“There is an eldritch evil that runs so deep that its river poisons the stars.”
Fantasycore pioneers The Wise Man’s Fear are a band whose attention and creativity goes far beyond merely the sonic; from their debut album, Castle in the Clouds, it was clear that they valued the storytelling aspect of music, putting together an album which was altogether gripping and unsettling. Distilling an entire story, particularly one in a dedicated fantastical universe (Pneuma), into a circa 40-minute album seems an impossible task. Yet they managed it expertly, and then did so again, and again.
Valley of Kings wrapped up the initial trilogy set on Pneuma, and the question remained: what was next? In July 2022, the band’s switch to producer Lee Albrecht coincided with a new tale in the release of “Through Inferno“, which served as a connective tissue, both literally and figuratively, between Pneuma‘s Codex Trilogy and the world of the forthcoming record — which just happens to be a parallel reflection of our own. With the complexity and uniqueness of their stories in mind, we partnered with lore mastermind and primary lyricist, Paul Lierman, to bring you the full story of Atlas Ruinica.
1. Tailspin
The opening track depicts an intense dogfight far above the Sahara Desert between a man named Carter Lansette in a small propeller plane and 3 enemies in hot pursuit. From the beginning it is clear that Carter is doomed, but his concern is not for his own life. He finds a strange inner solace as all of his focus is centred around making a recording of the powerful secret that he has learned over a lifetime spent searching — the secret his enemies are trying to bury with him. He quickly makes a recording in the black box of the plane moments before he is shot down and crashes in the desert.
Notable details:
- Verse 1 references falling in the line “among the ranks of Horus,” the Egyptian god of flight and the son of Osiris.
- Verse 2 invokes the alchemical laws of balance “As above, so below. As within, so without,” hinting at the identity of Carter’s enemies.
2. Where the Sky is Empty
This song introduces the album’s protagonist, Elise Lansette, and shows her wandering through the home of her late uncle Carter in the Welsh countryside. While the official story is that he died in an accidental plane crash, she senses something amiss and searches his home for any clue that might shed more light on his death. She arrives at the house just as a team of movers finishes packing up the last of Uncle Carter’s things for an estate sale. Elise waits until they leave to use the only key that can open Carter’s private study, where she begins her search for clues. Noticing a false bottom in a desk drawer, she locates a device that contains a copy of the black box recording from her uncle’s plane before it was shot down.
Here is a transcript of the recording: “To my dearest Elise, I apologize. This will be my final entry. I have gone to the ends of the earth and back to uncover a most terrible secret. There are some gates that no living soul was meant to pass through, whether kings or common men. I hate that I cannot say this to you in person, but when shadows are darker than the light is bright, remember: Eyes up, look closely, Take courage. Press on, don’t falter, look inward, that’s the key. Now go conquer the world… I’ll meet you out where the sky is empty.”
While most of the message remains a mystery to her, Elise manages to deduct several things from the recording:
- “Final entry” indicates the existence of a journal detailing Carter’s research.
- “Eyes up, look closely, Take courage. Press on, don’t falter, look inward, that’s the key,” is a code telling Elise to literally press a specific book on Carter’s bookshelf called ‘Take Courage, Don’t Falter‘ and look at what’s inside. When she does so, she discovers a hidden inner sanctum in Carter’s library where his research journal is located along with a strange amulet set with a large gemstone.
- The line “go conquer the world” is a familiar phrase that Uncle Carter used to tell Elise while playing board games as a child when it was her turn to move.
She also finds an envelope containing a stack of photographs with the numbers 71.184711, 25.675444 written on the outside, and is able to identify one of the locations in the photographs as the Louvre. Hammurabi’s Code, an ancient Babylonian stele, is featured in the photo, and next to it, a man she does not recognize.
- “A secret coded by the god of justice through the ages”: the Babylonian sun god Shamash gave Hammurabi the first known code of law.
- “Listen closely for my voice because the world is quiet here” calls back to line “The world gets quiet down here” in the standalone single “Through Inferno”, which acts as a bridge between the initial Codex Trilogy and the narrative of Atlas Ruinica.
3. Slumbering World
Following the clues from Carter’s study, Elise makes her way to the Louvre in Paris. Whilst there, she finds an antiquities specialist named Percy Howard, the author of the book ‘Take Courage, Don’t Falter‘ on Carter’s bookshelf. She speaks with Percy and discovers that he was a colleague and close friend of Carter’s who tried to warn him how dangerous the things he was digging into were. He reveals that her uncle had been searching for the horrible Atlas Ruinica when he was killed, a book of power from beyond our cosmos said to have caused the destruction of Atlantis or Lemuria long ago.
Percy also helps Elise make sense of a few more details from the black box recording:
- The Atlantic Ocean was thought to be the “ends of the earth” by many ancient Indo-European civilizations for a long time.
- There is an ancient tradition of gates or portals which were believed by ancients to serve as waypoints through which one could travel to other worlds.
- The phrase “whether kings or common men” indicates that Carter’s adversaries were the elusive and powerful cult of the Ptolemaic Kings, who regarded themselves as the true heirs of Egyptian rule. The Ptolemaic Kings have been on a quest to locate the Atlas Ruinica for many centuries and will stop at nothing to obtain it
- “When shadows are darker than the light is bright,” is a reference to the winter solstice, specifically near the arctic circle where the polar night effectively erases daylight for long periods of time.
4. The Strength to Bury a Friend
The events of this song take place between tracks 1 and 2, and in context of the story describe an internal flashback to Carter‘s funeral. At the funeral Elise is handed a mysterious package from a man she does not recognize who tells her that her uncle would want her to have it. While initially he darted away before she could speak to him, she now recognizes him to be Percy Howard from the Louvre. When she opens the package later on, she finds that it contains the sole copy of the key to Uncle Carter’s study which she later uses to open it in track 2. It is only now, after meeting Percy at the Louvre and talking about her late uncle with someone else who truly understood him that she finally internalizes and processes the loss she has suffered.
- Percy Howard and Carter Lansette’s names join together to form Howard Carter, the famous explorer who uncovered and led the excavation of the pharaoh Tutankhamun‘s tomb.
- Elise and Carter’s last surname Lansette is a derivation of Lancelott, indicating they have some distant relation to King Arthur’s court.
5. Sunchaser
“Sunchaser” represents Elise making a conscious decision to take up the torch of her uncle’s discovery despite the danger it will place her in. It’s a resolution of courage and a statement of defiance to the mysterious ptolemaic kings who murdered her uncle. She learns that all gates in ancient times were supposed to once have been portals. However, all the connections of the ancient portal gates were built using the Atlas Runica, and were broken when the book was lost. To continue their research, they must find one of the very few naturally occurring gates that is not reliant on the Atlas Ruinica. The song itself parallels the Epic of Gilgamesh In his quest for immortality, which Elise learns was actually a code for a certain gate known as Solomon’s Gate. According to legend, Solomon’s Gate held the power to grant the one who could open it knowledge of all things and access to infinite life.
- There are a couple of direct quotations from the Epic of Gilgamesh in this song: “the last summit” (where Gilgamesh was told the secret of eternal life would reside), as well as “Find the light and follow it.”
- “You may not live to lie in your blossom’s shade”: reference to a Japanese proverb about great societies planting trees whose shade they will never lie under — an ideal about doing what will benefit future generations rather than oneself.
- Solomon’s Gate was said to be located at “the ends of the earth” where Gilgamesh was told to travel on his quest.
6. The Rival
“The Rival” focuses on the conflict between Elise and the leader of the mysterious Ptolemaic Kings as they race each other to the northernmost part of Norway on their search for the Atlas Ruinica. They cross paths a number of times and Elise narrowly avoids disaster during several conflicts across Europe. As they race towards the north of Norway (using the clues from the black box and the coordinates written on the letter), they develop a bitter rivalry that makes her quest all the more urgent. This song represents Elise’s resolve and unbreakable spirit in the face of adversity and the unknown, as well as the necessity to let go of past failures and fears in order to progress into the future.
- “We who ought to crawl have learned to fly” indicates that the Atlas Ruinica contains ancient knowledge that humanity was never meant to know.
- This song uses cartographic metaphors as they work their way across the literal map (“For where we go no map has marked,” “down here there be monsters”).
7. The Absence of Light
After long months of evading capture at the hands of the Ptolemaic Kings, Elise finally makes it to a mysterious glacier in the northernmost tip of Norway, as marked by the coordinates from the envelope. She arrives during the depths of the winter solstice and sneaks onto the glacier under the cover of polar night, where she spies on chanting robed figures initiating a ritual around a deep crevasse.
As the ritual reaches its zenith, the crevasse begins to glow with an internal light as a portal materializes. Waiting until the perfect moment to strike, Elise leaps from her hiding place on the glacier and shoulders her way past the cultists, throwing herself into the portal. Behind her on the surface of the glacier she hears a scream of blood-curdling rage as a couple of the cultists reel from her hit and the portal is temporarily broken just after she passes through.
Although it takes a few moments for the cultists to reopen the portal, the leader of the Ptolemaic Kings dives through the gateway after Elise as soon as it reappears.
- The track title is a reference to the polar night in the far north during the winter solstice.
- The chant section when played backwards says “Portal open, eld awaken”.
- There is a reference to the sails of Theseus unfurling, alluding to the Greek tale of the ship that was replaced piece by piece until it was no longer its true self. This indicates that the Ptolemaic Kings have become lost along the way in their search for vindication and power, abandoning the principles they once claimed.
8. Mazerunner
Elise emerges from the other side of the Norwegian glacial portal to find herself in a bizarre world-between-worlds: an entire planet of a labyrinth suspended in the void of space.
The purpose of the maze world is to protect the entrance to the resting place of the Atlas Ruinica, allowing only those who are both determined and wise to obtain the book’s powers.
Mere seconds after she arrives in this strange place, the cult leader of the Ptolemaic Kings passes through the portal, consumed by rage and hellbent on stopping Elise from getting to the Atlas Ruinica before he does.
As they both race to find the centre of the maze, they encounter many perils in the form of traps, guardian creatures, and illusions designed to confuse all who venture there. Elise manages to shake her pursuant from her trail as she nears the centre of the maze and encounters the final guardian of the maze alone: an ancient Sphinx charged with guarding the portal that leads to the Atlas Ruinica. After correctly answering the Sphinx’s riddle, he gives her a pendant that will lead her to the book and, having fulfilled his duty, returns to the ether. Elise steps through the portal only to find another world even more bizarre than the last…
- “The Key” referenced in the verses is the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle.
- The line “guiding lights that led astray” from the chorus is a callback to a song, “The Sea at Storm“, from the band’s debut album.
- The Sphinx is “bound by glyphs” to guard the portal, meaning he was cursed by a sorcerer to remain in the maze until someone correctly answered his riddle.
- The riddle of the Sphinx is: “I am not dead though I eternally lie, and in my strange aeons even death may die. What am I?”
- The answer to his riddle is reality – it uses a double entendre in “eternally lie” saying that the nature of reality extends for all time, but also that what our senses tell us is frequently a lie. There is something fundamental about reality that is a falsehood that the Sphinx knows.
9. Sea of Fire
Elise at last finds herself in an endless desert, the cosmic final resting place of the ancient Library of Alexandria, which the Atlantean mages blasted through a portal when their power got out of hand. This desert world contains the total of all human discovery and knowledge across every split in the multiverse, each grain of sand containing an entire civilization’s knowledge.
The leader of the Ptolemaic Kings is still in hot pursuit and arrives in the desert world soon after Elise, wounding her with a gunshot to the arm before being killed by his own knife in a fight to reach the book first. Following the glow of the amulet she has carried with her since discovering it in Uncle Carter’s hidden study room, Elise walks over countless mountains of sand until she reaches the centre of the world.
She encounters an emissary that allows her to request any singular piece of knowledge in the universe. She asks for the Atlas Ruinica and is granted the book, but she is cautioned, “forsake not the path before you, forget not the shifting sands.” This is a warning that in exchange for receiving incredible knowledge she must also shoulder an incredible burden. She is now responsible for the safety of the book and will always be weighed down by a horrifying discovery: that every universe in the multiverse comprises one cell of the brain of a super god (The Eld) who has been sleeping for eons. Elise learns that the Ptolemaic Kings were planning to contact The Eld using the Atlas Ruinica in an attempt to gain full mastery over time and space and become a race of self-ordained gods among men.
Should The Eld actually awaken, there is no telling how it would disrupt the fabric of reality.
10. Solomon’s Gate
The secrets stored in the Atlas Ruinica allow Elise the opportunity to open a portal granting direct contact with the slumbering Eld’s consciousness and awaken it, granting her near limitless power but also potentially jeopardizing the entirety of the human race. While she is severely tempted to leverage this power to bring back her Uncle Carter and other loved ones she has lost, ultimately she decides that the information contained in the book is far too dangerous to be kept. However, the cosmic creators of the Atlas Ruinica cast a powerful spell of protection on the book when they created it, ensuring that it could never be reproduced or destroyed.
Knowing this, Elise uses the book to open the legendary portal called Solomon’s Gate. She walks through the portal with the book, effectively sealing her own fate but ensuring that the book will be beyond the grasp of humanity forever.
- “The weight of the Many” refers to the knowledge of the intertwined universes forming the mind of a singular conscious being.
- “This is the end of my story. We meet again, the sky has been emptied” references the chorus of track 1 as well as the closing line of track 2 (“I’ll meet you out where the sky is empty”).
- The line “spiralling through the clouds” is a nod to the band’s record, Castle in the Clouds, drawing a transversal comparison between the respective protagonists.
Atlas Ruinica is available now, and you can order physical copies here. Make sure to also check out our album review and our interview with the band.
* All images provided by The Wise Man’s Fear.