World's End

by Will Elliott

  ‘Those haiyens who have chosen to part ways with us, whom we call the lost ones, do not see this place any longer,’ said their guide. ‘They closed it off from their awareness, long ago. When they did that, it meant these visitors could no longer venture through our realm. Now visitors may only come to places like this, which the lost ones have forgotten. Long ago, all could come here, and freely travel as they would. Our world was a great exchange of knowledge and information until the Dragon-god came. When it seized the North, Levaal became divided. Still we haiyens waited near the place you call World’s End, before the Wall was built. Waited there as guides, to help those who could survive the journey through the Dragon’s world of the North.

  ‘Those brave and strong enough to survive the North’s perils would cross World’s End. Our kind waited to heal them and guide them through this realm to our adjoined world, our Otherworld. Levaal South too has an Entry Point, at its most southern part. Like yours, it too is usually closed off.’ A burst of immense sadness came from their guide. ‘We are prevented now from going back to our Otherworld. The lost haiyens guard the Entry Point. Once, we passed back and forth freely. You have questions. Ask them.’

  Siel said, ‘Were they human, those you speak of, who survived the journey through the Dragon’s world, and came to yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ said their guide. ‘And other races too, many others. These worlds are older than you know. Once, people of the Pilgrim’s world knew of Levaal. Some found ways to escape there through a door. Often, they did not know that our world here, a place of healing and purity, waited for them at the end of their journey. They only knew they must escape their prison world, whatever else they found. Those souls who came through were made strong by their journey. We valued and honoured them here.’

  ‘Did not the Pendulum swing when people crossed?’ said Far Gaze.

  ‘That began only when dragons from the North ventured into our realm to steal back those who had escaped here. In that time, powerful Spirits – those beings which men call gods – came to protect Levaal South. We do not know where they came from, nor who called them, but they are here still. They are not gentle protectors. They are powerful and dangerous, even to us.’

  ‘And you have dragons here?’

  ‘Some dragons came to us from your realm,’ said their guide. ‘Before your realm, they came from other places – they have not always been in Levaal.

  ‘The dragons who crossed World’s End first came here to hunt those who’d escaped the North world, just as they hunted in Levaal North for those who escaped from Otherworld. Those dragons learned that visitors from other worlds came here, to the lake’s waters and to many temples and other places to learn and exchange knowledge. Those dragons grew wise and were content merely to exist here. They learned much from the visitors; and they taught much. Vyin was one such dragon. Their minds began to roam independently of the limits their Parent had set for them. It was the first time they broke the natural laws.

  ‘This angered their Parent, who called them back. Their Parent imprisoned them after a battle which destroyed lots of Minor dragons, and killed four of the brood. The destruction of those four meant, in essence, the dispersal of their power. Young gods formed from this loose energy. Perhaps the old gods of the North – Mountain, Tempest and Inferno – helped to create them. In its anger the Dragon-god gave its world over to humankind, creating new natural laws to govern the dragons’ imprisonment. It built the Wall, and made sentries to guard it. All this occurred the last time it was roused from slumber. Since that time, it has slept.’

  Far Gaze said, ‘Who really destroyed the Wall? And why? The Arch Mage was surely no more than an instrument in that task.’

  ‘We do not know what being’s willpower was truly behind that deed. If it was the Dragon-god, it was done because it feels its opposite power, slumbering in our lands, can at last be defeated. If it was the Eight who had this deed done, it was done only so they could be free of their prison.’

  ‘Is it true then what Blain says, that there is a Dragon-god in the South?’ said Far Gaze.

  ‘There is a force here of equal power to the Dragon-god of the North. It too shall sleep until the Pendulum swings high, and its opposite awakens. It came here soon after the Dragon-god arrived, to balance that being’s power. But it is not a dragon. It is a force of creation, not destruction. We know it to exist, though we have never seen it.

  ‘Go now, and bathe in the crystal’s waters. Those others who have come can see each other, but because of where you come from, they shall not see you. These visitors do not see us, the haiyens, any longer, either. No longer can we speak with them. Go down to the waters. Nourish yourselves. We’ve more travel ahead of us.’

  Siel and Far Gaze climbed down one of many sets of stairs indented on the sheer stone wall. The flat plain they crossed gave a little underfoot, as though it were the skin of something living. The sky was a haze of deepest purple, penetrated by only a few upwards-reaching white beams from the huge suspended crystal. For a time they seemed alone on the plains. About them they gradually sensed, then saw, the others who’d come, and heard whispers of their voices. There were human beings among them with skin of many colours, people green, blue and gold, some larger than half-giants, others wearing wings. Beings like lizards walked upright, their tongues flickering out of their mouths almost too quickly to see. There were tiny people with silvery skin and black almond-shaped eyes. There was something huge on four legs with a face like an insect’s; something dragging itself along with tentacles, its large face almost human atop a long curved body. All moved in a serene, slow walk towards the water.

  A being made of what looked like snow faded into view directly ahead of them, its skin or perhaps clothing appearing as patches of white and grey. It moved like liquid. Two small ones just like it moved ahead of it. Siel reached out to touch it, but her hand passed through as it would pass through smoke; the being didn’t notice her. A sound she’d thought was gentle flute music turned out to be their voices in conversation.

  Siel wept. Far Gaze kept his eyes straight ahead. Part of him recoiled from this strangeness and demanded he flee. He did not know any more whether to believe the haiyen’s tales and stories – there seemed no longer any way of knowing the truth. He looked back where they’d climbed down from. Their guide waited and watched on the ridge, just a small black shape against the purple sky. ‘Why do you weep?’ he whispered to Siel.

  ‘All of them, so peaceful,’ she said. He looked at her in surprise – he assumed she wept from some kind of fear or disquiet, not this mix of joy and grief. ‘Look how different they all are,’ she said. ‘And they’re at peace with each other. No fighting. All of them here for the same thing. Allowing each other just to be.’

  ‘Why should it make you sad?’

  ‘We are the same as one another. War, war and death. We punish each other just for being born in a different city. Why aren’t we like this instead?’

  Pointless question, he thought. One with no answer.

  They came at last to the water, forgot each other and bathed in it. Each of them now felt as if he or she was the only one here, that they’d come to a private reality in which the lake was his or hers alone. Perhaps all who came here felt the same thing. Now and then were glimpses of the others about them like glimpses of ghosts, and brief whispers of conversation. Crystal light beamed into their bodies; it filled them till it poured out and surrounded them in a protective shell of healing light.

  There was the sound of rain sweeping over the water, the beautiful sound of a sea’s waves lapping, the sound of life itself drawing and releasing breath. They breathed with it, became one with it. There was no need for fearing or even thinking. All would be well; all things were connected to one source of being, like droplets from the same lake flung away only briefly. Come whatever chaos and death to temporarily trouble long, ancient dreams, all would be well for all was eternal, and fleeting troubles were but flavours of experience. The
huge round crystal beamed down its shafts in the water to depths beyond sight.

  They both found the haiyen’s words had been true: a part of them remembered these waters. They were both struck by the idea that all those other beings they had seen, who had walked around them to the waters, were them: Siel and Far Gaze, their souls embodied in many past and future selves. In that infinitely beautiful light they were filled with peace; thirsts they’d not been aware of were quenched. The waters assured them with the breathing sound of wind over sea that they’d known long lifetimes of far greater pain than this one, pain all healed or forgotten. What harm would carrying this brief lifetime’s burden truly do them? They were eternal.

  Gently their bodies floated, their heads above the water. Far Gaze let his mind go altogether, forgetting everything, remembering everything. In that place, it became true that no pain had ever really hurt him.

  Siel dived down, seeing how far she could follow the shafts of crystal light. Huge things moved down there: souls who had come to bathe here and decided to stay, shaping themselves as they liked, dreaming up new lives with the delight of children at play. Would she do the same? She was welcome to stay. The water’s depth was infinite. It would gladly share infinity and abundance with her, if she wished.

  Not yet, she thought, joyful now to know she was not trapped in life. Her life was no longer a prison sentence: it had become a choice. Not yet! But I will return here. And perhaps the next time I come, I will stay …

  34

  GODS OF THE SOUTH

  They had little memory of walking away from that shore and climbing the steps back to their guide. For a long while they sat there, not resting, needing no speech or thought. Their haiyen guide waited, then spoke into their minds in a silent whisper: ‘The waters give all who come the choice to remain. You have chosen to return. It is time now to remember again. Remember who you are, why you are here, why you have come. Be at ease with your burdens. This place soon shall become a faded memory in your minds. But deep within you, ever shall you know the divine freedom which waits for you.’

  They travelled as if they moved from dream to dream. Their guide took them to where the ground had been pounded and rent by something huge. Craters sunk deep into the ground, the ground which was made not of rock, sand or soil: rather of rubbery skin which shone like glass. Great hammer blows had gouged crevasses and cracked fissures in it.

  ‘We are close again to World’s End,’ said their guide. ‘What you call Tormentors resulted from these cracks. Before the Wall was built, the air’s magic was thick in our skies too. It came from your realm and we learned never to use it, for dragons could influence things if we did. We trapped the magic and stored it deep in the ground as buried garbage. When the great stone beast came …’

  ‘The stoneflesh giant?’ said Siel. ‘The first to cross the boundary?’

  ‘Yes. Many more have since crossed. When the first crossed over, it attacked all it saw. It was what sent up the foul clouds of trapped power, long gone stale, power which had developed its own poisonous consciousness. It had filled itself with curses of hate. This created what you call Tormentors.’

  ‘The stoneflesh giant – have you dealt with it now?’

  ‘We did not. But it is dead. Come.’ Their guide took them for a short walk till they found a large shape of dark stone, half buried among green growing things, vines which seemed to slither and tighten about it even as they watched. Long winding pieces of stone had detached from the main mass – a stoneflesh giant’s fingers. This was one’s hand, overcome by what seemed the birth of a small jungle. ‘The most benign of our gods slew it here,’ said their guide. ‘The one we name That With Affinity for Growing Things. It is also called the Teacher of Many Arts. If the Pendulum should swing high enough for gods to cross World’s End, we have ensured this benign Spirit will be the first to cross into your world. It will do you no harm.’

  ‘Will you show us this Spirit?’ said Far Gaze.

  Their guide opened a tunnel of light and wind and took them to a place where a crowd of men in castle colours – who had fled across World’s End from the broken siege force at Tanton – stood at the edge of a ravine, staring ahead with awed faces. The cliff they stood upon was level with a stoneflesh giant’s chest. They stood closer to it than men had dared to come to the great creatures before, but it did not notice them. It made a noise of distress. Its huge arm moved so turgidly it looked like something unseen impeded it.

  At its feet and all through the gorge lay strewn pieces broken from the many cliff faces up and down the sheer valley. The giant had been pounding the valley to dust before the god found it. Now the giant’s long winding fingers had twisted into impossible knots. Green growing things had sprouted from its eyes and from the great cave of its mouth (moaning still in pain, or fear). The basalt grey slab of its torso was slick and wet, just as if it had been lashed by rains.

  As they watched, great splits in its torso opened, pushed outwards by green and wooden growths. One part broke free and fell into the valley with the other stone litter – the ground shivered when the piece smashed down. The great creature cried out a final time before the crack stretched from its mouth corners around its entire head, which then slid free and bounced on the slabs of stone beneath, bounced and rolled with tremendous noise. The giant’s arms ceased all their motion. The men cheered and began to seek a way down. There was treasure in the head, they told one another. Gold and charms of great power. Already they argued about dividing the spoils they’d find.

  ‘I didn’t know men from our realm had crossed the border,’ said Far Gaze. ‘Is there danger in them coming here?’

  ‘The Pendulum has swung too high now for the passage of humans and haiyens to matter,’ said their guide. ‘These men are in danger. There are things here that will find and prey upon them. I cannot help them. We are no longer in the practice of guiding souls to safety. When the lost haiyens parted ways with us, our work became our own survival.’

  They watched the men climb down into the valley. One fell to his death, his brief cry echoing off the cliff faces. The others paused to watch, performed gestures with their hands, then they resumed their descent until they’d reached the stoneflesh giant’s head. From up high they seemed like insects crawling over a large stone. They did not look up to see the Teacher of Many Arts shimmer into visibility for no more than a few seconds before fading out again. It was not as tall as the stoneflesh giant had been, but still it towered over them.

  Far Gaze tried to catch that fleeting sight and hold it close: he saw two long antlers, not unlike a deer’s except they moved and reached through the air. Two large black eyes seemed somehow kind and wise despite their strangeness. A gap for its mouth was partly covered by a blunt beak. Five long twisting legs like vines propped it up, one of which bent and coiled upon itself like a tail. It seemed made of long growing things all twisted together, arms very like tree limbs, with hundreds of branching fingers.

  Filling the air for a second or two as the god faded from sight was a trilling note of peculiar song. It sent shivers down their backs, and reminded Siel of the sounds the haiyens had made which had healed her wounds and brought her back from death.

  The men below all scurried out from the stoneflesh head, peering around to find what had made the sound. There was nothing for them to see, and no treasure for them in the giant’s head.

  Their guide said, ‘There are other gods to see. They may disturb you more than this one. But the lords of your land should know their names and faces, lest they cross over to the North.’

  Were it not for their healing in the waters, neither Far Gaze nor Siel would likely have been able to cope with the underground places their guide next took them, places where hideous beings of flat and pulsating form clung to the sides of cave walls and whispered with harsh voices like nails scratching stone. There were ropy clumps of pink glistening flesh, hung down from rock ceilings miles above those lightless places, with skeletons of many shapes
now and then stuck to them, and remains beneath them – haiyen cities of underground refuge long ago ruined. Some of the beautiful and strange buildings were still intact though their occupants had all been consumed. Through such lost places, their guide led them in search of a hidden god, one not seen by any haiyen alive today.

  And there it was at last, in an opening space unfathomably deep below, huge upon a pool of liquid darkness: That of the Realms Beneath, dozens of huge half-open eyes at the tips of each ropy winding limb, all twisted about its crescent-shaped torso. One of the many eyes turned their way, gazed at them. A sound of sighing breath filled the dank air – in response, a million curious others began to whisper, seeping up from beneath the black surface with thin trails of smoke.

  In haste their guide drew them away, his fear so intense they felt it long after they were away from there. It was the first time their guide had been so afraid in their presence. They did not understand why, and when they asked what they’d just escaped, he would not tell them what had been about to happen.

  Instead he showed them safer things for a while, such as a group of hooded haiyens making a long trek across hidden plains to where their nests were built: conical wooden-looking things with intricate designs etched on them. The things were reminiscent of the totem pillars the dark-skinned tribes left scattered on the edge of the Unclaimed Lands. A group of five haiyens solemnly poured a part of themselves into holes upon one such nest, energy flowing almost invisibly from their hands into the vessel.

  ‘Here I show you how we are born,’ said their guide. ‘In infancy, we have a small amount of life. The life force within us slowly grows, until we cannot house more of it, just as a cup slowly overflows. When one’s life force reaches fullness, it is shared with these nests, and others become born from it. In this way we too can be reborn, if we choose. He who pours all his life force into the vessel loses his body, is remade young and without memory. With songs and other arts, the group he travels with – what you would call his family – will remind him who he was, what work he performed in life. His memories slowly return. With time, fewer choose to be reborn in this place, going instead to other lives and forms. This world may be owned soon by the lost ones. And they may do to your world what they have done to ours.’