Is this the End of Everything?

Is this the End of Everything?

If you have read anything about the world of Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, or read Dark Peak, book one of Van Hallam's Hellsborough Chronicles, then you will have come across the Ripperthroat mountains, and statements like:

“This is the murk where the Dun flows through the Ripperthroats. That's nirvana, where the life given returns to the soil.”

and

“they go voluntarily upon their last strange pilgrimage to the Ripperthroat mountains, from which no xin has ever returned.”

But what does it all mean?

As you wander down the Dun, or the Loxsley, or the Rivelin, exploring these fascinating rivers, these rivers that breath life into The Dark Peak and manifest themselves in the suburbs of Hellsborough, in S6, it's hard to imagine that these same three rivers are the three tails and tongues of justice for he deity Dunlockslyn that finally materialise at that most mythical of places -- the Ripperthroat mountains.

The Rivelin and the Loxley conjoin like twins at the Malin bridge before they are both subsumed by the Dun out the back of Owlerton.

It's difficult to imagine that these same rivers, these givers of life and industry, these providers, through their fast running currents and low rocky beds, unsuitable for navigation, but most suited to turning water wheels and powering the industrial revolution, can also be the final resting place of the folk who follow way of Dunlockslyn.

The river Loxley for instance played an important part in the industrial history of Sheffield. It descends 280 feet in the 6 miles between Low Bradfield and the Don, and that enabled many mills, forges and cutlers wheels to be powered by its waters. A total of 24 are known to have existed at various times. Each mill, included outbuildings, stables and housing for the owner -- known locally as a wheel. A weir was constructed across the river, creating a pond known as a dam. A leat called a head goit fed water to a water wheel, and a tail goit returned the water to the river, below the weir. In some cases, multiple water wheels were fed from the same dam, and in others, a wheel might drive several ends, which were connected to grinding wheels, and might be leased to several tenants.

But the Loxley was also the source of the Great Sheffield Flood, as I said, Dunlockslyn provides and Dunlockslyn takes away. But I digress.

The world is not godless. The Crosslanders and denizens alike all worship Dunlocklyn, the giver of life that flows through the Dark Peak and into Hellsborough and beyond. In contrast, and the end of life, the Dun is taken to the Ripperthroat mountains, where the murk is at its thickest and most volatile.

Dunlockslyn, d'divi - d' (the) divi (divine), the divine serpent. The three tailed god of The Dark Peak, with each tail rising at a different place to give a different voice and point of view to the one head that ejaculates at The Ripperthroat mountains. Dunlockslyn is the river Don (Dun), the river Loxley (Locksley) and the river Rivelin (Rivelyn), the givers of life that rise in The Dark Peak, the supreme beings that are givers of life and at the end of its journey, the takers away of life as well.

When denizens are ready to succumb to the mortal coil, usually after several millennia if due to old age, or more likely, due to warfare, their souls end up in The Hinge then take their trip to the Ripperthroat mountains, along that great river The Dun. It stands to reason that The Hinge is also the place that regular Hellsborough souls end-up as well as the souls of those from the off-world, such is the pull of the junction. Dreams. Lost spells. The vault of Milting and The Murk.

As Van said, during a rockcrust episode in book one: Oh Dunlockslyn! I am ready for you -- I am primitive again! I walk your muddy banks and sail your brackish waters to the Ripperthroats, to the end of the infinite, to the finality that I deserve after all this time and all this service, hail You -- You, the most noble creature in all The Dark Peak.

The Ripperthroat mountains. No resident of Hellsboorugh, The Dark Peak or the netherlands, for the will of Dunlockslyn is upheld by everyone in this world, can return from the Ripperthroat mountains. It is the final resting place, the final voyage down the great river Dun in the final journey that anyone from this place takes. And there is no coming back. Hence, there should be no description of what the Ripperthroat mountains are like, how they appear to be or what they are even, where they exist in space and time.

Yeah, confusing. But if you talk of the Ripperthroatds, the assumption is that you have been there, and so is dead already, so you should not be talking, even if you are still alive. As far as I know from my research, this hasn't ever happened. Yet, an account still exist in Hellsborough library:

"...and so it was today that I embarked upon what would be one of my final journeys in The Dark Peak, for I found myself in the belly -- or should I say mouth -- of the beast.

I was in that vast plateau that sat between the jagged teeth of the Ripperthroats, mountains that rise from the plateau as sharp as fangs as I wandered across the tongue of the creature. At the sides of the dust track roads ran dykes and rivulets of the beast's saliva, inviting, yet poisonous to the belly; the bile ducts of this strange and unforgiving place. Humid and dry at the same time, an uncompromising and oppressive heat, The Murk at its full and worst self.

The sky, heavy, with the calls and beating wings of sqwarkwings, skewerwings and the ubiquitous corvids. My feet ached and were cut to ribbons from the sharp and jagged pathways that criss-crossed across the tongue. The mountains offered no escape, thanks to their vertical faces, like slabs of solid basalt.

Along one edge of the tongue plateau ran the mighty Dun river, emptying out of sight into the stomach of the beast, a stomach hidden from view in the sunken valley of the damned, the hidden sea of..."

It finishes there, maybe no-one knows the name of that hidden sea. And no-one knows how this manuscript came to be in the Hellsborough library archives -- I have searched high and low for references, but turned up nothing of any use.

But they have been visited, and folk have returned. At the start of Chronicles book two, Van Hallam himself, with Siltibog find themselves in the Ripperthroats, fighting against the myriad hordes of the murk, the forces of Dunlockslyn -- and there are other legends. It is heresy to talk of the Ripperthroats, but there are stories in the library that not only mention the places, but discuss it is great detail, indicating that the place has had numerous visitors, but these stories are classed as legend, since, as I said, it is heresy and no-one in The Dark Peak would ever allow someone who committed such heresy to live afterwards, even if the only reason for going to the Ripperthroats was to die in the first place.

Exert from Van Hallam's Hellsborough Chronicles book two (I'm going through my notes at the moment, and I'm aiming to publish later in the year):

I was at t'Ripperthroats

The Ripperthroat mountains? The mythical end of the journey of life? The place where all folk in The Dark Peak go to die? The xin, the nascenti, humans, everyone? That place?! You know it's a crime to go there and return, right?

Aye, I know that areyt. But this is me story and I intends to tell it 'ow it 'appened, and I ain't leaving nowt out, so that includes this, t'Ripperthroats:

When I come to, I was a little off from any action, I were able to take a moment to checkout the area an' the like. I were naked, no clothes at all, doant know what 'ad 'appened to them, an' I 'ad no weapon neiver -- it were like I 'ad gone through some sort of portal to another world.

Or like you had died, and been resurrected? I hazarded.

Aye, maybe, said Van, I doant think that's beyond the realms of possibility. Anyway, I were livin' now and I scanned about the place. I could see a little way off, maybe a thousand paces, some sort of horde t'other side of a big expanse of meadow, all shadows in the murk though they were, and I couldn't make much out through the mist. But behind that, I could see steam coming off the river and further on than that, some big old white cliffs that rose straight up toward sky -- must 'ave been four 'undred foot up, big old cliffs they were.

Oh, Van. What have you done?

If you know anyone else that you think might find this interesting, then please forward this email to them :)

Previously serialised here, The Legend of Loxley Bottom — The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe is now available as a free ebook download in ePub and Kindle formats from Hellsborough library.

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Hellsborough Chronicles book two “Darker Peak” is now being worked on — look out for early releases.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)