Candlemount

You are looking at an inspection table in a records archive: recovered objects from a deserted village site, each catalogued and tagged – and one handwritten note that does not belong. Select any object to examine it. A plain-text catalogue of everything here is available on the catalogue page.

Magic never died in Albion.

For hundreds of years, someone has been

trying to destroy it.

Systematically. Patiently.

Now, the world has developed the technology

to complete the task.

And they are putting it to use.

This is the mythos of

Magic never died in Albion.

For hundreds of years, someone has been

trying to destroy it.

Systematically. Patiently.

Now, the world has developed the technology

to complete the task.

And they are putting it to use.

This is the mythos of

Item – Book One of Candlemount · pending release

The Analogue Heretic

Four people’s stories converge over six months.

An engineer building a new technology he doesn’t fully understand.
A witch who’s sold out his own kind.
A woman previously overlooked, thrust into a realm unseen for centuries.
A member of the Wild Hunt trying to keep back the modern world.

And behind all of them, an institution older than the Church, finishing what it started.

The horror isn’t that someone evil is in charge. It’s that they think this is necessary.

Give us an address where we can reach you with news. We will send you more to learn.

I have more to share.

Leave your address and I’ll send what I can.

The more who have the evidence,

the less chance they have to destroy it.

Only ever about Candlemount. You’ll get one email to confirm, and you can leave anytime.

The register

Its cover says only Archive Ledger. No place name anywhere in it. Inside: four centuries of hands, keeping the same watch. A sample of entries –

1605 – the village is gone. strangers at the stones within the month. they found nothing.
1609 – men came with chains and papers. measured the field. they found nothing.
1712 – quiet year. no one came.
1801 – they opened the ground at the stones. filled it in after. nothing taken.
1888 – engines with them this time. brass instruments on legs. they found nothing.
1973 – an aeroplane over the field three days running. they found nothing.
1998 – machines walked in lines across the grass. they found nothing.
2014 – boxes on poles at the field edge. they do not leave now.

I’ve stopped putting it on paper. I’ve started a spreadsheet now.

Specimen 04-A · water · recovered – spring, dep. settlement, Wilts.

Water sample

Drawn from the spring at the site. Tested on collection and at intervals since.

Result, every time: no anomaly detected.

Specimen 02-C · sarsen core · dep. settlement, Wilts. · undated

Stone core

Bored from one of the standing stones at the site. The village that stood here was abandoned before 1610; the stones were too much a part of the ground to move.

Composition: sarsen. Silicate sandstone (quartz grains cemented together by silica). Nothing else. It has been sampled nine times.

Recovered – iron knife · near settlement · undated

Iron blade

A slender hand-forged stiletto.
Surprising modern manufacture – Newly forged for a contemporary hand.

Assume replica. But functional steel edged. The edge is worn from use.

What possible use?

Photographs – site surveys · undated

Photographs of the sites

Photographs of sampled listed sites. Taken where the records point. In one the stones still there – same count – same ground. The houses, the people and the name all gone.

The file does not explain where.

Leaf – almanac (unprovenanced) · partial · water damage

Almanac leaf

A printed leaf from a village almanac. No village name appears on it – nor on any of the others like it. It has been handled more often, and more gently, than its file card records.

A printed almanac page, The Husbandman's Kalendar. 'The Dark Quarter. Now is the year worn thin, and the light gone early from the valley. Keep the hearth in; keep the beasts close. Tend the water before the ground shuts; the spring must not be let to freeze, for it is the – of the place, and has been kept so longer than any name we hold. Walk the bounds at the four old times. Iron at the gate. Salt on the sill. A red thread at the wrist of the newborn child. A Saying of the Old People: Bring no stranger to the water, nor say the place aloud; for what is named is written, and what is written may be found. …and the terms hold only while they are kept. Break faith but once, and the door that stood open shuts and does not open twice.'

Transcription – inscription, north-west stone · unread

Transcribed inscription

122238 243918 15101712 1419516

Faithfully transcribed. The sequence holds a mathematical weight that defies standard interpretation. We suspect the intent is structural, not symbolic. Status: Blocked. Priority high.

Candlemount – a fantasy series. The technology is new. The magic is ancient.