The House

Location from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

An infinite labyrinth of marble halls filled with statues, flooded by tides, drifted through by clouds — not a building but an entire world, beautiful and indifferent and older than memory.

Also known as: The House, The World, The Labyrinth

What They Know

• The House has three vertical zones: the Lower Halls (flooded by tides), the Middle Halls (dry, habitable), and the Upper Halls (clouds, birds, fresh water)
• Tides follow a regular pattern that Piranesi has mapped in his journals — the great spring tides are dangerous, flooding even some of the Middle Halls
• The statues number in the thousands and depict every conceivable subject: animals, people, abstract concepts, mythological figures, emotions made physical
• The House may be a separate dimension or plane of existence accessible from our world through specific rituals — scholars in the other world have debated its nature for centuries
• People who remain in the House for extended periods lose their memories and identities, gradually becoming part of the labyrinth's ecosystem
• No one has ever found the House's boundaries — every explorer who has gone far enough has either turned back, died, or forgotten they were exploring

Connections

• inhabited_by — piranesi
• visited_by — the_other
• discovered_by — arne_sayles
• contains — the_dead
• contains — lower_halls
• contains — middle_halls
• contains — upper_halls
• contains — first_vestibule
• contains — hall_of_the_minotaur

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