Myr T

3 ~ Myr T

Myr Tariniel is an awkward name in my head, and translating it alongside Denna's Mirinitel mangling is on a par with Imre Amary. It is difficult. It's got too many bits going on, too many syllables, too many edges, too many parts. Too many possibilities and not enough clues.  I prefer to abbreviate anyways for ease of typing. The city itself might well bear it own 3 part name. But Myr Tariniel clearly means something specific, obviously, we just don't know what. 

It could very well be a direct translation of the Shining city, which isn't a bad guess as that's a phrase Skarpi uses as though it has a calling name as well as an official name. But my jot is going on the correct answer being  White Tower.

We don't really need to map out Myr T itself, Skarpi does enough for a general image, but we can perhaps use any info gleaned make a bigger picture as we try to map the Empire of Ergen into a more visual format. A skyline as it were.

'Sit and listen for I will speak of the shining city as it once was, years and miles away...'

That is an odd introduction. An announcement that almost sounds like an invocation, or legally binding declaration. He has chosen to offer his Talent bet to the unknown owner of the voice who called for a story about Myr Tariniel, but has also acknowledged that Kvothe would get his own answers, too.

We can take much from Skarpi's tale, since we now know who he really is, and thus can treat his words with respect. He was as good as present himself, after all almost certainly having heard Selitos' account of how things turned out first hand.

The basic image we need though is that Myr T was built of white stone and it's Lord lived in a tall tower.

We can also assume the ruling towers location to be the highest point in the known world , and thus technically closest to the moon by a few degrees if that is important, maybe that was part of why it was deemed to be superior to all of the other cities who were subordinate to it. 

'Eight cities remained. They were Belen, Antus, Vaeret, Tinusa, Emlen, and the twin cities of Murella and Murella. Last was Myr Tariniel, greatest of them all.'

The order in which Skarpi lists them is deliberate. It is not alphabetical but neither is it random.

Why should the greatest come last? Because that statement clearly implies that it was at the end of the line, the terminus of a great chain of other cities that started far away with Belen at #1, then Antus at position #2 etc etc. Now Occam's Razor suggests that instead of being scattered like the notable 4Corners cities are, Ergen cities were actually built all in a row. A straight line of cities running right across the world like a scar, or maybe even a zip? Each one with their own less powerful version of rulers in their own lesser towers we can imagine. That line of thinking suggests they would actually have followed the exact same line of longitude that is now the province of the Old Stone Road, quite possibly this line of cities was called the Drossen Tor back then, making the famous battle of the same name 'the Blak' the battle of control of this line. Occam would also suggest that each city along the way might well be strung out equidistantly along the path in Apple pi order from Imre to Tinüe like so many fairy lights before heading up the mountainside to the big White Tower of Lord Selitos at the top.

/Diagram tak

Now ee can best represent this information in the form of a grid on a board of 8x8. Write the numbers 1-8 in the first line, and their translation in the second row. City names can fill up line three. Any problems, guess./

Selitos' A-myr are named in memory of the shining city and they would likely hope to emulate the same lofty ideal that was white Myr-T before it's very stones turned to black. Their order's symbol is also depicted as a tower, and If the game we are playing were chess then I suppose that would make the Amyr to represent the white rook, but they don't play chess in the 4Corners, (unless they call it Tirani over there) but they do play Tak!

5π ~ Tak

The rules of Tak are simple and easily learnt and so readers having some small understanding of this game will be useful. Boards are available in the gift shop but even a nicice can hopefully still grasp the gist of this trichapter without them.

Quite how gods really play their beautiful games is beyond mortal ken.

You need an abstract mind to play a beautiful game. One man's love is another man's lust. 

Imagine, if you can, two Gods or rather the two Aleu playing cosmic tak. One is the god of day and the other the god of night. Between them they watch over the whole world, one half at a time, and never the twain shall meet. Their world in question is also their gameboard and it has many squares for many stones to be placed  Their actual board is infinite and thus has Far too many components for the numbers to make any sense to us mere mortals. But for all the difference it is all the same, it's just a question of scaling and focus, and it Is only a game after all.

Now games have goals and in Tak the objective is to create a pathway of stones that will run right across the board. Now it occurs to me that if our two gods were also playing Tak, which is the assumption upon with this whole πece now rests, then there are some interesting opportunities to apply the same rules of Tak to the shape of the world that was Ergen by

Superimposing a giant Tak board over the Map of 4Corners.

The size of a tak board can vary but the largest suggested size in the rulebook is 8x8. Earth people are comfortable with this number of squares as that is the same size board used in chess. Odd fact, chequers only utilises half a board.

If we line our board up along the length of the old stone road we might then imagine this stone line to show the winning combination of a completed path and thus the endgame position, but who won? When Myr T still stood, it was white and so white must have won. But on Lanre Day, if fell under shadow and it's walls were blackened, and so Black must have won. But The stone of this road today is neither black nor white but is ... well, Stone colour, a nice neutral grey implying the position of this game board since Tehlu Day to be a draw. 

Now there are of course rules about draws which come down to the judge counting the amount of flat stones used in in the paths construction and our road today is declared to be 'straight as a nail, flat as a table, older than god'

So it it looks like the final move on this Aleu game table was to flatten all the standing Waystones into horizontal Laystones , domino toppling perhaps from points to goats.

Now, alongsides normal stones, which may be played either standing like way stones or lying like lay stones Tak also has capstones. Very Powerful pieces that can flatten upright stones and may also form part of the winning path themselves. In this recreation I am going to give a name to the white Capstone as being Selitos and place him in his white tower at position#8 since Myr T's location dictates it was the last stone in the road. The seven stones that proceed it will have their own given names, namely Murella 7, Murilla 6, Emlen 5, Tinusa 4, Vaeret 3, Antus 2 right down the line to Belen at #1  giving us a pre Lanre Day Ergen skyline of seven single standing white Waystones all in a line with the big white capstone on the endmaking eight.

In the days of Ergen, Myr T was a city famously carved out of special white stone which absorbed by day and still shone after dark, solar stone I suppose, sort of. But then came Lanre Day when the light went out and the white tower fell! it fell beneath the shadow of darkness and it's burnt walls turned to black. 

Back on the cosmic Tak board this would be when the black Aleu player made his move which was designed to turn all of the white stones into black ones. And that would mean total victory for black and the end of the world as we know it. The black capstone overthrew the White Capatone and the white castle was replaced with a Black Castle. You with me?

Across the lands below six more white stones were also flattened and burned, and followed suit , so inverting the colour of the road as they toppled.

But one White stone city did Not topple and did not turn to darkness. One tower did not fall because one ruler remembered the lethani and successfully resisted the enemy plan and thus a total victory for the black Aleu was averted.

The only white stone still stood on a black road of ruin was the lucky seventh stone, and that city of stone was named Murella. Giving us a new landscape of six black Laystones , one white Waystones and black Mirinitel, (Myr Tariniel that was) still last in line as usual. 

3 ~ Belen

Stone #1 was named Belen and that is the third important city in our board map. All the rest are just so much decoration really. But Belen is a city which we Can cartographicly flesh out in detail with a map or several. 

There is a good argument that Belen was also a Capstone.

If Iax followed the Line of the road ever eastwards towards its mountainous end that means that when Jax first crossed over into Ergen to begin his moonquest then it was through a doorway found somewhere in the far west. The site of this first stone city seems entirely logical suggesting that Iax the gamepiece likely stepped onto the board at one edge through some mysterious black door between realms, a door left open by the departing Tinker Aleph somewhere in the city of Belen. He may have done some trading here but then departed on his quest and eventually crossed the whole game board.

But Belen of Ergen is where we will now turn our attention as we bypass Atur and follow the road to it's western terminus. It's time to visit The University. 

Ancient Belen of Ergen was the home to a ruler of its own, and her name was Lady Lyra. She was married to Lanre, the captain of her guard, and Skarpi reports that between them

"They defended Belen from a surprise attack, saving the city from a foe that should have overwhelmed them. They gathered armies and made the cities recognise the need for allegiance." 

Unpacking that sentence tells us that since it was a surprise attack, Lyra and Lanre must have been already in Belen when it happened in order for them to defend against it. Only afterwards did the cities band together in unity meaning that at the time of this attack Belen was still defending itself independently. That tells us it was a problem dealt with by the local defence militia, ie Lanre and Lyra. 

The Lord and Lady of Belen.

Lyra is actually a contender for being awarded Capstone status like Selitos was since they were of an equal power. Rather conveniently for tinfoil purposes the rules of Tak played on an 8x8 board do actually accommodate this scenario for a game with two capstones and fifty smaller stones.

We might then assume that when Lord Lanre left Capstone Belen to go and confront Lord Selitos at Capstone Myr T then his path would have actually had him following in Iax own footsteps, ever Eastwards down the line of stone cities. Perhaps Lanre was collecting his 'Chandrian to be' along the way, until he reached the eighth stone, the White Capstone of Myr Tariniel just in time for Lanre Day.

Seven lights went out that day, never to rekindle, but one lighthouse still shone whilst the others became dark houses.

7 lighthouses upright stones , equals the pure white light of Myr T.if you break light, you get a spectrum giving each lighthouse a colour. Roygbiv. 

Seventh lighthouse remained, = Murella, city of violet, city of Felurian, the ultraviolet queen of twilight. Her light no longer exists in mortal. God took it and created the Fae by lighting a candle in the darkness. Moon link is extra.

7-1=6. Colours in a Temerant rainbow. One person Chandrian.

If Lyra was from Belen and was equal in power to Selitos in his Capstone tower, she should have one, too. The archives. Or dark tower.

This gives us a tower at each end.

When Lanre arrived in Myr T he must have travelled the road. Like a domino toppling the towers .

Upright domino towers become horizontal domino road. Lay stones and way stones. 

The wedge in the road shunted each ruin one move to the east, closing the gap of Murella but shortening the road length by one colour. No more UV, Musical scald also affected. Earth moved and sky changed.