The Runes of Norien
Page 34
VI
Although it would be fair to say that all the inhabitants of Ienar Lin were more or less mad, their madness usually gave no outward display, and was more a detachment from the outer reality and a lifelong withdrawal into the private reality of their minds, where emotions ran wild like torrents or stagnated like a swamps.
However, in those unlucky few whose lot in life was to be a Foreseer, the Mad Sphere found its true incarnation. For whereas the unknown depths of the past and the present may be sounded in relative calmness – since, by the time something is observed and contemplated, it has already receded to the past –, the future is by nature a thing of obscurity and uncertainty, a fabric made of countless interwoven strands which spread in every imaginable direction to form yet more fabrics, distant and unreachable. Thus to know what will or may be, one has to transcend time and exist apart from it and all the firmness, the stability it affords, and that is why oracles and prognostics have always been depicted as creatures divorced from the matrix of their tangible worlds, closer to Gods than to mortals.
Yet the Foreseers of Ienar Lin were no Gods; they were thoroughly mortal and frail, and for as long or little as they lived their minds, weak as any creature’s bound to the material world’s dimensions, were assailed by a neverending, never-ceasing mayhem of future events and eventualities, of alien fates that barely began before splitting into thousands of possible destinies. And slowly but surely this havoc reigned and ravaged their sanity, till they became helpless, listless husks, living under the relentless agony and terror of strange worlds blossoming or dying, of hapiness denied and lives oblivious to the evils that were to befall them, while they themselves lay, spent and senseless, praying with what dregs of strength were left to them for the swift relief of death – which many sought actively, either to escape a worse death they’d foreseen or simply to flee the onslaught of prescience, and for this reason the islands of Foreseers often resembled empty cages of black rock, so that their howling dwellers wouldn’t harm themselves.
The way that the rest of the Linners regarded these tortured men and women varied greatly; some feared and despised them for their powers, while others – treasure-hunting Boatmen chief amongst them – revered Foreseers for their godly ability to predict the future, and sought them out to benefit from their wisdom, wishing to know, for instance, whether a longed-for mate would reciprocate their feelings, or curious about the date and manner of their deaths, or, most often, eager to discover if an afterlife existed, and what it was like; but rarely did any of these idle wonderers manage to set foot on a Foreseer’s island, which stood out because of the unusual height of its pillar and the absence of means to ascend the vertical rock. Moreover, rumours said that those few who did manage to clamber their way to the top, were either attacked and killed by Foreseers who’d been completely severed from reality and saw everything as a threat, or, touched by the onrush of the future that swirled around Foreseers like a poisonous cloud, took leave of their minds and jumped to their death.
Thus, the first thing Wixelor thought when Huxor urged him to visit his son, was, This has gone on long enough. It’s time I went back and resumed my dreaming and forgot about this whole outrageous business. For even if he found his way to his island, Zaepix might be too far gone to understand or care that he’d been sent by his father to help ward off the End of the World – a concept that seemed more ridiculous the longer Wixelor thought about it – and murder him, believing he was Death come to take him away.
However, something kept tugging at his heart, a strange, sudden need which Wixelor knew he must heed or else live out the rest of his days in regret. For one thing, unlikely though it seemed that he should be the harbinger of the End, the thought of everything and everyone disappearing, of all these innumerable lives being abruptly snuffed out, filled him with sadness and fear. He even felt an unexpected sympathy for the dreamers whose dreams he collected, no matter how tiresome the fantastic eruptions of their sleeping minds might be. How could he bear the guilt of knowing that he had the chance to save them and decided against it? Even his own existence, whose monotonous stretch into old age sometimes felt insufferable, had all of a sudden become infinitely precious, its few tepid pleasures unthinkable to lose.
But what ultimately convinced him that he must act upon Huxor’s entreaty was something he couldn’t even repeat to himself without feeling a delicious coldness descend on him, as if his very soul were touched by a ghostly hand. For even in his most heartfelt, passionate flights of fancy, Wixelor knew the object of his obsession – the Runes of Norien – were as intangible as the ancient yearnings that had born their myth. Yet if a Ponderer of Huxor’s wisdom believed in their actual existence, (albeit in a faraway, unattainable world) then surely the Eyes of the Gods were more than a tale. His own experience had taught him that even the wildest dreams are up to a point based on fact, on palpable, material objects invested with intense emotion.
And if this Erat Rin – home to the God of Fate and Chance! – really existed, and there was even the slightest chance of him getting there to help keep doom at bay, he couldn’t in all conscience refuse to act! Because who knew what lay beyond the Eye and its endless drudgery? Even Lurien and Feerien seemed heavenly in comparison – imagine, then, a world unspoilt by the grimness of the Mad Sphere, allowed to govern itself and blessed with the Runes’ all-powerful magic; and then imagine him, a lowly Dreamer, somehow finding his way to that remote paradise, and living like all those creatures he’d spent his whole life envying, free to roam lands of green and skies of blue, to savour the taste of warm fresh milk and indulge in forms of love vastly superior to the desperate gropings of beastly Linners like Moraxa!
All these thoughts had been spinning in Wixelor’s head in the brief time it took him to descend the steps of Huxor’s island, and by the time he reached the creaky wooden landing his mind was adamantly made up: he would find Zaepix and ask for his guidance whatever the cost. And then, he thought, waving his candle about to attract some passing Boatman, he would somehow manage to retrieve the Runes of Norien, even if it meant travelling to Nowhere and back.