Location from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
The capital city of Erkynland — sprawling beneath the Hayholt's walls, where merchants, soldiers, and commoners live in the shadow of a castle that's slowly going wrong.
Erchester is the beating heart of mortal Erkynland — the place where common people live their common lives while extraordinary things happen in the castle above. It's the city Simon walked through as a scullion, the marketplace where rumors travel faster than messengers, and the first place to feel the chill when the Storm King's winter begins to bite. The relationship between Erchester and the Hayholt is the relationship between any city and its castle — dependent, resentful, proud, and afraid. When Elias's reign darkens, Erchester darkens with it.
A medieval city clustered around the base of the Hayholt, spreading down toward the Kynslagh. Narrow streets, market squares, timber-framed houses, churches, and taverns. The castle looms above everything, its towers visible from every quarter. In peacetime, busy and prosperous. During the war, increasingly frightened and empty as people flee south.
Also known as: Erchester