"Death in the Fifth City isn't necessarily the end. If you're stabbed or shot, someone may come along and sew you back together soon enough. If you're drowned, you'll wake with a hangover. If you die of old age or disease, or if you're hacked to pieces, it's a more serious matter. But in any case, once you die and return to life down here, you'll never be permitted to return to the surface...unless you're one of the few who find a way to immortality."[1]
Death is the end to all things. But in the Neath, and beyond, death can be, for lack of a better term, quite strange.
Not Again[]
"Your wounds have proven too much for you! You collapse. It's like going to sleep. If going to sleep really hurt."[2]
Thanks to the light and vitality of Stone, death is not always permanent in the Neath. Londoners tend to recover unless they have been literally dismembered, while those who die far out in the Unterzee often aren't so lucky.[3] The newly impermanent nature of true death has caused some... changes in London's society. Serial killers like Jack-of-Smiles aren't nearly as feared as those on the Surface, and the newly devised game of Knife-and-Candle essentially consists of players competitively murdering each other. And God's Editors have had to significantly revise the Bible in the wake of this strange new status quo.
There are still a few things that can tighten mortality's grip on a Londoner permanently, however. Generally, if one has lost their heart or head, or otherwise been chopped up into mincemeat, they are very, very unlikely to return to life. Cantigaster venom is also a convenient tool with which to end someone's life for good. Death of natural causes and old age create varying results; the would-be deceased usually becomes a tomb-colonist if they don't die permanently of illness.[1]
The Boatman[]
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"Well, apparently he plays chess in paintings and folk-songs. Which are always accurate, of course."[4]
"'Enjoy it while it lasts,' he growls. 'You're all of you mine in the end.'"[5]
The Boatman's Hat
The Boatman is the Neath's Grim Reaper; it is his job to ferry the spirits of the dead across the river to the far shore. The Boatman appears to the dead as a skeletal figure, always wearing a brimmed top hat and possessing a softly glowing lantern.[6] He has a special fondness for chess and dice,[7] and winning against him may grant a spirit a little more time in the lands of the living.[8] He also seems to like weasels and bats.[9]
The Boatman has hinted that he may answer to a higher power, possibly even the Judgements themselves.[10] However, he has also stated that he "failed" these powers in some way, forcing him into exile to fulfill his duty as best he can under the circumstances of the Neath.[11]
The Boatman's Lantern
The job of the Boatman seems to be a bequeathed one to an extent, as the current Boatman is capable of passing on his position to those who seek it.[6] Taking up the Boatman's oars gives the recipient a uniformly skeletal appearance,[12] though those who have died several times are sometimes capable of telling the Boatmen apart.[13] The Boatman is actually capable of looking into the memories of the dying, which can be useful for gathering intelligence,[14] and he is held in his boat by a mysterious force: there must always be a Boatman, to prevent the dead from piling up on the near shore.[15]
A Slow Boat[]
"Placid black water. Barren trees. A boat filled with pale and shivering passengers. That must be the place of the dead, over there on the far bank. Oh good."[8]
"Where was it you left your body, now? In the street? At home in bed? How is the old thing getting on?"[16]
Where do they bury the bodies?
People who die in the Neath, whether temporarily or permanently, end up on a slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river, a limbo of sorts. The dead await the boat on the near shore, and travel to the far shore to rest forever. Those who come to this place often have neither their bodies nor their souls, as both facets of their being still exist in the world of the living.[16]
The land of the dead is almost completely disconnected from the land of the living, though on occasion, items such as spectacles may cross over.[17] The land also has five rivers,[18] implying similarities to the Greek Hades, and it's implied that it may have ties to the place beyond mirrors.[19]
The Constables have agents that die and return regularly to ensure that certain personages stay dead permanently. Such a task is extremely mentally taxing, for obvious reasons.[20]
The Far Shore[]
"The ground erupts. Grey, wizened figures scrabble from walls of meat, clawing at one another, fingers locked in bone and socket, dragging at your wrists and ankles, tangling hair and tendons. With cracked tongues they beg for transport, promising grisly favours for one day's respite."[21]
Few return from the Far Shore: the dwelling of the permanently dead, tormented and desperate for one more chance. Those who do return retain little if any memory of what they have seen.[22]
Other Locations[]
Death's Country remains unexplored - or at least, little word has reached us from those who have explored it. Its inhabitants tell of places wondrous as they are macabre: the Onyx Isles, the Last Empire's End, the Wormwood Eclipse, the Colossus of Dust, Winter's Tomb, St Rictus' Feast, the Citadel of Liver. Far from a dead place, these are locations with an active economy, and their own... delectable...? wonders such as blood-clot tea.[23][24] The non-human creatures of the Neath may learn of these locales - or perhaps be traded therein, for there are other boatmen who will not decline an opportunity for profit in the trade of the dead. It is perhaps a blessing that we cannot perceive these locations, hidden as they are under a layer of Slobgollion.[25]
The Deep, Dark Zee[]
"You, and all your crew, are gone. London will speculate in vain as to how you might have met your end."[26]
"A wall puckers open, and a guard in a thorned exoskeleton brings in a shivering zailor."
""Go," the Fathomking says languidly. "I won't release her twice.""[27]
Lost with all hands...
Zailors who die on the Unterzee generally do not return. Some may turn up as Drownies, especially if they ate genuine rubbery lumps.[28]
The Fathomking is considered by some to be the lord of the Zee's dead.[29] He is the ruler of the Drownies, and he is actually capable of reviving the dead, for a price.[27] Sometimes, the Fathomking may add "enhancements" to those he revives; for example, he may cure a native of the Elder Continent of their animescence,[30] or grant a Rubbery Man the soul of a Lorn-Fluke.[31] That being said, His Complexity's revivals are not always completely perfect; there may be differences, noticeable or not.[32]
Those who spend too long in the depths of the Unterzee may meet the spirit Lady Black instead.
Death in the Heavens[]
"The Ephemera are the many, many dead who have come to the Blue Kingdom to enter by Death's Door. They are Ephemera only until they pass through, and then... but it is forbidden to speak of that higher mystery."[33]
A Shade. Art from Sunless Skies.
Dying in the High Wilderness sends a spirit to the Blue Kingdom, an enormous bureaucracy that processes and judges the dead.[34] The spirits who roam the Kingdom are called shades, and they often wear white, porcelain masks.[35] All kinds of creatures can end up becoming shades, including animals, plants,[36] and even Rubbery Men.[37]
The dead are sent to the Toll-Tower near Sky Barnet[38] and stand before the House of Days to be considered Ephemera, and thus properly registered, by the Kingdom's bureaucracies.[33] Following that, they must face final judgement by the Stone-Faced Court near the White Well;[39] those who are deemed worthy are granted the privilege of passing through Death's Door to an unknown fate.[33] However, certain individuals, such as immortality seekers, end up imprisoned forever within the Well,[40] and the dead who linger in the Blue Kingdom for too long often simply fade into nothing.[41]
References[]
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