The suns

There are eight suns. You probably thought there was just one, but there are eight. Except, of course,
there are really nine. But even many learned people don’t know that, for the ninth is a secret. Invisible.
And now you know that secret as well. The Path of Suns is a representation of the way magic works,
the known levels of existence, the stages of a life, and the makeup of the mortal soul, all in one. It is a
symbol. A metaphor. A diagram. A map. Each sun represents a different concept, a different “place,”
and a different fundamental aspect of the universe. These different concepts are signified by the color
of each sun, so that color ends up representing the sun and its attendant ideals.

The Path of Suns connects all

eight suns, from Silver to
Green, to Blue, to Indigo,
then Grey, next Pale, and
Red, and finally Gold. The
Invisible Sun is not a part of
the path, but rather outside,
above, and around it. There
are some, however, who
follow the Nightside Path,
which is the Path of Suns in
reverse. In the Nightside
Path, each sun has an
altered, often darker, aspect.
It would be far too simple—
and in fact quite
erroneous—to call the Path
of Suns “good” and the
Nightside Path “evil,” but
some do.

The suns are planes of existence—distinct vibrational frequencies of one place: the Actuality. They
are, so to speak, eight (nine) different slices of the same pie. Each sun defines a “realm” upon which it
shines. But a sun is far more than that. Each governs aspects of reality, and entities within each realm
are patrons of even more finely refined granules of that aspect. Each sun is an idea, or a group of
ideas. Life, death, truth, falsehood—these are the fundamental building blocks of reality, and each is
presided over by a different sun. In a smaller but no less significant fashion, however, each sun is also
a fundamental portion of the soul of a thinking creature.

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The Path of Suns, then, is a map of reality as surely as it is a map of the human heart. Magical power
and potential flows like water rushing in a river from the Invisible Sun through the other suns, with
different currents of magic following different paths. (Although the main current follows the Path of
Suns, not all do.) Each sun has a pair of gateways through which the magical energy flows no matter
what path it follows. Only the truly advanced vislae learn to master these currents to better hone their
spells, but to do so, they must parley with the guardians of these gates, which are called wardens.

Each sun has a warden, and in that each sun occupies a position on two different paths, most actually
possess two wardens, one that monitors the traditional path and another that oversees the Nightside
Path aspect of the realm. Wardens are guardians, gatekeepers, protectors, and in some cases rulers.
Their presence within the realm varies greatly. While there are exceptions, in most cases the warden
is not a godlike monarch of their realm. Most hold a subtler existence—more a distant, hidden,
disembodied caretaker than a prominent corporeal figure.

The Silver Sun represents birth, beginnings, and potential.

It also exemplifies the past. It is the first step on the Path of Suns. Thus, its number is 1. To some, this
is the crown sun, the sun of the true north. First Sun. Genesis. The origin of all things. Other people
do not bathe it in quite so grand a light. Instead, they maintain, this sun is the first step of many—a
more humble look at beginnings. The true act of creation, in this latter view, lies beyond the scope of
the Silver Sun. In other words, it is the primary step on the path, but not the creation of the path or
the one making the journey.

The lands beneath the Silver Sun are mountainous and cold, to be sure, but at the center of the realm
lies Lu Ac Toor, the Silver Mountain. Known also as the highest vantage, Lu Ac Toor’s peak is infinitely
high and colder than the coldest cold. Some of the most powerful rituals of creation must be
performed on the slopes of the Silver Mountain.

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Life, growth, flourishing, and prosperity are the purview of the Green Sun.

Many people see it as presiding over success and victory as well. The Green Sun represents the
present, and its number is 2, representing union and biological pairing and parenting—the fusion of
two bloodlines to continue the cycle of life.

The Green is a realm of forests, fields, and wilderness verdant to the point of danger. Stand still too
long and you might be engulfed by the growth spurt of a corpse of trees or a snaking vine. Animals
and even humans spontaneously erupt from hidden seed pods within the burgeoning ground. The
Green bursts with life, and life is not gentle. The people of the Green Sun are nomads—there are no
cities or towns here. No artificial structures at all, in fact.

Blue is passive and resigned.

Blue is just there. And thus Blue is everywhere. And nowhere in particular. When people say things
come “out of the blue,” they mean from nothingness, or at least nowhere observed, expected, or
understood. The Blue Sun governs not so much the unseen, but the unnoticed. It is the future that
constantly approaches, but never reaches us. It is a not-yet-experienced effect of an almost-forgotten
cause.

The Blue Sun offers no real solid ground, but instead wispy clouds that take almost recognizable
shapes. From time to time someone or something captures a bit of dream and uses it to create a solid
place within the realm: a floating palace, a tree-lined lake, a single city street (or perhaps a bit of
nightmare—a prison, a burning building, or a never-ending tornado). These never last more than a
century or so, but they offer comprehensible purchase for the time they exist.

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Indigo is not past, present, or future, but rather truth.

When people think about the Actuality, they often think of the realm of the Indigo Sun. The number
of truth is 4, dichotomy both doubled and squared. This is the Real World. Capital R. Capital W. But
the real world is one of thoughts and ideas. Truth is not a solid bit of rock—it is an immovable,
unchangeable concept. (It is also relative, which gives Indigo its life and motion.)

Newcomers to Indigo from Shadow comment on the sharpness, brightness, and clarity of even the
most mundane objects, sounds, and smells. There is no mistaking that you’ve entered a new—and far
more substantial—realm altogether upon that first arrival. Beauty is more beautiful there. But
ugliness is more hideous as well.

Although flat, the realm stretches out (perhaps) boundlessly with seas of cloudy musings and
conceptual landmasses, many still as yet not fully explored. And at the center of it all, the Glistening
City, the City of Notions, Satyrine.

Satyrine is the largest city in Indigo, founded many thousands of years ago as a trading hub for
merchants selling thoughts, ideas, sensations, and feelings created in the Emotion Mills of the
Unfathomable Archipelago. Eventually, some of those milling operations were brought to Satyrine
itself. Before Satyrine, the site was home to another city, built by pre-human beings known as the
arabast.

The most significant thing to know about Satyrine is that it was reduced to ruin and rubble in the War.
The inhabitants are restoring and rebuilding the city, but that is more difficult than it would seem
because the weapons used in the War left behind extraordinarily dangerous hate-powered, cancerous
objects called cysts. This has led to focusing on districts that were not utterly devastated and building
out from each of these, like oases of safety and sanctuary in a desert of ruins.

Indigo’s warden is an ancient being known only as Quiss. If Quiss still exists, such is a mystery. Did
genderfluid Quiss die in the War? Is Quiss in hiding? Many hope Quiss will return in full glory one day.
Regardless of any physical existence, however, Quiss is still guardian of the Indigo gateway on the
Path of Suns, and as such, vislae find a way to establish some form of communion when needed.

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Lies and untruths are the precinct of Grey.

You know this one. You’re in the realm of the Grey Sun right now. It’s also called Shadow, because it
is the shadow of the Actuality (to be more precise, it is mostly the shadow of Indigo).

The number of the Grey Sun is 5, a number associated with mortality and humans.

In the same way that a shadow can be an elongated, shortened, or otherwise distorted version of that
which casts it, so too is Shadow an imperfect, twisted reflection of what’s real. It’s like looking into a
funhouse mirror, except for your whole life you’ve mixed up which side is real and which side is the
distortion.

Many of the inhabitants of this realm aren’t real—they’re shadows themselves. A few, however, are
vislae who exiled themselves to Shadow to escape the horrors of the War. Now that the War is over,
many have returned, but many more have lost their way, having lived within the lie of Shadow for so
long that they have forgotten the truth, and forgotten the Actuality. Stranger still, a few rare shadows
from the Grey Sun have left it and discovered how to live in the real world.

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Death. The Pale Sun is death. Death.

In Shadow, we think of it as a state—the opposite of life. But in the Actuality, we know the truth: death
is a place, as surely as any other. We travel there to stand beneath the Pale Sun when our life ends,
but we can come back as well.

The Pale Sun embodies the future rather than the present or past (for it waits for us all). Its number
is 6.

Destruction and annihilation are the twin children of the Red Sun. But for many, this sun is simply
change.

In many ways the realm of the Red Sun is the most dangerous and the most alien. In fact, the Red Sun
also embodies the strange, the alien, and the other (but not the unknown—that is domain of the Dark).
It is a sun of the present moment, focusing on the now, the absolute instant of which pain and
destruction make us so aware. Its number is 7.

The landscape beneath the Red Sun is jagged, like shattered glass. Most everything is brittle and
covered in a fine layer of dust—the remnants of annihilated matter from earlier times. Volcanoes roar,
the ground quakes, and storms rage, all destroying and reshaping the landscape over and over again.

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There are no endings. Only transitions. The Gold Sun is the sun of new beginnings. It is redemption,
mercy, and forgiveness.

Like the Red Sun, the Gold Sun is about change, but rather than just a change of state, the Gold Sun
is about rehabilitation and improvement. Second chances. Its number is 8.

The realm basking in the light of the Gold Sun is quiet. A great many of the hypermagical people called
the elderbrin dwell there in nomadic villages built on sapient, self-directed rivers and isolated castles
made of discarded moth chrysalises. The nights are extremely cold, but the daytime rays of the sun
are quite warm. Everywhere dichotomies are in transition.

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Source of magic, mystery, and wonder, the Invisible Sun exists outside the Path of Suns, and yet the
path pivots upon the sun’s power and presence. The Invisible Sun is magical power. It is the Source.

Remember that the Path of Suns is not only a map of the Actuality, but a map of the soul as well. The
inner world as well as the outer. Which means that all the suns – including the Invisible Sun – are also
within us already, even if we are unaware. Our journey is one that is both spiritual and physical. In
fact, when we reach this point, we begin to ask: is there even a difference?

The Invisible Sun is the end of the Path of Suns and the beginning of the Nightside Path, and its
number is 9. Truthfully, though, the Invisible Sun is part of neither path. It is its own rogue fixture
within the universe without a dual nature. It is the source of magical power and energy in all worlds.
The currents of magic that flow, create, destroy, preserve, and change all originate from the Invisible
Sun.

As such, the warden of the Invisible Sun is only Visla. Or, to put it another way, Visla is warden of both
of the gateways of this sun. Visla is an enigmatic figure, as mysterious as her realm. Unlike all the
others, however, the Invisible Sun has no attendant world. Its unseen light illuminates nothing. The
light of the Invisible Sun shines upon every world and everyone. Its light and its heat are magic.
Because of its role in providing magical power, vislae favor this sun – and, most of the time, Visla –
above all others.