Description

[Kannon]

Above the clouds and the worst of the storms lie the ruins of the Bifrost Eyrie, the former holy site of Buddhislam on the planet. Once a Lankiveil's top landmark, redeeming the drab Harkonnen world with its beauty, spirituality and cultural sophistication, there is little left that could evoke the image of those past glories. The minarets crumbled, the domes caved in, the long, winding staircases along the mountain ridges collapsed. The cold winds howl in whatever halls haven't been snowed in. It is only with architectural imagination and by appreciating the fine, artful details on surviving polished stonework - the one that had not been blackened by lasgun fire - one can picture the place how it had been before its wanton destruction, mandated by 'Beast' Rabban. That, or one must have been living long enough to have witnessed it before the fall with their own eyes.

The main road that once led to it is now intraversable, its traces a figurative frozen scar carved into the shoulder of the mountains, switchbacking through ridgelines that had once borne lighters and pack-trains and pilgrims. The scar tissue of windborne snow patches its long stretches, making a decent on skis more plausible than by any other ground means.

From the Eyrie's ice-sheathed courtyard, Kornephoros is a small, golden-orange disk that cast long shadows and makes the ice fields between the blackened masonry burn with colour. The air is thin, requiring meditative, careful movements in order to avoid hypoxia. When the winds don't howl, the silence is enormous, even liturgical. Being there feels like having crossed some invisible threshold between worlds, and the only way back to your own is through bifrost, the divine rainbow bridge that appears only to the chosen few.

Much has been lost under layers of ice and snow. Once, the monk artisans of the Eyrie were renowned for the calligraphic achievements, cataloguing and transcribing holy texts of all religions, sought after across the Imperium. Their Buddhislam was a rare syncretism - pacifistic, espousing Jainist influences, sharing the spirit of the work of the original Commission of Ecumenical Translators. The vaults hiding the millennia of their enlightened efforts may still be lying entombed in the bellows of the mountain.

Perhaps that is because the smallest group of devotees lingers, gradually excavating, carving a niche for life to return so as to preserve the legacy of the place. Doomed as their efforts ma be, hope to witness the bifrost once again may be what is sustaining them, even as they suffer setback after setback, often joining the victims of past depredations in their rest beneath the ice. Neither the frigid mountain nor the polar winds hold any respect for their efforts any more. The nature's wrath for Harkonnen sins is manifest.