Taverner's Guide - Vol VII: The Twilight Reach

Taverner's Guide - Vol VII: The Twilight Reach (Unfinished)

"Where certainty ends and wonder begins"

By Harrick Taverner, Year 4,181 of the Cracked Crown

Publisher's Warning: This manuscript was delivered anonymously and remains incomplete. Master Taverner's whereabouts are unknown. The Cartographer's Guild formally discourages expeditions to the region described herein.

Initial Observations

I write this from a place that shouldn't exist. Six volumes I've completed, describing every corner of mapped Aurelia with confidence born from thorough documentation. This seventh volume will be different. I'm no longer certain of anything. I'm no longer certain I want to be certain.

The Twilight Reach lies beyond the Eastern Dominion's furthest outposts, past the Dragonspine Mountains, in a region the maps label simply as "Uncharted." Locals in the border settlements speak of it only in whispers—a place where the sun never fully rises or sets, where seven moons hang in permanent twilight, where time flows differently.

I dismissed these stories as folklore. I was wrong.

There is a water stain here, and the handwriting becomes less steady

My colleague—no, what was her role? Vesha. Yes. Vesha warned me that the Reach "listens to desire." I thought she meant metaphorically. Three days in, I found a settlement I'd been hoping to discover, exactly where I expected it. Too exactly. The buildings matched sketches I'd drawn the night before in idle speculation.

I've stopped drawing at night.

The Border Crossing

The transition is gradual but unmistakable. You don't cross a line—you pass through stages of increasing strangeness:

The Dimming (Days 1-3 from Last Watch): Sunlight becomes weaker, colors mute, shadows lengthen despite unchanged sun position. Your watch begins keeping irregular time. I wound mine this morning—or was it yesterday? The mechanism runs backward for minutes at a time, then races forward. Locals call this region "The Dimming" and few venture beyond. Those who do often return speaking of the weight. I feel it now. Not physical. Something pressing against the inside of my thoughts.

The Gloaming (Days 4-7, I think): The sun fixes at perpetual dusk. Additional moons become visible—first one extra, then two, then more. The landscape shifts when you're not looking. When you ARE looking too, if you watch long enough. Trails branch in directions that shouldn't exist geometrically. I've walked uphill in all directions from the same valley. Compasses spin uselessly, unless you ask them politely. Then they point at something that isn't north, but might be what you need. Might be what IT needs you to find.

The Reach Proper (Beyond Day seven? nine? does it matter?): Full twilight. Seven moons hang in the sky simultaneously. They shouldn't fit. The sky isn't large enough for seven moons of those sizes at those distances. Yet there they are. Watching. Always watching. Time becomes negotiable—you measure passage by "moon-turns" rather than days. Causality behaves strangely. I wrote a letter yesterday that I received this morning. From myself. Warning me not to read it. I read it anyway. It was blank.

Marginal note in different ink, shaky handwriting: "Do NOT trust conventional navigation. The land remembers your intentions and responds. Think carefully about what you seek. Better yet, stop seeking. Stop thinking. Just walk. Let the moons guide you. Let THEM*—" the writing becomes illegible*

Last Watch - The Final Settlement

Population: ~200 (they claim), but I've counted the same faces too many times

The final settlement before the Reach proper. Built at the edge of The Dimming, Last Watch serves as staging ground, warning post, and memorial. The inhabitants are former explorers, guides who've been too far to return to normal lands, and families of those who vanished.

The Registry Hall - Every traveler entering the Reach must register. Not law, but tradition born from necessity. Names, destinations, expected return. The walls are covered with unclaimed entries dating back decades. Centuries, perhaps. The oldest ones are written in languages that predate the Cracked Crown. How can that be? The town isn't that old.

I added my name. The registrar, a woman with too many teeth in her smile, told me: "Most names get claimed. Eventually. One way or another." When I asked what she meant, she just pointed at a wall section where names had been crossed out in red. Not removed. Crossed out. Still visible beneath the lines.

The Guide's Lodge - Here you can hire experienced Reach guides. Vesha works from here. She's the only guide willing to go deeper than The Gloaming. The others won't speak of why they refuse. They look at her with something between pity and horror.

When I asked Vesha why she goes where others won't, she said: "Because I've already been claimed. Nothing left to lose but time, and time doesn't work right out there anyway."

I hired her for 50 gold. She laughed and said she'd take payment "in memories, when we return." I don't understand what she means. I'm starting to suspect I will.

The Anchored Rest - Inn and tavern. The food is good. The beds are comfortable. The walls are covered in maps that don't match each other. Old Merik, the innkeeper, maintains a collection showing where previous expeditions vanished. Different colored pins for different types of disappearance: "Clean Gone" (red), "Came Back Wrong" (yellow), "Still Sending Letters" (blue, and there are disturbingly many of these).

I asked about the blue pins. Merik poured me a drink and said, "Some folks go in and keep writing home. Letters arrive monthly, yearly, describing places that can't exist, events that couldn't happen. The families eventually stop opening them. But the letters keep coming. Forever."

The Beacon - A lighthouse that burns with silver fire, visible even deep in the Reach. If lost, find high ground and look for the silver light. It will guide you back.

Marginal note, later: "The Beacon lies. Not always. Not even usually. But sometimes*. And you can't tell when. Vesha says it shows you what you need to see, not what you want to see. I don't know which is more terrifying."*

Moonshadow Grove - Where Reality Negotiates

Population: yes

The handwriting here becomes erratic, with occasional words heavily crossed out

Three days into the Gloaming (or seven, or when The Twins eclipse), you may find Moonshadow Grove. I say "may" because it doesn't stay in one place. The settlement moves with the alignment of the moons. Or the land moves around it. Or we move and everything else stays still but our perception shifts and—

Several lines are heavily scratched out here

Focus. I must focus.

The inhabitants are Reach-born. Their grandparents settled here, they say. But some of the residents ARE the grandparents. Still alive. Still young. They don't age correctly here. One woman told me she's been twenty-three years old for forty-seven years. She laughed when she said it. Her laugh had too many echoes.

They trade in things other than coin. Memories. Dreams. Sensations. "The weight of a fear you've outgrown." "The taste of your favorite childhood meal." "Three seconds from the happiest moment of your life."

I watched a man trade "the sound of his mother's voice" for a flask of moonwater. He walked away humming tunelessly. When I asked if he regretted it, he looked confused. "Regret what?"

What They Offer:

• Moonwater - Glowing liquid. Tastes like starlight feels. Provides sustenance, maintains sanity (allegedly), and makes the moons "sing clearer." I don't know what that means. I drank some anyway. I can hear them now.
• Star-stones - Fragments that fell upward from earth toward sky. They glow with internal light, warm to the touch, and hum at frequencies that make your teeth ache. Vesha carries three. She says they protect against "the things that watch from the spaces between moons." I've started seeing movement there. In the spaces. Dark things that don't have shapes, just
• Direction Tokens - Carved stones that point toward concepts rather than places. "Toward safety," "toward answers," "toward home." Mine points in three directions simultaneously. Vesha says that's normal. Nothing here is normal.

Marginal note in different handwriting—not mine—I don't remember writing this: "You're going too deep, Harrick. The Reach takes pieces of you and you don't notice until you reach for them and they're GONE. Turn back. Please. —H.T."

When did I write that? Why don't I remember? Why am I crying?

The Seven Moons (They Watch)

The handwriting deteriorates significantly from this point forward. Many words are misspelled, then corrected. Some sentences trail off incomplete.

All seven visible simultaneously. Impossible sizes at impossible distances. Vesha says they aren't moons. Won't tell me what they are. Says I'll understand when I'm ready. Says I'll wish I hadn't understood.

The Reach-born have names for them. They taught me the names. I shouldn't have learned the names. Names give things power. Names create connections.

The Watcher - Largest. Pale blue like dead eyes. Like my eyes in certain light. Marks the passage of time through its alignment with The Keeper. One "moon-turn" passes when they touch. Except they never actually touch. They approach infinitely close but never meet. Asymptotic yearning. I've started dreaming of The Watcher. It has a face. The face changes but the eyes don't.

The Keeper - Silver. Smallest. The "navigation moon" they call it. Points toward "the center" of the Reach. What center? There is no center. Or everywhere is the center. My direction token keeps pointing at The Keeper. "Toward home," I asked it to show me. It points at The Keeper. That isn't home. That CAN'T be home.

The Twins - Red and amber. Orbit each other in defiance of celestial mechanics. When they eclipse (it happens wrong, the shadow falls upward onto the ground instead of—no that's not right—the Wandering Market appears. Merchants from nowhere selling impossible things. I bought a bottle of "captured midnight" from a vendor with hands that bent at too many joints. The bottle is empty but heavy. So heavy. Why is it heavy?

The Dancer - Violet. Traces erratic paths across the sky, moves fast when danger approaches. Vesha watches The Dancer constantly. When it speeds up, she makes us shelter immediately. Last time it moved fast, I saw—

Half a page torn out here. Water stains. What looks like burn marks.

—shouldn't have looked. Don't look at what The Dancer warns about. Don't look at the spaces between the moons when The Dancer moves.

The Sleeper - Dark grey. Barely visible against the twilight sky. They say it marks the location of the Silent Void's Edge. "Where the world stops and the nothing begins," Vesha says. She's taking me there. I asked her what's at the Edge. She said, "The reason the Reach exists. The reason anything exists. The reason we shouldn't exist."

I should turn back. I can't turn back. Something is pulling me forward. Or I'm falling forward. Or forward doesn't mean what it used to mean.

The Herald - Bright white with rings that shouldn't be there (rings around a moon? impossible but there they are). When all six other moons align with The Herald—

No one will tell me what happens. They change the subject. Look away. One old woman started weeping when I asked. Another laughed until she choked. A third simply said: "The gates open."

What gates? Gates to where? Gates to what?

Marginal note in shaking handwriting: "They're aligning tonight. The moons. All of them. Vesha says we'll reach the Edge before it happens. Vesha is lying. Vesha wants me to see it. Why? What am I supposed to see? What is SHE?**"

Observed Phenomena (Impossible Things)

The remaining pages are increasingly chaotic. Some entries are dated, others aren't. The dates that exist don't follow sequential order. This is my best attempt to organize them coherently.

• Shadows that fall in directions unconnected to light sources. Sometimes your shadow points at things before you consciously notice them. My shadow pointed at Vesha for three days before I realized she was leading us in circles. Not lost—deliberately. "Teaching you the rhythm," she said.
• Sound travels wrong. Conversations echo from the future. I hear myself speaking words I haven't said yet. Then I say them. Why do I say them? Am I choosing to or am I forced to because I heard them?
• The stars are wrong. Not just unfamiliar—wrong. Constellations that shift when you blink. Stars that pulse in rhythm with your heartbeat. One night I realized the stars were spelling words. I looked away immediately. Too late. I read three letters. They spelled—

The word is scratched out so violently it tore through the page

• Vegetation that grows toward the moons instead of the sun. Flowers that bloom and wither in seconds, leaving behind seedpods that hum. Vesha collected some. Made me drink tea from them. I saw—no. No. Not writing that down. If I write it down it becomes real and it can't be real it CAN'T—
• Time loops. Small ones. I've had the same conversation with Vesha six times. She remembers each iteration. I only remember after the sixth time. She's been patient. "You're learning," she says. Learning what? To exist in multiple moments simultaneously?
• The things in the spaces between moons. Don't look at them. DON'T. They're not there when you're not looking but they ARE when you are and once you see them they've ALWAYS been there and you realize they've been watching you your ENTIRE LIFE and—

Water damage. Possibly tears. The next several entries are illegible.

• Vesha doesn't eat. Doesn't sleep. I've been watching. She pretends to but she doesn't. Her shadow sometimes moves independently. Once I saw her reflection blink when she didn't. When I confronted her, she smiled with too many teeth (has she always had that many teeth? I can't remember) and said: "I told you. I've already been claimed."
• Claimed by what? BY WHAT VESHA? WHAT CLAIMS PEOPLE HERE? WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME?

The handwriting changes completely here. Elegant, flowing script that definitely isn't mine:

"He's close now. Three more moon-turns until we reach the Edge. He asks questions but stops listening to answers. The Reach is inside him now, unfolding like flowers in his thoughts. He'll understand soon. They always understand at the Edge. Whether they survive the understanding—that's the interesting part. —V."

My handwriting resumes, shakier than before:

I don't remember falling asleep. Found this entry when I woke up. Vesha was reading my journal. She looked up and smiled. "Getting close," she said.

Final Entries - Approaching the Edge

The remaining pages are barely legible. Dating becomes impossible. Some entries are written right-to-left, others spiral across the page. What follows is the best reconstruction possible.

Day ??? - The Sleeper grows larger

We're close. The Sleeper moon fills half the sky now. Impossible. Moons don't work that way. Unless it's not a moon. Unless it never was a moon.

Vesha says we'll reach the Edge "when The Sleeper wakes." What happens when it wakes? What IS it sleeping against?

The ground beneath us is becoming translucent. I can see... layers? Depth? Other places beneath this place? Vesha walks like she's always walked here. Maybe she has. Maybe she never left.

Day ??? - The alignment begins

All seven moons moving into position. The Herald at the center. The others orbiting. They're not moons they're EYES they're WATCHING they've ALWAYS been watching and now they're going to OPEN and—

Scribbled frantically: "calm down calm down you're losing it Harrick focus FOCUS the moons are just moons they're celestial bodies they're not alive they can't be alive they—"

Vesha touched my shoulder. Her hand was cold. So cold. "They're not alive, Harrick. They're something else. Something that makes 'alive' and 'dead' meaningless distinctions. You'll see soon."

I don't want to see. I have to see. I've come too far. Given too much. Lost too much.

What have I lost? I can't remember. Important things. Faces. Names. Why I started this journey. All that remains is the need to reach the Edge. To see what's at the end.

Or the beginning?

Day ??? - THE EDGE

We're here.

The Silent Void's Edge. Where the world stops.

It's not an edge. It's a threshold. A membrane. The world doesn't stop—it continues differently. On the other side is—

The handwriting becomes almost elegant here, as if written carefully by someone at peace:

I understand now.

The Reach isn't a place. It's a transition. A space between what is and what could be. The moons aren't watching—they're sustaining this place. Holding it open. Seven seals on a door that should never have been opened.

And beyond the door—

Oh.

Oh no.

Vesha is smiling. "Now you see," she says. Her voice has too many layers. "Now you understand why some knowledge must be kept."

She's not Vesha. She was never Vesha. Vesha died years ago, claimed by the Reach. This thing has been wearing her like—

The moons are aligning. The gate is opening. I can see THROUGH

I can see everything

I can see what we are what we've always been what we're meant to become and it's beautiful and terrible and VAST and we're so small we're nothing we're less than nothing we're dreams dreaming we're—

The handwriting becomes illegible. Wild scrawls. Repetitive spirals. Then, suddenly, perfectly clear:

To whoever finds this:

Don't come looking for me. Don't come to the Reach. Some things are meant to stay hidden. Some doors should remain closed.

The stars spell names. The moons are watching. The Edge is waiting.

And I—

The entry ends here. The rest of the page is blank except for a single line at the bottom, written in a different hand:

"He stepped through. I couldn't stop him. The gate closed behind him. I don't think it leads anywhere our minds can comprehend as a 'place.' If you're reading this, turn back. — Someone who tried to follow"

Publisher's Afterword

This manuscript was delivered to Kalidor Press House three months after Master Taverner's disappearance. The hooded messenger who delivered it refused payment, refused to answer questions, and vanished into the evening crowds before we could detain them.

The Cartographer's Guild has examined the journal extensively. Their official position is that the manuscript represents "psychological deterioration brought on by isolation and environmental stress." They attribute the more fantastical elements to hallucination, exhaustion, and possible poisoning from unknown local flora.

However, three items were included with the manuscript that defy easy explanation:

• A compass that points in no cardinal direction, its needle spinning slowly counterclockwise unless held by certain individuals, in which case it fixes on an unknown direction
• A fragment of grey stone that emits faint light and low-frequency sound. Guild mineralogists cannot identify the material. It weighs differently depending on who holds it. One researcher reported it "weighing more than memory."
• A sealed letter addressed "To Those Who Would Follow." The Guild has classified this letter. Its contents remain unknown to the public.

Since this manuscript's publication, three separate expeditions have departed in search of the Twilight Reach and Master Taverner. None have returned. Two sent letters for several months before communication ceased. The third was never heard from again.

The Cartographer's Guild and the Council of Aurelia formally discourage any attempts to locate or explore the region described in this manuscript. The information herein is published solely for historical and archival purposes.

We publish Master Taverner's incomplete final volume with great reluctance and heavy hearts. His previous six volumes represent invaluable contributions to Aurelian geography and culture. They will remain in print as monuments to his remarkable career.

This seventh volume serves not as a guide, but as a warning.

— Edrian Moss, Chief Publisher, Kalidor Press House

13th day of Autumn, Year 4,187 of the Cracked Crown

On the final page, written in pencil, barely visible: "But what if some of us need to see what's beyond the edge?"