Goodbye to the Last World

  True Authority can trigger these ill effects, but is more an exercise of the mind than of physical stamina. Willpower, focus. Commanding the elements takes a mental toll, and enough of it will cause the mage to simply pass out or, with too regular of practice, begin to lose his own sanity. This is why a mage must always, always know his limits.

  — From Secrets of Mani, by Sor the Lark

  (San’Hal 15, 997—Night Season)

  Oliver came with us in the end. It made the most sense. None of us wanted to put the life of a twelve-year-old boy on the line, but without a wind mage . . . it just wasn’t going to work. Oliver was the missing key to our puzzle. Even Rhidea agreed.

  So we welcomed on our sixth party member.

  We left the very next day. We prepared special packs to put our luggage in, which would be strapped onto the gliders themselves next to the passengers. We took three gliders, distributing the weight as evenly as possible: Oliver and me, Kaen and Mydia, Kymhar and Rhidea. We wouldn’t have divided it up quite that way, because of the discomfort of a female companion riding so close to a male companion, but it made the most sense since our gliders were of one common size. Plus, we would have a mage on board every glider in this case.

  We waved goodbye to Uncle Ben, helpful soul that he was, promising to send Oliver back safely. Rhidea had already explained to him that, while we would do everything in our power to keep him safe, we couldn’t guarantee that he would come back immediately.

  We leapt off the edge of the last world of the horizon and sailed toward the unknown. Oliver twisted in his harness underneath, taking one last look at the island that had been his home for his whole life. “Goodbye . . . Scathii,” he whispered. Then he looked forward, toward the somber sky that greeted us from the east. With a whoop, he said, “Yeah! I’m so excited!”

  I sighed. “It’s going to be a long ride, Oliver. Hang in there, okay?”

  I could tell he was grinning, even though I couldn’t see his mischievous face. “Oh, I’ll be fine. This is going to be so much fun.”

  As we coasted toward the first air disturbance of a heat tunnel, Oliver worked his wind magic and I got to see it close up for the first time. He caused the wind to swirl around us, sending us high into the sky along with the other two gliders behind us. The updraft kept us aloft for a while as we soared toward the next one.

  It was my turn to grin. “Yeah, you’re right, kid. This will be fun. Come on!”

  Rhidea’s glider followed us behind and to the right, while Kaen’s glider followed them, far enough below that I could see them by looking down. “Have you ever been flying in the dark?” I asked my companion.

  “Nope! I’ve been out in the Night Season a couple times, but not after dark. The auroras ought to give us enough light till we get there, if there really is a far shore. What if I can’t hold it, though?”

  “What if . . . ? You’d better be able to.” I was starting to think twice about how long this trip may take. “Well, kid, it all depends on how fast you can make us go. You said something about speed, right?”

  “Heheh! I sure did. Here, watch.” He wove the air around us so that it created a bolstering current that carried us along, faster and faster. Rhidea and the others got caught up in it as well.

  “Now that’s more like it. How far out have you been from the islands?”

  “This is probably about as far as I’ve ever been,” he replied. “I never wanted to scare my uncle too badly. Well . . . no, I just didn’t want to get lost.”

  I smiled at that. “Well, for now we’ve still got the stars to point our way. Let’s hurry. You keep an eye on the others to make sure they’re getting the tailwinds and updrafts and staying with us, okay?”

  “Roger that!”

  An hour passed by, and then another, and we were still flying away from the continent of Argent. “They’re still behind us, right?” I asked after a while, unable to see and unwilling to crane my head to look.

  “Yep! And we’re still making good speed. Wow, how far does this Sea go? Maybe it is endless, like they say.”

  “Don’t say that,” I grumbled. “Here, slow us down so we can talk to Rhidea and the others.”

  Oliver activated his Wind Authority, slowing our reckless speed and lining our glider up closer with Rhidea and Kymhar’s.

  “You two all right?” I shouted over the wind rushing past.

  Rhidea nodded, and Kymhar gave us a thumbs-up signal. “My Earth Authority stopped long ago, and I’ve felt nothing since!” Rhidea shouted back. “So we’re still a ways off!”

  Behind us, Kaen and Mydia caught up, hovering below us and to the left. “Lyn!” cried Mydia in a shrill voice. “How much longer!?”

  “We don’t really know!” Oliver yelled back in a comically squeaky voice. “Do you guys want to go even faster? I can do that!”

  “No thanks!” Kaen returned hurriedly. “Just keep the tailwinds steady, kid!”

  “I estimate that we’ve traveled nearly a hundred and fifty miles,” Rhidea shouted.

  We broke up as Oliver summoned another tailwind to propel us forward. I couldn’t believe it—one hundred and fifty miles . . . in two hours? Such speed. . . . I wasn’t about to doubt the mage’s calculations, approximate though they may be.

  It was perhaps another two hours before we saw it. Oliver spied it first and alerted me: a faint, hazy wall creeping up over the horizon. Even as we drew nearer, it was hard to make out in the fading aurora light, but whatever it was covered the skyline in an unmistakable way, separating sky from ashen sea.

  “Land,” I said in disbelief. “We’ve found it!”

  Oliver could hardly contain his excitement. To our right, I saw Kaen zipping up close, dragging a tired Mydia whose head hung on his shoulder. Kaen gave a nod. I could hardly make out his face in the dimness of the lighting.

  We glided closer to the new land as the details became clearer and clearer. My heart pounded inside my chest at the excitement. Stronger still was the feeling of relief at the knowledge that the whole trip was not a fool’s errand. Well, too early to speak yet . . .

  Oliver sped us up, using a large updraft to boost our height, and then dove at a long angle toward the coast. It was a large, rocky cliff that trailed all the way down to blend into the mists below, with some few hundred feet visible, just like on the other side. A silvery-white stone seemed to be its makeup, though it blended into silver near the lower portions. Something poked up all around the top edge, and as we came closer, I could make out large trees, their leaves glittering in the last light of the auroras. Massive trees, unlike any others I’d seen.

  “Uh, Oliver . . .”

  “I see them,” he said. “You’ll have to help me with the landing, Miss Lyn.”

  He leveled us out and guided the winds to bring us over the edge at a safe speed and altitude, in between two of the larger, more territorial trees. We were enough ahead of the others to catch our footing and turn to watch their approach. I took most of our initial weight upon landing. Oliver scrambled to unhook himself from the harness, stumbling over shaky feet, and got ready to help the others land in much the same way. Kaen and Mydia were next in line, three hundred yards off, two hundred . . . one hundred . . .

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  They swooped in, a frightened Mydia staring wide-eyed at the precipice with a mix of fear and longing, hair streaming everywhere. They came up fast, but Oliver used his Wind Authority to slow their speed to a manageable one. They alighted on the ground and then their footing faltered. I caught them both, holding them upright and helping them out of their connected harnesses. Lastly, Kymhar and Rhidea sailed in, coming in low to swoop upwards and land almost gracefully. I had never seen the assassin do anything ungracefully, and Rhidea’s gravity Authority was of the utmost help in such situations.

  Once everyone was safely ashore on the new land, we took stock of our surroundings. Unfortunately, it was almost completely dark here in the cover of the mighty trees. Their trunks were as thick as three or four large men, towering upwards and spreading a dense canopy of leaves that completely blocked the sky and barred the light of the auroras from piercing its depths.

  Rhidea sighed. “It’s going to be a long, strange night, my friends. We’ve left the sunset far behind, and there’s no way around this forest.”

  Only the fading glow of the auroras and the starry hosts remained to shine over the chasm, shimmering blue and green on the mists. I turned back to peer into the dark forest. The trees were giant but spread far apart, so that one could walk easily in the midst of them. “Well,” I said tiredly, “time for a light, then.” I summoned a small, careful flame in my hand and walked a short distance in, watching the flickering red light play off the craggy, silver-specked bark of the massive trees. “It feels . . . ancient here.”

  “Lyn . . . ?” Mydia’s voice had an edge of worry in it. “Please don’t go too far in yet. We don’t know what might be lurking in this terrible forest.”

  “We will have to scout it out and explore its secrets,” said Rhidea, “if we want to get through. I don’t think there’s going to be any getting around it. I had no idea that a giant, overgrown forest would block our way, but then of course . . . we had no idea what to expect, did we?”

  Kymhar was glancing furtively around the place, inspecting every little detail. He said nothing.

  Kaen came up and put a hand on my shoulder. “We did it.” He turned to look at the others. “We made it! We found the new land. Rhidea . . . I have to say I’m impressed. You were right. And Oliver, we couldn’t possibly have made it if not for your help.”

  “Mm-hmm!” The boy hopped around uncomfortably and then pointed into the woods parallel to the cliff. “I’ll, uh, be right back.” He disappeared, causing a smile to spring to my lips. A couple of the others disappeared for similar reasons, hopefully heeding Kaen’s warning to be careful and not wander too far.

  In a minute or two, everyone was back. I was still holding my flame for light, careful to not let it catch any of the surrounding forest on fire. Didn’t want to accidentally burn down this whole side of the world. . . .

  “So,” said Rhidea. “Should we proceed into the woods tonight or make camp and set out tomorrow?”

  I looked at Kaen and Kymhar, who shrugged. “Might as well make camp,” said the assassin. “But we should head out at cloudbreak. I will scout out the forest. I should be back in a half hour.” With that, he vanished into the forest.

  “Um . . .” Mydia pointed at where he’d disappeared. “Isn’t that a little . . . dangerous? Going off alone in the dark . . . ?”

  “Sure,” I said, “unless you’re Kymhar. He’ll be all right. That’s his specialty.”

  “But . . . how does he see in this?”

  “Someone with his amount of training has learned to use every sense of the body to gather data about his surroundings,” Kaen explained. “He’s been teaching me things here and there, but I’m not nearly as good as he is.”

  I helped Kaen to make camp, starting a fire with the same flame that I kept going. By this point I’d trained myself to be able to hold a flame all day without tiring myself out. Coaction was all about practice. We laid out our bedrolls while Mydia set about finding sticks to hang our cook pot. Soon, we had a stew going, made from dried vegetables, fruits and meats. The smell was sweet and enticing. Kymhar arrived just in time to eat, bringing a report of the surrounding forest.

  “The forest stretches on for miles and miles to either side as far as I can see,” he said, “like a barrier to the cliff from the rest of this continent. But it appears to stop a few miles in, from what I could see from the highest vantage around. The vegetation appears consistent in the woods that I explored, with unknown berries and nuts that may be edible. There’s a somewhat strong animal presence here, mostly herbivorous by the looks of the tracks I could find. Nothing too dangerous. And of course, no sign of human life.”

  Rhidea nodded. Mydia looked thoroughly impressed, and Oliver, incredulous, said, “You climbed a tree the whole way up?”

  Kymhar shot him one of his classic impassive stares. “Yes.”

  “And you could actually see through the dark?”

  “It’s not as completely dark once you break through the cover of the trees, boy. The auroras helped a bit. Besides, there’s . . . another source of light here. Another heavenly body lies in the east, like a dimmer, larger Sol. Blue. I . . . must confess, I don’t know what it is.”

  I felt a chill run down my spine. Another heavenly body . . .

  “Why didn’t we see this anomaly on our way here as we got closer?” Rhidea asked, ever the practical thinker.

  “It is in the far eastern sky right now, and may move with Sol or at a greater speed. I cannot say. But I theorize that it was hidden behind the cliff as we approached.”

  “And before that . . .” mused the mage. “It could have something to do with the angle, if indeed our world is round and not flat, as we suspect. On the other side of a sphere, one would see different sights, but only if those different sights never actually move much.”

  “Do you think . . . ?” I began. “Could—could that be the world we’ve been searching for?”

  Everyone grew silent at the prospect.

  Rhidea broke the silence. “We shall see tomorrow if and when we break free from this forest. This heavenly light will be more easily visible then.”

  We ate the stew—tasty stuff, I had to admit—and made our beds for the night. I fell asleep shortly after my head hit the ground. It didn’t matter that this terrain was uncomfortable, or that I was excited about our arrival here on the newly-discovered continent; my body was so exhausted that it just wanted to recharge.

  I awoke to sounds of movement. I opened my eyes to see Kymhar and Kaen up and about. Groaning, I arose from my bedroll and began to shake out my stiff limbs. Definitely not the most comfortable bed, but I’d slept on worse. But it was cold, just like most Sunless days. “Good morning, Kaen, Kymhar,” I mumbled. “Ugh, I hate the Night Season.”

  “I like the night,” Kymhar said in a quiet voice. He probably wasn’t trying to sound creepy as he said it. “More cover, less noisy humans running around.”

  I shook my head and chuckled to myself.

  Soon the others were up, and we ate some leftovers for breakfast while Kymhar and Kaen tore down the camp. Now for the big decision . . .

  “Oliver,” Rhidea asked. “Do you wish to continue on with us or depart to your homeland? You should understand that we seek another world. There is no telling what the dangers may be. We promised to protect you no matter what.”

  Oliver looked back at the faintly glittering mists of the Sea of Emptiness. “I . . . I want to go with you. I want to come.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He nodded with emphasis. “I wanted to see a new world. Why turn back just when I’ve gotten my first glimpse, ma’am?”

  She smiled faintly. “Then welcome aboard our merry band of lunatic travelers.”

  “Let’s stow the gliders here, then,” Kaen suggested. “Put them safely in a recognizable location, hopefully one we can remember and find once more if we need them.”

  Rhidea nodded. “Good plan. Let’s do it.”

  We stowed them right at the edge of the forest near an outcropping of the cliff that was fairly distinctive. Then Kaen and I took the lead through the forest, with me holding aloft my familiar flame while Kaen carried a burning torch. Together we lit up plenty of the forest to see by. The ground was littered with dead leaves, small sticks, nutshells and moss, old tree roots, and animal tracks. Birdcalls and sounds of wildlife mixed with the lonely moaning of the foreign wind that accompanied us. Unless that was just Oliver playing with us.

  We saw small animals darting here and there, up and down the trees. One larger beast, hopefully not carnivorous, crunched a stick as it disappeared before we could get a good glimpse of it. I really wanted to see what some of the animals here looked like, but in this darkness, there was never a good enough close-up view.

  We finally made our way out of the oversized forest and into a meadow dotted with smaller trees and thick brush and brambles. Some faint light shone just enough to see by, though it took some adjustment of the eyes to make out anything distant after all the darkness. And there, in the far sky on the eastern horizon, past the trees . . .

  It was like a giant version of Sol, as Kymhar had described. It was the size of both my hands held out at arms’ length. Glowing blue but dim enough to look at, it was most likely the source of the faint, blue light scattered about. It was . . . oddly shaped? Or lit as though from the bottom, with a small chunk having been eaten out of the top side by a celestial titan . . . I thought of where Sol was at the moment and realized that it could be an effect of the sun’s current angle.

  “I think . . .” Mydia spoke up, “I think Sol is . . . shining on it, just like on our world. See the really faint part at the top?”

  “Marvelous,” Rhidea whispered. “What a splendid sight. My friends, that is the world we seek, the one the writings call Gaea. That . . . is our goal.”

  Oliver’s jaw hung open. Kaen nodded dumbly.

  I just swallowed and said in a small voice, “Okay.”