The WorldMight

by Cyril L. C. Bussiere

  “But if Master Baccus is right, if enemies have done the unimaginable and somehow survived the impossible, what does it say of them?”

  Prince Hedgard suppressed an uncomfortable shiver. He was prince of Alymphia and could not let himself be scared by tales; and yet…

  “Shouldn’t a wise man take every possibility into consideration?” he caught himself thinking as uneasiness further spread over him.

  After all, hadn’t he witnessed Master Baccus do what he, until then, considered impossible? And what about the things the old temple runner had explained to them in a tight voice the previous day as they hurried toward the Great Barrier; nonsensical matters of layers of the world and things Prince Hedgard could not wrap his head around. What else of the world was he not privy to?

  “You know very little,” he begrudgingly admitted to himself. “And you have much to learn from Master Baccus.”

  He eyed the horizon above the tree tops stretching before them. The sight of the sky darkening by the minute did nothing to comfort him. Even the six elites, those seldom seen royal shadows, riding alongside them did little to comfort him. Clad in black leather save for the bright GrandJoy blazon on their chest they rode silently in a diamond formation around them. They appeared relaxed on their mounts; although he knew that they could spring into action faster than an arrow released from a war bow if needed. Lost in his own considerations, Prince Hedgard had veered off to the right of the path and fallen slightly behind and the elites had organically adapted their formation to keep the three of them at their center. Prince Hedgard squeezed with his calves and his horse accelerated. He caught up to his father and pulled slightly on the reigns to stay at his level. The king turned toward him, an inscrutable expression stretched over his tired features.

  “Pay attention, son,” he said in a reproachful tone. “I know it’s been a long, restless trip, but much more will be asked of us before the day is over. And what Baccus has to say you need to know and understand.”

  “Yes, father, I will,” Prince Hedgard replied, feeling ashamed to have succumbed to his own thoughts again.

  Despite his best efforts, he could still see with unsettling clarity the chair rising in the meeting room and hovering in the air for a few seconds before being ripped clean in half in a loud crash of splintered wood. That and what Master Baccus had explained to them during the previous day’s arduous ride still collided in his mind with everything he knew and had been taught.

  They had just passed the last of the large farms that spotted the fields surrounding Syndjya and were well out of ear shot at the head of the column when Master Baccus started his strange tale.

  “The world is trine,” he began.

  He hesitated before continuing, his reluctance to share what he knew with the king and his son plain on his face.

  “Three planes; or layers as we call them.”

  His eyes clouded strangely as he seemed to search for the right words. When he resumed talking his voice was distant and rose and fell to the rhythm of his horse’s trot.

  “The first layer of the world is the world that we all see and perceive. We call it the Movement Layer, because that is where we live and move and in the end the layer through which the other ones come into motion. The other two layers are not sensed or perceived under normal circumstances, though they do affect the Movement Layer if altered.

  “The second layer is, in a sense, the essence of the material world. We call it the Ground Layer, because it is the layer in which the world is truly grounded.

  “The third and last layer is best defined as the essence of life. It is of a different nature from the other layers and is called the Higher Layer. Those three layers are intimately connected and coexist at all times. Every being is made of them and, by nature, is trine.”

  “It sounds similar to the world described in the first proclamation of the Book of Hethens. The three levels of what is,” King Rhegard interrupted.

  “Yes, just like the Book of Hethens,” Master Baccus replied before going on.

  “So, we sense and feel the natural world through the Movement Layer, but the other two layers are out of our grasp, although they are an integral parts of us, more intimately so than I can adequately explain. But they are not readily accessible, which doesn’t mean that they are inaccessible. With practice, the proper guidance and time, one can slowly bring forth the Ground and Higher Layers into the realm of perception, or consciousness, depending on how one looks at it. The Higher Layer itself is much harder to access than the Ground Layer. It requires much more dedication and sensitivity to the subtle clues of its presence. I myself could never do much more than catch glimpses of it. Once the Ground or Higher Layers have become accessible, which sometimes take decades of training to accomplish, further techniques can be used to interact and, later, manipulate those layers.”

  Master Baccus turned to them and expectantly looked at King Rhegard and then at Prince Hedgard. His face was pained with the dubious look of someone who expected to be laughed at or ridiculed. When neither of them said a word and their faces showed nothing but intense attention, a flash of relief washed over his features and he went on.

  “That is what you witnessed this morning, my manipulating the Ground Layer, and the effect of such manipulation on the Movement Layer.”

  He let what he just said sink in for the length of a bend in the road, obviously trying to decide what to say next. The elites rode impassively ten feet from them, somehow managing to keep the distance between the trio and themselves constant despite the twists and turns of the road. If they heeded any of what the temple runner was saying, nothing in their posture or composure betrayed it. Looking at them, one would have thought that they were riding alone on a deserted road. Eventually the king grunted, something akin to disgust coming through his low growl.

  “Can you do to a person what you did to that chair?” he asked.

  “I can’t. The Higher Layer in living things is stronger, or sturdier, for lack of a better word, than the Ground Layer. But one potentially could by affecting the Higher Layer directly, though few can to such an extent.”

  The temple runner twisted at the waist in his saddle and took a peek at the column following them. The men rode in a more or less organized fashion in rows of three some thirty feet behind them. The standards of the Syndjya City Watch and the Alymphian Army could be seen flying on posts here and there above the long stretch of riders. Confident that they were far enough from the troops and that his voice was covered by the thundering of the horses, he went on.

  “Accessing those two layers and, to a much more dramatic extent, manipulating them is not a benign thing.”

  Once more the temple runner seemed to run out of words to describe what he had in mind, but this time King Rhegard filled in for him.

  “It takes, you said.”

  “Yes, yes. It does. It’s a reaction to the manipulation; the price to pay in a sense. The pull, we call it. The manipulation of the Other World is an exchange, a dramatic exchange that one cannot sustain on his own for very long. Just like moving one’s body during physical exercise makes one hungry for sustenance, so is the manipulation of the Other World taxing, but on a much deeper, fundamental level.”

  “The Other World? What is that?” the king asked.

  “Ah, Yes, sorry my king. That’s what we call the combination of the Ground and Higher layers. But, yes, the pull takes from you. It empties you somehow. The experience is hard to describe, but emptying is the closest thing I can think of.”

  Master Baccus had gone on for most of the day’s ride. At some point he detailed how using specific techniques, a word which meant nothing to Prince Hedgard, allowed a group of practitioners to share the burden that befell the practitioner dwelling in the Other World. From what Prince Hedgard understood, through those techniques a bond, maybe spiritual in nature, was formed and connected all the practitioners, enabling them to spread the pull. With time and practice, and if the group was large enough, th
e pull was spread to such an extent that not one practitioner felt the effect of it during access and use of the Other World.

  Prince Hedgard mostly kept quiet and tried his best to follow what the temple runner was saying. But it proved difficult to not let his thoughts run wild with each outlandish statement that came out of Master Baccus’s mouth. Despite his best efforts, his mind automatically foraged for reasons why what was being said was plainly false or just an impossibility, a reaction that was more emotional than anything in the face of what blatantly contradicted his knowledge and world-views, and which he seemed powerless to tame.

  Late that evening, after the column had stopped for the night and the camp had been set up in a large opening in the tree line, Master Baccus excused himself and went into the woods. Alone for a moment with his father, Prince Hedgard questioned him about the madness they learned that day.

  “Father, what do you make of all this insanity he talks about?” he asked.

  “What is, is,” the king simply replied without lifting his gaze from the flames of the freshly-started fire.

  “I know what we saw this morning, father, but what the temple runner talks about, layers, and pulls and links between people, that’s… impossible, isn’t it?”

  The king remained silent and did not reply.

  “Father,” the prince went on, his voice high and tight, “the Book of Hethens speaks of no such things.”

  He hesitated for an instant, peering intently at his father and trying to read his thoughts on the lines of his face.

  “I know that Master Baccus has been around for many years, but he is a stranger, isn’t he? Do we even know where he yields from? There is no record of the things he speaks of.”

  The nascent flames of the fire cracked and hissed slowly as they licked and danced over the greener branches. Their smoky babble punctuated the prince’s words, just like the low rumble of the troops setting up for the night in a wide circle around them somehow added to the pressing inflexions of his voice.

  “Are we to trust the words of a single man, a stranger at that, over the lessons of our fathers? Over the wisdom of our people, the knowledge of our sacred text, the word of our God? This is insanity!”

  “Listen, Hedgard,” the king finally said. “Things are as they are. What changes is what we experience. You’ve learned lessons from the court, they apply here as well. The smile of a man, his actions, his words sometimes are only a façade, his true intentions and heart might be, intentionally or not, hidden, driven by his wants, desires and fears, and even by your own expectations and misconceptions. You’ve seen that happen many times, right?”

  “Yes,” Prince Hedgard admitted after a moment.

  The king sat forward and plunged a stick into the fire. He rummaged through it, pushing outlying branches and sticks onto the flames at the center. Once satisfied with his work, he went on.

  “Most people don’t really know what really drives them. And for someone else to get to know of it takes time and effort, and luck as well, since only certain events and a person’s reaction to them reveals what that person really is. And so it goes for the world around us.”

  He set the stick aside and sat up, squatting on the tip of his toes, his tired features rolling to the hectic rhythm of the flames. He looked at his son across the smoky fire and saw little more than worry and confusion on his face.

  “Hedgard, we only know what we know,” he continued. “Never forget that. No more, no less. And so it is true of what our fathers knew, and of what the people who came before them knew. Even the Book of Hethens in all its wisdom and glory is but a drop in an infinite sea of knowledge. The world is a great mystery and any man that says that they know of it is a liar or a fool.”

  He shifted on his feet and tried to refocus his thoughts. He felt like he was confusing his son more than anything else. This was an important lesson that he was trying to teach him, although he knew that personal experience alone truly taught a man.

  “What I’m trying to say is that when something arises that challenges your knowledge and beliefs, do not be afraid of it. Think lengthily on it and do not let your emotions get in the way, or rather take them into consideration as simply another facet of the situation. Do not hold fast to things because they were taught to you by your elders, or because everyone around you believes in them, or simply because you are comfortable with them or you are attached to them. Remember that one only knows what one knows, and in the end it always is little in the grandness of what is. So in your reflections do not be afraid to let go of things. To gain a valid knowledge of the world you have to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct your perceived notions. And if you can truly be open and in that state carefully think things through unimpeded and, given what facts you know, follow what makes sense all the way to its ultimate conclusion, then what is should always appear to you as clearly as it can possibly at that moment.”

  The king noticed Master Baccus making his way around the clusters of soldiers sitting by their fires.

  “Never be afraid to doubt anything, son, yourself included,” he quickly added.

  Prince Hedgard hesitated for a second, the conflict playing in his mind plainly painted on his face. He eventually replied with a half-hearted nod and looked away into the quiet shadows of the forest surrounding them. King Rhegard exhaled slowly and waited for Master Baccus to come back. Shortly after, the company’s cook brought some grilled meat and vegetables and they ate in silence. Afterward, the camp grew quieter and they lay by the dying fire, unwilling to talk any further and too tired or preoccupied to sleep. A heavy blanket of uneasiness surreptitiously spread over them, and, it was with the sounds of the night echoing around them that they had waited for morning to come.

  A low rumble pulled Prince Hedgard from his thoughts. He looked away from Master Baccus. Up ahead, sheets of rain poured from the dark skies onto the slopes of the Great Barrier. The fabled mountain range now stretched across the horizon as far as the eyes could see and was mostly hidden from view by the threatening parterre of clouds that moved like ominous shadows low above the land. Thunder rang again in a rumbling that strangely echoed the arrhythmic claps of the horses’ hooves.

  “Hethens be good!” his father exclaimed as he eyed the skies up ahead.

  The king looked worried. It was bad enough that they were rushing toward Hethens-knew-what, but into a storm as well… This whole expedition was going from bad to worse at an accelerated pace.

  “So, Baccus, you can’t tell us anything of what awaits us?” the king asked, impatience creeping in his voice.

  “Not for sure, my king.” the temple runner replied. “As I said, I only sensed the disturbance in the Ground Layer during my morning meditations.”

  King Rhegard had spent most of the morning trying to get more information out of Master Baccus about whom or what was such a formidable threat to them all. But the temple runner avoided answering the king’s questions and kept diverting the conversation back to the layers and the atrocious things one could do by manipulating them. It was entirely possible that he did not have answers for the king, but his unwillingness to plainly address the questions suggested otherwise. Like his father, Prince Hedgard sensed that the temple runner was withholding something.

  “You are obviously afraid of whomever or whatever entered my kingdom, temple runner, so you must have some ideas about what we are to face,” the king pressed, a restrained tension modulating the inflexions of his words into slow, growl-like pulses.

  When the temple runner did not answer, King Rhegard’s almost shouted, his voice seething with anger.

  “Temple runner! Do not keep things from me anymore, do you hear me? I am your king and my patience is running thin. You have been good to the people of Syndjya, and you have earned my trust, but don’t think for one second that it in any way gives you immunity. You have already withheld much from me over the years.”

  The king’s voice hardened further.

  “But if doing so endang
ers my people…”

  He paused for a beat and Prince Hedgard thought of the two hundred men behind them, blindly following them into what might be the jaws of Cythra themselves.

  “Withhold anything further or lie to me and I will have you executed that instant,” the king finished between clenched teeth, ice in his voice.

  The king had not yet finished talking when the elite repositioned themselves smoothly around them. They shifted closer to both Master Baccus and the king and a palpable tension made itself felt. Prince Hedgard looked at the stern men riding at their side. Nothing in their postures or faces had changed, and yet he would have been a fool to deny that their intent had blatantly shifted. Prince Hedgard knew what the elites were capable of, but mostly from second hand accounts. In his experience they mostly stood reservedly behind the king at all times, their presence seldom noticed. It was the first time that he was experiencing their deadly intent and although he knew them to be sworn protectors of the royal family, their raw, visceral intensity and the undeniable muted threat they exuded sent chills down his back.

  “My king,” Master Baccus replied quietly, his eyes shifting quickly from one elite to the next, “I hope you know that I would never do a thing that would disrupt peace in Alymphia. All I can tell you is that what you ask of me, if it were to spread, would bring social unrest to the land.”

  “I do not care for your excuses,” the king thundered. “You will tell me all you know. Is that clear?”

  The circle of elites tightened around them. Prince Hedgard could see Master Baccus trying to decide how to proceed.

  “He’s considering defying father!” he realized horrified.