The Meridian Pillar

The Pillar stands in the northeast of the Meridian Plain, the only flat land on the Line: smooth as a table, covered in short grey grass and fine gravel, without a single tree. The Pilgrims say the Ancients smoothed it with their hands. It lies a morning’s march from Highstone.

It is a column of light, “white and gold and silver all at once”, neither warm nor cold. It rises straight up without straying a hand’s breadth, beyond the sky, growing thinner until it is a thread that ends in a point: the Celestial Circle. At night it can be seen from days away, a needle of light. It only takes those who have the sky in their chest: the star in a Weaver’s chest answers it, “the way a dog pulls at its leash when it catches the scent of home”.

Ophelia keeps the circle of menhirs around it. Since the Overload, it has flickered.