THERE IS A PLACE; FORGOTTEN BY TIME.

[Amerist]

This is the text of a commission that I'm having a friend of mine draw. A place on an island in the middle of Lake Superior, a fictional island, placed between two other islands that appeared on maps for 30 years before cartographers searching for them discovered that they did not exist, but in the memory of other mapmakers; but forgotten by time.

When he finishes the commission I might put it up with this post.

There is a place; forgotten by time.

THERE IS A PLACE; FORGOTTEN BY TIME. AN ISLAND RISING FROM THE BLACK WATERS OF LAKE SUPERIOR: AN ISLAND OF IRON. LIKE A BLEAK SORROW ITS CRAGS BREAK THE SMOOTH WATERS, SHARP PINNACLES OF METAL REFLECTING NO STARLIGHT. IT IS A PLACE OF RETRIBUTION: JUSTICE IARANNCRÆFT INCARNATE. IT IS KNOWN BY MANY NAMES, AND MANY NAMES IT IS CALLED: CHÂTEAU D’FER; BELMARC OUBLIE; ARD NA CINTACH; GEFÄNGNIS DES VERGESSENS. IT IS A PLACE FORGOTTEN BY TIME; A PLACE THAT TIME DOES NOT WISH TO RECOLLECT.

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The olde stories say that Belmarc island was once a great giant, one of the Fir Bolg, confused and befuddled by elvyn magics and herded boldly through Tyr na Sáith by the children Tuatha de Danu. This giant, Iarunn-bealltuinn, stumbled; blinded and stupefied into Loch Aithmhéal—there he fell, and did not rise. Upon his corpse a stronghold was built: Ard na Cintach. The great gates of silver-black stood without reflection in the black waters. Giant spires numbering five and two they reached into the heavens and the heavens bled for their touch. Upon the spires they adorned the sharpened bones of the fallen Fir Bolg, hollowed out his head and stationed it as a great dome to watch over all comers. Split his pelvis in twain and used it to bridge forcastle and citadel, and his body bored with labyrinthine dungeons, twisting and turning passages that know no time.

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Each of the spires of Belmarc has a name:

Quarrelmance

Arrogance

Treachery

Mirthlesse

Promise

Immortalle

Quiet

Every spire has a Master. A warden to guard their domain. Each domain a land of its own. Together the spires are connected, woven through the threads of the island in a grim parody of a hedge maze. The dungeons tunnels lead forever, turning over and into each other. None open out of the island, all lead back to the spires, and to the castle, and to the foregate, and to the mansions—and deeper into the iron island, down into darkness eternal.

Every master was a prisoner; every warden once an inmate. Through death there is no escape, all but servitude. Some have been redeemed; some still self-condemned; but all remain.

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It is with small concern that i write to thee, my son. About my visit to Château D’Fer: though the experiences within I will not busy your mind with, but that which attains to the approach, for the madness within is not anything that my pen can place to paper.

The boat left port early morning onto the Superior Lake, the air had a chill not bourne of wind that night, as I recall. I am told that the Forgotten Islands are not accessable during the day so we went in the dead of night, without the balm of the new moon to guide us. Yet like the ferryman Charon; our boatman knew the way without knowing. All the distance we plied through the distance and dark waters, the man never spoke a word.

The sky was starless, clouds covered all of my vision, but surely as the place was lit by starlight the palace emerged from the gloom, shrouded by the silver shadows of the Otherworld itself. The still waters made no noise as our boat approched. The island rose up before us, a mountain of obsidian set solid on a mirror, but the reflection in the water did not match the monolith that rose monstorously above me. All sharp angles and craggy rocks, sometimes it was difficult to tell castle wall from rock formation. By no mortal hand was this placed breathed into being.

There was but one entrance and one entrance alone, a path by sea between great reaching rocks. Spread from the island like huge hands waiting to beckon comers into its black womb. The sheer walls rose up all around me, bearing down, hiding even the starless sky from my vision; they swallowed the world up into the deepening maw.

Me. My prisoner. And I.

We passed through a cavern of scillininating lights; the boatman at this time finally spoke, warning my charge and I not to look at the lights for long. That we would be safer with our eyes closed. That if I (he did not seem concerned for the prisoner) looked into the lights too long and stepped from the boat into the still, silent waters we would be lost forever. And so I looked away.

The cavern led to the Foregate. A great iron portcullus into this island of iron. I could feel the metal itching on my skin. We were greeted there by tall gaurds, wearing magnificient armor, their helms showed no faces. With them at our sides we were ushered from the boat, onto the land, and beneath the barbed metal teeth of the gate…

What I saw afterwards is not for thine ears, my son, but know thee this: I will never forget.

I shall never forget my visit to the Forgotten Isle.

- - -

Not all people are good. Even wizards go bad. Nowhere in the Underhill or Nightmare Lands can we keep those tepid souls who have chosen to break our Laws, and while their deaths would bring us repose. Some crimes require greater punishments. For them there is the Bleak Island. Its black shores welcome the guilty like a mother her child; cradle them in her unfaltering embrace.

No army can siege the Belmarc Oublie; no prisoner can hope to escape; no spy can pass through her walls; no wizard can cast himself a web wide enough to free herself from the clutches of that derelict place. The bare widows of the manses stare out into the bleakness of nothing, an empty offer without truth. For those apparitions that reach their hands longingly out to the black waters find no solace, no escape, no way out—while the way seems clear they are forever barred.

The mortals, their boats, their ships, their superstitious ways. They have spoken of lights on the lake. Deep in the night. The howling of the forlorn wind speaking of tears and sorrows, of repentance and regret. The fishermen and sailors come back with stories of a strange place—out of place—a castle with flickering will-o-wisp ghosts that winked at them with a dead man’s gaze and kept their counsel no more.

Shattered wrecks still line the bleak beaches of the Forgotten Isle; their tangled detritus echoing, never rotting skeletons of wood and cloth. Sinew of rope, grey caskets, cast off by the first prisoners marooned on the island. Long before the Masters. Long before the time that time forgot. Perhaps among them a mortal vessel once, cracked and broken on those unforgiving cliffs.

Lost. Never to be seen again, but in the dreams of lovers and enemies.

- - -

Those who glimpse the isle come back with stories of a hallowed and horrible place; those who come close enough to visit the isle are never seen again; those who linger long enough forget, they forget themselves, until they are rescued—or themselves forgotten by time.

This is the fate of the Island of Forgetting.