Orithena

First Appearance and Context

Orithena is recalled during the daily winding of the clock at Provener inside the Mynster. It is cited as a primordial gathering place of the theors and the setting of a midday ceremony beneath a great dome.

Structure and Features

The Halls of Orithena are described as marble columns rising from the black rock of Ecba and supporting a vast dome with an oculus. At midday, a shaft of light from the oculus passed over an analemma marked on the floor, forming the climax of the ceremony beneath the dome. The description suggests a monumental complex designed for celestial alignment and communal assembly.

Geography and Setting

Orithena lies on Ecba, a volcanic island. The south slope of the volcano exploded and collapsed in antiquity, burying the Temple of Orithena and obliterating a harbor on the island’s southeastern coast that early physiologers once visited by galley. The ash and rubble form a fan that runs straight from summit to sea.

Legacy and Functions

In very ancient times, theors gathered there to sing the Hylaean Anathem; leadership is attributed first to Adrakhones and later to Diax or one of his fids. After Orithena’s destruction, surviving theors undertook the Peregrination. Much later, elements of the old rite were adapted for mathic worship, and after the Reconstitution the aut was revived in a new form centered on winding the Clock. The modern liturgy at Provener preserves the memory of Orithena’s ceremony inside the maths.

Present Day

A walled math has been under construction on Ecba’s south slope since around the millennial Convox, overseeing an orderly excavation of the buried complex. From the coastal road, a track climbs in switchbacks toward the enclosure; at its base, avout staff a small checkpoint and roadside stand, and visitors are not permitted to drive farther. Avout are seen openly in the island town near the ferry terminal, suggesting relaxed relations with the Saecular administration here.

Ownership and Access

Public records indicate that Ecba is a single parcel owned by a private foundation that acquired it roughly nine centuries ago. Observers attribute the ongoing excavation and the new concent to that foundation’s support; specific affiliations are not confirmed in the text.