《Meck: Decryptor of a City》
Chapter I - The Man
In wake of the momentous discoveries these recent years have witnessed, such that have changed the very face of Vorth¡¯s history, in the year `3232r.IV, I that am First Illuminator to the throne hereby do take up pen and stain for to revisit the tale of Meck, past and lauded engineer of Antissa.
Herein, upon command of His Majesty the Satrap-Archimandrite Bardon, I would seek to cast a closer eye upon that man''s true story and the mysteries he faced than yet has properly been granted. I would seek to forge a timely whole of many scattered fragments. And in committing to the page both his life and all that might be understood, if not surmised, of how he came to know such long-lost ancient secrets of our lore, I would thus seek to bestow his genius the rightful light of recognition our former dynasty so long and most unjustly denied.
Osh Esidh, First Illuminator
`3232/Fon¡¯verun
Gaspar Meck was born in Antissa, the fortress-capital of Vorth, on `3144/Shafan/r.5, and there raised. His parents, Radwan and Khestra Meck, were middle-class Vedans originally of Verunia caliphy; though unaffiliated to any guild, both reputable artisans of the city districts: parchment-maker and silversmith respectively. Gaspar was the only child of these and, while it is thought by some that his birth was not foremost among the plans of the Mecks, he did nevertheless receive an uncommonly full and comprehensive education for his parents¡¯ social standing and income.
Education complete and proving disinterested in the trades of his forebears, he was apprenticed to a North District blacksmith at the age of 16. Largely unhappy in this endeavour, he fared slowly, showing little promise; deemed by his masters in turn as undisciplined, distractible and mulish. So it was that four years later, upon the death of his father in active jhendrit service, Meck immediately abandoned his blacksmith apprenticeship to seek training instead as an engineer.
In the City Engineering Guild he flourished, displaying extraordinary talent and swiftly developing mastery in many crafts practiced therein; in itself a rare feat, all the more so perhaps as all such crafts are notoriously demanding of strength and Meck was small in stature, a physically unimpressive man. Indeed it is known that his previous apprenticeship had come closest to outright failure with his difficulty in handling the heavy tools of the blacksmith trade.
Completing his apprenticeship with the Guild in due course, he became a City Engineer at the age of 26. Already widely recognised for his aptitude across so wide a range of skills, it is known that at this time he was almost certainly stable in his own finances. Nevertheless, the following year he persuaded his mother to release his family inheritance and, obtaining which, purchased a small estate in Antissa¡¯s Citizen District. Here he took up residence in `3171. At this time a forced estrangement between mother and son seems to have begun, although as Meck remained consistently private about his family affairs throughout his life, only guesses can be made as to the cause.
As he steadily acquired the respect of his peers in the capital districts, Meck soon also attracted the attention of Royal Engineers. Before long, increase in frequency, then near exclusivity, of the Royal Guild¡¯s sub-contracting of his wide-ranging services led to pressure being mounted by the City Guild, many of whose members now faced marginalisation of their own hard-won Royal commissions, due to Meck. This in turn swiftly led to his employment by the Royal Engineering Guild in mid-`3172.
Although a dedicated diarist for most of his life (these texts now property of the throne), any such personal records from these years of Meck¡¯s life are not known to exist. What is known from his business records, however, is that the year of his employment to the Royal Guild may have seen his first meeting, or at the outmost transactional dealings, with one already long-enshrined in Vedish legend. Ledgers from this year contain entries ¨D at least a dozen ¨D of the client handle ¡°Az-math¡± or ¡°Az.Mat¡±, which is conspicuously singular in its brevity. In recent times it has been inferred as shorthand for none other than Albastra Azal, the famed and enigmatic mathematician.
It is well-documented that Azal resided in Antissa for seven to eight years between `3130 - `3140; arguably longer outwith this period. Prior to this, although not of fixed abode, extended periods of residence as well as intermittent shorter appearances are known to have taken place over the course of at least a decade; his first recorded appearance in Vorth dated to `3120/21. His noted mathematical works, including Endocratic Structure, Practical Contranumerics and the renowned Theorem of Intercausality (c.`3125), are dated to this time, some minor works composed thereafter.
There are markedly few descriptions of Azal the man, the only recurring details being those of advanced age and considerable tallness. Despite having been bestowed the status of honorary Vedan following his academic contributions to Antissan science and technology, he was not Vedish by birth. There has never been consensus as to his nationality or origin, though it is most popularly believed and certainly likely that he was Eredian, in no small part due to the intimate academic relationship he had with the Empire¡¯s Academy; overtly and abundantly evident in all his compositions.
Conversely, Azal does not appear to have ever displayed any special knowledge of engineering-craft. But he is far from a mere footnote to the Antissan inventions in which his methods played a part. His mathematical concepts endeared him early to the Guilds and certainly by the time of Meck¡¯s youth many of these were long-since firmly indoctrinated core-texts in Antissa¡¯s academic and engineering circles. From years of notebooks containing Meck¡¯s own mathematical forays, we know that, most likely from a young age, he would have been an avid reader, student, if not devotee, of Azal¡¯s oeuvre. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to assume a deeper discourse between the two even as early as those first ledger entries. Nor, then, is it improbable that the Mathematician Azal in some way spurred Meck¡¯s ideas regarding Antissa and its early construction, by then burgeoning for some years.
From the detail of the ledger entries themselves we can be almost completely confident that business dealings with Azal were at least in part responsible for Meck¡¯s sudden keen interest in another building located in the Citizen District; a building to which he relocated in early `3273 after purchasing it for an exorbitant sum. Despite the sale of his former residence the transaction drove him into debt, although this was seemingly addressed later that year when he gained position with the more senior staff of the Chief Engineer.
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Reaching the age of 30, Meck began to assert himself as an expert in his field (indeed, his many fields.) Thorfin Thazra, the over-praised grandson of the city¡¯s first Chief Engineer, was a year younger than Meck, had headed Antissa¡¯s Guilds for only two years and was, by now, a noticeably inept engineer himself. This ushered in a period of quickly intensifying one-upmanship between the two. Between `3174 - `3176 Thazra all too frequently found himself shamefaced before the Royal Guild by Meck¡¯s finesse, expertise and innovation, already being lauded by some as genius.
But it was at approximately this stage that Meck became only more intensely fascinated by the legacy of Antissa¡¯s founders, the ancient Builders, thence devoting more and more hungry attention to the exploration of their craft and legacy. Then, in `3176, his diary clearly recounts a [second] meeting with Azal, during which he obtained a recently-composed ¡°addendum¡± to the mathematician¡¯s Theorem of Intercausality: a logical problem expressed in mathematics that had been in circulation for over 30 years and ever since perplexing Antissa¡¯s finest minds. Meck¡¯s diaries are peculiarly ambiguous as to not only the content of the exchange between himself and Azal, but the manner in which this page was acquired. Nevertheless the page was soon after transcribed and made public to the city¡¯s academic circles (though Meck retained the original.) In the same year, the Theorem of Intercausality was almost unanimously disproved.
Over the year that followed, however, Meck privately solved the addendum. His written material purported that the problem as presented therein could be proved totally independent of the rest of the Theorem. There is no written evidence that the potential engineering ramifications implied by his solution were either confirmed or refuted by the Theorem¡¯s author ¨D the two not known to have ever met again ¨D but Meck never published the solution. Indeed it did not come to light until after his death. Diary entries on the subject make it clear that he anticipated the idea¡¯s virulent rejection by contemporaries. The proof as proposed pushed boldly at the boundaries of accepted physical laws, and was for this reason obviously too steep a risk to Meck¡¯s reputation as a Royal Engineer.
By late `3176 civic upkeep in Antissa was faltering as a direct result of Thazra¡¯s feckless administration, culminating in several dangerous complications and near collapses of city systems. Meck was key, not only in rectifying these complications, but in largely improving upon the systems themselves. Then in `3177, just after Meck¡¯s thirty-third name-day, Thazra was ousted from his position by the Sanhedrin council and Meck unanimously elected Chief Engineer by the Royal Guild. Accepting, he became fifth to hold the office.
At heart a private man, heretofore well-suited to solitary work, Meck at first found it challenging to head the Royal Guild efficiently. The first year and a half of his tenure proved to be trying and arguably unsuccessful. But just as confidence in his abilities began to lapse, he authorised the excavation and construction of a new engineering centre under the citadel in the form of a single-level ¡°Deep¡± (constituting the first level of the since-expanded modern Deep). This was entirely the brainchild of Meck, seemingly inspired by his research into the early Antissa of the Builders. It was begun in `3179, completed two years later, and succeeded in sweepingly mustering the full machine of the Guilds under his leadership. Immediately thereafter, a succession of ground-breaking advances were made to the engineering systems of both the Inner City and fortress at large.
Meck was not only a clear genius and master engineer, but before long came into his own as an expert administrator. By `3185 he had sculpted an upper tier of royal engineering staff able to manage the running of all civic systems with minimal direction. In turn, he began to devote more time to the furthering of his interest in the Builders. Resultantly more taciturn between `3185 - `3190, he earned criticism for being consumed by abstractions; ¡°obsessed¡± with Antissa¡¯s secrets and the discovery of ¡°lost learning¡± many believed did not exist. Due to his intense solitude and the fact that he seldom dated his writings and diagrams on the subject, it is merely speculated that his most significant discoveries were made during this period. Few of his findings were ever conclusive at the time, and those that were saw modest, if any, circulation.
His mother died in late `3190. At the time, so isolated and absorbed by his pursuits was Meck that her body was not discovered until early `3191. To the 46-year-old engineer, it came as a twofold shock. He responded by entrusting his highest echelon of engineers with civic upkeep and taking leave of Antissa for almost two full years. He travelled widely in Vorth and beyond over this time; visiting Elman, Norwynd, Naemia, some of the Barrier Isles and even the Lackish outskirts of Lostrian Ered, all the while maintaining regular correspondence with his deputies. His long journey ended with visits to the temples in Methar, Laudassa and Verunia, where he discovered that the inscriptions of the Builders upon the Monument Stones safeguarded there had become almost entirely illegible. Of his time among the clerics of those temples he wrote with some despondency that the interpretations of the clerical community bore little relation to what he had come to understand of the Builders by way of his own research. Hereafter clearly disillusioned, Meck seems to have pursued his theories with less voracity.
Returning to Antissa in late `3192, he resumed his duties as Chief Engineer. Though best described throughout his life as an eccentric, the sharpest edges of his unusual personality and often intransigent stubbornness appeared to soften at this time. Nevertheless innovative advances to the city¡¯s infrastructure, technology and engineering method would continue in much the same trajectory as before, and in `3195 country and Satrap officially acknowledged him as the finest engineer in recorded history. He also relocated his private residence to the city¡¯s High District, but refused to sell either his previous home or his family estate, having both boarded up as storehouses for obsolete machinery.
In the same year he personally authorised the initiation of repatriated exile Rusper Symphin onto the Royal Guild; three years later officiating Symphin¡¯s position on his leading staff. Although Symphin was essentially his right-hand engineer, Meck would treat him with the trust and confidence of a friend ¨D possibly his only friend ¨D though the dynamic may not have been clear to the younger man. Were this not the case, however, it is unlikely that Meck would have entrusted him personally with Azal¡¯s Theorem Addendum, concealed as it was inside the ink-pen that Symphin later would inherit.
Meck never married or sired children; his peculiar personality likely concealing a difficult loneliness only exacerbated by brilliance.
As early as `3204, aged 59, his health began to deteriorate. He would remain fit enough to effectively maintain his role for another seven years, but withdrew from all physical labour. At around this time, for reasons that are still not fully clear, his vast store of written work (including Builder-related material) was hurriedly and poorly archived by Guild administration and more-or-less forgotten until well into his successor¡¯s tenure. Much would be damaged in the course of the Deep¡¯s expansion; his Builder-related papers next subject to proper scrutiny by Symphin¡¯s staff.
Gout and rheumatic fever finally incapacitated Meck in `3211, whereupon he left office and passed full authority over Antissan engineering to his prot¨¦g¨¦ Rusper Symphin. He died on `3212/Senerat/r.12, aged 67, and was honoured with a public funeral ceremony, rare in Vorth.
Chapter II - The Mystery
The question we face now, as we awaken to the depth and scope of his genius and its meaning for our nation both past and future, is how Meck came to acquire the knowledge reflected in his works; writings and diagrams our eyes can only now, enlightened by the boon of material evidence, discern for what they truly are.
What follows is the culmination of nearly three years of research into the material of the late Chief Engineer, extensive re-cataloguing of the archives of both Guilds, as well as much careful and circumspect review of what might reasonably be inferred between the facts and what indeed may never be confirmed.
It has been proclaimed both by His Majesty the Satrap-Archimandrite and the incumbent Chief Engineer as the closest possible summation of the truth.
Osh Esidh, First Illuminator
`3232/Fon¡¯verun
On review of Meck¡¯s material ¨D voluminous in quantity and as yet still not archived in its totality ¨D it may be fair to venture that his unique genius first becomes latently evident in what may now be referred to as his ¡°Sub-surface¡± theory; a hypothesis arguably constitutive of the ingrained brilliance of his people, but nevertheless unprecedented in his era.
There is clear written evidence that, while still undergoing rudimentary City Guild training in `3168, Meck was fostering a growing intrigue over the layout and street-plan of Antissa and, furthermore, proof of its architectural ¡°layering.¡± The private study upon which he almost certainly embarked at the age of 25 would lead him to several astoundingly accurate conclusions about Antissa¡¯s early design, original construction and topography. These included, among other things, the location of the first ¡°fortress¡± wall (`3170), the estimated position of a central piping ¡°hub¡± (`3172) and, crucially, the site of an early ¡°citadel¡± in the exact location of the modern Inner City gardens (`3173).
Although ostensibly the unmitigated product of his own logic, it is within the bounds of reason to concede that his early research into such theories was not without help. It is probable, if not likely based on his reticent but nonetheless corresponding diary entries regarding [latter] meetings with Azal, that the Mathematician did in some way prompt a closer examination of the legends and surviving records of the Builders (or First Antissans.) We cannot know with any certainty whether Azal provided more than suggestions. However, from the same period there exist many screeds of calculations by Meck regarding aspects of the Inner City construction and, particularly, the gardens¡¯ wall. Unless pages are missing from these calculations, they conclude with no apparent solution; yet it was not long after they were penned that Meck would purchase a certain building directly adjacent to that wall.
Irrespective of the depth or exactitude of contributions made by Azal, therefore, we can assume that Meck had pinpointed a probable location of Antissa¡¯s first citadel (as since unearthed by the Royal Guild), supported by theory sufficiently robust as to justify great financial expense. There are records of communications between the estate¡¯s one-time owner in residence, unwilling to sell, and the then Citizen District Overseer, complaining bitterly of persistent harassment from a Guildsman. The final price of a thousand tallans that was ultimately agreed upon, documentation of which also exists, is far beyond the real estate value of the house. Indeed, conspicuously so.
Since our official discovery of the Builders¡¯ citadel three years ago, the Royal Guild has ascertained with absolute certainty that Meck confirmed its existence during ownership of said estate, most likely early, and kept the knowledge fully secret. The Guild has purported with almost equal conviction that the house¡¯s previous occupant, and at least four occupants prior, knew nought of it. Modifications on the interior walls of the building clearly narrate the progress of excavation by Meck¡¯s hand, all of which closely matches blueprints of site and structure from that time. Furthermore, the chute-like channel he would have discovered to lead directly down into the landfill supporting the Inner City gardens, was found by the Guild to have been furnished with additions too obviously of his time. These include a locking device and a mechanical staircase. Thus it is beyond doubt that Meck not only found, but entered, the Builders¡¯ citadel.
We can but wonder what he expected to discover therein. But what he did find, the Royal Guild has since concluded, is probably identical to what we find today. The single chamber at the epicentre of the landfill possesses no lateral outlets or communicating rooms; comprising only a mechanical floor interconnected with the Builders¡¯ Stones (as found at monuments elsewhere throughout the desert). This has since been revealed to function as a vertical transportation system to levels below.
The chamber was never modified, nor added to, by Meck. Nor, to the vexation of this study, do any of his known writings reference the discovery directly. Unlabelled, undated sketches from the approximate time may however allude to it, by way of doodles to be gleaned from the margins of his diary entries. If these can indeed be read as indicative of the Builders¡¯ citadel, then we might speculate with some confidence that he never solved the chamber¡¯s puzzle or activated the descending floor mechanism. By contrast, notwithstanding his reluctance to commit such problems to paper, the sheer dearth of any material in reference to what he would have discovered had he descended by that floor seems almost inconceivable, and would strongly support the conclusion that he did not.
Further supporting the connection of these sketches and doodles to the Builders¡¯ citadel chamber is that the same diaries, if not the same sketches, contain numerous scribbles of the Mooncircle emblem. As we now understand the historical relationship between this our national emblem (once called the Chieftain¡¯s Crescent) and the Builders¡¯ Stones, it is arguable that Gaspar Meck was the first Vedan of 4th Aeon Vorth to recognise it. Unfortunately his personal library, in such form as this study inherits it, has long been established beyond any dispute as both vastly incomplete and problematically intermingled with stray inventory from adjacent collections of the time. But be that as it may, the aggregation of literature thus attributed to Meck at the time of his death is considerably less eclectic as might be expected. Within it, nonetheless, several distinct versions of the legend of Chieftain Esha and the final departure of the Builders have been found. It may well be, then, that Meck entertained the possibility ¨D now an accepted fact ¨D that the chamber was the site of that event.
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As new light waxes to reveal grooves of profound significance throughout Meck¡¯s life, career and exploits, so too widens agreement that in his failure to uncover the Builder citadel¡¯s true secrets, time ¨D if anything ¨D was the culprit. He was now a Royal Engineer and as such the demands of his duties would have been near all-consuming. There were suspicions, some documented, from the likes of both district neighbours and Guild contemporaries over his strange protectiveness of the garden-wall house and the work he conducted there. The exact reason for his secrecy has already been widely debated among his most recent biographers, but his distrust and lack of confidence in Chief Engineer Thazra will surely have played a major part. It is also possible that some additional exchange with Azal (merely conjectured, no proof exists) further encouraged him to conceal the citadel.
Examination of the building¡¯s timber and reinforcements for the purpose show that Meck must have sealed the entrance no later than five years after opening it. More, his subsequent blocking of the chute with a measurable four years¡¯ worth of discarded junk machinery, further supports the claim that the window of his inspection of the chamber could not have exceeded a year and a half. And after boarding it up, he clearly never re-entered it.
Confounded as the engineer may have been by the chamber of the Builders¡¯ citadel, its discovery alone will have supported his firming conviction that a sub-surface Antissa of considerable proportions had once, or still, existed: a purpose-built network of levels and tunnels that had, moreover, been inhabited at some time during the history of surface Antissa, and which was (also, almost definitely) integrally linked to the city¡¯s pipeworks.
With the advantage of a Royal Engineer¡¯s resources, Meck¡¯s subsequent research into the legacy of the Builders clearly propelled him towards his theory that Antissa¡¯s lost (or hidden) ¡°underground¡± may have included satellite locations of some form; this in turn prompting his own experimentation with ¡°Deep¡± architecture. Several of these experiments came startlingly close to the structure-type of the somehow forgotten Spectres Deep, the existence of which he theoretically anticipated but never confirmed. The diagrams themselves nonetheless formed an obvious prelude to the Deep level he would devise and execute under the High District once in office as Chief Engineer.
No Vedan, certainly none of Antissan stock, can deny that it is the comprehensive grasp of the city¡¯s ancient piping network, as possessed by the Royal Guild today, that constitutes the cornerstone of modern engineering in the capital.
Most written evidence of the Builders¡¯ engineering was lost in `2760, in the sack of Antissa at the hands of the Lackish. Miraculously, however, an estimated three-quarters of late-period Builder piping diagrams somehow survived it: together with a small amount of other more arcane material, held from the year `2815 (at the behest of Chieftain Esha) by the clerics of Methar so as to safeguard Vedish heritage from the careless hand of modernity. This was until `3169, when Chief Engineer Feridh ¨D in a lengthy private endeavour ¨D persuaded the clerics to relinquish all existing diagrammatic material of the Builders to the Royal Guild. This apparent commandeering of national treasures drew the interest of Satrap Hyphet II, however, who permitted Feridh¡¯s Guild a mere fortnight in which to glean what information they required from the parchments before they were reclaimed as exclusive property of the Mooncircle Throne.
The parchments being old and fragile, as well as deeply cryptic in both content and format, Feridh and his engineers were unable to complete the task with any accuracy. Meck was not yet a member of the Royal Guild, so that the fundamentally flawed best efforts which then formed the reference-point for civic irrigation were as much to blame for the engineering disasters that would occur under Chief Engineer Thazra as Thazra¡¯s own incompetence; the parchments mistrustfully hoarded by the throne throughout his five years in office.
It was only after the completion of Meck¡¯s much-praised Deep level ¨D which for the first time in recorded history exposed not only some of the city¡¯s heretofore mythic pipelines, but also the walled circumference of the central ¡°hub¡± Meck had predicted ¨D that royal interest was piqued in the practical understanding and upkeep of the piping network. Following this, success was reached in gaining marginal access to the Builders¡¯ parchments again. The teenage Syphus II had just come to the throne, and although he refused to grant the Royal Guild full claim to the treasures his great-uncle had so fiercely withheld as state heritage, he granted Meck the exclusive privilege of examining them.
With this permitted ¨D albeit under strict surveillance of the Satrap¡¯s guard, any handling of the parchments forbidden ¨D Meck applied his prior theories about the construction of Antissa to his task, and became the first to accurately interpret the Builders¡¯ diagrams of the piping network. Most importantly, this included a clear transcription of the complex central hub, which since the time of the Builders themselves had been inaccessible to city engineers and would remain so (despite Meck¡¯s intention to open it) until `3230, almost twenty years after his death. The manner of this breakthrough could not have been achieved had he not been somehow able to derive some threads of meaning from the parchments¡¯ weirdly alphabetised coding system. But there was no time to face the fullness of their enigmatic script: ¡°A style of multi-linear and contextually subjective cuneiform,¡± he wrote in his official declaration to the Satrap, ¡°that upon deciphering in part such as within these pages alone, at once augments to fundamentally and exponentially become the work of three lifetimes or more to read or reproduce in practice.¡±
Wisely, he limited the focus of his task to the pipeworks. The revolutionary and celebrated copies he produced would subsequently become core to our modern Piping Transcripts; a concise and comprehensive 25-page representation of the system which existed at the time of the Builders, that has constituted Guild¡¯s central reference ever since. Beyond doubt we now know Meck¡¯s transcriptions to have been astounding in their accuracy; his margin of error mainly a matter of omission, as some further piping lines were added to the early network after the original parchments were composed.
The full body of the modern Transcripts, authored and compiled over the next decade of Meck¡¯s career, total 35 pages, being an unrivalled rendering of the original system as then considerably expanded by his own Guild. It is now considered the definitive reference text for Antissa¡¯s most crucial sector of civil engineering. The diagrams were edited, updated and of course reproduced after his own final contribution of minor extensions. His version of the Hub, however, remains unabridged since he first transcribed it. For, as was confirmed following the opening of that great greenstone column in `3230, his first set of diagrams was almost entirely accurate, sparing a small amount of reasonable guesswork on certain measurements of the interior chamber wall.
Despite the throne¡¯s diminishing interest in their protection and proper treatment, the Builders¡¯ original parchments remained private property of Syphus II until his fall from the throne and death in `3231. With the rise of Satrap-Archimandrite Bardon, they have rightly been returned to the care of the Royal Guild.
Chapter III - The Machines
As with the chamber of the Builders¡¯ citadel, Meck¡¯s inspired hypothesis promulgating the existence of what have since been named respectively ¡°Meck¡¯s Gate¡± and the ¡°Deeping Sphere¡± were largely ignored by the Guilds in his own time. What ultimately brought him to the belief that these mechanisms were not so much likely as imperative, was a complex and apparently unplanned deductive process which seems to have progressed gradually over about twenty years (c.`3176 - `3196).
Being essential exponents of a single central theory ¨D this saliently revolving around the enormous capacity of the central pipeworks themselves, the indicative structure of the Hub and by deduction, the nature, layout, location and depth of a conjectured ¡°sub-surface¡± Antissa ¨D ¡°gate¡± and ¡°sphere¡± seem to have emerged from his reasoning in conjunction. Both, nevertheless, were to remain unproven all his life.
Primary in Meck¡¯s reasoning was the theory of the sub-surface, which solidified into certainty as his research continued to yield affirming, albeit inconclusive, results. In addition to the very likely link he made between the Mooncircle emblem and the Builders¡¯ Stones (strongly indicating the connection to Chieftain Esha and the final departure of the Builders) we can now confidently discern that there were some conclusions Meck was able to draw from the Builders¡¯ citadel. It was markedly lacking in other chambers. All too clearly a central space, the sole chamber thus discovered possessed no evidence of communicating lateral outlets. There is no definitive written proof, but certainly wide agreement that he simply could not have been ignorant of the room¡¯s mechanical nature, confounding though it proved to be. The vortex-like floor patterns around the Builders¡¯ Stones, for example, could only have been starkly significant to one already imagining a vast, converging passage network below. And if the Builders¡¯ Stones herein acted as an entrance mechanism, why then could the same not be said of other such Stones throughout Vorth¡¯s desert?
To infer from his intermittently ongoing calculations, it is clear at the very least that if Azal somehow possessed some privileged knowledge of such matters, then he never imparted that knowledge directly to Meck. Indeed the exact nature of their exchanges on these subjects remains unknown. We can only, in any surety, tie Meck¡¯s abrupt interest in the Builders¡¯ legacy to the advent of their meeting. All else is speculation.
From a number of commercial fragments in the city archives (some of which are to this day attributed to Esha himself), Meck unearthed apocryphal evidence that Vorth might once have dealt in large quantities of the metal aqualumium as a locally extracted resource; in all Vorth¡¯s records surviving the onslaught, an element classified as very rare. According to his findings, the loss of this abundant resource may have taken place over as short a period as a decade, and seemingly to Ered through trade. Now, with the shining rise of Bardon I and a new dynasty, Vorth no longer recognises Ered as a friendly nation. Nor at the time of writing have we trade arrangements with that Empire or any of its lesser provinces. Begging His Majesty¡¯s grace, it is for this reason (among others) that it is difficult to quite corroborate the truth of the possibility regarding aqualumium.
Nevertheless, as juxtaposed by the relative limits on the manufacture of triglycerate at the time in question ¨D conversely, an accepted fact ¨D this finding may have prompted Meck to consider the likelihood of aqualumium having been at some time employed in the lighting of a much larger region unlit by sun. Perhaps, seems to press Meck¡¯s interest, the metal aqualumium was Vorth¡¯s naturally-occurring ¡°pre-triglycerate¡± technology for artificial light. For, rare as it may always have been until now, all know only too well that the main property of aqualumium is its reaction of instantaneous gold luminescence upon contact with water.
Like any engineer of his time, Meck would have known that the hill upon which the fortress-city of Antissa had been built was replete with piping circuits. The presumed area of a ¡°sub-surface¡± Antissa, irrespective of size and the potential for ¡°satellites¡±, must therefore be situated at some considerable depth below that hill (even below sea-level), as opposed to occupying pockets of space in the hill¡¯s rock. No existing engineering documentation from the time ever made the slightest reference to the probability of such pockets in the hill. Nor indeed did the modern layout (or provable pre-modern layers) imply such a thing to be architecturally or even physically possible.
Once more, this is but conjecture as to the elements of Meck¡¯s investigative process. However, a thing he frequently and expansively expressed in writing was his bewilderment over the sheer magnitude of the four Arterials (main channels) at the centre of the piping network as interpreted by the parchments, and his firm belief that (on paper) they demonstrated a capacity to irrigate a settlement far more extensive and highly populated than Antissa could ever be whilst confined to the surface of the fortress hill alone.
Additionally, according to Meck¡¯s interpretation of the Builders¡¯ parchments, the entirety of the city¡¯s piping converges within the Hub in such a way that an almost exact circle of uninterrupted space remains open on all of its circuits, running directly down through the centre of the column. The parchments themselves even go so far ¨D his notes make clear ¨D as to demarcate this ¡°neutral¡± zone with uncharacteristic significance. If anything, the anomaly appeared to mirror the neutral circle.
The size and power of the Arterials which all too obviously connected the central Hub to the city¡¯s water-source, in conjunction with the anomaly of the neutral zone and shrouded significance of the Hub¡¯s terminus, all seem to have contributed to Meck¡¯s intuition regarding the existence of a system connecting ¡°surface¡± to ¡°sub-surface¡± Antissa; that system in turn compounding the probability of the latter¡¯s considerable depth.
His conclusion, we might derive, was that the floor of the Hub (estimated at ground-level) was in fact a sealed gate, expertly constructed around the four Arterials: a fact now proven. His early diagrams of possible mechanisms to this effect commence here.
Meck¡¯s first considerations regarding the means of a supposed descent into a ¡°sub-surface¡± region were likely sparked by his discovery of the Builders¡¯ citadel chamber; including its mysterious stones-floor construct and, conspicuously, no ways out. The ¡°chute¡± that granted access through the Inner City wall has now been thoroughly excavated to reveal that it may not have been part of the Builders¡¯ original design; rather a later civic addition, either a vent or delivery conduit latterly widened by the slow deterioration of foundations following its sometime collapse.
Also now strongly coloured by what has since been confirmed, Meck¡¯s study of ancient Antissan literature, feasibly on Azal¡¯s advice, may have already prompted alternative interpretations of the oft-quoted refrain from popular legend that the Builders departed ¡°into the desert.¡± Barring this, it is most likely that any coherent ideas regarding a ¡°gate¡± at the Hub¡¯s lower terminus preceded those of any kind of transportation machine or system. The development of both concepts must have otherwise been largely inter-dependent; therefore chronologically inseparable for the purpose of this study.
With the benefit of new perspective gained in reviewing and re-cataloguing the vast store of Meck¡¯s writings it is clear that, in his rendering of the Piping Transcripts from the parchments of the Builders, Meck failed to accurately identify the Builders¡¯ designated symbol for the machine that we now call the ¡°Deeping Sphere.¡± He appears to have mistaken it for the layout of an additional, or possibly intended and unbuilt, circuit zone of the Hub¡¯s lower reaches. This was most certainly a pardonable error since, despite the figure¡¯s uniquely symmetrical nature, it did bear striking and indeed misleading resemblance to the Builders¡¯ original Hub breakdown. However, his accuracy of interpretation regarding the rest of the Hub did rightly lead him to the conclusion that this ¡°zone¡± fitted nowhere in the plan. From the authorised Transcripts he omitted it completely, though in due course would return to it himself, with new eyes.
Of course, the Transcripts would inspire the construction of Meck¡¯s Deep and the consequent unearthing of the Hub wall at the exact anticipated position. But then, in `3182, shortly after the completion of his Deep level, a singularly curious artefact was found in the Guild¡¯s vast metal stockpiles. A truncated mechanical component defying any identification by contemporary engineering standards, it was brought to the Chief Engineer¡¯s attention when found to contain a significant amount of the rare metal aqualumium. Despite the high value of the piece for this reason, Meck chose not to extract the aqualumium; instead keeping the part intact for further examination, while junk-piles throughout the city were scoured for similar articles. None were found. The component, which would remain unidentified for years, was nothing less than a partial arm and anchor-claw from a Deeping Sphere.
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Naturally this added weight to the notion of the one-time abundance of aqualumium in Vorth, and the subsequent forays Meck conducted into the metal¡¯s sometime use as a local light-giving resource, as well as its largely inexplicable and mysteriously abrupt disappearance from all records of the period, would slowly come to bear upon his theory of sub-surface Antissa and its satellites. Based in part on what seemed a curiously mundane implementation of the metal in the piece (the as-yet unidentified anchor-claw), Meck wrote thereafter of his strengthening conviction that aqualumium had potentially been employed en-masse in the construction of his theorised sub-surface. Persuasive to this logic was the tantalising duality of triglycerate¡¯s equally abrupt invention and pre-eminence as a light-giving resource around the time of aqualumium¡¯s disappearance, and the profound reasoning that any underground domain would require vast amounts of artificial light.
Light from the marriage of metal and water: this brought Meck back to the pipeworks, all evidence unequivocally pointing to their status as the grand, defining nucleus of Antissa ¨D modern and ancient, fortress-city and monument to engineering mastery. What apter force than the huge kinetic power of the Arterials to facilitate transportation between the surface and great depth? The machine, he resolved, must be hydraulically operated.
Though his writings on the subject thereafter are erratic, frustrated, unclear and all too frequently defiant of our efforts to categorise them, there is strong argument that the crucial link was that mysterious ¡°neutral space¡± of the Hub which, though omitted from the Transcripts, may well have roused Meck¡¯s interest again at this stage. But although he failed to gain access to the parchments for a second study (they had since become extremely brittle), the image had been simple and his copy ¨D as we now know ¨D exact. With the benefit of hindsight following our recent discoveries, it is now manifestly obvious that, if viewed instead as representative of a physical object or device, then that object¡¯s apparent extremities perfectly mirror the demarcation lines of the ¡°neutral zone¡±. The focus of Meck¡¯s ensuing diagrams, the object itself, overwhelmingly supports the likelihood that he perceived this link himself.
When Meck visited the Vedish temples at the end of his long journey through Exelcia Minor, it is documented that his research into the monuments there did not yield positive results. Undocumented, however, is the claim circulated by some after his death that he returned to the temple of Uribb in Methar at a date purportedly after his breakthrough of the ¡°device symbol.¡± Accordingly it is claimed that he spoke to some thereafter of having found faint markings of a corresponding symbol on the monument stones there. Such hearsay might not, in and of itself, pose strong evidence. No diary of Meck¡¯s mentions a second visit; there are, in fact, entries from his last years that continue to refer to one visit. Nor indeed has any marking of that description since been found. Yet the trajectory of his logic would gather momentum around this time. Moreover it would continuously return to the symbol; a symbol which had, arguably, become the cornerstone for Meck¡¯s whole conception of ¡°the machine.¡±
His early study of Antissa¡¯s architectural layering promulgates that the farther back one reaches to the time of the Builders, the more overtly the city conforms to patterns of roundness in its design; peaking in its genesis as a fortress comprised entirely of domes and spheres. This trend seems to have demanded, in Meck¡¯s view, that the depicted shape of the transportation machine was not merely symbolic either.
In all his notes and diagrams to follow, Meck would thus favour the notion that the machine was spherical. Its extremities, he concluded, comprised the anchors, of which he estimated there would be between six and eight; this in turn necessitating some form of ancillary system with which to engage. The demarcation lines of the ¡°neutral zone¡± thus became a proposed network of suspension cables, repeated on numerous levels of the transportation route as a means of arresting the machine¡¯s hydraulic rise and descent. Inevitably, these developments in Meck¡¯s conjecture would have contributed in turn to his conception of the ¡°Gate¡± and its inherent mechanism.
The machine, of course, has been proven to exist. In the course of the Guild¡¯s ongoing excavation of the Builders¡¯ Deep, we have thus far uncovered nine. And despite the fact that Meck never saw a Deeping Sphere, or had any solid proof such spheres existed, his estimations were close. Although his writings reveal many attempts to the effect, he never reached a firm solution as to the exact relationship between the Deeping Sphere and the pipes that must power it ¨D this naturally implicating a fuller understanding of the Gate mechanic. Nor did he finalise any ideas regarding the force which must imperatively counteract the hydraulic descent in order to facilitate upward movement. Nor could he even begin to propose, with any seriousness, possibilities for the sphere¡¯s operating controls; unable to deduce even whether these were automatic or manual. He strongly suspected the latter.
Only now that Antissa has direct access to the Gate, the Deeping Spheres and the Builders¡¯ Deep can the Guilds begin to approach such questions as Meck, for all his brilliance, could never have known to ask. The Gate itself, although comprised of interconnected loops of purest aqualumium, operates ¨D indeed, it behaves ¨D in ways that discombobulate our understanding; seemingly able to flex, morph and reshape itself in ways wholly unfamiliar to our comprehension of material substance and physical laws. No genius of Meck¡¯s could have anticipated such wonders.
Throughout our national history, perception of the Builders themselves, as a people, has been twofold. That they were singular in knowledge and craft is irrefutable and recognised by all of our race, past and present. But that they may have been superior from the Vedish of their time in other ways is believed widely also. Our artworks depict them variously as giants, djinn or winged folk; this view not merely symbolic but heretofore firmly espoused by engineering society. Equally favoured has been the opposing view that they were the fathers of our race as it exists today: human Vedans desert-born whose legacy resides not only in knowledge but in our veins. Meck himself was not only adherent to this latter view but, throughout his life, career and deepening research, most inflexible upon it.
Now, as corroborated by all our findings to date, compelling new theory most convincingly suggests that he ¨D along with half the Vedish souls ever to dwell in this desert ¨D were incorrect. The Builders were not human. Not only that, but of their racial nature, if anything, theirs was a breed not of titans or giants but instead of beings very much smaller than humankind. At the present time estimates range between 2 and 3 feet tall.
With northern Vorth still oppressed under Ratheine occupation at the time of writing, the excavation of the Spectres Deep in Verunia remains impossible. However, Guild research has ascertained that this satellite may in fact have been a joint engineering enterprise conducted between the Builders and the Vedish Antissans of the time (period uncertain). Daring investigations of the site when it was discovered at the end of `3230 reported stone likenesses there that clearly depict members of a small non-human race. As no such depictions or artworks have yet been found anywhere in the Deep below Antissa, their existence at the Spectres would suggest a degree of collaboration with human Vedans.
As such, if it can reasonably be supposed that Azal knew the full truth of who the First Antissans were, then perhaps an attempt to persuade Meck to that end ¨D that the Vedish were not the blood-descendants of the Builders, our founders ¨D may indeed have set a wedge of dissonance between the two men, and in turn go some way to explaining the great engineer¡¯s reticence about Azal in his private writings. After all, Meck had a reputation for stubbornness all his life. We shall, of course, never know beyond all doubt.
Yet still, his genius speaks. His solution to the Addendum of Azal¡¯s Theorem has given the Royal Guild cause to revisit that work in full; containing as it does prospective principles that, if proven, could shed new light on the true nature of the Builders¡¯ handicraft and science. Perhaps it contains the secrets that will enable us, in our future, to replicate such works of seeming sorcery ourselves.
And so, as a matter of record royally sanctioned, it bears repeating in these pages that His Majesty the Satrap-Archimandrite has formally renounced the falsehood ¨D seeded such as it was by conspirators at the time of his ascension ¨D that when the Builders¡¯ Deep was opened, the Mathematician Azal walked again in Antissa.
The marvels of his mathematics and the mark of his mind upon Meck¡¯s will continue to shine bright lights unhooded on the path that lies before us. But let it be known that Albastra Azal¡¯s last documented appearance in Vorth remains dated to the year `3177. The man, therefore, is certainly long deceased.
And of genius matched, Gaspar Meck now joins him in legend.
Osh Esidh, First Illuminator
`3232/Fon¡¯verun