The Books Of Sorrow

[Kristy Suzuki]

TheBooks of Sorrow are a compendium of the Hive's history, written primarily by Oryx, the Taken King and stretching back before the dawn of humanity when the founders of the Hive lived as mortals on Fundament - a gas giant similar to Jupiter - before they rose up and became gods of war.

Excerpts of the Books can be recovered by discovering Calcified Fragments aboard the Dreadnaught. For the full record of the Books of Sorrow, please visit the Books of Sorrow Grimoire page. For the first and last Verses, see the Enemies/Darkness Grimoire page.[1][2]

It is mentioned in Verse XLVI (46) that there are five Books of Sorrow, with XLVI being the center. If the different individual books are to be determined, the following synopsis has attempted to divide them based on subject matter, with bracket links to each subject:

The following is an alphabetical list of the characters, organizations, and species which appear in the Books of Sorrow. This list is not exhaustive, as many are mentioned only once. The Hive siblings' transformed names are used to lessen reader confusion.

It begins with the narrator writing to their sisters, telling them that after two years of their short life they have found the truth of their species' origins: they, and perhaps all of the races living on the gas giant Fundament, are immigrants. It describes many nearby known continents as fragments of an ancient world where they once had lived, how the sea they float on and the atmosphere above them are two layers of the same gas giant.

Verse I opens with an introduction, indicating Xi Ro had written this, and meant for it to last. It mentions she is the third surviving sister of a brood that was apparently killed or lost to misfortune. Her father is called the Osmium King.

She describes what happens when her father "uses the engines", that an unwary person can fall off the continent to their death. Then she describes how the currents of the Fundament ocean bring them to other continents, especially the Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, who are of the same species as Xi Ro's. After describing their physical appearance Xi Ro says how they raid them each day, and that they are "bright/evil", and how she wants to become a knight and fight them. She also describes losing ten of her sisters to the Helium Drinker ambassador's appetite as "tribute". Eating them was within the ambassador's rights, but she still resents it.

Xi Ro describes Mothers, the females of their race. Like much of the Verse this has a happy quality to it. She describes their attributes, that they can fly, live for longer than ten years, and are extremely intelligent. She also warns what happens if anyone tries to harm their eggs, that the Mothers eat them. She notes that her sister Sathona wants to become a Mother and live longer.

She also tells of the storms of Fundament. The rain is often poisonous and can even dissolve flesh, and if lightning strikes a person they are instantly obliterated. She mentions lightning farms, indicating that her species harness the storms for energy, and finishes by saying that all of Fundament is deadly. Continuing in this vein, Xi Ro talks about the rest of Fundament, saying it is very large and her species are small, and if they don't understand something it is likely to kill them. Her teacher, Taox, says that is why they live so briefly: so they can breed and adapt quickly.

Xi Ro finishes by mentioning "moon waves", saying it is something her sister Aurash is afraid of. Xi Ro doesn't know what they are, and when Aurash returns from a place called the Tungsten Monoliths, she'll ask her.

The Verse opens with an introduction to the Helium Court, mentioning that it was written both in secret and desperation. The writer introduces herself as Taox, the teacher of the Osmium King's three daughters. She claims she is sterile and a Mother; and because of these two qualities she rose above petty court politics to see what she calls "the patterns of survival". Taox mentions having designed the engines used to move their continent, the Osmium Court. Both of these she says she did alone, and now she'll do so again.

She laments the King's three surviving daughters, each two years old. She describes Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash's qualities, listing their ages from youngest to eldest. She calls Xi Ro brave for wanting to be a knight, Sathona clever for wanting to be a Mother, and Aurash as simply the "navigator child". (Taox mentions that the next day Aurash will return from the Tungsten Monoliths, spoken of in previous Verses.) All of these are good qualities, Taox says, but none of them are suitable to protect her home and people. Xi Ro cannot lead, Sathona cannot fight, and Aurash is often distracted by her curious nature. She fears for the survival of all future children.

Taox begins to close by saying that the King will lock himself away in his Royal Orrery, and will neglect his kingdom again. She calls for the Helium Drinkers to invade, to kill the three heirs, and install her as regent, offering her services as an engine-builder to them. She finishes by invoking a curse upon herself to be eaten by the Leviathan if she fails.

The narrator, Aurash, is speaking to her sisters. She instructs them to place their left hands on a mast next to hers in order to swear an oath. She tells them how to do it, by piercing their hand and drawing a blood-line down the mast. After each oath is sworn Aurash intones: "in blood the oath is made".

Xi Ro, the youngest, swears on her left eye to take back the Osmium Court and kill the traitor Taox in vengeance. Sathona, the middle child, swears on her right eye to take back her home, eat the mother jelly, and raise her children on the corpse of the Helium King. This she promised to fulfill. The two sisters then offer to help with Aurash's oath.

Aurash, the eldest daughter of her dead father, swears on her center eye to find out what drove her father into obsession, what caused the moons to shift, determine if the world is ending and if so why it is ending. She thanks her sisters. Saying they only have one ship, which represents freedom, she makes plans to go exploring, to find secrets and raise armies. Ordering the lightning sails to be raised, Aurash and her sisters begin their travels.

Aurash resolves to find a way to stop it, but despairs of getting back home, to her father's Royal Orrery, of learning exactly when this would come to pass. She recounts how Xi Ro comforts her when her fears become too great to handle, and how their growing reliance on Sathona's wit seemingly brings them good luck. She notes Sathona's odd and sometimes erratic behavior, but dismisses it because of the good luck it has brought them.

This Verse begins with Sathona recording her secrets, and why her behavior has changed so drastically as noted by Aurash. She mentions a code, meaning she is keeping this record a secret from her sisters.

Sathona recounts their journeys across Fundament, of how they sailed through great storms and beautiful days, exploring wrecks and fleeing from monsters. She calls these the happiest moments of her life. She reveals her desire to be a Mother, not so that she could raise children, but so she could live a longer and more meaningful life and make an actual difference. She mentions they have been out on the sea for a year, making them three years old. Sathona mentions she is afraid of dying before they can fulfil their oaths. She says she knows secrets, of where to find certain things, and then mentions a needle ship.

Another recounting of their travels begins. Sathona triumphantly says of how they rescued the needle from the "Shvubi Maelstrom", and that she knew it would be there. She describes the needle ship, calling it long and slender like hope, older than death, unbreakable, and gray. She says that it is not a sea-ship like Aurash's but an object of advanced technology. Sathona says, chillingly, that she knew what happened to the crew, and the ship's purpose.

Sathona tells of how Xi Ro wanted to sell the ship at "Kaharn Atoll" a place where other species of Fundament gather, in order to raise money to hire mercenaries and take back their home and obliterate the Helium Drinkers. Cunningly, she told her youngest sister that the ship was worthless. Aurash decided to figure out how to open the ship and captain it. Sathona approves, for she says her worm told her to agree with Aurash as "it was the right thing to do".

In the third and final entry written by Sathona, she describes the worm as a segmented creature, which was the very worm that her father kept and talked to, which she took with her when she and her sisters fled the Drinkers' invasion. Despite being dead, it speaks to her saying "[L]isten closely, oh vengeance mine..."

Aurash urges Xi Ro to come and take her mind off of her duties, which was moving bodies of the former crew from a place called the "birthing room". She encourages her sister to pilot the needle for a time, and this Xi Ro does, her mind at ease. The needle's wake could be seen upon the surface of the Fundament ocean.

As Xi Ro steers the ship, Sathona tempts Aurash with stories she acquired from the Kaharn Atoll, likely during a resupply trip. Sitting in a place called the "flesh garden", amongst "mummified flesh fans", Aurash listened in silence to her sister, her own mind troubled. She reflects upon her brief life, of how eager she is to know and learn of the world.

Xi Ro comments that she wished Sathona weren't so honest, while Aurash privately thinks her middle sister had never been wrong. She proposes that they utilize the needle to its intended purpose: to dive beneath the waves, toward the center of the Fundament, to find a secret that would change everything. This is in part because of her voracious nature to discover everything; the other is out of desperation.

Xi Ro remembered the birthing room, wherein they had found a dead horror born from unfortunate explorers. There is made mention of a chrysalis and a caul, indicating this something was perhaps an invertebrate. Something found in the darkness of the Fundament. Then, as she spoke, the Leviathan overshadowed the needle.

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