The Shroud
The dark blanket over Painter's world is not weather or atmosphere but the literal soul-residue of the people of Torio — tens of thousands of human Identities evaporated by the machine on first activation, sprayed into the air and held in eternal bondage to the device that destroyed them. The same land seen from below by a painter of Kilahito and from above by a yoki-hijo of Torio — divided not by space but by the shroud and seventeen centuries. STD:YNP:Ch 39
An endless, ink-like darkness that besieges Kilahito and the rest of Painter's world. It has substance — it churns and moves as a heavy oil might — and the lone known opening is held back by the hion lines. From within it crawl the nightmares that the city's painters are sworn to neutralise. Only the light of the lone star cuts through it from the sky. STD:YNP:Ch 1 superseded at STD:YNP:Ch 39
Known facts
- origin-killed-godDesign tells Painter and Yumi that nightmares creeping out of a miasma of raw Investiture is the kind of thing that happens to a world after a god has been killed — which is exactly what she and Hoid came to this planet to investigate.STD:YNP:Ch 17
- pre-hion-dark-ageBefore Painter's people learned to harness hion, the shroud already existed — and they lived inside it: wandering through the smoke between scattered light-bursts where plants could grow. Nightmares were rarer in those days, but the era is remembered as the dark time, the period the discovery of hion ended.STD:YNP:Ch 24
- recoils-from-yoki-hijo-stacks-like-hionThe shroud retreats from a yoki-hijo's stacks the same way it retreats from hion lines — pulling back in a small bowed curve around them, then frothing when the stacking comes faster. This is the mechanism by which Painter's people extend their cities into the dark; it has never before been seen done by a stacked stone.STD:YNP:Ch 32
- contains-impassable-walled-circlesMasaka's hordelings have mapped most of Painter's world and found that the shroud is not uniform: scattered through the wasteland are perfectly circular *walls* of solidified Investiture rising into the atmosphere, which her scouts cannot pass through. About a dozen small ones and one vast one a few miles from Kilahito — the same shape and rough size as towns.STD:YNP:Ch 33
- composed-of-the-souls-of-the-people-of-torioThe shroud is not weather or atmosphere. It is the literal remains of the people of Torio — tens of thousands of human souls evaporated by the machine at its first activation, sprayed into the air as dark miasma, held in eternal bondage to the device that destroyed them. A soul cannot be destroyed, only transformed; this is what these souls became.STD:YNP:Ch 39
- unravels-when-the-machine-fallsWith the machine destroyed and no longer holding them, the shroud hisses and unravels — the thousands of bound human souls inside it, freed at last, evaporate away thanking Yumi. The world beneath the shroud sees daylight for the first time in seventeen centuries.STD:YNP:Ch 41
Backreferences
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 1
- factNikaro
- factKilahito
- factHion
- factNightmare
- factThe Star
- factVirtuosity
- factVirtuosity
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 3
- factNightmare
- factNightmare Painters
- factCapstone Paintings
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 5
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 7
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 14
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 21
- factThe Interplanetary Ship
- factThe Interplanetary Ship
- factThe Shroud
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 25
- factThe Star
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 31
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 32
- factThe Shroud
- factYumi
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 33
- factThe Shroud
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 34
- factNikaro
- factTorio
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 35
- factNikaro
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 36
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 37
- factYumi
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 39
- factThe Shroud
- factNightmare
- factYoki-hijo
- factYoki-hijo
- factStable Nightmare
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 40
- factYumi
- factGyundok
- summarySTD:YNP:Ch 41
- factThe Shroud
- factYumi
- summarySTD:YNP:Epilogue
- factNikaro
- factYumi