Amara (Stone trilogy)
Amara, also known as Stone, is the fictional world in British fantasy author Graham Edwards' Stone trilogy. To protagonists Jonah Lightfoot and Annie West, Amara first seems a giant, never-ending stone wall, extended in all directions and tilted approximately ten degrees from the vertical. It is so large that many civilizations, both living and dead, are precariously constructed along its surface. Magic permits interspecies communication; nourishes the inhabitants of Amara; and holds giant oceans on its surface.
Directions
Because the landscape of Amara is unusual, there are no compass points. Instead, six directions exist as follows:
- Upstone (along the wall to the right, when facing the wall)
- Downstone (along the wall to the left, when facing the wall)
- Up (up the wall)
- Down (down the wall)
- In (towards the wall)
- Out (towards the sky)
True shape of Amara
Jonah, with the help of Gerent, discovers the true nature of Amara early in the second novel, Stone and Sea. Noticing that the sun sets behind the vertical horizon, Jonah postulates that Amara is curved, and proves this when he and Gerent make simultaneous measurements of shadows at different points of the wall. Considering that the wall is also sloped at a ten-degree angle, they realize that Amara is conical, and that the inhabitable, horizontal ledges and caves follow a screw-like thread, spiraling toward the apex above.
Purpose and features of Amara
Amara was built by the Deathless, the six immortal basilisks who became mortal in Dragonstorm after the dragon Archan stole their immortality. Amara's purpose is to store the history and memories of the world; relics (including living beings) from all periods of Earth's past and future are cataloged there.
Into the future, into the past
As one moves Upstone along the thread, they move into Earth's future. Near his entrance (for example), the Victorian Jonah encounters Tom Coyote, a man from the United States in the year 1980. Immediately Downstone are the ancestors of the human race; then dragons; then a point of decay which marks the ancient Turning Of The World (which occurred in Dragoncharm). Downstone from here are hundreds of strange civilizations and a massive ocean.
The memory rods and the tip
Pulsating ebonite 'memory rods' are embedded in the stone of Amara, running unbroken like veins and sometimes breaking to the surface. They serve as a continuous current along which all the memories travel toward the apex of Amara. Jonah is one of the few, along with Archan, who can reach the memory rods and change the course of history or look into the future. At the very top of Amara, where future history ends, all rods merge into a single thin string that reaches high into the endless sky, signifying hope for all that has come before it, and appearing (to Jonah) to suspend Amara.
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