Arcadia, best of lands, lies between the four mountain ranges that protect it, in the best of times, from the Great Empire: To the east, the Calandals. Mt. Macillhenny, the tallest mountain in Arcadia, is in this range, and it is a dry, windswept place, hard to farm, but peopled by settlers who know the secrets of making and doing. To the west, the Donatees, the most impassable of the mountains, snow capped all year ‘round, the place of Resistance, where game of all kind abounds. To the north, the Samanthans, rising up from the golden Samanthan foothills, mysterious, never crossed until the days of the Lizard Princess, not even by the technicians of Megalopolis, protecting Arcadia to the north from Monsters, Creatures, and the Restless Sea.

To the south rise the Ceres, the sacred mountains. The site and heart of Arcadia, of which no more, to my hearers, needs to be said.

Arcadia provides in unfailing plenty everything that is suited to the use of human beings. It has towns of individual grace and beauty, where women and men can live in comfort and safety, without envy of their fellows. It has rivers that run full and fresh, teeming with fish and other life, the Juliet River, and its tributaries, the Gems and the Deerspring. It has green fields that cradle the towns, growing every kind of food to be traded and sold in its playful markets, no one market more than a morning’s walk one from the other. It has forests made of every kind of tree growing each at its own favored place, trees that spread, mysterious and benign, about Arcadia on all sides, evergreen and elegant silver in winter, pale copper green and chartreuse in spring, emerald in summer, and golden, ruby, and velvet bronze in the fall. In three seasons there grow everywhere flowers of all colors and scents, in such profusion that the bees, ignoring categories, make honey of a hundred indescribable flavors. The vines of the Samanthan foothills, which reap the harvest of the southern sun, make our fine wines, those to the east productive of a deep gold wine and one, popular in summer, of a pale rose, while the vines closer to the west produce what we call Queen’s Wine, from it having been, always, the favorite of our queen, Sophia the Wise, a burgundy red drink that smells of strawberries, tasting of violets, mountain truffles, and fresh hay.

The people of Arcadia have grown up from two strains: those who have inhabited the towns since Before the Time of Records, and those who came over the mountains with Lily the Silent, at the time of the Great Deluge, in the days before she became Arcadia’s first queen. And these are every kind of peoples that the Great Empire of Megalopolis had conquered and enslaved, and so now our people are of every conceivable kind and color, as our forests hold every kind of tree, and our fields every kind of flower.

In the early days, the time between Before the Time of Records and the Great Megalopolitan Invasion, Arcadia was a magistracy, arranged so that each neighborhood in each town elected its own leader, who then joined with the general council of her town in choosing one representative to attend the twice yearly councils of Arcadia. But this system, rational and humane as it appears to us, its inheritors, even now, could not survive the Evil Times that come when the Warlike threaten the Peaceful.

It was in such Evil Times that Lily, she who would become Lily the Silent, first queen of Arcadia, lived, and began the journey that made her queen.

The birth of Lily is unknown, being in the time Before the Records. Of her birth many different stories have been told, each one holding in common only that they speak of a great mystery. Little is known of her origins. No one knows the name of her father. No one knows her past. It was her silence about these that gave her the name Lily the Silent.

Mae the magistrate was her mother. Her stepfather was Alan, son of Maud the Freedom Fighter, whose exploits we all know through the twice told tales of our forebears, always spoken, never written, by tradition and preference, passed down at many a winter hearth, and never before collected into words on a page. Until now. Now by me, Wilder the Bard, tasked with the setting down of the History of Arcadia by our queen, Sophia the Wise. The stories of Maud the Freedom Fighter are those best known by every Arcadian child. I have no need to sing of them here, when they sing, brave and sweet, in every fellow Arcadian’s heart.

Mae, Alan, and Lily lived in an Arcadian garden house on the hill of Harmony Street, in Cockaigne, in the days before the Great Invasion.

Mae was a refined and prudent woman, a magistrate, as I’ve said, and a leader. Alan was a good man, a good husband and father, peaceful in times of peace, never offering to strike a first blow, but fierce in defense.

Mae and Alan raised Lily as an Arcadian child, that is, quiet and content, loving her land and her neighbors and her family, in the way of Arcadia. She was a beautiful girl, the most famously beautiful, not just in Cockaigne, but in the other towns, too. Her hair was as black as water-splashed rock in morning shadow, and her skin was as cream colored as good strong coffee and milk. Her eyes were large, slanted and oddly colored: red brown when she was calm, but striking sparks of green when she was not.

All the boys were in love with her. But she would have none of them. For Lily, from the beginning, there was only one great love, and that love she gave away to lead the Great Migration and become our queen.

Lily often visited her stepgrandmother, the great Freedom Fighter Maud, whose story we know from the tale of the Dog Husband and other nursery fare. Maud lived in a tiny, solitary, well built house at the edge of the forests of the Ceres, where she had retired at the end of her legendary exploits, and where she entertained seldom, and then only the closest of her friends.

The closest of all Maud’s friends was Death, and it was in the Tiny House in the Forest that Lily, as a young girl, met Death and was befriended by her.

And this must have happened close before the Great Invasion, when Megalopolis found itself in danger, and in the power of its magnificent panic, overran the Calandals and came into Arcadia with a pretense of Peace. And Lily knew this would happen, because Death had told her so. When Maud went away with Death, it was Lily who saw them walk, arm in arm, away.

Then Lily, and her dog, the famous Rex of our hearthside stories, were taken in slavery to Megalopolis to work in the Children’s Mine. For Megalopolis had discovered a profit in forcing children to pay their own way, and not just their own way, but that of others, too. While she was there, she should have languished and perished with the hardness of it all, for the contented children of Arcadia do not make good slaves, as history has shown. But Lily had lived in the times Before the Records, and what happened there is dark to us, but whatever happened, it tempered her strength and stored it against just such a need as this. So she lived through these times, and many times to come, until she became our queen.

She was silent about this time later, as she was about many things. And I cannot say that I can find it in me to blame her, as there are many things the wise cannot say. Or even those who are on their way to becoming Wise.

Now it happened that, then, in Megalopolis, there lived a young man who was blessed with everything it was in Megalopolis’ gift to give. He was handsome and rich. He was the darling of all the women. Not a one would have resisted a look from his eyes, which, it was said, were the color of the blue sky over a snowy mountain on a sun filled winter’s day. Not a one failed to dream of pulling tenderly at his golden hair. Not a one didn’t long to caress and be caressed by him.

He was the son of a rich man, and, as they call them in Megalopolis, a rich man’s wife. Livia, well known to Arcadian children as a witch, a witch who had long ruled Megalopolis in secret, through the magic spells she worked on men. The name of her son was Conor Barr. He was engaged since childhood to wed the beautiful Rowena, as rich as her long blonde hair, as untouchable and cold and brilliant as a frosty night’s star. But on seeing a portrait of Lily, he would have no one else, and, leaving Rowena behind, rode into the mountains to take Lily and her dog from the Children’s Mine. All marveled at this, that a son of those who were like kings would take, even as a concubine, a lowly slave.

But his mother, Livia, smiled. And no one knew why.

At this time, and in secret, the Glorious Empire of Megalopolis was dying. Few knew it, though all felt it. This was a time that comes to the Great when they have forgotten the Small, and the earth rots under their feet. So it was, then, with Megalopolis, and it was this that was the reason why the raging Empire reached out farther and farther and farther still for slaves and treasure and food and water, in hopes that it could hold off its ordained end. And hold its end off it did, with the goods, and the lands, and the foods, of others.

But the people of Megalopolis, the masses, felt the ground shift under their feet. This made them uneasy, and hard to drive. And so it was that the rulers of Megalopolis built a Phony Moon, a second Moon in the sky, at first as a pleasure ground for even the very lowest of their country to amuse themselves, and then as a haven for those who could afford to flee to the Cold City. They did this not just to save themselves from their own folly, but also to hide the Real Moon. For when the common people could see the Real Moon, they could see the angels there, those beings who made it a way station on their flights across the heavens. When nothing but the Real Moon was in the night sky, the people could watch the angels’ shadows fly across its pale light. Then the people were reverent and silent, and thought again of the old days, when the land did not shiver and quake under their feet. And when there had been the promise of justice for all.

It was to the Phony Moon that Livia took the beautiful Lily and the dog Rex. And Lily, the darling of every festivity given on that Phony Moon (and there were many such, that final season before the Great Disaster), danced and sang, and dallied with Conor Barr, who, for all his charm and riches, was as beneath her as the Earth is beneath the Real Moon.

Lily knew this was so, that Conor Barr was handsome and courteous and fair. But that he was also vain, and boastful, and pleasure loving, and weak. She knew that he was weaker than she. But she loved him, and only him, and knowing his faults did nothing to erode her love, but strengthened it, in the way of love, against a darker day.

That darker day was not slow in coming.

On the seventh night that Lily danced, with the cream of Megalopolis, on the Phony Moon, Livia led her away. The witch led the girl across the Crystal Bridge to the Real Moon. The rulers of Megalopolis met there, in secret, in fear of their promised end, and in defiance of the auguries that told them of it, auguries that appeared thick and fast, as the days turned. They met around an Angel who had been captured in her flight, bound and tortured. They demanded that she tell the remedy for the disasters Megalopolis had brought to Earth. But rather than tell, the Angel died. And the rulers cursed the Angel, but read again the Great Book of Megalopolis, in which was told everything that had happened and that would happen. No one knows where the Great Book of Megalopolis came from, whose gift it was to the Empire, but the Great Book was there, on the Real Moon, and it told of what was to come, though in hidden words. And the scientists of Megalopolis said this was not possible under the Sun, that these hidden words were meaningless, that those who studied them were fools.

But on the Real Moon, what is possible is just that which cannot happen only under the Sun. On the Real Moon, what is Foolish under the Sun, is there Wise. The scientists of Megalopolis had forgotten that, though what Bards there were then (and there were very few, and those poor and hungry, as I know) did not.

What the Great Book said was that the salvation of Megalopolis, if salvation there could be, lay at the bottom of the Great Ocean that lapped at the Empire on its three sides, those borders other than the impassable mountain ranges of Arcadia. It had happened that the salvation of Megalopolis, the Key, had been dropped by an Angel (whether or not it was this poor broken one, no one could tell, since an Angel can only be told from another Angel by those who have eyes to see) into the sea. And the only person who could retrieve it, at the risk of her own life, was Lily.

“And if she fails, the sacrifice to the Great Ocean will be enough to stave off disaster for a little while. It will buy us time,” said the chieftain who had taken for himself the right to sit in judgment on the poor, there on the Real Moon. And who was there strong enough to gainsay him? His name was Alaistair, and he was an old man, puissant and terrible, and canny, too…almost as canny as he himself thought. Which was canny enough.

He was canny enough to know that what the scientists of Megalopolis told him was not enough, it would not save him or his or the vast country he robbed for his power, no, their magic did not reach that far. What magic was needed now was the magic they said was dead, that they said had never been. They were wrong, he knew. That magic was on the Real Moon, and Alastair was canny enough to know this, and to know what had to be done. Lily must be sacrificed if Megalopolis was to continue as the grandest empire our world had ever known.

This Livia knew. This was the reason she welcomed Lily, even though the family of Rowena Pomfret was a powerful one, enraged by the insult to their daughter. She welcomed Lily because to sacrifice her to the Ocean would bring her, Livia, more power still. For Livia loved Power. She knew nothing of Love. And this made her the highest of the high among the high of Megalopolis.

Livia rejoiced to see the dead Angel, for Angels had ever been her bane. She had been taught they did not exist, and this had made it difficult for her to see her Enemy until it was almost too late.

But now it was, she thought, too late for the Angel. And Livia grinned a hideous grin.

Lily saw the dead Angel, and saw she was not dead. Since Lily knew Death, she knew this. No one else there, among the richest of the rich of Megalopolis, knew Death; they feared Her and ran from Her and were pledged to be Her Enemies. So they could not see what Lily saw. What Lily saw was this: The Angel had been waiting for her, in her poor tortured body, which she now fled to take up her place in Lily. Lily felt the Angel move into her heart. It was like the falling of a white feather into the place meant for it away from the wind. So she knew what had to be done. She accepted that she would sacrifice herself and walk into the sea to save Megalopolis. And two young girls of Megalopolis, Phoebe (she who was born on the Real Moon), and Kim (she who was later called Kim the Kind) would not let her go alone, but braved Death in the sea to comfort her with their company.

They braved Death, but because Lily knew Death, Death welcomed them there and led them deeper into the Sea.

While they did this, Rex the dog took a long, hard journey across the Calandals to his fate, as the Empire scorched the beautiful land of Arcadia. And what happened to him there, happened to the Grayling clan of the Calandal Mountains. But that is a dark tale, and a dangerous one for Arcadia, with dangers yet to come, and the full story yet to be told in its time and place.

The Three went deeper and deeper into the Sea. And there were many adventures there, and they had many favors from those they found there. They met Manaan, who the scientists of Megalopolis say exists only in song. He led them to the Mermaids’ Table. It was beside it that the Tree stands, that Tree of Tales from which every experience grows, with its branches more numerous than the stars reflected in the Sea, and its stories also. Lily and Phoebe and Kim had favors from Manaan and the Mermaids, who swim, restless, until the day when the Sea is unafraid to meet the Land, and who give those they love many gifts denied by those who live by the Sea.

It was there they found the Key.

And Phoebe, born on the Real Moon, knew herself when they found the Key. She stayed with the Mermaids below from that day on, for she knew then who she really was. For Phoebe had known Lily in another time and in another world, when her name had been Melia, and her form much different then, and she saw that now, and knew that her work in this world was done.

When Lily and Kim came out of the sea, and journeyed across the dead marshes of Megalopolis to return to the City, they were met by the Procession of the Dead, led by Death herself. In this procession were many that they had loved and lost, their families, and the dog, Rex. But they journeyed on.

Next, on that Road, they were met by a brilliant festival, a wedding parade, a celebration of the marriage of Conor Barr and the snow white Rowena, made that day. Conor did not see Lily, so dazzled was he by his bride, and by the herb his mother, Livia, had put in his marriage drink, and so Lily, his true beloved, walked slowly behind the cheering crowd and was the last to enter the banquet hall. But it was at this feast that the Fortune Teller announced the child of Conor Barr would be the Wisest Ruler of them all. And the crowd murmured and hoped: surely, this would stop the earth from moving under their feet?

But that night, the earth moved again and again. Only women and children heard what the earth said, and so began a long, slow walk to the mountains. Past the jeers of the crowd celebrating the wedding of Conor Barr and Rowena Pomfret, the women and children made their way, straining forward, not even stopping to pack much more than a wrap against winter and a bag of bread, toward the mountains, toward the Ceres, the most beautiful mountains of all, on the other side of which lay Arcadia, more beautiful still, even after the lootings of the Empire.

And Conor had come from Rowena’s bed in secret to lie with Lily, and in his vain folly, promised her the highest secret position in the land as his private love. But this, Lily, though she loved him, could not accept, not just because she was proud, but because Death warned her of what she must do. And Lily ever listened to Death.

Lily and Kim the Kind, who had braved the waves together, joined the refugees walking to the mountains. They climbed and climbed and reached high into the secret parts of the Ceres where winter came to meet them. The others thought of turning back, but, it is said, it was Lily who stopped them, and from an icy shelf high up in the sacred mountains, they looked down on Megalopolis to see an enormous wave lift from the sea and dash over the city, drowning all left there, all who had not had the money to flee to the Phony Moon that shone dimly above.

It is said that it was the magic Lily carried that enabled them to see this. But no one would say what happened that night, except in whispers to their children, much later, in safety finally, on the other side of the mountains, when that long cold winter was past. It is said that it was the magic Lily carried that kept them alive. But in this, as in so much else, Lily was silent.

The snow came early that winter, too early, for it was still harvest time. And the women and children were only halfway up the third tallest mountains in the world. It was not the tallest, for that is the Samanthans, and those no one had yet crossed. It was not the Donatees, for those could only be crossed by wily fighters, knowing every rock and crevice. It was the Ceres, but the Ceres could be terrible enough, as can all things beneficent and kind.

Towards dawn of that terrible night, the night they saw Megalopolis drown, there was a scream. Lily rose quickly from her bed made under a tree, and, shaking off the snow from her hair, hurried toward the sound. For Lily was the child of Mae the magistrate, and she could never hear anyone in pain or in need without hurrying to give aid.

A poor woman had mistaken her footing, stumbling in the dark into a ravine where she now lay dead. Her child, a girl, stood mute, looking at what had been her mother.

Lily wrapped the child in her own coat and led her away, and this was the child who later became Clare the Rider, and it was well done of Lily to have saved her that way, for Clare saved Lily’s own child to come, many times. For Lily carried a child out of Megalopolis, though she told no one. One other young woman, who was Devindra Vale, later to become the Queen’s closest counselor and friend, knew, for she was wise beyond her years, and recognized Lily for what she was. It was Clare the Rider and Devindra Vale who helped Lily keep the women and children who had fled Megalopolis safe, and it was they stood by her on the night of the birth of Sophia, in deep December, surrounded as they were by the warmth of mountain ponies, with a night owl on a branch above to announce the arrival of she who became Sophia the Wise. She was named that for her temperance, her prudence, her compassion, and her clear sight. Much of what she learned was at the time of the Lizard Princess, but about that I will tell another time.

The snows did not stop, that winter, and it took all the bravery and knowledge of the women to survive. Some say it took the magic of the Key. Whatever saved them, survive they did, and when spring came, though it was almost too late, they had, some of them, lived. Led by Lily and Devindra Vale, they went down over into Arcadia, the first and last ever to find the pass that led through the most hidden part of the Ceres Mountains, the pass that has never been found again.

There and then it was that all of Arcadia proclaimed Lily their queen. But she, silent, neither accepted nor rejected the crown when it was pressed upon her. Three times it was given her, and three times she was silent. “See, she takes the crown!” the crowd called out, but it was not so, Lily did not take the crown, it was given her, and from that day on she ruled with the idea that the crown should be given back.

But she was silent about this idea, as about much else, and no one knew. And many lies were told about her by many enemies, and many who should have seen were blind, and many who should have loved, hated.

For she had the Key, and through the Key, she knew what must be done, and it is ever so that people hate those who know what must be done. “Even though I wish it otherwise,” she thought, “it is as it should be.” Even she thought it was as it should be when, at the height of her reign, and the height of her sad beauty, a murderer entered the court where all were free to come to ask what they pleased, and he killed Lily the Silent in the seventh year of her reign.

This was Will the Murderer, who Chief Counselor Devindra Vale would not allow to be executed, and he lives still, as I, Wilder the Bard, well know.

As for the Key, Lily took it with her on the Road of the Dead, though poets say she dropped it there when she met her old friend, Death, and sailed away with her across the sea. And the poets further say that Death, because of her great love for Lily, gave her a great gift, a book of the type found on the Real Moon, but more beautiful and more cunningly wrought, that tells everything that will be.

And that Lily, in the Land of the Dead, turns over the pages of this book and sees what is done in her beautiful land of Arcadia, sees her daughter become the Great Queen, the Wisest Ruler of Them All, Sophia the Wise.