Ring Keepers
The Ring Keepers gather ice on the cloud tops beneath the rings of Saturn. The rings — the Crown, as they call them — shed ice without end, and the keepers catch it in nets before it sinks into the Undercloud, live on floes of it and dream of one day giving it back. Every keeper wears a little ring of ice around the head that widens with the years, and greets a bare-headed guest from Earth — the Blue Grain — like a child before its first catch.
«A guest! And no ring on your head — are you that young, or do your people catch nothing? I am …. May your net never be empty, guest. Stay on the frost: a cloud holds you only until you crouch.»
The settlement and its dwellers
Crafts
Looks
Where they live
Ring Keepers' Floes. A village of the Ring Keepers: domes made in the planet's own image, banded cloud bound with frost and girdled by a ring, each on its own floe of fallen ring ice and each under a net that catches what the rings let fall. In the middle stands an obelisk cut from the first ice the founders caught, with a ring of its own, and the elder stands beside it.
Tasks
The Watchers' House· ElderGo up into the Ring Observatory, the old house of the Watchers, and come back down to the floes.
«Our grandmothers' grandmothers built the observatory under the Crown: the Watchers, who counted the falls. Since they turned the great lens on the pole, no keeper has gone up there — the one under the dome does not like being looked at. Go up for us, guest. Walk the galleries, see whether the rings in the orrery still turn, and come back down. Everything that goes up must come back down: that is the first thing a catcher learns.»
Six Rings Too Many· ElderWake the altar under the observatory dome and defeat the Hexagon Sovereign.
«Each of us wears one ring and catches it fairly. He wears six, and every one is a piece of the Crown that never reached a net. While he turns them, the ice falls crooked, and the nets catch half of what they used to. The altar under the dome wants two tufts of glider fluff — I am sorry about the fluff. Bring him down, guest. And when his rings break, let the pieces fall where they fall: into the nets, this time.»
Ice on the Frames· ElderWake the old ring of stone on Saturn: the gate between the worlds.
«Now the old door by the floes. Ice settles on its frames like dust and never melts, as if the ring were waiting for a catch of its own. It wants the Six-Crowned's heart, a generous rain weathered with us, a heap of stardust, four helium pearls and six pieces of amber. You carry most of it already, I think. Wake it, and the floes will hear it hum under the frost.»
Under the Generous Rain· Ice CatcherLive through the ring rain on Saturn and defeat two ring sharks that rise after the falling dust.
«Some turns the Crown lets go of bright dust all at once: every net is full, every child is out with a bowl. But the sharks smell it and come up after it, right to the boards. I have two hands — one for the net, one for the rail. Stand with me through the next generous rain, guest, and keep the sharks off the edge. That is how catchers repay each other: with an evening of work.»
Feed the Floe· Ice Catcher· repeatableBring the ice catcher sixteen blocks of packed ice to feed the floe, so that it does not sink into the Undercloud.
«A floe is always sinking, a little every turn. Feed it new ice and it floats; forget it for a long turn and the Undercloud takes it. The Crown has been stingy lately, and my net catches grains, not blocks. If you come across packed ice — the sharks shed it, and your Grain makes it too — bring me sixteen. Any turn you like. A floe is always hungry.»
A Ring That Comes Back· Ice CatcherMake a ring chakram of ring shark teeth and show it to the ice catcher.
«Everything in the Crown comes back around: grains circle, rings circle, and what we catch we mean to give back. You have no circlet, guest, and you never will — but you could carry a ring of your own. Gold and ivory, the teeth of the sharks under our floes, cut so that when you throw it, it comes back to your hand. Make one yourself and show me. Then I will stop calling you bare-headed. Mostly.»
The Night Ran Out· Ice CarverFind the Ice Cathedral and bring the ice carver sixteen pieces of quartz — frost that does not melt — to finish one of its arches.
«The carvers sang to the frost all night, and the frost raised the cathedral: the nave, the vault, the blue spires. Then the night ran out, and the east half stayed piers and begun arches. I have wanted to finish one arch my whole life, but the frost never comes back to a half-done thing. Your Grain has a frost that does not melt — white stone, quartz. Go and see the cathedral, so that you know what I mean, and bring me sixteen.»
Ring Ice for the Pale One· Ice CarverCarry two blocks of blue ring ice from the ice carver to an ice sculptor of the Frostwalkers on Uranus.
«You found the pale one, the one that rolls on its side; the old songs say it has hoops too, dark ones, standing on their edge. If someone lives there, someone carves there: ice is everywhere, and hands always want to shape it. Take them two blocks of our blue, the heart of a fallen piece of the Crown, and give them to whoever carves. A carver knows what to do with good ice — and perhaps they will send word of how they cut.»
Pearls for the Light· Helium DistillerCarry two helium pearls from the helium distiller to a beacon keeper, for the lamps.
«The beacon keepers burn helium in every light, and the Pale Lighthouse drinks more than all of them. I fished these two pearls out of the haze this morning — the round, heavy kind that boil down clean. But my still will not let me leave it; it sulks the moment I turn my back. Carry them to a beacon keeper, guest. They are the ones in dark coats, with a lantern on a staff.»
Towers of the White Spot· Helium DistillerLive through the Great White Spot on Saturn and show the helium distiller four helium pearls from its cloud towers.
«Once in a long turn — and lately more often — a white storm boils up from the deep and builds towers of cloud higher than any floe, with anvils on top. In their tops the pearls grow fat: the higher you climb, the richer they are. And the lightning loves those tops. I am too old to climb, guest. Go up one when the white storm comes, and show me what grows at the top. Mind the crackle: when a top crackles, the lightning is a breath away.»
Someone Brave Enough· Amber GardenerBring the amber gardener three hexblooms from under the polar storm, for the feast-day ring soup.
«On feast days we make ring soup: golden broth with rings in it, served the way the world wears its Crown. A proper soup has a hexbloom melted in — six faces of frost with the polar light inside. But hexblooms grow only under the six-sided storm, and the kites circle there for days. Nobody has been brave enough for three long turns. You don't look brave, guest. You look heavy. That might be enough.»
What Is Inside the Amber· Amber GardenerFind a wild Tholin Garden in the belts and look into its hollow clump.
«Guests always ask what is inside the amber, and we always say we do not talk about it. A brave one may ask twice. Out in the belts there are wild gardens nobody planted, and the biggest clump in each is hollow at the back. Go and look inside one. When you have seen it with your own eyes, come back: then I can talk about it, because then it is not a secret any more, only a thing we both know.»
A Lamp for the Waiting Ship· Beacon KeeperFind the Moored Zeppelin and bring the beacon keeper six pinches of glowstone dust to keep its cabin lamp burning.
«The guests' airship still hangs at its mast, nose in the cup; its crew went down the ladder into the cloud and never came back. When we pass, we keep its cabin lamp lit, so that the ship does not wait in the dark. It is my turn — but the sharks have been circling that mast, and my staff is not a harpoon. Go and see whether the lamp still burns, guest, and bring me glowing dust from your Grain: in a lamp nobody tends it lasts longer than our helium.»
The Crown Combs Its Hair· Beacon KeeperLive through the ring spokes on Saturn: dark wedges running across the Crown, and charged dust over the clouds.
«Sometimes dark spokes run across the Crown, like the shadow of a wheel, and under them the dust over the clouds forgets its weight. My light flickers when they pass, and the gliders go silly and fly upside down. Our grandmothers called it the Crown combing its hair. Watch it with me next time, guest, and touch the floating grains — they ring. Only step aside when your skin starts to prickle: the spark comes a few breaths later.»
A Light That Does Not Burn· Beacon KeeperLand on Neptune and bring the beacon keeper two superionic shards: ice that glows without burning.
«Our lights burn helium, and helium has to be fished, boiled and carried. I have dreamed of a light that does not burn. The far blue one, with the fastest winds — the old songs say its ice is pressed so hard that it glows by itself, heavy and cold. If your ship can bear that wind, bring me two pieces. A light that does not burn could hang over the floes for a hundred long turns.»
Ice for the Crown· Crown TenderBring the crown tender twelve pieces of comet ice to mend the rim of the wheel.
«May your net never be empty, guest from the Grain. You see our wheel: bronze and ice, ice and bronze. The Crown drops itself, and so does our wheel — a piece here, a piece there. The best ice does not fall from the Crown at all: it flies in from the cold, with a tail. Bring twelve pieces, and the wheel comes round whole.»
Pearls for the Anchor· Crown TenderCarry two helium pearls from the Crown Station to a cargo master of the Triton Anchor at Neptune.
«Beyond us, where the Far Fire is only a spark, there is a blue world of wind, and its folk hold on to everything — so we hear. Those who hold on and those who catch should know each other. Take them two pearls of our deep rain. A pearl is the lightest thing that still falls.»
The Floe That Has Not Fallen· Crown TenderCatch up with a comet in your ship.
«Everything we catch has already begun to fall. But the tailed ice — it has not fallen yet; it only passes. No net of ours is long enough. You fly. Go to it while it passes, close, and come back round to tell us: is it one floe, or a crown of its own?»
What Sank· Crown TenderFind a wrecked ship in space and scan it with the ship scanner, then return to the Crown Station.
«What slips past the nets sinks, and nothing comes back from below — that is the first thing a child learns. But out there, between the worlds, there is no below. What is lost there only drifts. Find such a lost ship, let your scanner read it, and tell us: can a thing that did not sink be returned?»
Gold for the Sail· Crown TenderBring the crown tender four sail foils from the sail moths that wheel near Mercury and Venus.
«May your net never be empty. Far inward, close to the fire, there turns a golden wheel, and it is alive: small ones with sails thinner than frost. We are sewing the Crown Sail, and no bronze we beat is as light as what they wear. Bring four of their foils. A net that catches light should be made of what light itself has made.»
What to talk about
Tell me about Saturn.
There is no ground here, guest, not anywhere. Below the clouds are more clouds, then haze, then the Undercloud, and nothing that falls there comes back. Above us is the Crown. We live in between, on what the Crown drops. Our world is so light, the old songs say, that it would float in water — if anyone ever found that much water.
What is down in the Undercloud?
Warmth, strangely. Deep down helium falls as rain, and the falling rain gives off heat — that is why our world is warmer than the Far Fire could ever make it. But with the warmth comes a weight that crushes ice into nothing. A floe that sinks is a floe gone. We do not go down. We only listen.
How do you bear this cold?
We were born in it, and our skin keeps the little warmth that rises from the depths. You were not — I can see your shell steaming. The helium distillers sell heaters for shells like yours: the warmth of the helium rain, in a box. Buy one before your fingers stop obeying you.
Why does the wind turn so sharply?
Around the pole the wind runs along six straight sides, each wider than your whole world, and turns at every corner as if it had hit a wall. When that wind reaches the floes, hold the rail and give it your back — at the corner it will turn you round anyway.
Who else lives on Saturn?
The gliders are our little cousins: they ride the same updrafts and sleep in our nets, and we never chase them out. The frost kites circle the hexagon for days and strike only those who strike first. And under the floes swim the sharks, barred like amber and ice. They circle below and strike upward. Never dangle your feet over the edge.
Who are you?
We are those who catch what the Crown lets fall. Every family has its floe, every floe has its net, and every net has a catcher who watches the sky. We are not many and we do not hurry. The Crown taught us patience: it drops a grain at a time.
What is the ring around your head?
My circlet. When a child catches its first grain of ice, the grain is not put away: it starts to circle the child's head, and every catch after that adds a little to it. That is why the old have wide rings and the young narrow ones. When one of us is gone, the circlet is let go. It flies up, they say, back to the Crown.
Could I have a ring of my own?
Your own? You would have to catch your first grain, guest, and then wait a long turn or two. But here — this is dust of the Crown, from the last generous rain. Keep it: it is what a circlet is made of. Maybe yours will start with this.
Why do you live on floes?
Because a cloud holds you only until you crouch, and a house cannot stand on a cloud at all. A floe is fallen ice planed flat and paved with frost. But a floe is always sinking, a little every turn. Feed it new ice and it floats; forget it for a long turn and the Undercloud takes it. So we catch. Catching is how we stay up.
What is the obelisk in the middle?
The first ice. When our founders came to these clouds, the first block they caught was not used for anything: they stood it on end and put a ring around it, so that the floes would always remember what they are made of. Every village has one. Ours still glows at night — there is light frozen inside.
Why did they let go?
Every child asks that, and every elder answers the same way: you let go of what you hold when you need both hands for something else. The Watchers wrote that the Crown dropped its first grain on the day a bright spark went out in the north of the sky. Which spark, they did not write. Something that needed both hands. And so the answer comes back round to the question.
How many rings did they set?
Sixteen, the old count says. The slab in the Ice Cathedral says eight of them went down — to places with no sky at all — and only eight stand under a sky like ours. We have counted it many times, guest, and we do not like the sum. A ring that goes down is a ring that falls, and nobody is down there with a net.
The tablet from the Spring says: the voice does not sleep.
Of course it does not. The Spring has never stopped once: every turn it throws ice into the outer ring — the one gift that still goes up instead of falling down. We always thought the Spring was the last hand of the Crown-Holders, still laying grain. If it is their voice as well... then they are not only giving, guest. They are calling. And a call comes back round too.
What is the Crown?
The rings, in your words. Ice, almost all of it — grains like sand and blocks the size of floes — spread so thin that ten of our steps would cross it, and so wide that twenty worlds like yours could lie side by side on it. The grandmothers said the world has not worn it for long: it is a young gift. Little moons graze along its edges — the Shepherds — and keep it from spilling.
Names
Enke · Keela · Daphni · Pann · Atla · Iani · Mima · Telse · Dione · Ymir · Skadi · Albi