The Spine of the World
The continent-long mountain crown Place The Crown A newer foundry like a wide crown, a ring of tall pale spires flaring around a central stepped tower of lit decks, the broadest of the network. that splits Tarkdaara Place Tarkdaara The northern continent of Elshore, called Northland in common speech, on which every chapter of the story so far unfolds. down its centre, a chain of stone and ice where the peaks tear at the clouds and the valleys drown in mist. Forests thin and bleed into crag and shale, the air carries the iron taste of old storms, and in the highest passes nothing moves but the shadow of the suns across endless broken snowfields. The cliff where the story opens, twenty miles north of Udhafa Place Udhafa The old capital of the Maan empire and one of the great inhabited ruins of the world, an ancient Iru-founded city in eastern Tarkdaara, carved into the bedrock below the Claw Pe..., lies within it.
Key traits
- A continent-long mountain range crossing the centre of Tarkdaara from the high latitudes; its Iru People Iru The progenitors, and the only naturally evolved people of Elshore.-era name is Dho Ki-ur Sa'gida.
- Peaks of stone and ice torn through with mist, where forests give way to crag, shale, and endless broken snowfields.
- A source of slate and copper ore, with Cordae trees on the high rocky slopes prized for pain-relief tea.
- Made up of named sub-ranges: the Ardans to the south, the Bridge Mountains Place The Bridge Mountains A mountain range in the far north of Tarkdaara, one of the named western and northern sub-ranges of the Spine of the World, the continent-long range of stone and ice. and Divider Mountains to the west, and the Claw Peaks to the east.
- The city of Jarabiir stands at its foot, its Old Iru name Giri'gida meaning "Foot of the Tall Mountains."
- The cliff at the story's opening, roughly twenty miles north of Udhafa, sits on a plateau within this range, the city visible far below like a reef on a dark sea.