by
Lady Emily
Nature is full of wonders. From strange looking bugs to human/animal hybrids, from trees large enough to live in to mushrooms so small your eye can barely make them out. But some of the most spectacular phenomenon are those which emanate from the sky.
Fleeting and usually quite dramatic, most of these are grouped either under astrological phenomenon or weather phenomenon. But Evenlight? No one is quite sure where to place it.
Imagine that you’re camping. The sun has set and you’ve built a nice fire, and are settling in for a long night. And then, all of a sudden, you notice that there is a glow in the sky. Not coming from any horizon, but just sort of emanating from everywhere. As you watch, wonderingly, it grows and grows until all about you it's as light as an overcast day. All the creatures of the night scurry into their burrows and the daytime creatures emerge, wide eyed and wondering.
You’re experiencing Evenlight.
The first reports come from early Masallan history, when a battle during the Unicorn Wars was raging into the night. The Evenlight suddenly lit the battlefield, and decreeing that it was a sign from the gods, the Unicorn rallied his faltering army into a miraculous victory. (For that battle, at least.)
The phenomenon seems to be very broad – people in neighboring villages will often report it occurring on the same night, and in one case about fifty years back, it was seen as far apart as Neraha and Selarum on the same eve.
What causes the phenomenon? I took my question to the Library of Aranor and sought out Kanus, a man who is considered a sage on astrological and weather phenomenon.
"You’ll note," he said, "that almost every report of Evenlight will mention something regarding heavy, strange cloud cover. Though we know little about clouds, we suspect that they are essentially mist or fog hanging high in the air, and that just as fog can carry light through its body, so might these clouds carry the distant light of the sun or moon down their length to shine upon the ground. We have observed many times that the sun’s light, as it sets, will climb up the side of a high tower, and it's not too strange to suppose that an hour or more after the sun has left, that its light might be reaching up to the top of high clouds. As many reports of Evenlight occur within a few hours of sunset, this theory seems sound. As for late-night Evenlight phenomenon? These invariably occur during or near the time of the full moon, and could be caused by the bright moonlight shining down through the clouds."
A more reasonable explanation, perhaps, than the one presented to me by another ‘authority’, who claimed that Evenlight was the vision of the gods when they were looking down upon that part of Carador. I asked a priestess of Morgan about this possibility, and she only laughed.
"The gods and goddesses are watching us more often that we’d care to think," she replied.
Whatever the case, Evenlight is a rare but remarkable event, and few who experience it can forget the strange sensation of having day suddenly emerge when it should be night. Most people will experience it at least a few times in their lives, so when you do, pay attention to the clouds, and perhaps you can gather some evidence for yourself to decide if Kanus is right.