In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love´s truth or of light love´s art,
Only the song of a secret bird.
-Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Ballad of Dreamland.
Welcome to the webpage for my newest project, the Eleven Worlds. All of these float within the same universe, an enormous crystal pentagon. Three silver branches project from the pentagon, branches of trees growing outside the universe; one is in each of the two upper corners, and one in the bottom lefthand corner. Each holds three worlds. Another world is fastened to the wall of the universe itself in the bottom righthand corner, and the last drifts as a wandering star through the middle of the pentagon.
That middle is hollow, but it is not empty. In the exact center is a ball of silvery magic that could be called this universe's sun, though it does not shed light in the way that we understand it. (Many of the Eleven Worlds have life that resembles Terran life in form, but not in origin or function). It is the source of life, though; the magic that falls from it onto the worlds creates life and the most potent power in this universe, inspiration.
The rest of the pentagon is full of unformed dream. It waits until someone makes the passage from one world to another, and then tries to manifest itself in his or her mind. It is desperate to be real and see itself made into creations. Unless the traveler has firmly bound himself to the dream of his own world and the one he is going to, then the inspiration he walks through will probably tear him apart.
Sometimes, however, a dreamer's mind is strong enough to not only resist, but accept the inspiration and make it real. All the Eleven Worlds are created worlds in the truest sense, manifested dreams of powerful minds. Of course, in making them, their creators cease to exist.
I'm planning to write a cycle of novels around the Eleven Worlds, drawing particularly on Swinburne's poetry for titles. What I have so far is below.
The three worlds that hang from the branch in the upper left are:
Sybereth's Wood. A world consisting entirely of silvery "trees," and home to two sentient races: the reliir, a human-shaped race who are closely related to the trees, and the tirsel birds. Title associated: The Song of a Secret Bird, from "A Ballad of Dreamland."
Novels Set In Sybereth's Wood: I've finished The Song of a Secret Bird, and it's available at this LiveJournal.
Ne'maren. A world cast in a permanent sunset-like effect, though the landscape itself is more varied than Sybereth's Wood. It knows death, which the reliir do not. There are several sentient races living here, not yet named. Title associated: Kinship of the Mortal Rose, from Swinburne's Anactoria.
Arathea. The World of Light. Here there is true light, of all kinds- moon and stars and sun and fire, and all kinds of reflections. It also contains the dreams of other worlds, possibly able to birth them again if something ever destroys them. Title associated: Raiment of Nights and Days, from Swinburne's The Triumph of Time.
The three worlds that hang from the branch in the upper right are:
Canavri. Everything in the Fourth World follows one long cycle of seasons, so that, for example, there will be an apparently endless spring, and then everything will die at once, in preparation for the next season. Associated title: And All the World Was Summer (not from Swinburne this time).
Eraith. A world not only of dreams, but mirages and illusions; the constantly moving sands form images that live for a while, and then collapse back into sand. This changes the fastest, and is the most mortal of all the worlds. Associated title: Desires and Dreams and Powers, from Swinburne's The Garden of Proserpine.
Telion. Calmest of the worlds, and the most extreme, changing from mountains to oceans with almost nothing in between. The sentient races here often wear the forms of goats and dolphins. Associated title: Infinite Lands and Oceans, variant of a line from Swinburne's Hertha.
The three worlds that hang from the branch in the lower lefthand corner are:
Alanre. A world where almost no one permanently lives. Instead, people go there on quests of self-discovery and to find answers to puzzles they have been wrestling with all their lives. Associated title: A Rose-Hung Road, from Swinburne's "Thalassius."
Danavo. A cold world, almost all of it covered in snow. There is a legend of a dragon that will someday burst forth from the snow and destroy everything, and the people there live in the greatest timidity of change of anyone in the Eleven Worlds. Associated title: Fleeter Than Kindled Fire, from Swinburne's Hymn to Proserpine.
Vria. A gypsy world, which sent its children forth on its roads long ago, for some great crime. They speak of returning to their homeland often, but they cannot until they have traveled all the roads of Vria, which keeps changing them around. Associated title: Vanquished With a Wandering Rhyme, from Swinburne's Tristram of Lyonesse.
The world that sits in the bottom right corner, attached to the wall of the world, is:
Lirria. This world is the youngest of the Eleven, and the people in it still remember their world-creator, enough to sing songs to her as if she were a goddess. Life is simple here, and dreams mainifest more easily than almost anywhere else. Associated title: A Mind of Many Colors, from "Anactoria."
The wandering world is:
Belharsa. This world is the last stand of many dreams and creatures that were too wild or forceful or solitary to stay in the other worlds. People from the other worlds rarely visit it. Everything lost- such as innocence, and memories- tends to fly here. Associated title: Like Night With Flame, from "Anactoria."
I'm also considering doing at least one novel set before the entire universe-creation, Before Night Knew The Moonlight, from Swinburne's Genesis.
The Eleven Worlds are growing swiftly. I've finished the novel set in Sybereth's Wood, and when I'm ready to do so, will probably begin Before Night Knew The Moonlight. However, probably only an excerpt of this one will be available on the Web.
