Chapter 042: Apocalypse Now

 

"In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain;

Smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again!

Free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,

Leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home.

It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone."

 

Scorched Earth - Van Der Graaf Generator

 

     It turned out that things only got harder the longer I went on. The second world I arrived in was based on the element of fire. Unlike the first world, which had contained more or less normal human beings, albeit with some peculiar cultural differences, the world of fire was totally alien to me. It took the form of a large cavern-like structure, in which there were roughly two elements to be found: matter, in the shape of the rocks that made up the caverns, and warmth or energy, which appeared in the shape of thousands of apparently sentient little flames. I say apparently sentient, for although I could not directly communicate with them, I was able to pick up a little bit of their psychic resonance. They were a happy and curious lot, and my appearance did not seem to cause any aprehension among them. On the contrary, they flocked to me and danced all over my body as if I were some interesting new kind of rock formation. The first time they came rushing towards me I was quite worried at getting burned to death, but fortunately I only noticed their presence as a comfortable glow of warmth all around me. Fiona informed me that she had switched me to `read only' to avoid any harm that might befall me.

     At first I just spent some time getting used to my new environment and enjoying the antics of the playful little flames. Of all creatures I could think of they came closest to young puppies, with exactly the same cuteness factor. Just like in the first world, however, there was some danger that threatened this world's existence. Large areas of rock were inexplicably growing darker and cooling down, and whenever a flame ventured into such a dark area it was immediately snuffed out. I tried to keep them away from the dangerous zones, but to no avail: they only seemed to notice the threat when it was already too late for them.

     As I wandered through the caverns I noticed that when I travelled in a certain direction the warmth seemed to increase. I had already asked Fi whether she had any idea what I had to look for in this world, but she could only tell me that it would be some kind of unique item that was bound to grab my attention as soon as I saw it. On a hunch I headed towards the area where it was warmer, the rocks around me glowing whiter and whiter with heat as I progressed and the little flames dancing and leading the way. Following my path I finally arrived in a large cavern with a pillar extending from floor to ceiling. The pillar was the brightest glowing of all and clearly the centre of this world. Large numbers of little flames, more than I had ever seen gathered together before, danced around the pillar in an intricate pattern, each alternately moving closer to the pillar, then moving further away from it.

     With some difficulty I managed to make my way towards the middle of the cavern in order to study the pillar more closely. It didn't take long for me to realise that the pillar was just radiating energy and that the flames used this energy to recharge themselves. Another part of the pillar's energy simply drifted off and was used to keep the matter of this world glowing with heat. I came to the conclusion that it was either the pillar itself or something inside it that was supplying all this energy. Studying the pillar some more I saw that it was far too regular to have been shaped by natural forces. Well, if it had been made by somebody, maybe it wasn't a solid pillar, so there might be a way to open it and peek inside. Carefully pushing some of the flames aside, I thought I could make out the seams of some kind of door. How to open it, though?

     As before I informed Fiona of my findings and asked her if she had a way to open the pillar.

     "No," she said, "but the whole world is one closed power system, and you're part of it. The whole place works with power or energy, so you just have to think in an energy way."

     Oh yes, that was very clear indeed! I decide to try and extract some energy from the pillar and contain it within myself. Bad idea! Immediately a feeling of extreme nausea swept over me, as if the energy was in same way tainted.

     "What do you think you're doing?" demanded Fiona. "You can't just start copying files like that! You know that we're dealing with Logrus power here; absorbing this kind of stuff is not a very bright idea."

     "Okay, okay," I said, "but what do you mean by thinking in an energy way?"

     "You have to direct it in the way of what you want to occur," she said testily in her teacher voice. "I should think that you would know by now, after all my lessons on Shadow manipulation."

     Ah, now I had at least something to go on. Again I extracted some energy from the pillar, but this time I tried to direct it towards the objective of opening the thing. It was indeed rather like working with Shadow stuff. The pillar clicked open and inside I saw a brightly glowing staff. Wait a minute. Sword and staff. Air and fire. Hmm, it wouldn't surprise me if the objects on the two other worlds turned out to be a cup and a disc.

     "Ehm, can I just grab hold of it, or should I do something first?" I asked Fiona. "Seeing as how you switched me to `read only' and such."

     "Well, it might be a good idea to redirect the staff's energy flow first, so that it forms a closed circuit," she said. "Then it will be safe enough for you to hold it."

     I didn't do what she said right away, though, for a horrible realisation had dawned on me. If I were to shut off the power of the staff from the surrounding world, the little flames would have no source to recharge themselves anymore, and they and everything in this world would die. This was even worse than in the first world, where I had merely destroyed an entire people's hope: this was genocide! Through my contact with her I could feel how Fiona was aware of my thoughts, and how she was waiting for me to resolve the matter. She didn't really push me in a certain direction, but I did get the feeling from her that she felt there was just one way open to me. Problem was, deep down inside I knew she was right: I simply had to have the staff, otherwise I would be stuck forever in this world. Not only that, but Fiona would also be stuck, and the whole scheme of getting Taureth and perhaps another child of Ornach to help me with the Curse would fall through. The thought that this world was already dying anyway should have helped, but it didn't.

     With pain in my heart for all those innocent little flame creatures, I shaped the flow of the staff just like Fiona had told me. Immediately the world around me grew a lot darker and a number of the flames started dying. The only thing that was still glowing brightly was the staff which I held firmly in my hand, and the remaining flames all hurled themselves towards me in a final attempt to draw some power from either me or the staff.

     "Get me out of here," I growled at Fiona, who wisely kept quiet. Again the world around me started to fade away, and this time my final sight was that of the last of the living flames dying out without ever knowing why.

     During the short transition to the next world I reflected on what I was doing here. Was I well on my way to becoming just as ruthless as most of my elder relatives? Was this nothing more than some stage every Amberite had to go through on his or her way to maturity? I wondered how strong the influence was of a single Amberite on the Shadow they're in. Could it be that what was happening to me here was only natural, that any Amberite's mere presence may have cataclysmic consequences for a Shadow? If that were the case I may already unwittingly have destroyed dozens of Shadows, just by passing through. The thought was too depressing to think upon for very long. No, I said to myself screwing up my resolve, whatever ordinarily the consequences are, this time you've got no choice. People depend on you and you more or less had an idea of what you were getting into. Just can all the philosophising for now and concentrate on getting out of here.

     This train of thought didn't occupy more than the span of a couple of seconds. Then I was delivered out of the darkness into the next world: the world of stone. Like the world of fire it was a cavern-like affair, but this time it didn't radiate with heat, but with colour. The beautifully swirling and glowing rock formations quite took my breath away at first, and that's why I didn't really notice the short squad figures until they inquiringly moved up to me. They were a dwarf-like race, all completely naked and each individual to my eye totally indiscernible from the other. Fortunately Fiona quickly fixed it so that I could communicate with them. They appeared very friendly, though a bit surprised at my appearance, and they offered me to join them for a meal... of stone. Apparently the whole world consisted of nothing else but them and stone, so their diet was pretty limited. I gracefully declined and just hoped that I would be able to finish my task here before I would begin to feel really hungry.

     Amiacably chatting with the dwarfs, I observed how they cultivated and harvested the stone with their bare hands, and how they then digested it as if it were candy. Through my conversations I learned that in this world there was also a danger that threatened the entire world: the dwarfs could only consume the colourful parts of stone, which according to them had its own specific taste per colour, but in more and more areas the stone was losing its colour, turning grey and dark and inedible. Also, the dwarfs that died and subsequently turned to stone didn't gain colour anymore like they used to, instead remaining grey and dull. Thus it seemed that the whole ecological balance of the world was shifting towards the extinction mark.

     Of course I asked the dwarfs what they were doing to avert this disaster, but they said they didn't know what to do yet: the king would decide what was best for them. At my request the took me to meet this king, through all the caverns and tunnels where I had to duck and crawl because of my unusual size. To me the king appeared to be just another dwarf, save for one thing: around his neck he had a chain of thin stone links with a round pendant of gleaming stone. Hmm, world of earth plus disc equals bingo! Fiona thought so as well, but there was little she could do to help me, so I was on my own (as always). I could of course just try to grab the disc and run, but having seen the dwarfs break stone with their bare hands I didn't think it would be that good an idea. This was a case of brains instead of brawn.

     Whilst keeping away from the topic of my strange appearance and my place of origin, I tried to find out more about the necklace. The king told me it was the symbol of this kingship, but in some way more than that: the king wore the necklace and the necklace could only be worn by the king. This was all common knowledge among the dwarfs, and therefore the king found it strange that I didn't know all this. When I asked him what would happen if the king were to die, he became quite confused. The king couldn't just die, that wouldn't be right! It turned out that when a king felt the end of his life drawing near, he would find the suitable candidate to succeed him and would hand over the necklace with a lot of ceremony an stuff. As to what the king's functions actually were, that too was a confusing question. The king just was. It was a ceremonial role that had to be filled, although the king did serve as some kind of general counsellor and wise man.

     The whole affair of the stone losing its colour and the imminent famine for the dwarf race was of course quite worrying to the king. He told me that some dwarfs that weren't meant to die yet were already turning to stone, and on top of that there seemed to be less and less offspring. The dwarfs all had one gender, and procreation was achieved by fission of individual dwarfs, which could only occur once in every lifetime. Normally dwarfs would procreate before turning to stone, but now dwarfs were dying without leaving any descendants. The king confessed that he hadn't found a solution to this problem yet.

     Since I now knew a little bit more about the whole situation, I cautiously tried to convince the king that I, as an outsider, might be able to help the dwarfs with their problems, but that I would need the necklace if I were to accomplish anything. The king was, however, quite shocked by the whole idea. No, of course he couldn't give me the necklace! I clearly wasn't the king! I tried reasoning with him, but he was adamant: only the king could have the necklace. Well, so much for reason.

     Frustrated by my apparent failure I decided to switch tactics. I looked deep in the kings eyes and quite easily made contact with his mind. Slowly I started working on him, trying to convince him that it was entirely right and fitting for him to hand the necklace over to me. This proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. The king had a very high natural resistance to these kind of suggestions, as his feelings were rooted in the deep concern for his people. I felt his bewilderment as he noticed what I was trying to do and his lips shaped to form the question "Why?". A pang of remorse shot through me, but I shrugged it away, tried to ignore it. It wouldn't help me now and I needed to go on. My need was easily as strong as the king's, and I realised that I could win this contest by forcefully suppressing all his feelings for his people. I didn't know what that would do to him, although I doubted that it would be anything good, but there were no two ways about it. In one quick move I crushed all those natural instincts of his, all his protective feelings, and with success: as his eyes glazes over he slowly removed the necklace and handed it over to me. I gratefully grabbed hold of it and put it around my own neck.

     Around us the dwarfs had erupted in a sort of panicked confusion. For the first time in their existence they didn't have a king anymore. They all milled around their former king who appeared to be quite senseless, not reacting to anything around him; some dwarfs shot me fearful glances. I sighed and once again feeling sick of myself I asked Fiona to take me to the next world. One more to go. The torture would nearly stop.

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