Jóuterien (also heard as Joteniem or Shotenim) is the present name of the first of the Invisible Cities, known in the canon as Diomirra: a frontier town at the end of a silk road, ruled with an iron fist by Baron Caín. “Once the frost giants lived there.”
| Type | Town |
| Ruler | Baron Caín |
| Canonical name | Diomirra |
| Spanish entry | Joteniem |
Description
It lies across a strait of stormy seas, on the mainland side of a land with Russian-Hungarian airs: plains, steppes, marble quarries, pine-covered hills. When the kamikaze winds blow a certain way they sink ships, and the town goes from prosperous port to isolated enclave. Opposite stands the island of Tokugawa — living cherry trees, a realm of shogunates — with the volcano El Creativo, on whose slope is the monastery of the Sacred Order. Its legend of frost giants echoes Jotunheim.
At the end of a silk road, it sees minerals, semiprecious stones, luxury goods, animals from distant lands and adepts of the continents’ schools. Baron Caín — divorced, with a sorceress lover from afar, raising tributes — shields a group of young nobles who get drunk, beat, rape and kill women, and jails innocents.
West of town are the gray marble quarries, dug until they struck metal: they unearthed a ruined small castle, and the quarry became an empty pool with a metal floor, which the governor turned into a special prison and place of execution, guarded by an executioner — the scene of the liberating raid. Calvino’s text of Diomirra “has little to do with this city” because it is corrupted: lead instead of gold, a lead rooster instead of a golden one.
Relationships
- The emissaries of the Great Khan come to redeem it.
- Sisi lived in the town for twenty years; her self-defense opens the arc. The first night is set in the tavern of the Giant’s Thumb, with master Luwei.
Gallery
