Three Worlds Timeline & Reading Order

An incomplete Three Worlds timeline and reading order

(dates measured backwards and forwards from the beginning of The View from the Mirror)

Warning: This timeline necessarily contains spoilers. Also ambiguities and unknowns, even to me.

Reading Order

1. The View from the Mirror quartet
2. The Well of Echoes quartet
3. A Wizard’s War and Other Stories (contains spoilers for the end of The Well of Echoes)
4. The Song of The Tears trilogy
5. The Gates of Good & Evil quartet

The Tainted Realm trilogy (not a Three Worlds series, but related to it) can be read at any stage but is best read before The Gates of Good & Evil, because one character appears from The Tainted Realm subsequently appears in The Gates of Good & Evil.

Story Cycles in the Three Worlds

• The 23 Great Tales.
• The Lesser Tales – there are thousands of these.
• The Romances – less significant, doubtful and less respectable tales.
• The Tales of Bawdry.
• The Apocrypha – unproven tales from ancient times or unknown lands or the other worlds.
• The frightful Tales of the Void.
• Stories from other continents of Santhenar.

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1.1 Santhenar

Far Distant Past – Pre-Golden Flute

• 12,000 years ago, first towns on Santhenar, southern end of Warde Yallock. They died out during Little Ice Age.
• More than 8,000 years ago, the time of the megalith builders.
• The town of Ric Rints (wrongly written later as lyrinx) established near Snizort. Its people were the first old humans to develop the Secret Art. Persecuted, they fled to the void to escape, and flesh-formed themselves into the lyrinx to survive.
• 5,000 years ago Booreah Ngurle began burning. A very powerful place for mancery.
• Old levels of Shazmak built. Who by? What for? No one knows.

Distant Past – Golden Flute to the Forbidding

• 4,017 years ago, Rulke summons Shuthdar to make the golden flute but he steals it, breaks open the Way between the Worlds and flees back to Santh at Booreah Ngurle. The written Histories begin on Santh.
• 3,998 BP (before the Time of the Mirror). Rulke’s Charon, plus Aachim serfs, pursue Shuthdar to Santh.
• The Faellem, shocked at the opening of the Way, send Faelamor and her people to put things right. But they can’t, and remain on Santh.
• Circa 3,950. The Mirror of Aachan is made by Master Shaper Aoife, given to Tensor as his outgift and brought to Santh. See The Price of Freedom in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories. He makes that fatal bargain with Magiz Murgilha that allows her to send the summon stone to Santhenar, to prepare the way for the Merdrun.
• Tensor’s follies with the Mirror. He loses it to Yalkara.
• 3,900 – 3,600. The Charon build cities at various places including Booreah Ngurle, Rulke’s first base in the hunt for the flute. Yalkara builds Havissard in the Wahn Barre. Kandor, who wants an empire, builds Katazza using indentured Aachim labour.
• 3,500. A few Aachim are freed and join those who have escaped.
• 3,400. The remaining Aachim break free of the Charon, build fortresses including Shazmak (and possibly Fiz Gorgo) and their greatest city, Tar Gaarn, and become strong.
• 3,333. First Charon-Aachim War.
• 3,150 years ago, the Zain and the Great Library, founded by Larria the Zain. Tale of the Library.
• 3,100 years ago. Kandor’s Empire of Perion, centred on Katazza and tapping the power of the rift, reaches its height and threatens even Rulke.
• 3,080 years ago, Myan and his Aachim take Booreah Ngurle by treachery (under a truce flag) and slaughter all one thousand Charon blendings. The second Charon-Aachim war, just Rulke this time.
• 3,020 years ago. Shuthdar, Bandiar, Nassi (Llian’s tale in reply in Carcharon, in Dark is the Moon). Nassi founds college at Saludith.
• 3,000 years ago. Eventually, after centuries of decrepitude, Shuthdar dies at Huling’s Tower, the flute is destroyed and the Forbidding seals the Three Worlds off from one another. See Llian’s Graduation Telling in A Shadow on the Glass.
• Circa 3,000. Tales of the Aachim written.

Ancient Past – The Forbidding to the Clysm

• Circa 2,980. The College of the Histories, the first of all, established at Chanthed. The first and greatest of all the Great Tales, the Tale of the Forbidding, is told.
• 2,950. The Faellem, now trapped on Santh by the Forbidding, go to the cold southern land, Mirrilladell.
• 2,800 years ago, Kandor’s Empire of Perion becomes stronger. Yalkara and Rulke wage war against Kandor.
• 2,500 years ago, Yalkara and Rulke cause a mighty earth trembler at the Hornrace that closes it (though this is denied). Told in an incomplete, lesser Great Tale, the Tale of the Rifting – Llian summarises it in The Tower on the Rift. Now the Sea of Perion begins to fall. Kandor builds the Rainbow Bridge, the greatest feat of building on Santh. In Dark is the Moon, Selial tells Llian that it could be a Great Tale.
• Pellban, the fifth master of the College of the Histories, creates the Great Tale the Lay of the Silver Lake, which tells of the subjection and desolation of the little state of Saludith, and Narcies’ tragic sacrifice. Summarised in A Shadow on the Glass.
• 2,300 years ago the Zain’s Zurean Empire reaches its height. Later, with the Sea of Perion falling rapidly, drought causes the decline of the Empire.
• 2,200 years ago, the Aachim develop a potency against Rulke but it backfires.
• 2180. Rulke’s pact with the Zain – their immunity against the Aachim’s potency in exchange for his vast knowledge. The Gift of Rulke stigmata.
• The destruction of Salliban and genocide of the Whelm by spice trader Krespin’s mercenaries. Creation of the false Great Tale, Downfall of the Beasts, paid for by Krespin. Mentioned in The Fatal Gate.
  The second of four great battles fought between Yalkara and Faelamor over thousands of years. Only set down by the Recorder a couple of hundred years before the time of The View from the Mirror.
• 2,090 years ago. The Zain rebel against Rulke. Their decimation, dispossession and persecution begins.
• 2,060 years ago, Rulke’s pact with the Whelm, turning them into Ghâshâd, mortal enemies of Aachim.
• 2,000 years ago, the Rainbow Bridge is broken. Old keep at Gothryme built.
• 1,830 years ago, the fall of Skane (the last time a full dark moon was in hythe).

The Clysm to Rulke’s Imprisonment in the Nightland

• 1,500 years ago, the Sea of Perion is now three saline lakes and still drying. The climate changes, forests are destroyed, and Perion’s wealth/mines/trade are devastated. Kandor, now desperate, marches south and besieges Aachim lands, beginning the Clysm.
• 1,500 – 1,000 years ago, the Charon-Aachim wars of the Clysm devastate Santhenar, and many libraries and Histories are lost. Tar Gaarn holds out against Rulke.
• 1,340. Healer’s Isle. The great healer, Haba, saves many at risk of her own life, and is condemned.
• 1,320 years ago. Calliat, mystic and philosopher, devises the 49 supposedly insoluble Chrighms. His partner was the Collector Arcana, Daliet. They died in a suicide pact.
• 1,100 years ago. Mendark’s early days – See A Wizard’s War in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories. The death of Magister Rula – executed by Kandor. Mendark becomes Magister.
• 1,100 to 1,000. Yggur’s early days and the source of his mancery. He makes an appearance in A Wizard’s War, in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories.
• 1,050. A pact between Rulke and Pitlis ends the Clysm and there’s a time of peace and prosperity, though oppressed humanity sees little of it.
• The Council’s Proscribed Experiments are designed to find a flaw in the Forbidding to banish Rulke.
• Rulke betrays Pitlis and sacks Tar Gaarn. Pitlis is killed. The Aachim, greatly weakened by the Clysm, retreat from the world to their hidden mountain cities; some reconstruct Shazmak into a city of towers. Tensor plots revenge. The Tale of Tar Gaarn is written (Llian summarises it in A Shadow on the Glass).
• The Mirror of Aachan is stolen by Yalkara at the fall of Tar Gaarn.
• 1,006 years ago, Kandor is killed and Katazza abandoned.
• 1,000 years ago, Pitlis’s revenge. When Rulke uses Alcifer as a construct to attack the Forbidding a deliberate flaw in it forms a cyst of the void, and the Council, using the Proscribed Experiments, forces Rulke into it and it becomes his Nightland prison.
• Yggur’s betrayal by Mendark in order to trap Rulke. Mendark’s great lie becomes part of the Histories.
• Almost 1,000 years ago, the exiled, persecuted Zain eventually end up in Jepperand.
• 1,000 years ago, Clan Fyrn come to Gothryme.
• Great Tale, The Taking of Rulke. A ring was used in his betrayal, and the woman he was to be paired with was slain (mentioned in Dark is the Moon).
• Story to be written, A Prison for the Dead. Give us back our bones.
• Story to be written, The Library of Empty Books. Sentient book.
• Story to be written, The Sardonyx Wand.
• Story to be written, The Seer Stones.

The Nightland to the Time of The View from the Mirror

• 1,000 years ago. The Faellem are still trapped on Santh and Faelamor still plots Charon’s destruction. Great Tale The Loneliness of Faelamor.
• 1,000 to 0. Tensor continues to plot revenge on Rulke.
• 1,000 to 700. Yggur’s madness and wandering days: his fear of Rulke and hatred of Mendark.
• ?540 years ago. The Tale of Benbow, a minor tragedy. No help ever came. Told by Llian in A Shadow on the Glass.
• 1,000–500. Rulke’s devastated Ghâshâd are Whelm again; they’re lost in the icy south for 500 years before Yggur masters them.
• Circa 500 years ago, debased experiments by Basunez bring the summonstone to Carcharon.
• ?300. Mendark – Summonstone story for Worldspinner game scenario builder; rivalry with Yggur and others.
• 300 years ago. After defeating Faelamor in their 4th and final battle [though Faelamor said she ‘drove her from Santhenar’] Yalkara finds a flaw in the Forbidding with the Mirror of Aachan and flees Santh, leaving the Mirror behind and Havissard protected by a mighty stasis spell. The Mirror is hidden, probably by Gyllias. But later Yggur gets it.
• This defeat drives Faelamor to her despicable long-term plan to ‘create’ Maigraith as her instrument.
• Circa 200 years ago, Shand and Yalkara – Secrets of the Recorder (the four great battles plus many other tales).
• Circa 150 years ago, Faelamor/Aeolior/Maigraith – weapon against the Charon/Rulke.
• 100 years ago. Malien, Tensor and Rael, and their schism.
• 20 years ago, Karan’s father Galliad continues Basunez’s experiments, thins the wall to the void.
• 16 years ago, Llian meets Mendark, who sponsors him to the College of the Histories at the age of 12. Being Zain, he suffers much persecution.
• 16 years ago, Galliad is killed at Carcharon. See the short story Darkness Visible, featuring Karan and Rael, in Rich and Rare. To be republished in 2021 in a new Three Worlds anthology.
• 12 years ago Karan’s mother, mad with grief, kills herself and Karan goes alone to Shazmak at the age of 12.
• 7 years ago, Lilis, whose father was press-ganged as a sailor and taken away, is surviving among the street thieves of Thurkad.
• 6 years ago, aged 18, Karan flees Shazmak because of Emmant’s harassment, and travels for years.

Time of the View from the Mirror

• The View from the Mirror – the events of A Shadow on the Glass, The Tower on the Rift, Dark is the Moon and The Way Between the Worlds cover about three years.
• Mendark’s death puts the summon stone to sleep but Faelamor’s death wakes it. Possibly Mergriz (the Merdrun leader) identified a unique moment of vulnerability in her and induced her to self-immolate.
• Rulke/Karan wake something very dangerous in the void.

End of the View from the Mirror to 10 years later

• 5 years later. Llian’s story, The Professional Liar, in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories.
• 7 years later. The Seventh Sister, a novella in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories featuring Shand, Tallia and Aviel, the crippled girl from The Gates of Good & Evil.
• 9.5 years later. The Gate of Good and Evil Book 1, The Summon Stone. (Book covers about 50 days)
• 9.7 years later. The Gate of Good and Evil Book 2, The Fatal Gate. (covers about 70 days)

10 Years Later to the Time of The Well of Echoes (206 years after the end of The View from the Mirror). Unwritten stories:

• The Lyrinx:
  Stories of their arrival and from the early days.
  And the betrayal that leads to war.
• Nunar (formerly known as Idol) develops her Theory of Mancery with some help from Shand.
• Stories of the Numinator.
• The Council of Scrutators and their experiments in Nennifer.
• Young Xervish Flydd (her only takes that name at end of story).
• Flydd tortured by Scrutators.
• What the Faellem of Mirrilladell are up to.
• Illiel and Gilhaelith/globe/mathemancy.
• +130 years – The Council of Scrutators has Llian’s Great Tale revoked, and the ending (Forbidding/Faelamor) rewritten by Garthas as the 27th Great Tale.

Time of the Well of Echoes

• The Well of Echoes – Geomancer, Tetrarch, Scrutator and Chimaera cover about three years.
• The spell caster (see The Perilous Tower) lost somewhere in this period.

End of The Well of Echoes to The Song of the Tears (10 years)

• Immediately after the end of Chimaera. One Throw of the Die, a long novella in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories, is an adventure featuring Flydd, Klarm the dwarf, and the daring rescue of General Troist’s teenage twin daughters, Liliwen and Meriwen.
• The next 6 months after the end of Chimaera. Flydd’s desperate adventures after Jal-Nish becomes God-Emperor. Later he treks halfway across Lauralin, hunted all the way, to recover the three crystals (a lesser Great Tale, to be written).
• The next two years. Klarm, the dwarf scrutator, sails forbidden seas and visits unknown lands before returning and working for Jal-Nish.

Time of The Song of the Tears

• The Song of the Tears – The Fate of the Fallen, The Curse on the Chosen and The Destiny of the Dead cover a couple of years.

After The Song of the Tears

• 2 years later. The Gates of Good & Evil Book 3, The Perilous Tower (story begins 223 years after the end of The View from the Mirror and 213 years after The Summon Stone, and takes 30 days)
• 1 month later. The Gates of Good & Evil Book 4, The Sapphire Portal. (story about 50 days)

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1.2 Aachan

Distant past – Before The Hundred took Aachan

• Inthis founded First Clan 10,000 years ago.

Post-Conquest to Shuthdar

• The time immediately after The Hundred took Aachan (date not specified but around 10 k years ago).
• Harsh times for Aachim under the Charon rule (mentioned in Dark is the Moon).
• 4,000 years ago. Rulke summons Shuthdar to make an opening device, the golden flute, but he steals it and flees to Santh. A Shadow on the Glass.
• Soon after, Rulke and several other Charon take the indentured Aachim to Santh in pursuit.

Post-Shuthdar to the time of The View from the Mirror

• Circa 3,950. Tensor and the making of the Mirror of Aachan. A Shadow on the Glass.
• The second wave of Aachim come to Santh.

The View from the Mirror to the time of The Well of Echoes and The Song of the Tears

• Aachan becomes increasingly damaged by eruptions, and almost uninhabitable. Told in Geomancer.
• 207 years later, the Aachim contact Tiaan and many come through to Santhenar in a vast construct fleet.

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1.3 Tallallame

Distant past

• Tens of thousands of years ago. The Faellem and the Mariem are increasingly at odds (technology vs magic). Mentioned in The Way Between the Worlds.
• The Faellem betray the Mariem and send them to the void to die.
• The Faellem rebuild their world without any magical devices.

The Past

• About 4,000 years ago. Faelamor discovers the existence of the Charon and leads her people to Santhenar. A Shadow on the Glass.
• 4,000 years ago to present. The Faellem on Tallallame regress. Mentioned in The Way Between the Worlds.

The time of the View from the Mirror to 10 Years After

• The void is opened into Tallallame, it’s dreadfully infested by savage creatures and the regressed Faellem are hunted like beasts (The Way Between the Worlds and The Destiny of the Dead).
• Faelamor leads her people home in despair and self-immolates in a vast vast release of mancery (told in The Way Between the Worlds).
• Not all her people follow her into the flames. Some, such as Imminie, try to rebuild.

The Well of Echoes and afterwards

• The surviving lyrinx, led by Ryll and Liett, are given Tallallame (told in Chimaera).
• They fight to make it theirs (The Destiny of the Dead).

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1.4 The Void

Distant past

• The Mariem are exiled into the void and most are killed very quickly. Mentioned in The Way Between the Worlds.
• The rest learn to survive – Tales of the Void (not yet written).
• Stermin’s folly with the Gates of Good and Evil creates the Merdrun.
• The civil war between the Charon and the Merdrun until few Charon survive. Told in The Summon Stone.
• Llian’s untrue tale – Rulke and his twin, Kalke. Told in The Summon Stone.
• Rulke leads the Hundred to Aachan. Told in Dark is the Moon.
  The lyrinx flesh-form themselves in the void. Told in The Well of Echoes.
• Herox and his rebels are exiled for illegal mancery. Told in The Tainted Realm.

The Past

• Merdrax sends the summon stone to Santh around the time of the Clysm and the Nightland. Hinted at in The Summon Stone.
• Circa 1,100 years ago. Merdrax manages to bolster/influence Mendark, who becomes Magister very young. See A Wizard’s War, in A Wizard’s War and Other Stories.
• 500 years before The View from the Mirror. Basunez’s debased experiments brings the summon stone to Carcharon. See The Summon Stone.
• 20 years before The View from the Mirror, Galliad continues Basunez’s experiments, thins the wall to the void, and later is killed. See the short story Darkness Visible, featuring Karan and Rael, in Rich and Rare. To be republished in 2019 in a new Three Worlds anthology.

Post-Song of the Tears

• Lirriam crosses the void, seeking her lost people (end of Justice).

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1.5 Cythe

Distant past

• The wyverin and Heroxians end up in the world (see Justice).

The Past

• The Four Fleets come to Cythe and the Herovian-led forces take it/make it Hightspall. See Vengeance and Rebellion.
• The Cythians are slaughtered/forced underground. See Vengeance.
• The land/Lyf’s spirit fight back. See Vengeance.

Time of The Tainted Realm

• The Tainted Realm – Vengeance, Rebellion and Justice. These events take a couple of years.