The Snail Graveyards are six known sites in the Dreaming to which the snails travel when they realize they are dying.
Overview[]
Because the way is difficult and dying snails travel slowly, most never make it to the graveyards and die somewhere along the way. In fact, one of the easiest ways for changeling to find the way to the nearest Snail Graveyard is to follow the fragmentary trail of snail shells underfoot. As one was, the shells grow gradually thicker on the ground and eventually one is in a Snail Graveyard. The oldest and strongest snails go to Ariké to die.
The Snail Graveyards are uniformly rainy, misty places with cool, vaguely fishy atmospheres, like those of mountain lakes, and they are carpeted with the small crunching shells of snails. They are ritual centers for many of the most secret branches of sea magic, especially ones that deal with deep healing, the tides, and the Orchid Legacy. It is said that there are many mysteries to be found in the Snail Graveyards, and many old changelings send their protégés on quests to one or another of these sites to retrieve an item or to take the auspices there for use in divination. One legendary secret of the snails is the location of the Sangraal Armor, which comes under their magical jurisdiction. Another is the breaking of the curse on the Nautilus Tower and the freeing of the Prince and Princess of Ariké.
The Boys with Nautilus Hearts[]
Each of the Graveyards is guarded by one of the brothers called the Boys with Nautilus Hearts. These entities are beautiful adolescent males, pale in coloring, with sad eyes. Each is crippled in some way: one is blind, another is asthmatic, a third is lame, and so on. All share communion with snails and other shelled creatures and are polite but inscrutable. They are also expert in secret ways of waging war in the name of innocence
- NB: (There may be some information missing here, as the insert has no period.)
References[]
- CTD. Dreams and Nightmares, p. 84.