Ehrlitan

A Holy City on the continent of Seven Cities.

Ehrlitan: Holy City

DG, Glossary

 "The Holy City of Ehrlitan was a city of white stone, rising from the harbour to surround and engulf a vast, flat-topped hill known as Jen'rahb. It was believed that one of the world's first cities was buried within Jen'rahb, and that in the compacted rubble waited the Throne of the Seven Protectors which legend held was not a throne at all, but a chamber housing a ring of seven raised daises, each sanctified by one of the Ascendants who set out to found Seven Cities. Ehrlitan was a thousand years old, but Jen'rahb the ancient city, now a hill of crushed stone, was believed to be nine times that.

 An early Falah'd of Ehrlitan had begun extensive and ambitious building on the flat top of Jen'rahb, to honour the city buried beneath the streets. The quarries along the north coast were gutted, whole hillsides carved out, the ten-tonne white blocks of marble dressed and transported by ship to Ehrlitan's harbour, then pulled through the lower districts to the ramps leading to the hill's summit. Temples, estates, gardens, domes, towers and the Falah'd palace rose like the gems of a virgin crown on Jen'rahb.

 Three years after the last block had been nudged into place, the ancient buried city...shrugged. Subterranean archways collapsed beneath the immense strains of the Falah'd Crown, walls folded, foundation stones slid sideways into streets packed solid with dust. Beneath the surface the dust behaved like water, racing down streets and alleys, into gaping doorways, beneath floors - all unseen in the unrelieved darkness of Jen'rahb. On the surface, on a bright dawn marking an anniversary of the Falah'd rule, the Crown sagged, towers toppled, domes split in clouds of white marble dust, and the palace dropped unevenly, in some places no more than a few feet, in others over twenty armspans down into flowing rivers of dust.

 Observers in the Lower City described the event. It was as if a giant invisible hand reached down to the Crown, closing to gather in every building, crushing them all while pushing down into the hill. The cloud of dust that rose turned the sun into a copper disc for days afterwards.

 Over thirty thousand people died that day, including the Falah'd himself, and of the three thousand who dwelt and worked in the palace, but one survived: a young cook's helper who was convinced that the beaker he had dropped on the floor a moment before the earthquake was to blame for the entire catastrophe. Driven mad with guilt, he stabbed himself in the heart while standing in the Lower City's Meryka Round, his blood flowing down to drench the paving stones where Fiddler now stood.'

DG, UK MMPB, p.84-5

"...as Kalam made his way towards Jen'rabb. The old ramps climbed to the hill's summit like a giant's stairs, gap-toothed where the chiselled blocks had been removed for use in other parts of Ehrlitan. Tangled scrub filled the gaps, long, wiry roots anchored deep in the slope's fill."

DG, UK mmpb, p.97

"A hundred paces inside the Caravan Gate was a square in which the land traders assembled before leaving Ehrlitan. Most would strike south along the raised coastal road, following the line of the bay. Villages and outposts were numerous on this route, and the Malazan-built cobble road itself was well patrolled..."

DG, UK mmpb, p.139

Fist's Keep

"The Fist's Keep, once the home of the city's Falah'd, rose dark and misshapen above a well-lit compound, like a clenched hand rising from a bed of coals...The entire occupying regiment was holed up in the Keep's own barracks, having been called in from the outlying garrison forts strategically placed around Ehrlitan's circumference. The Keep could not accomodate such numbers - the well was already foul, and the soldiers slept on the bailey's flagstones under the stars."

DG, UK mmpb, p.98

Harbour

'In the harbour two ancient Falari triremes were moored - off the Malazan mole and a lone undermanned company of marines held the Imperial Docks."

DG, UK mmpb, p.98

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