Evanescent Tower names five towers — in Florence, Paris, Venice, Egypt and the Gorge of Gorgias — that share one condition: none of them is entirely in the world. They go out of phase, “as if it were a strange angle”, so that a seeker may find the place and not the tower.
| Type | Place (towers) |
| Locations | Florence; Paris; Venice; Egypt (near Edfu or Philae); Gorge of Gorgias |
| Spanish entry | Torre Evanescente |
The tower of Florence
The Evanescent Tower proper faces the arriving traveler, with small gardens on its sides and parapets. Its masonry has seven places where stones show the prism of the rainbow; in one of them the stone is missing. These stones work as elevation points, “as if some kind of prismatic spell could be raised in the place”.
When it comes into phase, “suddenly it is like a two-dimensional sun”, and a figure appears at the entrance. Inside, food is served: “mist hamburgers”. The tower is bound to the head of Eno, carried off in a chariot of fire like that of Elías.
The Eiffel Tower
In Uchronic Paris the Eiffel Tower is painted yellow and has a gem at its tip. On Terra it was begun in 1887 and inaugurated in 1889 for the centenary of the Revolution; on Antiterra one passage places it in Paris “at Christmas 1889”, on the map in use beside the Latin Quarter.
It works by electricity and magnetism: raised and charged, it can produce an electric pulse so great that it “has been shown to move people”, and in the Paris of 1889 it causes strange magnetism and problems for those “who are not grounded, literally”. It is “the lighthouse of the chronal city”, a convergence point for time travel. After a tournament held around it, it “had become a great power”; a crazy-cars game remained at its top. At one point it “had grown to three times its size” and “threw terrible rays”, and the whole city changed regime. The cosmic gear may be hidden “in the most mystical moment of the Eiffel Tower”.
The tower of the Ocios, Venice
A stone monument near Saint Mark’s, between the Basilica and the Zecca, “where the coin was made”. It suffers a structural weakness “that will occur within a year” and collapses in 1902.
The tower of Elías, Egypt
“A tower to the side”, evanescent, near Edfu or Philae, visible only to some. It bears the name of the prophet whose chariot of fire is compared to the one that took Eno’s head.
The tower of the Contemporary, Gorge of Gorgias
It holds “a black lighthouse at the bottom”. Nothing else is established.
Conflicting accounts
- One account places the Eiffel Tower on the map, present at Christmas 1889.
- Another holds that what is missing is the Eiffel Tower, “and I would say it did so by its absence, because later they saw it in a painting”.
Open questions
- Whether these are five towers or one thing manifesting in five cities is not established.
- What a “two-dimensional sun” is, who the figure at the Florentine entrance is, who raises the prismatic spell, and what happens at the missing stone are unknown.
- Whether the mist hamburgers are magical food or ordinary food served in a place half out of the world is unknown.
- Why the Eiffel Tower of Uchronic Paris is yellow, what makes it grow, and whether its rays stop on their own are unknown.
- What caused the Venetian collapse and what remained afterward are not recorded.
- The name “Tower of the Contemporary” is uncertain by ear; the measurements and materials of the Florentine, Egyptian and Gorge towers are not recorded.