“Think not of the needs of Gan, or Jhinxar. Think not of the troubles of the Scarsands, Akeda or Harrow. Instead, imagine all eternity undone. It is not the Jhinyari we need worry about, it is all the things that are, were, and ever shall be.”
The Iron Tower chose to ignore the obvious truth and thereby put all living things at great risk. They believed Karna would deliver them, but Karna was worse than any devil that could be conjured. It suffices to say that Harrow must now fall or all will be ruined. A pity for the goodly, hard-working folks that dwell there – they have been misled; their city will be destroyed, but I assure you they will not be harmed by the invading armies and they will eventually learn to govern themselves from their own ranks, if all goes as planned. The assault comes as a long overdue deliverance of justice to the sharks who run the place.
Ahh, there she is. A little dazed but she makes a lean and beautiful elm. Such smooth, shiny bark and fine, elegant arcs about her branches. Amot is her escort and a fine escort at that – tall and fierce and kind like his good father. I will charge him with the care and safe transport of this book, my account of the beginning and the near-end, so that philosophers, historians and future leaders might come to understand the bare facts about our plight. Maybe, just maybe, one who reads this manual can solve the greatest dilemma for all life in all the worlds in all the universes. Hail to Gan! Rage against Karna!
Now, Mrs. Holly Numbit and I must take cover before the lightning arrives – trees in a storm and all. The bolts will streak down in crooked forks and wide sheets to blast the city to bits. The docks and the shipyards will be blown to oblivion, and ball lightning will gently drift into the halls of the Iron Tower itself and decimate its caged interior until nothing remains but an empty shell. The Temple of Karna will fall, crumbling to the ground from which it was raised. The Tor Lords are out of my reach though, held up in the rocky hills, tucked away in great underground halls and mining tunnels. They will persist and are like to rise again some day, although substantially weakened by the coming fury. I know all of this because I personally called the Shadow. I called the lightning and I set the propagators, although I can no more control it now than one who pushes a boulder off a mountaintop can control the avalanche that follows. That light is beyond me. This path was the only way and it was necessary. I see that now.
“Ah yes… dear Holly, together at last. You must be shaken. Here, take my limb.” The mere decades behind us, comprising our former lives, are but a droplet in the pool of time compared to the millennia ahead. Love is truly a patient and everlasting thing. The wait has been long and the weight a heavy burden.
This part of the story, this first record of events as I saw them unfold, is now complete. As I stated earlier, it was the beginning of my story, the middle of others and, most importantly, the beginning of the end for some great thing. It was that which set things in motion. The Hurlorns set things in motion.
There is one final matter to make closure on, a simple question posed at the very beginning of this tale. Now that you have experienced the wonder and the terror of the things that are, and through my eyes, I ask that you reconsider: “Is there such a thing as magic?”
To that, I now say, “There are enough things in this world so powerful or so little understood, there might as well be!”
It is time. I must bid you farewell. The ink runs dry.
It was the Orbweaver who created the universes for Her own consumption, but only after they produced Knowledge. So She infused a strand into every single thing and wove them all together, like a great web, to track the production of Knowledge. One man learned the secret of the Orbweaver. One man realized when it was time for the Orbweaver to reap what She had sown. And when She came for him, he rolled dice for all humankind, and won.
And this man devised a way to make peace with the Orbweaver, or so he thought. His people had to be disciplined though, and obedient, giving, and most importantly, forever creators of new Knowledge.
But the man was wrong. The only way to beat Her was to out-learn Her.
And the only way to out-learn Her was to become Her.
- The Diviner
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SPARX Incarnation: Order of the Undying (SPARX Series I Book 2) Page 28