in this pattern, you observe something of your own daily life, as indeed I do. In the rhythms of Highmarket, I found that despite their manifold differences from ourselves and from each other, the People of Arborea live in many respects as do the inhabitants of countless other worlds. Though the particulars shift, the underlying pattern remains familiar - and from that familiarity springs a profound basis for mutual understanding.
This diversity shapes every aspect of Arborean communal life. Architecture must be scaled to accommodate the immense bulk of the Karapax, yet simultaneously provide inverted perches for the Roark, platforms for the Avara, and other such accommodations as the various species require. The rhythm of the settlements, too, differs markedly from any homogenous town. While some of the People follow the diurnal habits to which I am naturally inclined, the Bohra and the Roark are nocturnal, and the Avara favor the crepuscular hours of dawn and dusk. The Mycora, for their part, seem never to sleep at all - or perhaps they are perpetually half-asleep in some recess of their curious internal structure; I was never able to determine the truth of the matter. As a consequence, Highmarket and the other communities I visited never sink into the gentle quiet of a human town at night; rather, the cast of those awake and active simply shifts as the hours pass.
Within this diversity lies the pattern upon which Arborean civilization is constructed. Each species is expected to fulfil a particular role in the grand tapestry of life, according to the commonly accepted understanding of that species' strengths, limitations, and temperament. I found it striking that a culture so flexible in many respects should prove so rigid in this one. The Karapax are expected to be engineers, not poets, and when one chooses to devote themselves to verse they encounter considerable resistance from their neighbors. So it is with all the People: each is expected to contribute according to the role assigned to their kind, and not to stray from it.
During my travels I met several individuals who had chosen to defy these expectations, pursuing vocations that their society deemed improper for their species. Without exception they struggled in one way or another with the consequences of this decision. Most became wanderers - often gathering into small bands of like-minded souls - who travelled from settlement to settlement with no fixed home save the deck of their balloon-ship. In the stories of the People these wandering companies feature prominently as both heroes and villains; yet in life they are rarely welcomed into established communities.
Silk, Rubber, Wood, and Shell
The People of Arborea - possessing neither knowledge nor even the concept of the ground - make no use of many substances that would seem commonplace elsewhere. They know nothing of stone, metal, or glass, nor of any material that must be wrested from the earth's crust. All that they employ must be drawn from the living world around them: from the mighty Trees themselves, and from the astonishing profusion of flora and fauna that inhabit their boughs.
From these materials alone, the People have raised a civilization of remarkable intricacy and refinement. Their technological achievements rival those of any world I have visited; and if they cannot produce a steam–engine, their balloon-ships are, in their way, no less marvellous. These vessels were the first products of Arborean ingenuity that I encountered, and they remain, in my mind, its most iconic creation. They appear in every size - from the small craft in which I first travelled with Odysseus, scarcely four spans in length, to the colossal trading-ships exceeding two hundred and forty spans, borne aloft by titanic balloons and manned by crews numbering in the hundreds. Though the materials and workmanship of these craft vary widely, the basic principle upon which they are fashioned is constant. I shall therefore use the vessel in which I journeyed with Odysseus as my exemplar, since it is the craft with which I am most intimately acquainted.
This vessel - which I named the Penelope, to Odysseus' great perplexity (for the People do not apply personal names to their ships) - was suspended beneath three great spheres. Two of these were fashioned of rubber and entirely filled with the lifting-gas that sustains so much life aloft in Arborea; these were placed fore and aft, providing the craft with its essential buoyancy. The third, situated centrally, was a vast silken balloon filled with heated air, and by regulating the warmth within this sphere Odysseus could ascend or descend at will. Many pilots accomplish this by means of an open flame suspended beneath the mouth of the balloon; but for those endowed with pyrokinesis - as Odysseus is - the heating and cooling of the air may be governed through psychic means alone.
The balloons are secured to the vessel's basket by a multitude of cords of silk or twisted hemp. The basket of Odysseus' craft was woven from pliant strips of wood; larger vessels, however, sometimes possess a solid wooden hull, though always pierced with drains to shed the frequent rains. Along the sides are mounted sails, which catch the winds that course through the branches; by adjusting these, a skilled pilot may set nearly any course desired, and thus enter the steady currents that flow between the Trees during the dry season, travelling immense distances across the world.
This, then, is the fundamental pattern of the balloon-ship, though many ingenious variations exist. Some make use of immense floating spheres - distant kin, I believe, to the Mycora - to tow the vessel in lieu of sails. Others run along a single taut rope, forever traversing the same path like an aerial ferry, and are used chiefly to link distant quarters of a single settlement. And many balloon-pilots are gifted with Aerokinesis, enabling them to command the winds directly and perform feats of maneuver so astonishing that I hesitate to describe them, lest I be accused of exaggeration.
Arborean Writing
The People of Arborea produce ingenious machines and edifices of great beauty, yet these are by no means the limits of their creative impulse. They devote themselves to the arts with admirable zeal - indeed, many among them consider artistic creation to be the truest path to immortality, for a life’s meaning is measured in the endurance of its works. Their artistic endeavours span the full breadth of expression, but I wish here to give particular attention to their system of writing, which I found especially captivating.The written language of the People is the invention of the Karapax, and consists of a vast collection of glyphs, each bearing its own specific meaning. According to my Karapax informants, there exist precisely one thousand thousand such symbols - though no individual, not even among the most learned geometers, commands all of them. I was deeply honored to discover that they had fashioned a glyph in my likeness - or rather, to signify me - during my stay; yet, intriguingly, this did not increase the total number, which remains fixed and inviolate at that mystical tally.
These glyphs are inscribed upon thin, rigid squares, typically of treated bark or hardened pulp, and arranged within a specially crafted box. The pages are read vertically, beginning at the upper right and proceeding downward through each column before moving leftward to the next. The volumes are not bound: their unbound nature is essential to Arborean literary practice, for the order of the pages may be altered at will. Many works - especially poetic compositions - are intended to be rearranged by the reader, and the sequencing of the glyph-sheets is regarded as an art in its own right. Indeed, several of the greatest Arborean literary masterpieces boast multiple celebrated arrangements, each producing a subtly different resonance of meaning.
When I presented my own bound notebook to the People, they regarded it with gentle pity, deeming it rigid and sadly inflexible. Though they conceded that the practice might hold some conveniences, they assured me that no Arborean would willingly adopt such a limiting form for their own writings.
While the magnificent balloon-ships are undoubtedly the most spectacular of Arborea's technologies, they are by no means its only marvels. The People have devised intricate water-clocks to measure the passage of time, and they have harnessed both wind and falling water to drive great wheels for the grinding of nuts into flour. From the materials available to them - wood, bone, silk, shell, resin, sap, and a host of others - they have fashioned every species of tool requisite for daily life. In this manner, they shape and order their world as thoroughly as any human civilization, despite lacking many materials that ground-dwelling peoples deem essential.
A Home in the Trees
There is no place where the sophistication of the People is more apparent than in their architecture. The communities of Arborea are built upon and within the mighty Trees - at first taking advantage of natural hollows, but enlarging these greatly, and extending their dwellings far outward along the branches. These structures are designed to blend harmoniously into the canopy and frequently employ the controlled shaping of living wood to form their frames. Young branches are bound and guided as they grow, so that, over the course of years, they assume the precise curvature required to serve as the central beams of a future dwelling. Around this living scaffold, the walls are raised with cunning carpentry: planks interlock as tightly as the pieces of an intricate puzzle and are sealed with potent glues derived from the Trees' own saps.
These homes often incorporate broad apertures to admit those among the People who approach upon the wing, and additional entrances are set flush with the surface of the supporting branch. Many windows are filled with panels of hardened, dyed resin, through which natural light may filter in gentle hues. These panels are frequently arranged into works of great delicacy and artistry. I recall one particularly magnificent fractal design in Highmarket, famed throughout the region, which drew visitors from distant settlements simply to behold its beauty.
Unlike the angular edifices of ground-dwelling civilizations, Arborean buildings eschew sharp corners and rigid lines. The People prize the elegant curve, and their structures reflect this aesthetic at every turn. Doors are fashioned to be close-fitting, and the windows fitted with stout shutters - protections rendered indispensable by the violence of the storm-season. Within the walls, concealed from casual view, lie the lines of Arcane Geometry: enchantments wrought by the Karapax to impart preternatural resilience and cohesion to the entire structure. During the dry season, rain is often permitted to drift inward through open doors and windows; objects that cannot tolerate a soaking are kept in interior chambers, sheltered from the periodic inundations.
Interior spaces tend to be vast and communal. Along the walls, multiple platforms and levels are constructed, some open to the central hall and others screened behind curtains. I confess I found many of these aerial alcoves difficult to reach; they are intended for those who can fly or climb with far greater ease than I. In the dwelling the People so generously provided for me, they constructed a staircase for my benefit - quite possibly the only such contrivance in all Arborea. At night, illumination is most often provided by magic, for the People wisely avoid open flame indoors. The Karapax craft small wooden spheres etched with precise geometric lines which, when placed into specially prepared sconces so that their inscriptions align with those of the building, emit a soft green glow - much like the daylight that filters through the canopy itself.
The same aesthetic principles that govern the construction of the homes are expressed throughout the greater fabric of the settlement itself. These communities are, by necessity, profoundly vertical, with great lifts and pulley-systems contrived to transport people and goods between the many levels. Gardens flourish in every quarter - carefully tended plots of edible and medicinal plants upon which the People depend. There is, in Arborea, no division between city and countryside: the agricultural, civic, and artisanal labours of life are interwoven seamlessly, forming a single harmonious whole. In the upper reaches, a small forest of ropes descends from the Clouds - these mark the presence of a nubicultural farm, each rope bearing dozens of the shelled, vapor-feeding Konkheiai, which may be hauled down and harvested as needed. Pens of livestock are likewise distributed throughout the settlement; the People raise numerous species for eggs, meat, and even a sweet, yellowish milk-like secretion obtained from a colossal pseudo-arthropod of placid temperament.
The overall impression of an Arborean settlement is one of exuberant vitality. Everything within sight seems living, growing, or moving; the very air vibrates with color and activity. To walk the lofty lanes of such a community is to feel oneself strangely quickened, as though the vigor of the Trees and the industry of their inhabitants impart some measure of their own life to the fortunate visitor.
Festivities and Celebrations
The lives of the People are by no means bereft of festivity - indeed, quite the contrary. Every community maintains its own calendar of sacred and celebratory days in which all take part. These festivals are highly idiosyncratic, belonging to each settlement rather than to Arborea as a whole. They commemorate those historical events which mark the community's story from its founding onward, every triumph and turning-point receiving its own dedicated feast-day. Likewise, individuals observe private anniversaries of personal significance - moments of joy, grief, revelation, or accomplishment - celebrated either in solitude or in the company of intimate friends. Thus the calendar is never static: it grows and shifts with the life of the community.
Yet amidst this diversity I did observe one common festival. With the close of the wet season, every settlement I visited held a grand celebration upon the first dry day of the year. The People emerge from their shelters with great rejoicing, resuming the ordinary business of life and renewing acquaintance with those from whom the storms had kept them apart. It is a time for setting the intentions of the coming year, invoking good fortune, and delighting in the simple pleasure of open air and unobstructed light. This festival of year's-end often lasts several days, and in the tales of the People it is frequently the herald of new beginnings.
Beyond this shared observance, each settlement takes considerable pride in maintaining a calendar wholly its own, celebrating the peculiarities of its history and the character of its inhabitants. Highmarket, for example, marked a Festival of the Departed - a lively commemoration of the dead that featured contests of storytelling and dramatic re-enactments of notable lives lost in the preceding year. Other communities keep analogous observances, though the forms vary widely. Indeed, it seems a point of honor that no two settlements should share an identical set of feast-days, which may explain the many curious festivals devoted to particular crops or creatures. In one town I visited, they held an annual celebration of the Halomyrmides - a diminutive invertebrate used to impart a pleasing salinity to food - which featured extravagant costumes and a dance performed by representatives of all seven species, each attempting to imitate the motions of a creature scarcely larger than a fingernail. The spectacle defies adequate description, but should you ever find yourself in Arborea, it is an unforgettable experience.
A Panoply of People
And now, dear reader, we must advance to the next portion of our journey. In the pages to come, I shall explore each of the seven species of Arborea in far greater detail than I have hitherto provided. In every profile, I shall endeavor to present a full portrait of the species, including notable individuals with whom I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted during my sojourn. I have arranged these essays in alphabetical order, according to the names I have assigned, which brings us first to the Avara - the curious and nimble nomads of the canopy.
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