The Glow of the River

A story by Atanas P. Slavov

To Plamen Avramov: the artist, the philosopher, the unfaltering

I.

Denn Sirr felt quite odd when he first stepped on the dark-red flagstones. A living body seemed to breathe under his feet. The flags were hard and rough, true, yet they were giving off heat – not the warmth of the sun, another. It seemed to belong to the red stone, just like the silent road stretching among the trees.

"What wonder this?" Denn Sirr muttered and crouched to examine the flag. A sudden conviction smote him that this was old, really old...

More than thirty centuries ago, the obscure people of the Deinors had built this road to set out no one knew where or when, leaving almost no traces and no judgment of time. Thank heaven for the "almost" – it was what brought Denn Sirr here.

They told him that strange shapes flew over the road now and then, as if a man ran across, yet none were around; as if Deinors revived, wandered along the Road and returned to the Unknown Peace.

"Gobbledygook, the ancients reviving!" mumbled Denn Sirr. "Though perhaps truly ... nay, it’s flyans them ... flyans that is! Surely their shadows have flown over the road, and before you can look up..."

For thirty centuries this road had not been stomped on by human feet, not counting the curious. Yet the curious would not dare reach the end. That Denn Sirr knew for certain.

He’d dare. Hobbling slightly, higher and higher along the dark-red cutting, before him scuttling only his own, human shadow. The slope’s mild. No tiredness stirs in his scar-crossed body. The road disappears somewhere back. Curve after curve sinks into the thicket of the low violet trees. The gorges are bridged by the selfsame dark-red flags, hanging on living ropes of entwined lianas. Those suspension bridges are old but have not lost their endurance, magic has made the lianas immortal, given them strength to outlast the centuries.

Whiewww!

A fleeting shadow darted across the flags, and Denn Sirr shot a glance up, catching a glimpse of the flyan’s tail. A shameful quiver ran along his spine. All his surroundings seemed somehow unreal. As if a chance traveler had had a dream here and had left it behind, so that the passer-by would walk into its sticky cobwebs. Your direction’s unknown, there’s no-one around, only shadows scud by, the sole things that feel real...

They saw him off with disapproving eyes, but no one stopped him. Perhaps it was because the place was neither sacred nor sacrosanct; it was simply the custom that they pretended it didn’t exist. Or perhaps they were afraid of Denn Sirr – the tale of his deeds had reached these parts, too. Nobody could forget the Daerlin Uprising, yet who would believe the legendary victor to be a mere hunter in his woods? Neither struggling for power nor amassing wealth – a wild, absurd man. They sang songs about the single cut with which he decapitated Norchar Fearsome, Norchar Departed, yet didn’t his weakling of a son ascend to the throne right away?

People’s memory keeps everything, the hunter thought. Everything... Would we forget anything like the Daerlin Uprising? To them I’m no longer a man but ... I do not know myself – a god or a demon?

Sad reflections... Gone was the time when he took pride in his fame – he started noticing it made people afraid. A disturber of peace, an instigator of God’s wrath... Much later he found out it was Norchar himself who had seen to this fame, had spread it far beyond the borders of the Daerlin lands, where his royal power gave way to his impotence to capture Denn Sirr.

Shrewd treachery, treacherous shrewdness... You devised it well, Norchar Departed. It was not by a weapon you finished me off, but by fame! I laid you flat with one cut, but you stretched your vengeance through years. Just a month after the uprising did my sword reach you, a place on the throne I opened for your laddie, but the fame, the black notoriety you invented has not let go of me ever..."

Here he is, on the road of the Deinors, and who keeps him company? Only his shadow – limping like its master. Of course, you can’t say no-one understood you. Those talks with the sages from the Heavenly Woods, now they were pleasant, were they not? Yet which sage would leave the cloister of his wisdom? If only Zuron, Hock Hock, Krood Windeater were here... long gone, departed for their Unknown Peace, all those friends. Six years ran out like tears since that terrible moment when the Daerlin Uprising choked on its own blood. And Denn Sirr never stopped damning himself for letting that desperate, foredoomed battle take place, for agreeing to be the leader of those flawless men, for lying down, even though a catapult stone had deafened him, during those horrible seven hours, while his friends – an isle in the scattering peasant army – had been protecting him in a dense circle – until they sank into the Unknown Peace... Denn Sirr held the world godless – but when the memories resurged, he always wished to believe those men had not vanished completely.

At times he regretted he’d lived. He was running then, little as he looked like a man. And he dragged his body, turned into a single wound. He crawled to the Heavenly Woods on his own, and the sages took care of him. Healed his cuts, set his joints, knitted his bones – truly, his right leg healed up crooked... There he first saw the Deinors’ tunnels, cut into the cliffs. At first sight quite useless, but once you got to the middle, all of a sudden the images from the opposite opening rushed at you, extraordinarily clear. You could discern the faces of people many days’ travel from here, even the unimaginably distant Daerlin.

It seemed all good, living in the Heavenly Woods. Why did he have to leave it? Why was he wandering, from country to country, frightening everyone with his fame?

He was striding, head bent, lost in burdensome memories. Yet, gradually, he became aware of some change: as if the space around had broadened, the air had become more intense, charged with an invisible power. Denn Sirr looked up, stumbled over thin air and froze. He’d arrived.

The road ended with a round opening, crowned by a structure that looked like the gazebos from the coast of the Small South. Only the size... Eight pitch-black pillars joined into a ring some dozen man’s heights above the ground. They stood upon a low, broad, circular platform. So this was how the place called by the Deinors Talieshom Siboonaay Phimoyazolo’kaay looked.

In the Syltam Temple, under the hieroglyphs of the name, a translation was inscribed: "River that joins the times of all worlds". Denn Sirr walked up the three steps to the "gazebo". The pedestal was crossed by an arching trace of hieroglyphs. The hunter recognized some of them, but separated from the whole of the ancient text, they read lonesome and senseless. For three millennia already, these glyphs had been delivering their unintelligible message to its unknown recipient. An odd thought flitted through Denn Sirr’s mind: were not these signs similar to him, having lost his life meaning just as irreversibly in the past? He sighed, sat down and brushed his fingers against the smooth hollow of one of them. They seemed to have been scorched, not cut, into the strange black substance, neither stone, nor metal. Only now did he notice that nowhere, at the base or on the platform itself, was there even a trace of dust. As if someone kept up the place...

The Deinors had had many skills.


He leaned back on the black step against the pillar and sat still a long time, as if he wished to drink in the majestic power of the place. Only when the shadow of the pillar stroke his face did something recall him to reality, and there was not a trace of the former leader of the Daerlin Uprising there, there was only Denn Sirr. He felt hunger, and what he was waiting for had to happen deep into the night, during that drunken zenith of the second luminary when Zen would catch up with his moon Sebenus and the celestial castle would prove tight for their love...

Denn Sirr sprung up and slipped into the murky forest – so familiar, so like a home. All of his childhood linked him to the forest. The towns, which mercilessly squashed his mature years, used to look alien and distant like the starry sky to his young eyes. No, even the sky with its eternal circle seemed closer and easier to read. On dark nights, it showed the right way, set the times good for hunting, hinted when the chill would chase the tribe toward the warm dug-outs and the dried meat...

"Denn Sirr, tired Denn Sirr," he chanted hoarsely, as he slunk through the dense brushwood. "Silly tired Denn Sirr... Where have you flown, Denn Sirr, where will you land? Tired, old Denn Sirr..."


Where, where!... As far away from the homelands as possible, closer to the towns, to what – once you’ve crossed into maturity – you’d call your dream. Not understanding, at first, what its meaning is. Words will fail you in describing it, yet it will always seem close enough to make you slink through the brushwood of the shrewd life wisdom accumulated by your native tribe, through the spiteful power-craving of the town rulers, through the zealous self-absorption of the learned men. In those times when Denn Sirr was the chief of a tribe, his wife eloped. And then the whole tribe ran away; they could not understand where Denn Sirr was leading them. They knew their chief was strongest among them – no one could defeat him in a ritual duel. They only did not know he suffered a defeat any time he tried to wrestle with his dream. And so he kept obeying it.

One night, while he was sleeping, they all of them slipped away – along with their wives, children, yurts, without the tiniest noise. They left him only a knife, a tinder and a pair of warm furs. And, of course, the sacred chief’s staff. The hunter carved a haft for his knife out of it. And then – town after town. Now a farm-hand, now a servant for hire. Sheds, dug-outs, and most often the open sky, even closer and more familiar among the faceless town swarms, where no-one knew anyone. It was then that the hunter had his first true fear – of losing his face. Then he struck it lucky – they hired him a servant in the large Daerlin Library. (Really hilarious, that – he did not even know letters then. Yet his memory never failed him: he knew the location of each book on the shelves.)

The vain city world remained outside the thick walls of the library; eternity dwelled inside. There he felt safe for the first time. His position brought him together with the spiritual elite of the city. His passionate and unprejudiced mind quickly attracted the scholars’ attention. They started teaching him literacy, then arts and sciences. Some liked him, others were merely curious – "my, my, an ape that not only gibbers but makes sense of things". Some acted with an eye on the main chance, meaning to take the smart stout fellow as both a secretary and bodyguard.

"Taught me, they did..." Denn Sirr smiled. "And then chased me away. They were afraid, as they fear an ape that keeps struggling to see the world in his own way, and what’s more – remake it!"

They chased him away. He went back to the library, to the cramped room, smoked by tallow candles, with the same two furs and the vases of scrolls for furniture. Eternity came alive, like a slow, great river, and no one could tell how many years would pass unnoticed. Little by little, Denn Sirr began to make friends. He found company to share his vague dream with, to look for the right words for it; the dream was blooming into life, became distinct, brought him closer to those people. The historiographer Zuron; the painter Hock Hock; the musician Kroodem – Krood Windeater, Denn Sirr named him – so thin as if he fed on wind only. There were others, but these three became the best, true friends of Denn Sirr. They wondered sometimes – how could that be, we knew nothing of each other, and there, a savage hunter came from the blue – you wouldn’t so much as shoot a glance at him in the street – and all of a sudden, like an invisible knot, joined us into true friendship. And Denn Sirr wondered more: what was it that drew the sympathies of those learned, unattainably wise and noble people, could it be that they, too, resented the wretchedness of the world, they who had never known privation?

It was Zuron who first told him about the Deinors. Zuron was, for some reason, not concerned about those ancient texts, not quite texts in fact but accounts similar to opaque glass. But for Denn Sirr, anything that sparkled through the veil of the parables toppled over all notions of man and the world. And so he began digging deeper, ferreting out the tiniest clues, struggling to shed light on that which had sunk into oblivion three thousand years ago...

To an inexperienced eye even, it was obvious how much the narrators feared the marvelous, terrible and fascinating truth that stole into the legends of the Deinors. And in those obscure texts Denn Sirr found a kinship with the very same dream that worried him and forced him to live. And more, those stories awakened in him a perplexing sense of time passed – time that had not been but was still to come.

Who could tell how many years would pass unnoticed... Yet, through the dusty eternity of the library walls another time was slinking – alive and feverish. The calmness of the Daerlin lands grew ever more troubled, covered with cracks, like a weir of rotten planks. Something pressed against this weir, pressed toward the wide world and lo! – the wall toppled and, leading the great army, ? rabble armed and trained helter-skelter, Denn Sirr rides...

He slid his fingers along the cheekbone scar, then along the other – across the temple, and rested them at his left brow.

Not a face but a calendar; should you forget – the scars remember! This one from the first clash, that from the last, and the third a present from Norchar himself – there, in the vaults of the white castle. And he joked – "This is for you, Denn Sirr, a token of justice." You were wise, Norchar, yet you never suspected the depth of your wisdom...

Denn Sirr settled his account with the Daerlin feudal lord, for the scars and his friends and his dream alike. A settled account... But did that let him settle?

The hunter rose and put out the fire. He smiled – the memories saw him through another day. He stepped over the ashy, still warm circle and started back to Talieshom Siboonaay Phimoyazolo’kaay. The sun, having quietly lain down on the horizon, squeezed its last rays into the translucent tops of the trees. Pity Hock Hock wasn’t here, he’d capture all of this and bring it to life with his colored crayons. Had old Hock Hock not followed the young, not very clever Denn Sirr, had he not changed his favorite brush for a sword...

"Aaargh, no!" Denn Sirr swore at himself. "I’ve had enough! You can’t live the life of the dead!"

The red road of the Deinors and the mysterious black structure lay near. The tension in the air gave away their presence. And another one. The hunter halted and warily peered through the branches. The premonition had not lied to him – there was someone there.

A stranger.

He was sitting, propped against the pillar, just as Denn Sirr had been two hours ago. He was gazing somewhere far away, inexplicably calm and aloof. There was not the slightest tinge of menace about him but an air of mystery, depth, a secret. When Denn Sirr walked out in the open, the other saw him at once but did not change his position, merely turned his head and studied him carefully. It was only when Denn Sirr stopped three steps away from him that the stranger rose up.

For a while they stood and examined each other silently. It was impossible to tell where the man came from. Neither young nor old, handsome features, deep green eyes on an impassive face – where is he from? In what language should he address him? Or should he wait for the other to speak first? Yet, the stranger did not show the least intention to break the silence.

Finally Denn Sirr settled for the Small South pidgin, which was spoken by all merchants on the continent. His irritation had festered so much that instead of a greeting he threw out, "Whatcha think, we gonna stand like this much longer?"

The stranger smiled slightly and replied in the same pidgin, articulating the words unnaturally regularly. "Cannot say about you. I myself could."

Denn Sirr made himself smile, sat at the edge of the step and nodded toward the place beside him. The stranger followed suit. Then they fell silent again. Presently, Denn Sirr said, in a calm yet persistent voice, "You’ve come from far?"

"Yes."

The tone of the response spoke a clear reluctance to conversation, but the hunter did not give up. "You must be a merchant, if you know this language?"

The stranger gazed at his face deeply, and suddenly something changed. Warmth welled up in his eyes, and his voice, when he spoke, carried a favorable regard for his interlocutor. Denn Sirr decided he’d been recognized. And he himself had never seen this man...

"I know all languages," the stranger said.

"I envy you." Denn Sirr gave him an ironic look. "How d’you manage?"

"What is a language? Signs spoken aloud, and I have mastered signs long ago, Denn Sirr."

"What? You know me?!"

"I recognized you."

"I’ve never seen you," Denn Sirr raised an eyebrow.

"Yet you must have seen my sculptures."

Sculptures! Sculptures – signs! Denn Sirr suddenly found himself battling for breath.

"So you are..."

The other nodded and, impossibly quick, drew a symbol in the air – elegant, precise, its lines swiftly vanishing inward, upward, far away!... The symbol that adorned all marbles of Egranach.

Egranach the Sculptor!

A wave of fire and cold surged through Denn Sirr. He pressed his back against the pillar, taking comfort in its cool solidity. His voice came as a hoarse whisper. "Now ... that’s what I call an encounter! And to think how fervently I’d wanted to meet you, Egranach – until I lost all hope... What winds bring you here?"

"Fair," the sculptor smiled, a lightning across a stone-gray sky.

"Then ... you’ve been seeking this place, too? Do you know what’s going to happen here?"

Egranach nodded.

"What is it?!" The hunter almost rose in his excitement.

The sculptor gave him a curious look. "Do you not know?"

"Exactly, not."

"Then there’s a long explanation in store for me... Have you heard of the Deinors?"

"And how! I’ve read all there was in the Daerlin library. It isn’t much, I know, accounts of other accounts, at that... For is not the language of the Deinors obscure, and who could make it out? And then ... I was shown the tunnels in the Heavenly Woods..."

"Yes, I have seen them. Is that all?"

"That’s it. Well, of course I’ve been in the Syltam Temple, too, where the fools from the northern sect worship the Deinors as gods."

"Right," Egranach smiled again. "They do not lack in foolishness. Was it they who told you about this place? And probably no one provided you with a clear explanation?"

"They merely know nothing. And you must do – where from?"

"Have you heard of the Crystal Book?"

"But it doesn’t exist!"

The peculiar smile crossed Egranach’s face again, the vanguard of a host of subtle and indecipherable expressions.

"It does exist, Denn Sirr. I’ve read it. I couldn’t have, if it had not been for my acumen with signs. I’ve managed the language of the Deinors..."

Strange things were happening to Denn Sirr. The sense of a dream was upon him again. For was it not in a dream only that one accomplished his desires easily, each step became a victory, each question an answer? You dreamt of meeting Egranach – and not only did you meet him, he brought along the answers to secrets that had been torturing you all those years... It seemed like there was but one step left to the dream of the other, non-existent, wonderful...

Denn Sirr let out a deep sigh, looked at Egranach and smiled guiltily: had not he offended him with his silence? But the sculptor was silent himself, lost in thoughts, which flashed on his handsome face like the reflections of a fire on the cliffs around.

"Egranach!"

"Yes?"

"Still, where do you know me from?"

"I watched as they dragged you in chains across Daerlin."

"But that was six years ago! How did you recognize me? I barely looked like a human being... Those spears against my back – I walked, seeing nothing – my eyes were drowning in blood... My only wish was to lie down and die. Both legs broken ... and I crossed the whole city... Don’t know how myself."

He buried his face in his hands, and the old pain of the scars came alive under his fingers. Then he dropped his arms, tossed his head. "Enough, enough of that. And then, Egranach, what is there in the Crystal Book? Is it true that all knowledge of the Deinors lies therein?"

As if not having heard the question, Egranach stood up and stared at the halved sun disc. The sunset was afire, fusing weightless layers of many-colored glows toward the zenith, where a circle was lightening into shape – Zun, the first moon, the moon of the male element. The sculptor had taken shelter by the pillar, and his slender silhouette merged into the background of the setting sky like a fragment of the vast black structure. Without turning, he asked, "Why did you wish to meet me so fervently, Denn Sirr?"

The hunter felt embarrassed. All meet words seemed to have vanished somewhere. For a while, he was silent, gathering his thoughts, then he spoke. "I ... wished to get to know you, since we ... when my friends were still breathing and I could simply, painlessly say ‘we’ – we dearly loved your sculptures, Egranach. Of course, there’s not a single person who doesn’t, peasants and lords alike... You know that. But they meant a lot more to us, Egranach, they were a revelation, those symbols that helped us understand each other better, whenever words were lacking, or words were lacking in truths..."

Egranach was looking at him curiously. "And what did you find in them, Denn Sirr?"

"Motion! The very same motion we feel inside ourselves, but rendered so unimaginably vivid... It so happened that the love for your art brought us together. At the basis lay the desire ... how can I put it ... each one of us wished this all to become different – better, more complete, fairer. It seems every one of us wishes it, and for some reason the world only gets uglier... Then it was that the thought was born, a simple one: "it has been so" does not at all mean "it will be so". And you, without being present among us, already confirmed, convinced with your works: there is movement toward a new state, there is! We were learning to see with new eyes, see not just the present, but the possibilities for its change. That is why I was seeking you, I wished to know how could it be that such perfection was made by a human hand..."

He fell silent. In his mind’s eye, Erganach’s sculptures loomed, layer upon breath-taking layer. He had seen them at the top of solitary hills most often – ambiguous, coming alive at the slightest budge of the head, at each step forward or sideward, unfailingly touching everyone who’d glanced at them even by chance. Denn Sirr smiled – now, now, my soul has not turned to stone yet if the excitement returns at the mere memory of the hours spent before Egranach’s marbles.

"What power..." Egranach said slowly. "This very same, Denn Sirr. This very same longing for the ‘other’, for the next, as I’ve named it, state of the world. It was tossing within me, seared my inside, and I charged at solitary rocks, tore out the superfluous faces, and they looked at me ever more clearly, opened up like books that could already be read, but it was not enough for me. This is how it was, hunter Denn Sirr."

"You even know I’m of the hunters."

"I do, I can’t help it. Norchar told me."

"Who?" cried Denn Sirr dismayed.

"Norchar. Do not reach for your knife. I did not become an ally of your enemy just because I happened to stand next to him on the balcony of the white palace when they dragged you across Daerlin."

The sculptor’s gaze was calm and slightly mocking. Embarrassed, Denn Sirr removed his hand from the haft of the knife and laughed. "So this is where you’ve seen me. Keen eyes, too. How did you land by Norchar in the first place? Another fair wind?"

"A random one. Norchar had found out I was coming to Daerlin and sent an entire delegation my way. I was tired from the long journey and accepted the invitation; the nights were perilous then. It turned out Norchar needed sculptures for the new temple, and he offered me a high fee."

"Did you accept?"

"Of course not."

"You’ve denied Norchar’s offer and still breathe?!"

"I am Egranach," the sculptor answered evenly.

"Right, never mind that," Denn Sirr said hurriedly. "You’d started telling me about the Crystal Book..."

Egranach sat back down near him. "Talieshom Siboonaay Phimoyazolo’kaay," he said clearly. "Do you know the exact translation of this name?"

"River that joins the times of all—"

"No, this is the Syltam translation, a very approximate one. They have made an attempt to interpret the concepts of Zolo and Kaay, unsuccessfully. The exact translation is: Spring of the river that joins Zolo and Kaay."

Denn Sirr gave him a puzzled look.

"Zolo – this is our world and our time," Egranach explained.

"And Kaay – what does that mean?"

"Now you’ve put your finger... Here is where the words of our languages become inadequate, missing, in fact. One may put it thus: Kaay is everything."

"What ... ‘everything’?"

"There, you see? To say ‘everything’ amounts to saying nothing."

Egranach swept an arm around, as if encompassing everything – the gazebo, the trees, the horizon, the fading sunset – in his symbolic gesture. "The whole of our world and everything beyond its boundaries is part of Kaay. Kaay contains all possible worlds."

"In the language of the Heavenly Woods inhabitants, there is a concept for it..."

"Universe? The Deinors had it too. Kaay, however, is broader. The universe is infinite, yet it could be measured. Kaay is truly immeasurable. It contains all universes and all times, yet it is also as tangible as the world we know. If you were able to live in Kaay, all universes and all times would be open to your senses."

"You frighten me, Erganach."

"Do I? Why?"

"Well, if I get it right ... Kaay is somehow similar to the divine abode from the scriptures."

"And that similarity frightens you?"

"I’ve never had any need for gods!"

"And you cannot bear the thought that a supreme power exists somewhere, directing your destiny? I understand. The same fears haunted me as I first leafed through the pages of the Crystal Book. Then I would laugh for hours and hours. I imagined God – that miserable invention of priests, summoned to set in order our ignorant notions of the world – I imagined God inside Kaay. Do you know how pitiful He would look among the countless worlds, no two alike, each one holding its unique knowledge? Our wretched gods have taken such excruciating pains to create this world, and in Kaay you could make worlds a thousand times more complex. Would you rather choose to devote yourself to this tiny speckle amongst the multitude, to being its Supreme Power? I doubt it, Denn Sirr!"

Egranach lapsed into silence, froze within the instant of the unfinished speech, arms flung wide, as if he was truly embracing the universes of Kaay. The hunter watched him, hushed. Shivers were creeping toward his throat. Never had he imagined that a man, not a woman, could be so beautiful.

To make worlds...

To make your dream come true...

"And the Deinors found a way to ... Kaay?"

"They did. And left. They sailed away on the river that joins Zolo and Kaay."

"From here?!"

Egranach kept silent; the answer was obvious. Denn Sirr looked up. The ring crowning the pillars was still visible, a blacker black against the sky. Spring of the River...

"And what happened to them?"

"That we could not imagine," Egranach said, his old composure regained. "Pitiful words for power, perfection... Can they convey but a whit of what the Deinors became, and why should we strain our poor imagination at all? Very soon, we shall find out ourselves, we shall see, we shall hear, we shall be."

Denn Sirr reeled. He pressed his back against the pillar and stared at the disc of Zun, whose cold light showered upon them ever stronger. The last rays of the sunset faded off behind the horizon. Zun’s full moon, the "day inside night"... As Sebenus reaches the zenith and merges with Zun, so shall began... Shall began what? The sky shall open? The Staircase of the Gods shall rise from the ocean depths? Or it will simply happen, the ineffable?

"And what if I don’t wish to?"

"Can anyone force you?"

Denn Sirr felt embarrassed. Of course, it was hard to imagine this black Spring of the River would forcefully draw anyone into the world of perfection.

And how simple it was, how simple and frightening. The most horrid moments of the agonizing uprising had not stirred such a sense of indecision and confusion in Denn Sirr – it was fear then, plain, human fear. They all knew their options – struggle to the death or flight; and here – pure unpredictability. Now, on the other hand, a single step would grant what a thousand uprisings could not. Not for one man, not for two – for everyone. Was it not that an entire people had sailed away on this river...

"You can stay here, Denn Sirr," the sculptor said suddenly; Denn Sirr started and raised his eyes. "Something tells me though, you would not. Is it true?"

"I do not know."

"But I do! I know you already. You will not stop one step short of the other, which you have been seeking all your life. The inconceivability of Kaay will not frighten you away. You feel it inside, Denn Sirr!"

"Yes..." the hunter said softly, "you know me already..."

They silently gazed at each other, through each other, and their thoughts were similar. Presently Denn Sirr asked, "Erganach, how did they achieve this? How did they made up their minds, what were they, why no one before them... nor after them... They were not, after all, the most ancient of peoples."

"No, they were not. But it has nothing to do with age. They mastered reasoning with a power we can but dream of... But you must not learn this from another’s description. I’ve translated the introduction of the Crystal Book... It is a letter from the Deinor Emperor who ruled during the times of the Change. There, read it. We still have time."

Denn Sirr unfolded the soft scroll. On the dark texture of the parchment, the hieroglyphs glowed in soaring shapes – the sculptor’s writing was as swift-winged as his works...

II.

TO THE GREAT AND LIGHT-SHEDDING BUARGHU-ILIR WHOSE RULE ILLUMINATES THE LARGE SOUTH, THE CORAL CIRCLE ISLANDS, ALL VASSAL CITIES, AND THE WHOLE OF THE UNIVERSE.

FROM THE MIGHTY AND LUMINOUS DAAN SAMINIK WHOSE PRIDE SPREADS OVER THE HEAVENLY WOODS, THE NORTH SWORD PENINSULA, THE SILVERY FIELDS, ALL VASSAL CITIES, AND THE WHOLE OF THE UNIVERSE.

Effulgent brother! Forgive my disturbing the peace of your soul with this scroll of accounts, telling at length the occurrences, which have disrupted my demesne’s life and that of the entire Deinor people. I must bring this word to you.

Eleven days since, a messenger arrived from the North Sword Peninsula, bringing tidings unordinary and terrible, which upset the minds and the peace at my palace. He said that a peculiar light had brightened the second night of Zun’s full moon, and next, a radiant arrow a hundred men’s heights had bolted from the skies. I recalled, luminous Buarghu-Ilir, your words at our last meeting. You advised me then to restrain the curiosity of my heart, to refrain from yearning to fathom our world’s mysteries, to not seek other worlds in the sky around those far-flung suns that blink in the nocturnal chasm. Since it all is a mystery of the gods, and no mortal knows how to use it; and had we known, no good would have followed, for it is well-known that even divine favor is ruinous to mortals, and what is fair for the gods may become a fiery sword for the mortal. Thus ended our conversation, and I recalled it, as I hearkened the messenger’s words, and fear gripped my soul. Yet, it gave way to a different fear, when the High Priest Chieer-Iier entered, who had thoroughly questioned the messenger. It was Chieer-Iier who brought word to me that the arrow had been no divine portent, for it was of a substance and gave off cold. Then I knew human hands had created it – the choice of the gods would have been lightnings and light. I knew this as well, that my efforts to seek other worlds in the sky had not been in vain.

And great fear seized me: Mighty must have been the power of those who could find a way among stars. I commanded the army then...

Tearing himself away, Denn Sirr looked up from the manuscript. The glowing hieroglyphs were enthralling him. Something in their line diverged from the norm, and that added another meaning. Egranach had succeeded in embedding a second silhouette into the contours of the writing, a visual narration! And Denn Sirr began to see through the text...

...as if from a great height the rocky desert, drowned in the crimson of Sebenus, and Zun’s fine crescent... Closer, lower! Like a gigantic worm does the army of the Deinors crawl amidst the sparse stone pillars. Dust-clouds rise higher than the helms of the horsemen, higher than the heads of the Beasts – enormous lizards trained to work and do battle. The palanquin upon the back of the Emperor’s beast sways quietly, and inside, a muffled, strained discussion is taking place, loaded with fear and premonitions...

...and said the Priest of the priests unto me: "Are you not afraid, luminous Daan Saminik? That your eyes do not hold a droplet of fear disturbs my composure. I am aware of your objections: do we not have swift horses and mighty, invincible beasts, have we not mastered the secret of the Crystal, turning the sun rays into doom rays, do we not possess ballistae casting jars of undying fire—"

And I interposed him, "You have guessed my thoughts, Chieer-Iier, but so have I yours. You will say that there are limits to our power, that we may burn down any stronghold, strike down with crystalline rays the mightiest army, yet it is not within our powers to build an arrow a hundred man-heights that finds its way among stars. And that they who can do this are stronger than us. Hearken now what I shall tell you. My eyes hold not a droplet of fear, because I have been taught to conceal it. Yet there is not a droplet of valor in my heart, either. I fear those who inhabit that flying arrow – and perhaps not an arrow, a ship we should call it, as it treks on its own and finds its own way, rather than need to be shot from a bow. I fear to wage war with its makers, Chieer-Iier, yet I fear still more to let them roam free in the heart of our lands."

And the Priest of the priests sank in thought over what I had told him, radiant brother. Not a word passed between us for the rest of the way, each absorbed in his burdensome brooding.

We arrived with the sunrise and immediately took up positions. Strange was the sight of the arrow against the desert – alien and native at once. Long did we stay and for long did we stare at its marvelous shape, an embodiment of the very urge skywards. And not a trace of life there. We started discharging ballistae, and a circle of twenty paces around the arrow boiled into lava, but a brilliance wrapped round that bulk, and it hovered above. Then I saw that the sun is already high, so we opened the mirrors of the Crystals and poured eight beams all together at the armor of that superlunary visitor. They pierced it clean, yet it healed up like living skin right away. I enjoined that the number of Crystals increase, but my orders could not be obeyed, for the arrow delivered its countering strike.

Forgive, my effulgent brother, the meagerness of my words, the helplessness of my desire to recount the nonesuch. The arrow outlines blurred – thus does the sword vibrate once you release it from a fine bend-down. Then came the sound. Pray understand my words rightly, luminous Buarghu-Ilir. That sound wafted no harm. It was a glorious music, and gentle as well, which billowed around and we seemed to see its swelling and shrinking. The vault of heaven seemed to expand with the limber power of that sound. And it was not like the tunes with which our courtly musicians pamper our ears, obsequiously following the signs of our faces. No, the magical music from the arrow made everyone equal – the warriors, the slaves, me, their ruler! Aye, I know, such words reek of blasphemy to you, yet that is how it felt, radiant brother. And the music did not seek to chagrin us, it was simply above us. There we stood, frozen under the sun, listening, and we never noticed the instant in which the second strike started. At first it seemed as if statues appeared from thin air. Then I knew they were no statues, but how should I describe that to you? There were images akin to nothing, or rather, akin to any thing in the world. They emerged before each one of us in movements, complex and inexpressible, and the feelings of each brimmed to the top. Each of those images lasted a second. Still, they remained within us, as if a crystalline ray seared them onto the inside of our skulls. And I slowly resheathed my sword. Whirlwinds of that outlandish music raged in my ears, even though it had ceased, and it felt clear to all that we – soldiers and riders alike, beasts and priests, and I Daan Saminik – we were all wretched! And there was in my thoughts no loathing, no pride and no terror. I turned round and made for my beast, without a word. And, without an order, my soldiers removed their weapons, took apart the mirrors of the Crystals, re-arrayed in a column of route, and a mere hour later the brilliant arrow was sinking behind our backs into the haze of the horizon.

We were sitting with Chieer-Iier in the palanquin, gazing at each other, silent. His eyes flashed with reflections of those images, and I knew then: they were forever impressed on our memory. Each one of them held uncountable truths, and each turned my life into a helpless child’s lie before the gaze of a sage. Yes, I was wretched, luminous brother, and my pride was giving way in humility. If rabid dogs come at you in the forest, what would you do to keep from befouling your sword with their mongrel blood? You throw a handful of food to them, and they, oblivious of their loathing for you, fall upon it. I felt as if that was what they had done to us, with scorn and indifference they had thrown two handfuls of truths and illumination, just like the Age of the Gods, when two handfuls of heavenly nectar fed a hundred thousand starvelings.

And when we returned to the palace, to my quarters came Zun Senebus, a warrior and a friend, surpassing in wisdom many wise men. My illustrious father had chanced upon him, dying of thirst in the desert, fifteen years ago, when our army defeated Emperor Gobbetor’s. The wise warrior did not gladly talk about his past, but at that one time he broached an unusual and oppressive subject, and I came to know he had been the court poet of Gobbetor, that very same poet who bears the names of our two moons and whose poems and ballads we hold in such high esteem. And thus did Zun Senebera spoke unto me:

"I am leaving you, Daan Saminik. Do not allow ire into your heart, but hearken me, and you shall fathom my choice. Then, in the desert, when all turned around and set off back home, I strayed and went to the arrow. And I met there its captains, and tried to address them, and was answered. I shall not talk of what was said there, Daan Saminik, such an account will take long, and give little. Could you, then, put into words the evanescent sights with which the newcomers subdued us? Moreover, my time is short, for they shall take off soon, and I with them, too, Daan Saminik."

"You are no longer my friend and adviser," I told him. "Gladly take off, if you can forsake me in loneliness and agony, now when the lake of my soul is raving so! But tell me at least, why have they come here, why did they need to dazzle us with a handful of alms from their limitless trove of the spirit? Would, then, those who have richness indeed, and great wisdom, jibe the poor in spirit – for compared to them, we are such?" And I shared with him my parable with the rabid dogs in the forest.

Smiling sadly, Zun Sebenus answered:

"Perhaps you cannot imagine how glad your words make me, Daan Saminik. For I see that your soul has already been walking a different road. Hearken me till the end..."

And he told me that my canine fable was wrong. A weapon, it was a weapon that struck us. Not a weapon like ours, however, but their opposite.

"...So what do our weapons do with our enemies, Daan Saminik? Slash them apart, break them up to various simple, dead things – meat, blood and bones – and with each day they break even more, until they mix with the earth. That is what our weapons do. And theirs? Do they not make the ignorant enemy wiser, do they not instill goodness and sense into him, lift him enough to reveal before him the folly of his old path? Reckon, Daan Saminik, has anyone ever devised a more humane way to drive back his enemy?"

And more had Zun Sebenus to say.

"You are gravely mistaken, Daan Saminik, if you think I shall leave you alone. You have not freed yourself from your previous judgments, and you still deem that all but yourself is mere dust in the feet of eternity. Recall how many warriors felt the force of that weapon. It is impartial, and it affects everyone equally. True, you did live in a terrible loneliness, and so I bestowed my friendship to you. You no longer need me now, though. Now it is I who enter loneliness, Daan Saminik, since I will never grow to the truth that they wield as a toy!"

Answered I: "Why must you go, Zun Senebus, why do you give yourself to an onerous fate, to an exile in the unknown? Why do you not stay with us, to look for the new path together?"

Zun Sebenus laid his hands on my shoulders and said:

"You are still young, Daan Saminik, you’ve ascended the throne but a while ago and your soul is not poisoned yet by the crimes of authority. I, however, am old, and worse even – already broken. Those who have glorified my poems have been breaking me for a long time. With prizes and praise, Gobbetor wanted to wring from my soul that which had vanished from his. Yet stronger than the emperor’s did my soul prove. Then Gobbetor lured me with the fame of a great warrior – an army commander he made me. I’ve inherited the art of war from my ancestors, and I distinguished myself from the start. And at the start died the poet Zun Sebenus, friend mine, Daan Saminik! For I, the mad lover of life, murdered madly, and the death of my victims, combined with the malice of Gobbetor, made my soul ever sicker. Thus Gobbetor deceived himself, for he wished to make me his poet but made me his warrior only, Daan Saminik, though he knew that a bowstring must not be drawn overmuch – the steel doesn’t bear. And the night came, when the string of my soul snapped apart; I went to Gobbetor and began to insult him, in the hope he would doom me to death. And a vicious exchange started then, for Gobbetor spoke terrible and hideous words: that there is no kindness and friendship in life, that war is the end to each peace, and betrayal to each love. The emperor reminded me how my love left me, even though I had bequeathed her name to eternity in my poems. And he said that only among the animals one still found peace and affection and that people stood lower than animals, people, whom the gods once created as a pastime and later forgot. That my poetry was nothing more than a mask over the fear about riches and praises and fame. I retorted that his lips formed lies and that he was projecting his fears on me. I also reminded him Koldaarai’s words: ‘You shall not be cured from your diseases, projecting them on your neighbor.’ And I told him that people are changing, and it was that which made him afraid, and that was why he was trying to break those in whom the change took the most vivid shape. Gobbetor flew into a rage then, charged at me with a knife, but I parried the slash and the blade ended into his throat. I fled to the desert, not knowing the way, carrying no water or food on me. I was saved, as you well know, by your father. For good or ill fortune, I know not. Yet I hid my true face from him, too; I presented myself as a mere namesake of the great poet. I spoke the truth, in actual fact; the poet in me was long dead!"

Zun Sebenus fell silent, and I never spoke. We remained thus for a long time. Then he said: "Now I am leaving, Daan Saminik. I was most grievously hurt by the aliens’ weapon, for it brought the poet alive, the one who’d betrayed both his poetry and himself. I have no right to remain with you, I must redeem myself. And my loneliness among the aliens will be a punishment and redemption, since I must make many things there!"

I embraced him and wept for the first time since my childhood. "Go, Zen Sebenus!"

He turned to the door, but I, wishing to have him stay even one instant longer, asked: "Tell me one more thing, Zun Sebenus, why have they landed by us?"

"You are aware," the poet replied, "that occasionally a sea storm would steer one of our ships to an island whose people have never seen such a vessel. In fear they watch as the crew is repairing the mast. And when the ship sails away, they will all be recounting how the gods of the sea had been their brief guests..."

So he spoke, laughed and left my palace for good. His escort soon brought news to me that the celestial arrow had taken off, and with it Zun Sebenus.

What do you reckon, effulgent brother, why did they take along a poet and not an emperor?

For many days afterwards, I avoided the presence of people. I was roaming the corridors of the palace, for the first time aware of the burdensome symbols of power. I would pick up the instruments of the musicians, whom I had banished to the very last one, but the slender, limber sounds did not obey me, and that hurt me more. Yet, even if they had responded to me, could I have ever played that primary, flowing sound that keeps resounding in me to this very day? My hands clutched at the hammer and chisel and left clumsy marks on the marble. I did not, I could not understand why I failed to capture in stone the vast wave of images that was surging in me. I cast the tools aside and burst into tears – I, the ruler of the whole Universe, crying! Consider, Buargh-Ilir, is the Universe not amused by the way we are reigning with our titles?

Right, a hundred times right was Zun Sebenus: the unknown weapon had made us equal in strength and spiritual wisdom, and I met many others in my quest for expressing, on paper or metal, in stone or in sound, that newness which illumined the age’s dark horizon; and we came to know we should not simply wait for the luminary to rise but seek the paths toward it with all our might.

Radiant Buarghu-Ilir! I can picture your face as you read this scroll. I see dismay and rancor in it, yes I do: you are outraged by these my blasphemous words to you – ruler of the whole Universe. Forgive me, if I have sowed confusion in your soul, for I know it is well content with fate. Yet I believe you should hear about this from me, since sooner or later false tidings will reach you, and likely suggest to you that Daan Saminik has lost the light of his reason. And after such a surmise, another one follows inevitably: It would be wise to muster an army, and bring order to the Deinor lands. I sincerely advice you, resplendent Buarghu-Ilir, do not make a step that mistaken, for each order of yours would be an offence to our freedom...

III.


Denn Sirr raised his unseeing eyes and made to roll the scroll but stopped short. He glanced over the lines another time – the ancient world was not letting him go. They were slowly fading away, sinking into his memory, those hypnotizing hieroglyphs. He looked up at Zun – the sharp, cold light hit against his pupils and everything reassumed its solidity. The scroll rolled up on its own.

"Egranach! Has all of that happened for real? It’s hard to believe..."

Denn Sirr fell silent, as he saw that Sebenus had come up. How long he’d been sunk into that legend!

Legend?

"I had the same feeling at first," Egranach said. "Visitors from other stars, a weapon that subdues with wisdom... It is hard to accept all of that. Yet it has been, Denn Sirr! I am certain!"

The hunter kept silent, stroking the soft roll with coarse fingers. Pity he’d not come by this scroll a few years ago. Perhaps then he’d have made much fewer mistakes. Or ... he’d have made others? Why, here was only the first step toward the other, higher insight. To try to apply this first step to the world as it was now, to experiment with it on himself – who could tell the price of such a hurried attempt? He looked at Egranach. The sculptor reminded him somehow both of Daan Saminik and Zun Sebenus. And how not? Denn Sirr laughed. Was it not he who had drawn the hieroglyphs of those two?

Oh, sculptor, sculptor, you aren’t so dispassionate as you first seem! There’s vainglory in you, and ego. So much the better... It makes you look like a human being, not like a marble...

"Listen, Egranach ... here, take the scroll back."

"Why? Put it down, we need it no longer."

"Need it no longer? Right, true..."

"You wished to ask something."

"I did! What more did the Crystal Book say? About this, for instance," he slapped the black pillar.

"You see..." Egranach mused. "The Crystal Book is enormous. What more does it say? You’d better ask what it does not. To understand everything, one would have to read it for an entire lifetime, and not one person, either, but one people. Nor would the lifespan of a generation suffice. You’ve read the beginning only, and from there to this" – he, too, touched the pillar – "there are some thousand years. And the Crystal Book comprises three hundred and seventy folios, Denn Sirr. It took me two years, for a cursory scanning, at that. You asked me how the Deinors have attained the new insight. True, for them the Arrow set the beginning. But one can do without it as well. With its ‘weapon’, the Arrow has quickened their growth inconceivably... Since you’ve been in the Heavenly Woods, the phrase ‘course of history’ should be clear to you, should it not?"

"Yes, of course."

"So there, if we try to compare history to a chain of unbroken changes, we could suppose that all peoples sooner or later go through something like that. In a natural way. Only it takes an unthinkably long time. Solely the Deinors had this path shortened to hours compared to decades."

Denn Sirr clenched his fists till they hurt.

Egranach ... was he aware of the cruelty of his rightness? Like an echo of his words, the thoughts returned that had been tormenting Denn Sirr for so many years. He’d reached the insight about the mercilessly slow course of history along another track – his pondering over the tragic conclusion of the Daerlin Uprising. Was it not, then, the same tales of the Deinors and their life’s glorious beauty that once urged him to that uprising? Certainly, yes, it all would have happened without him as well, it was not out of weal that the peasants had risen against their lords. But it was he, Denn Sirr, who rode at the head! The Deinor path had lasted a paltry minute on the clock of eternity... And he had wished to succeed in less than a second. His dream turned out ruinous – it brought the meaning of his life but cost others’ lives. And that made it meaningless. And what then? He dragged into the uprising, into the eruption of hope those people who’d been withering in the grey murk of joyless existence for their whole lives. And brought them to ruin. He was short of the alien insight into the laws of the world that the Deinors had. The great music he’d tried to compose was based on re-echoes only. It was clear now why no good could have come out of it.

"And it didn’t," muttered the hunter.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing ... just nothing."

Denn Sirr looked once again at the pillars. There it was! The great insight, the great knowledge...

To make your dream come true, to change the world after new laws... A step into bliss. Just one step.

He recalled suddenly Egranach’s words, spoken less than an hour ago. "Would you rather choose to devote yourself to this tiny world, amongst the multitude..." They have stepped over, into the dream, the Deinor people; and he, Denn Sirr? Egranach? Egranach for one has made up his mind. Clearly, he no longer wished to be part of this world. And Denn Sirr, too, it seems he has not got much left – dead friends, lost hope, harrowing guilt – what could he cling to?

What indeed? You are lying, Denn Sirr! You’d have slashed at your throat long ago, had you not kept a piece of the dream! No, Egranach, we shall meet later in Kaay. The old scars itch still, the pain has not healed. Dead are the friends, but I’ve forgotten neither Kroodem’s songs nor Hock Hock’s pictures!

"What now, Denn Sirr?" – The hunter started and looked at the sculptor. – "Doubting, you are? I’d never think..."

"Nor should you, friend. It is not doubt. No doubt is it."

Egranach smiled understandingly.

How you understand everything, Egranach. You look through the surface – and make out the depth, and there is no obstacle to your wisdom? You see through the people, but do you see the people themselves?

He stood still, following Egranach with his gaze. The sculptor measured the clearing with his paces and there was no calmness in his movements.

"And your sculptures, Egranach?" asked the hunter all of a sudden.

"What about them? I have not sculpted for long. That was not an essential path – the essential path’s here!"

"Was sculpting an obstacle in your path, then?"

"All of this is already behind me, Denn Sirr!" Irritation crept into the voice of the sculptor. "I have further to go."

"And you refused Norchar’s wish for that reason."

"Yes, of course!"

"What do you think, why did the merciless tyrant forgive your refusal? He has never been known to forgive."

"I did already tell you: I’m Egranach."

"This is no answer! Why?!!"

The sculptor was silent, attentively gazing at Denn Sirr.

"Because he did not dare," the hunter said slowly. "Because if he’d slain you, a mutiny would have started, and brought the deaths not only of common people but also of nobles, sages, some of his courtiers even. Am I right?"

"Let’s suppose so," the sculptor said coldly.

"Am I right or not?!"

"You’re right!"

"You live still because of the people’s love, Egranach."

The sculptor burst into a soft, forced laughter. "Very well, Denn Sirr. I see your point perfectly. Yet, is it not too late to start such an argument? It is interesting indeed – I would gladly have a word about that, but there is no time. Understand – in only a few minutes the River will flow forth. And they will sail away who leave the landing stage on time."

He pointed at the double shadow that was crawling along the dais. The purple and blue had almost merged with the arch of hieroglyphs.

"Yes, of course," Denn Sirr muttered. "To you, an argument is words. An interesting argument..."

And us? the hunter finished in his mind. Do you find us human beings interesting? We are imperfect – you cannot find perfection among us, and to search for it together with us, you do not wish. To you, each doubt has a single name – fear. You aren’t afraid – you are wise. And what Norchar failed in – take you away from the world – you’ll accomplish yourself! All right, we’ll have an argument, Egranach. My time to pass into Kaay will come, too. And not alone, either! When was the next Moon Merging going to be? Eight years from now? There’s still time to attempt my dream once again!

The last words he’d spoken aloud. The sculptor started.

"Forgive me, Denn Sirr – there is something I did not tell you. I did not think it would matter. We are both very fortunate to be here precisely today. True, I knew about that and hurried as much as I could... The River flows forth for the last time today, Denn Sirr."

"How do you know?" the hunter asked in a hollow voice. Egranach’s words were no meaning yet – just a blow in his face.

"From the Crystal Book, of course. The law that governs the opening of the Spring is described there. It relates to something beyond our world, what exactly I did not understand, nor was there time to fathom it. The cycle is at its end. There shall be no more water in the spring, Denn Sirr..."

The rebel was still. It was as if the black pillars have toppled and buried him. If this was truly the last time – then Egranach was right – all doubt had but one name. He looked up. Zun and Sebenus had almost merged, the moons of the male and the female element; it takes eight years for Zun and Sebenus to catch up, doomed to be separated by ancient legends...

No, Zun Sebenus was right, Denn Sirr remembered, the alien weapon made us equal in strength and spiritual wisdom... illumined the dark horizon of the age; we saw that we should not merely wait for the luminary to rise but look for a path toward it ourselves!

There, Zun was already closing in a bluish embrace the Sebenus’s purple circle... And a new light burst into being, a soft glow, which started billowing in the middle of the black ring. The shadow that used to cover the arch of hieroglyphs winked away. There fell from the hazy light sphere a wide cone of rays, which made the whole platform shine with an impossible, black light! And upward ... upward flowed a thin line, straight at the sky. The River ... the Spring.


"This... is it?"

"It is... The River!" Egranach croaked, just as hoarsely.

They stepped back almost as one. The glow changed their surroundings beyond recognition. The hunter caught himself straining his ears, but the stillness was absolute, inhuman and dead. There was something impossible to endure in that soundlessness of the light. It seemed that the air could not ring, strained to the limit of intangible solidness; and the wind was still ruffling their hairs, only now the rustling of trees and the cries of the night creatures were gone. Perhaps those sounds died away at the bounds of the glow?

"I have never imagined it thus," Egranach said. Denn Sirr spun toward him, and so did the artist, and there they are, like that first moment of meeting, staring at each other, each illumined by the glow of the River, albeit on different sides, and again they are trying to peer through each other’s eyes, but they see just the blackness of pupils..

"So, Egranach," the hunter spoke. "There’s your River."

And saying no more, turned round and started along the road, treading on his long, jumping shadow. It was only at the first elbow that he halted and cast a final look at the Spring of the River. He thought he saw there – in the sculpture of light – the sign of a man, but soon the light went out, too.

"The happy have just grown in number," Denn Sirr mumbled. "Yet ... will you manage to be truly one of them, Egranach? Will you grow to the truth they were been born with?..."


* * *


Nothing changed for a long time. Then the dust started claiming its right – a fine layer covered the red stones, the immortal pillars and the ring, which never again knew light. The lianas supporting the suspension bridges grew their aerial rootlets together into an impassable thicket. And people stopped going there, out of curiosity even.

They were going around their world, which seethed, tossed, eased off, only to burst into the conflagrations of new human passions. The world lived, and somewhere deep inside, an old road was dying, leading to a strange and obscure creation.

Only occasionally the shadow of a flying beast would cross it, noiseless and insubstantial, poised to disappear, slipping, perhaps, into one of the countless crevices.


Print paper-version A4: OpenOffice / Word