Axis Mundi

More about Axis Mundi

In the oldest strata of the vanished catalogs, the Axis is not described—only
referenced. Measurements assume it. Routes bend toward it. Calendars reconcile
themselves against its shadow. There is no entry for its construction, because no
model required one. It is listed the way gravity once was: a condition, not an artifact.

The chroniclers speak of a time when the world was younger and less divided, when
sky and stone still remembered each other. They believed the spire marked the point
where direction first became meaningful—where ascent and descent acquired
distinction, and distance learned how to measure itself. Pilgrims did not come to
worship it; they came to correct themselves. To stand near the Axis was to feel
orientation return, like a compass needle settling after long confusion.

Only much later do the marginal notes grow troubled. The records mention
expeditions that failed to find it, instruments that returned inconsistent bearings,
scholars who argued that the Axis had never been singular at all. One text ends with
a correction written in a different hand: The Axis has not moved. We have. After that,
the references cease. Not because the Axis was gone—but because the language
required to assume it had been forgotten.