The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [0]
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
OTHER BOOKS BY CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making
Palimpsest
The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden
The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice
Under In The Mere
The Grass-Cutting Sword
Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams
The Labyrinth
THE HABITATION OF THE BLESSED
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
NIGHT SHADE BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
The Habitation of the Blessed
© 2010 by Catherynne M. Valente
This edition of The Habitation of the Blessed
© 2010 by Night Shade Books
Cover art by Rebecca Guay
Cover design by Cody Tilson
Map by Marc Scheff
Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart
All rights reserved
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-59780-199-7
Printed in Canada
Night Shade Books
http://www.nightshadebooks.com
For my tribe, the motley, beautiful lot of you.
Where we are together, there is a blessed land.
J ohn, priest by the almighty power of God and the might of our Lord Jesus Christ, king of kings and Lord of Lords, to his friend Emanuel, Prince of Constantinople: Greetings, wishing him health, prosperity, and the continuance of divine favor.
Our Majesty has been informed that you hold our Excellency in love and that the report of our greatness has reached you. Moreover, we have heard through our treasurer that you have been pleased to send to us some objects of art and interest that our Exaltedness might be gratified thereby. I have received it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return…
Should you desire to learn the greatness and Excellency of our Exaltedness and of the land subject to our scepter, then hear and believe: I, Presbyter Johannes, the Lord of Lords, surpass all under heaven in virtue, in riches, and in power; seventy-two kings pay us tribute… In the three Indies our Magnificence rules, and our land extends beyond India, where rests the body of the holy apostle Thomas. It reaches towards the sunrise over the wastes, and it trends toward deserted Babylon near the Tower of Babel. Seventy-two provinces, of which only a few are Christian, serve us. Each has its own king, but all are tributary to us.
—The Letter of Prester John,
Delivered to Emperor Emanuel Comnenus
Constantinople, 1165
Author Unknown
W e who were Westerners find ourselves transformed into Orientals. The man who had been an Italian or a Frenchman, transplanted here, has become a Galilean or a Palestinian. A man from Rheims or Chartres has turned into a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. We have already forgotten our native lands. To most of us they have become territories unknown.
—The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres
Jerusalem, 1106
THE FIRST MOVEABLE SPHERE
T here is also in our territory a sandy sea without water. For the sand moves and swells into waves like the sea and is never still. It is not possible to navigate this sea or cross it by any means, and what sort of country lies beyond is unknown… three days’ journey from this sea there are mountains from which descends a waterless river of stones, which flows through our country to the sandy sea. Three days in the week it flows and casts up stones both great and small, and carries with it also wood to the sandy sea. When the river reaches the sea the stones and wood disappear and are not seen again. While the sea is in motion it is impossible to cross it. On the other four days it can be crossed.
Between the sandy sea and the mountains we have mentioned a desert…
—The Letter of Prester John, 1165
THE CONFESSIONS OF HIOB VON LUZERN, 1699
I am a very bad historian. But I am a very good miserable old man. I sit at the end of the world, close enough to see my shriveled old legs hang over the bony ridge of it. I came so far for gold and light and a story the size of the sky. But I have managed to gather for myself only a basket of ash and a kind of empty sorrow, that the world is not how I wished it to be. The death of faith is tasteless, like dust. Such dust