The Wheel of the Gestas is the Archive’s master arrangement of its gestas (campaign-cycles): twenty-nine closed and one still living, arranged in five concentric channels, each with its own calendar.
| Type | Concept |
| Houses of the Cycle | ☸ · ⏳ House of Carnal Time |
| Spanish entry | La Rueda de las Gestas |
Description
The plate shows five concentric channels turning at different speeds; the outer rim measures marching geometric figures, not years, with vignettes of a lighthouse, a burning cathedral, siege engines and a barge on black water, and a city’s eye at the hub. It is painted worn, gold chipped, water-stained.
The channels are ways time runs, not geographies: Antiterra counts in A.D.A.; the uchronias in A.D.A. against the grain; Vala by its own clock; Earth as Earth; the Wheel of the Planes in Marches. The Chronicle of the Archive sets them in thirteen stations.
I. Antiterra (A.D.A.)
- 260–270 Khalim: mirror companies between Alexandria, Dante’s Avernus and the Pillars of Hercules.
- 1119–1120 → 1889 Templars of Time: Jerusalorium to Outremer; the leap ending beneath Notre-Dame, Ärsvan paying the price.
- ~1300–1301 Florenzen: Florence and the Holy Land.
- 1493–1498 Invisible Cities: the Khanate, the twelve artisans’ cannon golems, news of the corrupted March.
- 1648 The Fronde: Paris in arms.
- ~1660 Gloriana, the Immortal Queen: Albion under an ageless court; truncated.
- 1663 Indians and Dragons: New France up the Hudson.
- 1715–1784 Les Libertateurs: Prague to New York; the Game of Shadows takes hold.
- ~1815 The Carnival: a circus over Shakespeare’s tomb.
- 1888–1901 The Deep Ones and the Regulators: Cádiz, Atlantis, New Orleans; the platforms lit one by one.
- 1900–1901 The End of Antiterra: Venice, Buckingham, cell U-571; reality made malleable (“a new one: Ada”).
II. The uchronias
- 1666 The Northern Crown: alternate America from Carolingia to New York; two companies alternating.
- 1901–1914 Uchronic Paris: from the Palace of Time to Sarajevo.
III. The Clock of Vala
- Ancient Vala (A.E.) Vala Terra Cristalis: Uruk and Ur-Draxa.
- 724 (Auran Empire) Blackwater, the Lantern: Türos Tem, the Old Gray Skull’s dome, the River Sorcerer.
- ~1300 local Barrowmaze: Vala’s medieval barrows.
- 1824–1825 A.E. (= 1946–1955 A.D.A.) Caldero · La Jabalina (“the Javelin”): crater, prison Finisterre, the atoll’s cross of fire; the gem-world hurled as a weapon, giving birth to Sogol.
- ~1840 local Ardis Vala: crystallized platforms under the Valakhan mist.
- ~1840 local Novices of Helix: heirs to the barrow and the debt.
- after 1901, inverted time the Descent (Inferno): the Circles, the Pit’s choral voice, the lamp of Hope, the crystal where Vala was created.
IV. Earth and its neighbors
- 9th century The fjord of Hafr: Vikings in southern Norway.
- 1838 The Uchronia of Independence: Tanastias and Torregrises.
- 1928–1929 Legends of Cairo: Boston to el-Ashmunein.
- 1966–1967 Malvinas: Operativo Cóndor, the lighthouse, the Chthonians beneath the islands.
- 1987 Gary, the New World: Indiana under the Iron Mountain eclipse; the 100-or-101-year measure.
- 1987–1991 Buenas Sangres: transition-era Buenos Aires, Rosario to the Uritorco.
- 2001–2035 Never 9-11: Megapolis and the towers that did not fall.
- 2087 The Quarantine: the subway terminal, Bosques Sanos, the sphere.
Two isolated nights (1919; Cairo, 1929) form no gesta.
V. The Wheel of the Planes (dated by Marches)
- two months before the March Dispute of the Sigil Contracts: the seed game, the fallen Saint, the duel in the mud, the exile from Automata.
- 1955 → 2055 A.D.A. Sogol, the living gesta: the only one here with a year, driven in by the javelin; the children walk it a century and a year later.