invisibleforts

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The concrete reefs were stratified with light -- dim blue lights of televisions in darkened living rooms, bright white lights of ballrooms, multicoloured lights from parties. Pornies leered in pink neon and a subtle breeze played idly with bits of confetti in the gutters ... In the distance the severe lineaments of the street converged in a patina of glamorous scales, refracting neon lights, headlights, streetlights, and metal; glints diffused through a cloud of cigarette smoke steam from manholes, and carbon monoxide. ... Gasohol cars purred to his right, skyscrapers stood hard and cold and hardedged in the street lighting overhead. The streets were almost empty. John Shirley, The City Come A Walkin'

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Let me tell you about winds. There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of Rome. The alm, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arifi, also christened aref or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense. There are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. The bist roz leaps into Afghanistan for 170 days--burying villages. There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob--a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold . . . There is also the ------, the secret wind of the desert, whose name was erased by a king after his son died within it . . . Other, private winds. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

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At the left wall was a door.  “His bedroom,” she said. The bedroom was also simple. Wood floor, window for a wall, and a king-sized bed with a dead man on it. 

Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress

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Poetry restores language by breaking it.

- Michael Cisco

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The girls followed their guides, clambering onto an apex, and into a sudden glow ... For a moment it looked like a fireworks display, the most amazing, huge, impressive one ever. But it wasn’t moving. It was an enormous tree of firework-bursts, stuck together and motionless. The trails of several rockets made a trunk. They jutted off at various heights in boughs of light and curved down like a willow tree. Colours filled the rocket-trail branches like leaves, in glimmering red, blue, green, silver, white, and gold. Catherine wheels and the bursts of Roman candles, the buds of sparklers hung motionless and silent like fruit. “The November Tree,” Inessa said.

... Occasionally, Deeba and Zanna saw four lights rush by through the UnLondon streets, two white lights at the front, two red at the back. The first time, they thought it was a car, but there was nothing there, only a glow like headlights. It was as if in the absence of automobiles, UnLondon had provided their pretty illuminations itself, to leave glowing trails in its night-streets.  China Mieville, Un Lun Dun

...

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Porco Rosso, 1992

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i. Scene of the decapitation

ii. A sign takes a break

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‘... the heroine and her companion get off a train in the middle of a swamp. In the distant forest they see a light approaching. This turns out to be an old-fashioned light pole that is hopping along on one foot. It bows to them, turns, and lights the way on the path they must take. When they arrive at a cottage, it dutifully hangs itself above the gate. The living light pole is not necessary. It is a gift from Miyazaki.’

- Roger Ebert, A Magical Dot Over in the Corner

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Jack Vance, The Killing Machine

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Space Dandy, 2014

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‘...proceed to the outskirts of the virtual world... I see them operating as a direct extension of his physical world, revealing the new public space of contemporary society.’

Robert Overweg - Flying and Floating 

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“Deep in thought, Mazirian the Magician walked his garden. Trees fruited with many intoxications overhung his path, and flowers bowed obsequiously as he passed. An inch above the ground, dull as agates, the eyes of mandrakes followed the tread of his black-slippered feet. Such was Mazirian's garden—three terraces growing with strange and wonderful vegetations. Certain plants swam with changing iridescences; others held up blooms pulsing like sea-anemones, purple, green, lilac, pink, yellow. Here grew trees like feather parasols, trees with transparent trunks threaded with red and yellow veins, trees with foliage like metal foil, each leaf a different metal – copper, silver, blue tantalum, bronze, green indium. Here blooms like bubbles tugged gently upward from glazed green leaves, there a shrub bore a thousand pipe-shaped blossoms, each whistling softly to make music of the ancient Earth, of the ruby-red sunlight, water seeping through black soil, the languid winds. And beyond the roqual hedge the trees of the forest made a tall wall of mystery. In this waning hour of Earth's life no man could count himself familiar with the glens, the glades, the dells and deeps, the secluded clearings, the ruined pavilions, the sun-dappled pleasaunces, the gullys and heights, the various brooks, freshets, ponds, the meadows, thickets, brakes and rocky outcrops.”

Jack Vance, Tales of the Dying Earth

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The Forest’s Bounty

The dangling bulbs in the long grass, the gleaming fruit above the trial, about to fall, the brace of herbs between the roots, the glowing berries in the brush.

Strangler Vines. Rotting bodies dangling from branches, a carpet of bones. Vines as thick as pythons begin to unwind from their tree-hosts. They reach down for your throat.

Burstberry. Small, red berries. Pluck them with care, the fruits explode if the skin is pierced or thrown or dropped. You see some dangling above you, ripe and ready to fall. 

Ironbark. Thick brown trunks rippling with slivered veins. Its leaves clang in the breeze, grey and pointed and sharp. Daggers. They will fall if you approach.

Memory Berries. Pale berries that look like eyeballs. Each has a dark pupil that blinks. They retain a day’s worth of bionic data. Crush and drop the berry-juice into your eyes, and they will whisper to you in visions that reveal who passed through here, what plans were made, what goods were transported.

Glasstrunks. Translucent trunks of crystal, a delicate latticework of veins inside. If you brush against them or disturb them, they will emit a hollow ringing sound, like a wine glass, other trees nearby will do the same. Predators are alert to your presence. Somewhere, a sleeper awakes. 

Fanged Fig. Twisted and gnarled with gaping, fanged mouths embedded in the trunks. Occasionally, they will cough up corpses and bones, trinkets and morsels. 

Worchids. Strutting orchids on thin root-legs with laughing childlike heads, a line of them, cutting through the undergrowth, purpose unknown. 

Bluebarks. Their bark pulses and shifts, blue, green, blue. It coils away, further up and around the tree, at your touch. 

Leapleaves. Leaves detach from the branches above you, they flap and glide deeper into the forest, carrying messages, or migrating south, you can't be certain. 

Shattercaps. Clusters of orange and red patterned fungi. Delicious. If eaten, they detonate. You breath out plumes of spores, odd lights glows at the back of your eyes, a whisper in your mind, do you obey?

Lampmoss. A grove of partially glowing trees, the moss gnaws at them, sparking. It can be used as light, but it will consume whatever it is placed in; lanterns, lamps. 

Antitrees. A latticework of roots erupting from the ground. Idly moving, undulating. These trees grow in reverse, the branches burrow into the earth, their flower and fruits blooming underground, searching out darkness. 

Fossilised trees. Old and thick and utterly still. Not growing or decaying. Fruits still ripe, flowers half-bloomed, leaves caught in the air as they fell. An entire grove of them, unmoving. 

Sidewinders. These trees grow horizontally, snaking around tree trunks and under logs, searching for sunlight. They bask in the patches of light, and follow it’s movement throughout the day. At night,  their trunks curl up like snakes to wait for morning. 

Briefbloom. These trees shoot up above the canopy in the morning; unfurl beautiful flowers and succulent fruits, and are dead by evening. Only will one grows in a year, a witch hoards these fruits.

Carniflowers. They grow in marshes amongst the reeds. Their leaves are fanged and sharp. You see sluggish movement and hear whispers from within their trunks. 

Waterleaf. Their bulbs are fat and blue, they detach and contain a whole days supply of water.  

Weepwood. Tears of sap drip down the trunk, in different hues, staining the wood. 

Wildroot. It’s roots explode from the mulch below and bloom into root-cages. They claw and pull you downwards. Used as traps by the forest dwellers. 

Corpseflower. These plants grow out of wounds of corpses, they bloom into violent red flowers, whispering last wishes and warnings.

~

Image: Nicolas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, 1653

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‘Sundered from us by gulfs of time and stranger dimensions dreams the ancient world of Nehwon with its towers and skulls and jewels, its swords and sorceries. 

Nehwon's known realms crowd about the Inner Sea: northward the green-forested fierce Land of the Eight Cities, eastward the steppe-dwelling Mingol horsemen and the desert where caravans creep from the rich Eastern Lands and the River Tilth. But southward, linked to the desert only by the Sinking Land and further warded by the Great Dike and the Mountains of Hunger, are the rich grain fields and walled cities of Lankhmar, eldest and chiefest of Nehwon's lands. Dominating the Land of Lankhmar and crouching at the silty mouth of the River Hlal in a secure corner between the grain fields, the Great Salt Marsh, and the Inner Sea is the massive-walled and mazy-alleyed metropolis of Lankhmar, thick with thieves and shaven priests, lean-framed magicians and fat-bellied merchants—Lankhmar the Imperishable, the City of the Black Toga.’

 Fritz Lieber, Swords and Deviltry, 1970

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Common Herbs of the Forest

Morning Soldier - aromatic, antivenom in distilled form

Butterlily - a plump yellow bulb, if digested your eyes fill with synthesised sunlight, you can see at night 

Storm’s Ear - a strong stimulant, chew to stay awake, side effects include mild hallucinations, hearing voices 

Frostthorn - grows only at night, melts by mid morning, thorns of ice, refreshing effect, reinvigorates 

Glossflower - a pleasant everlasting scent when dried, a pest-repellent 

Bluecap - a small bright blue fungi, purifies, dispels malicious spirits

Dustflower - chef's friend, a fine powered rubs off the leaves, a culinary enhancer, extra full for longer, valuable

Moonleaf - explosive qualities when crushed and dried 

Verveil - antiseptic medicinal qualities, speeds up healing 

Woad - used to dye cloth in forest hues, camouflages

Rainroot - dab on wounds to reduce pain, in large quantities can paralyse 

Daltura - When burnt, inhaling it has a calming effect, fear reduction

Ruen - beautiful, pungent, attractive to certain animals, especially butterflies, bait traps with it

Mulvein - dappled grey lichen, cooling and soothing, has respiratory benefits, increase stamina 

Foxbloom - petals immolate into blue-green flames when exposed to sunlight, can can be used to start fires or inserted into a lantern

Ghostfoil - nocturnal blooming, intoxicating fragrance, petals glow in the dark, use as a light source

Dreamleaf - the smell becalms people, if crushed it is a sedative, induces a deep sleep 

Gravemoss - dark-red moss, grows on old tombstones, re-energises the spirit when inhaled / induces hallucinations, target becomes haunted

Whisperweed - grey white thistle, amplifies hearing when ingested 

Ashroyal - a poison, crushed powder, kills instantly, only grows out of skulls

Easily confused with:

Mugwort - a sedative, your eye lids droop, your vision blurs

Greyglove - a potent natural laxative, your gut rumbles

Honeywood - your scent is irresistible, you attract animals. Somewhere, a creature sniffs, it has your scent

Foxpetal - delicious, but induces hallucinations, acute paranoia

Yarrow - a mild poison, taxing, you are forced to make camp

Wolfberry - a sharp increase to your stamina, especially your libido

Buji Berry - wired, on edge, you can’t sleep for 2 days 

Sumu - a disguised chilli, it burns, you clutch your throat 

Cloudwort - soothing, you become very, very relaxed

Shadepetal - your body parts begin to disappear randomly, they will reappear in two days

Lumaberry - pallid yellow, swallowing it causes your skin to glow, you breathe misty radiance, light pours out of your eyes, nearby creatures notice

Reekleaf - you smell, horribly, but predators will avoid you

~

Image: Nicolas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, 1653

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Blood Meridian’s External World

In the evening they came out upon a mesa that overlooked all the country to the north. The sun to the west lay in a holocaust where there rose a steady column of small desert bats and to the north along the trembling perimeter of the world dust was blowing down the void like the smoke of distant armies. The crumpled butcherpaper mountains lay in sharp shadowfold under the long blue dusk and in the middle distance the glazed bed of a dry lake lay shimmering like the mare imbrium and herds of deer were moving north in the last of the twilight, harried over teh plain by wolves who were themselves the colour of the desert.

pg. 111

They rode on into the mountains and their way took them through high pine forests, wind in the trees, lonely bird calls. The shoeless mules slalomed through the dry grass and pine needles. In the blue coulees on the north slopes narrow trailings of old snow.

pg. 143

They rode down from this country through a deep gorge, clattering over the stones, rifts of cool blue shade. In the dry sand of the arroyo floor old bones and broken shapes of painted pottery and graven on the rocks above them pictographs of horse and cougar and turtle and the mounted Spaniards helmeted and bucklered and contemptuous of stone and silence and time itself.

pg. 146

They passed through a high meadow carpeted with wildflowers, acres of golden groundsel and zinnia and deep purple gentian and wild vines of blue morningglory and a vast plain of varied small blooms reaching onward like a gingham print to the farthest serried rimlands blue with haze and adamantine ranges rising out of nothing like the backs of seabeasts in devonian dawn.

pg. 197

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“At the turn of the last century, Dr. Charles Campbell, a physician, began experimenting with bats to fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes ... after years of unsuccessful experimentation he realised that unlike birds, bats needed something bigger. With a personal investment of $500, Campbell built the first bat house—a 30-foot-tall tower, he called the “monument”—in 1907 at the U.S. Experimental Farm near San Antonio.”