The Edge – the Anomalous Space from my story “Wormy Roots”
“Nothing should exist here, yet it does. It was meant to be small, yet it is endless. Its primary law states: What is born in the Edge may exist only within the Edge.”
The Edge is ever-shifting, colorless, and bathed in a soft, sourceless light. Time does not obey the rules of the mortal world; instead, it bends to the perception of those who step in from beyond. Its landscape consists of dark waters that allow only native entities to submerge, desolate beaches, and the rare fragments of land and ruins from the Underside.
For most mortals, merely existing in the Edge is a challenge, and crossing it is a feat accomplished by only a select few. Only the vigere, powerful mages, and trained pilgrims can adapt to its environment—yet even they risk losing themselves in its tangled flow of time, unable to find an exit. As for the rest? They seldom survive its corrosive influence.
For centuries, the Edge remained isolated, unreachable. Only during the last war did it draw the focused attention of humankind. Scholars and explorers sought to understand its nature, to chart its entrances, exits, and hidden paths. Eventually, railway tracks were laid across the anomaly. Now, under the control of newly bound vigere, trains traverse the Edge, allowing passengers to cross vast distances in mere hours—linking even distant continents while avoiding the perils of the seas.
▪️ The deep inhabitants of the anomaly ▪️
Who Inhabits the Edge?
At first glance, the Edge may seem lifeless, but this is far from the truth. Some beings are bound to it, existing as an inseparable part of this anomaly.
Who are Hum?
The Hum are mindless predators, hunting in packs and resembling creatures of the sea—both those known to our time and those long extinct. They cannot be tamed or reasoned with; when faced with them, the only options are to flee or attempt to drive them away.
Hunting parties of Hum move freely through both air and water, making any traveler vulnerable to their pursuit.
Who are Parakant?
Unlike the Hum, the Parakant are intelligent beings, known as soul guides and masters of weaving impassable mazes. Their colossal forms defy logic, and where a face should be, each bears a mirror.
Unlike the Hum, one can bargain with a Parakant—whether one should is another matter entirely. They are notorious tricksters, reveling in deals and agreements, but their warped sense of humor often twists the fulfillment of requests into something chaotic or simply exasperating.
Long ago, even the gods themselves persuaded the Parakant to watch over mortal souls, who were defenseless against the Hum. At the gods’ request, the Parakant also wove the impossible labyrinth surrounding the Worm’s prison.
What’s special about them?
Both the Parakant and the Hum exist outside of time, and their numbers are fixed—they can neither increase nor decrease. Though they can be killed, the moment one perishes, another takes its place. Killing a Hum may grant temporary safety, but slaying a Parakant… is both foolish and futile.
Each newly reborn Parakant inherits the memories of the one that was slain, but not its personality. They do not forgive, and with all the time in existence at their disposal, their vengeance is inescapable.
What is it like to communicate with parakant?
When interacting with travelers from the Mortal Realm, the Parakant follow their own set of rules. They adhere to the timeline of their guests but refuse to reveal the future—after all, where would be the fun in that?
To the Parakant, time is a seamless film that they can rewind, skip through, or view in any order. The concept of waiting is alien to them.
They have no true voice or language. The closest description of their communication is tinnitus—the perception of sound in one’s ears or mind without any external acoustic source. Some describe it simply as a headache.
Through trial and error, experienced hedronautes (Edge explorers) have synthesized sound frequencies that mimic the Parakant’s unique “voices.” These sounds have proven effective in repelling the Hum, offering a rare method of defense in the shifting void of the Edge.
