by Greg Curtis
Where were the cities and the palaces? The endless gardens filled with unicorns and tropical flowers? The woodland glades and waterfalls that sparkled with magic? And of course the sprites spending their days playing musical instruments and reciting poetry? This was anything but what everyone had been led to believe about N'Diel.
Fylarne couldn't understand that. None of them could. Because this collection of shacks and huts was what they called a town and no one else in their right mind would call it anything other than a slum. The best thing to do with this place would be to burn it down and then start building properly. None of the buildings were salvageable. But what the town actually was didn't change anything. The locals thought it was a beautiful town. That made no sense. And nor could you get any answers from the people.
You could argue with these people until your lips fell off. You could tell them they were sickly and physically broken. Dressed in rags and sleeping on the ground at night. That they were in a living hell. You could even tell them that they'd been abducted from their homes and put to work. And they simply wouldn't believe you. In fact they would stare at you as if they thought you were the crazy one. And they would of course want only one thing – to return to their work.
As for the other mystery, where all the rock they mined went to, they didn't know. Or rather they didn't want to know. You could ask, and for a moment you might even see a flash of confusion on their faces. But it would pass almost immediately and they would simply tell you not to worry about it. This was paradise. There was nothing to worry about.
Fylarne and the others had followed the carts for a way. Tracked them all the way back to another small, run down village where the carts were unloaded and then restocked with food. But the ore didn't go anywhere except into a hole in the ground. A chasm. They just tipped it in the hole. When he'd witnessed that, his heart had almost stopped working. What was the point of that?!
He'd looked down the chasm. They all had. Because he'd been certain that there had to be something down there at the bottom. But there was nothing. It was just a hole!
He didn't understand that. These people were effectively slaves – there might be no people forcing them to do anything – but that was exactly what they were. They just didn't know it. And all of them seemed to have only one purpose – to mine the damned Heartfire. You'd think that if someone was behind this, wanting them to do that, they must have a reason. There must be a purpose. Maybe they'd sell the stuff and make themselves rich. But there was no one there. Just a damned hole! What sort of maniacal plan involved forcing people to dig up rocks and toss them down a giant hole? Why would anyone want that? It was utterly pointless! The sort of thing dreamed up by witlings!
One thing was certain, the people couldn't tell them. Not the miners who dug the stuff out of the ground. Not the ones who pushed the carts over leagues of dirt and mud to the village. Not the villagers either who lived in rude shacks and worked all the hours of the day like the miners, and who dreamed only of helping with the digging. It was just what they did.
Fylarne had worked out one thing though. Why the trees were huge, as were many of the creatures of the world. It was for a very simple reason. At some point a volcano heated by the Heartfire had erupted – he assumed – and scattered the lava far and wide. And then it had settled into the land and the trees had absorbed the magic within it through their roots. As had the grasses and whatever other plants there were. Then the animals had eaten them. And so little by little, the magic had been absorbed into everything.
So this was simply what a land where the Heartfire was no longer contained by a volcano, looked like.
It was also a land where his gift was completely useless. He had sat on the sphinx throne time and again. He had learned the magic of knowledge. He could read any tongue. But there was nothing written here. No books of any form. He could speak any tongue. But there was only the one tongue spoken. He could interrogate and learn all that a person knew. But these people knew nothing. And worst of all, he could sense nothing of whatever magic it was that bound these people into this insanity. He didn't know why.
But perhaps the thing that troubled him most was a memory. The remembrance of what the woman had said to him so long ago on the terrace. That they hadn't cut his daughter's fingers off. That she had cut her own fingers off.
He had thought then that the woman was crazed as well as evil. And yet now, every day as he stared at these people working themselves into early graves while somehow imagining that this was paradise, he wondered.
They were mad! Could his baby daughter be similarly afflicted? Could Sylie have truly done that to herself? Could Tia have known of it? Allowed it? And what of his mother? They had not said, but could she have cut off her own hand? And thought it was wonderful as she did it?
Every day when he woke and remembered where he was, when he saw these people working, he asked himself that question. And never could he find an answer that made sense. Only pain. So much pain.
“We should go.” Dah interrupted his suffering.
Fylarne looked up. “Go?”
“Use the portal. Leave this place. There is nothing more to be learned here.” The sylph gazed at the workers endlessly digging the lava and loading the wagons. “Nothing to be found.”
“I …” He struggled to find the words to say.
“You cannot find your family. There is no way of knowing where they are. No way of tracking them down across an entire world. And even if you could, they would not come with you. They would be as trapped here by the delusions in their minds as these ones. And there is no way to free them. Not by us.”
Sadly that was true. He didn't want to admit it, but he knew it. Allide had worked with many of them, trying desperately to find out what possessed them. What made them see this world as they did. But for all that he was a dryad and that he was highly sensitive to emotions and to the magic of the mind, he could find no clue. He claimed that it was as though they were dreaming when they were awake. Sharing the same dream. One which had pieces of the waking world and pieces of the sleeping one. But he could not explain it. He could not pierce the dream either. He had tried so many times.
Maybe in Stonely, if they could ever find their way to the human town, they would find an answer. But that answer didn't lie among the five of them. In the end all they had found here were more questions.
Fylarne decided not to object to her plan – there was no point – and simply followed her to the others who were already waiting. And then together they headed towards the rude shack with the portal. There was no danger in it. No one was guarding it. No one even stared at them as they walked. And if any of these people had spotted them, there would have been only one question on their minds – why weren't they carrying any tools?
Which made him wonder once more about those who had come to the Temple. Who had harmed his family. They couldn't be a part of this. They were awake. Alert. They had a clear plan. And they knew how to force him to do their bidding. They weren't slaves bound by whatever spell was holding these people. But why were they doing what they were? What could they possibly get out of half their world digging lava out of the ground and then throwing it down a hole? Or were they too somehow enslaved to this magic? Were they just as deluded, but somehow able to function? He couldn't decide.
But then the portal was in front of him and he didn't care.
Dah activated it and a heartbeat later stepped through. And then after the sylph had vanished the others followed one by one until only Fylarne was left. It took him a moment to decide.
Before stepping on to the active portal he took one last look around at the town and reminded himself that even as mad as this was, there was one reason he had come here. Other than chance that was. Somewhere on this world, probably digging up lava like everyone else, was his family. And he wanted to get them home.
But he couldn't.
And when that terrible truth finally sank in once more, he turned and stepped on to the portal. It
was time to leave. To find Stonely. And finally find some answers.
Chapter Thirty One
Another day spent battling monsters and fixing problems. Another day his clothes hadn't survived. Chy was growing tired of losing his clothes to the ongoing battle. And he was also growing tired of the battle itself. How could so many different monsters be arriving in the world? Where did they all keep coming from? And why didn't some of these other worlds have nice friendly creatures instead of ones that wanted to eat him? Nice fluffy ones perhaps! He was sick of fangs and claws and venom!
But as he walked into his yard having alighted on the portal, Chy gathered that his day wasn't over with yet. Not when he saw that he had visitors. Important visitors. Nobles by the cut of their clothes and the fine looking horses they had ridden here. Horses with their coats brushed, their manes as well, and of course fine leather saddles. Naturally they had men at arms with them too. Chy didn't like that. He still had unhappy memories of the Inquisitor in his black uniform with its shiny buttons – and of course all his soldiers – shooting at him. And by the looks of things, these people had been waiting for him for some time. They seemed, unhappy. He sighed, but didn't stop walking.
“Greetings Sirs and Ladies.” He nodded respectfully. He didn't know who these people were, but he knew they were the sort of people you shouldn't upset. They expected to be treated with respect. And if they didn't get that, people got hung. Some days he found himself wondering if the other peoples of the worlds didn't have better systems of rule. Ones that didn't involve kings and nobles and hood wearing executioners.
“And you wizard,” one of the important people replied. A man with a huge handlebar moustache and a three pointed hat dripping with gold thread. There was even more gold on his jacket which somehow straddled the divide between a military uniform and a nobleman's suit. But probably more important than that was the brace of pistols on his belt. The others were also armed, as were the guardsmen with them.
“Not a wizard, Sir. Just a stone polisher with a gift,” Chy replied. He wasn't sure why that was important to him, but it was for some reason. Maybe because wizards, at least the ones in stories, were nothing like him. And maybe too because these nobles might expect him to be like one. “How may I be of help to you?”
“You can tell us what's happening in the world. And not the fabrications you told the Inquisitor.”
At least he was direct, Chy thought as he slipped his long coat off and tossed it in the copper, even if he was dressed like some sort of civilian general from days long passed. But of course the man didn't mean what the latest crisis was. He meant what was causing them all. Chy sighed some more. The man didn't ask easy questions. And he noticed, the man hadn't given him his name. He could guess why. There was a story going around the towns that names were power. Give a wizard your name and you gave him power over you. There were lots of other stories like that being told.
“Actually I can't Sir. I'm not sure that anyone can. And I did not lie to the Inquisitor. I didn't reveal all that I knew, but he was accusing me of crimes. Of abducting the people of Stonely. My friends. So I couldn't exactly tell him that the giant whirlpool of fire in the sky was some sort of portal magic. And that the sprites were behind it. How would I know such things?”
“And how would we be able to check that when the man has conveniently run away?” The noble replied with an irritated look in his eyes.
“He and his soldiers opened fire on me and my companion in Broken Gully without any sort of warning or cause.” Chy thought he should add that before they accused him of hiding things from them.
“Save your tongue from its endless twists and turns. You will surely answer to Adler in time for you crimes. But it is not why we are here now. We need to know – the King has charged us to find out – what is happening in the world. Why these strange people walk among us. Why creatures out of nightmare are being seen. And how do we stop it?”
“I don't know that we can Sir.” Chy told him the truth though he didn't want to. “I'm not even sure that it can be stopped.”
“All that those of us with the gift know for sure is that the barriers between worlds are failing. And it has to do with whatever the sprites did when they attacked the Heartfire Temple in Prima. Ever since then it seems that chaos has reigned.” But even as he said it he was sure that the man must know that. Everyone knew that by now – didn't they?
He'd told the bards and a couple of mayors that when they'd asked. He'd told his family too. The half dozen other casters from Ruttland that he'd met so far, had done the same. And so too had the other people from the other worlds when they'd been approached. Word was spreading.
“We've heard that, but you must know more. You are a wizard – or a stone polisher with a gift.”
“Sir, I apologise, but I actually don't. I don't even have time to find out. I spend all day every day simply dealing with each new crisis that arises.”
He took a deep breath. “This morning I was busy cooling a lava river that arose on the edge of a small section of desert which has turned up near Calf Valley. It took six hours of concentrated rain just to stop the fires and I'm going to have to return there every day for at least another week to continue the work. And after that I had to deal with an infestation of flying snakes. The damned things spit venom – and it burns.” He gestured at his coat. “Every day lately has been the same.”
“On top of that, the Temple itself where this began, is on the world called Prima. And no one can go there any more. It had only one portal and it was destroyed in the attack. Meanwhile the sprites who started this aren't talking to anyone. Messages have been sent. I issued a sending under the direction of the only remaining Temple Guardian. They have not replied as far as I know. But then since they also enslaved our people and many others, they probably fear what's coming.”
He reached out with his thoughts to the river and dragged a load of water to dump in the copper, causing his visitors to jump. They didn't see magic every day he supposed. Or they probably hadn't until recently. Then he sent a flame into the logs underneath it to start heating the water before heading over to it to grab the bar of lye soap and start work. Maybe he had important visitors, but it would be dark soon, and he needed to get his coat on the line before the sun set and he could talk and wash at the same time. He hoped he could save this coat. But maybe not, he thought as the water immediately turned black with ash and the lye didn't help. It might be yet another one for the bin.
“I can tell you this,” he continued. “Not far from here is a mountain of ice that arrived from another world. It's not a true mountain. It's a piece of another world – an icy world – that simply made itself at home in our one. So too is the swamp that appeared in the middle of Maybone. There are many other such places.”
“This is far worse than simply a bunch of strange and frightening creatures and people of other races appearing and causing trouble. But I don't know what was done or how it was done. All I can do is keep dealing with problems as they arise and hope we will make it through whatever is happening, while the wisest among us turn their thoughts to the larger issues.”
“Then is there someone else who can tell us?”
“Sadly Sir, I doubt it. But there are some who are working on it. Sages, masters of the craft, readers of ancient tales and priests. A few who aren't like me spending all their time trying to hold the tide of disaster back. They've set up a camp in Stonely. If anyone can answer your question it would be them.” Of course they were busy with other matters, like everyone else. Most of their days were spent receiving reports of each new crisis and then guiding casters to them as they arose. They were the ones who contacted him whenever anything nearby happened.
“But if what we've heard is true, they are not … normal.”
Not normal? It took Chy a moment to understand what he meant. And then another to remember that not everyone was as familiar with the people of other worlds as he was.
“Human Sir? No. I don
't think any of them would be. There are so few of our people with the gift, though we are working to find more. But they are normal. They just come from other worlds. To them we are the ones who are not normal.”
“But we are all the same in what matters. We all think and feel. We all bleed when we're cut. We all have kin we care about. And whether we like it or not, it looks as though our worlds are growing together and we are all imperilled by it. In time there will be a great many more people living among us who have come from other worlds.” And if that wasn't completely obvious, he had a small village of dryads living just across the road from him. The nobles must have seen them as they rode in. They weren't exactly hiding after all.