EPILOGUE

THE STRANGE STORM THAT HAD SWEPT OVER ARIANUS ABATED as quickly as it had come up. There had never been a storm to equal it, not even on the continent of Drevlin, which was—or had been—subjected to severe storms on a nearly hourly basis. Some of the terrified inhabitants of the floating continents feared that the world was coming to an end, though the more rational among them—this included Limbeck Bolttightner—knew better.

“It is an environmental flux,” he said to Jarre, or rather what he assumed to be Jarre, but which was, in fact, a broom. He had broken his glasses during the storm. Jarre, used to this, moved the broom and took its place, without the nearsighted Limbeck knowing the difference. “An environmental flux, no doubt caused by the increased activity of the Kicksey-winsey, which has created a heating up of the atmosphere. I will call it Winsey-warming.”

Which he did, and made a speech about it that very night, to which no one listened, due to the fact that they were mopping up the water.

The ferocious storm winds threatened to cause considerable damage to the cities of the Mid Realms, particularly elven cities, which are large and densely populated. But at the height of the storm’s fury, human mysteriarchs—high-ranking wizards of the Seventh House—arrived and, with their magical ability to exert control over the natural elements, did much to protect the elves. Damage was kept to a minimum and injuries were minor. Most important, this unasked-for and unlooked-for aid did much to ease tensions between former bitter enemies.

The only building to suffer extensive damage in the storm was the Cathedral of the Albedo, the repository for the souls of the dead.

The Kenkari elves had formed the Cathedral of crystal, stone, and magic. Its crystal-paned dome protected an exotic garden of rare and beautiful plants, some purportedly dating back to pre-Sundering times—plants brought from a world whose very existence was now mostly forgotten. Inside this garden, the souls of elves of royal blood fluttered among the leaves and the fragrant roses.

Each elf, before he or she died, bequeathed the soul to the Kenkari, leaving it in the care of keeper elves, who were known as geir or weesham. The geir brought the soul, imprisoned in an ornate box, to the Cathedral, where the Kenkari set it loose among the other souls held in the garden. It was believed, among the elves, that these souls of the dead granted the gift of strength and wisdom gained in life to the living.

The ancient custom had been started by the holy elf-woman Krenka-Anris, the souls of her own dead sons having returned to save their mother from a dragon.

The Kenkari elves lived in the Cathedral, tending to the souls, accepting and releasing new souls into the garden. At least, that was what had been done in the past. When it became clear to the Kenkari that the elven emperor Agah’ran was having young elves murdered in order to obtain their souls to aid his corrupt rule, the Kenkari closed the Cathedral, forbade the acceptance of any more souls.

Agah’ran was overthrown by his son, Prince Rees’ahn, and the human rulers Stephen and Anne of Volkaran. The emperor fled and disappeared. The elves and humans formed an alliance. The peace was an uneasy one, its overseers working hard to keep it, constantly forced to put out fires, quell riots, rein in headstrong followers. So far, it was working.

But the Kenkari had no idea what to do. Their last instructions, given to them by the Keeper of the Soul, revealed to him by Krenka-Anris, was to keep the Cathedral closed. And so they did. Every day, the three Keepers—Soul, Book, and Door—approached the altar and asked for guidance.

They were told to wait.

And then came the storm.

The wind began rising unexpectedly around midday. Frightful-looking dark clouds formed in the skies above and below the Mid Realms, completely obscured Solarus. Day turned to night in an instant. All commerce ceased in the city. People ran out into the streets, staring nervously at the sky. Ships plying the air between isles sought safe haven as fast as they could, putting down in any harbor close by, which meant that elves were landing in human ports, humans seeking refuge in elven towns.

The winds continued to rise. The brittle hargast trees shattered and cracked. Flimsy buildings were flattened as if smashed by a giant fist. The strong fortresses of the humans shook and shuddered. It was said that even the Kir death monks, who pay little attention to what is transpiring in the world of the living, actually emerged from their monasteries, looked up at the sky, nodded gloomily to themselves in anticipation of the end.

In the Cathedral, the Keepers of the Soul, the Book, and the Door all gathered together before the altar of Krenka-Anris to pray.

Now the rain began, slanting from the dark clouds like spears thrown by a fearsome army. Hailstones large as the head of a soldier’s mace pelted the Cathedral’s glass dome.

“Krenka-Anris,” prayed Soul, “hear our—”

A cracking sound—loud and violent, like the blast of a pyrotechnic display—split the air. Door gasped. Book flinched. The Keeper of the Soul, shaken, halted in mid-prayer.

“The souls in the garden are highly agitated,” said the Keeper.

Though the souls themselves were not visible to the eye, the leaves of the trees trembled and quivered. Petals were shaken from the flowers.

Another crack, sharp, ominous.

“Thunder?” ventured the Keeper of the Door, forgetting—in his fear—that he was not to speak unless spoken to.

The Keeper of the Soul rose to his feet and looked through the crystal window into the garden. With an incoherent cry, he staggered backward, grasping at the altar for support. The other two hastened to his side.

“What is it?” Book asked, her voice nearly failing her.

“The ceiling!” Soul gasped, pointing. “It is starting to break!”

They could all see the crack now, a jagged line, slanting like lightning, cutting through the crystal dome. As they watched, the crack grew longer, wider. A piece of glass broke loose, fell into the garden with a crash.

“Krenka-Anris, save us!” Book whispered.

“I do not think we are the ones she is saving,” said the Keeper of the Soul. He was suddenly extremely calm. “Come. We must leave, seek shelter in the rooms underground. Quickly, now.” He left the altar, headed for the door. Book and Door hastened behind, practically tripping on his heels.

Behind them, they could hear the shattering of more falling glass, the splintering of the great trees sheltered beneath the dome.

The Keeper of the Soul rang the bell that called the Kenkari together for prayer—except that this time he called them together for action.

“The great dome is being split asunder,” he told his shocked followers. “There is nothing to be done to save it. This is the will of Krenka-Anris. We have been told to seek shelter. The matter is out of our hands. We have done what we could to help. Now we must pray.”

“What did we do to help?” the Keeper of the Door whispered to the Keeper of the Book as they hastened after Soul down the stairs leading to the underground chambers.

The Keeper of the Soul, overhearing, looked around with a smile. “We helped a lost man find a dog.”

The storm grew more and more fierce. All knew now that Arianus was doomed.

And then the tempest ended with the same suddenness with which it had begun. The dark clouds vanished, as if sucked through a gigantic open doorway. Solarus returned, dazzling the dazed elves with its bright light.

The Kenkari emerged from below ground to find the Cathedral completely and utterly destroyed. The crystal dome was shattered. The trees and flowers inside were cut to ribbons by shards of glass, buried beneath hailstones.

“The souls?” asked the Keeper of the Door, awed, stunned.

“Gone,” said the Keeper of the Book sadly.

“Free,” said the Keeper of the Soul.

APPENDIX I

Being a Concise History of the Seventh Gate, the Sundering, and the Tragic Downfall of the Sartan in the New Worlds

compiled by Alfred Montbank

Author’s Note: I wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of those Sartan who were witnesses to the events I have endeavored to record in this monograph. Their help and candor have been invaluable.

DROPS OF WATER

“We each have within ourselves the ability to shape our own destinies. That much we understand. But, more important, each of us has an equal ability to shape the destiny of the universe. Ah, that you find more difficult to believe. But I tell you it is so. You do not have to be the leader of the Council of Seven. You do not have to be elven king or human monarch or the head of a dwarven clan to have a significant impact on the world around you.

“In the vastness of the ocean, is any drop of water greater than another?

” ‘No,’ you answer, ‘and neither has a single drop the ability to cause a tidal wave.’

” ‘But,’ I argue, ‘if a single drop falls into the ocean, it creates ripples. And these ripples spread. And perhaps—who knows—these ripples may grow and swell and eventually break foaming upon the shore.’

“Like a drop in the vast ocean, each of us causes ripples as we move through our lives. The effects of whatever we do—insignificant as it may seem—spread out beyond us. We may never know what far-reaching impact even the simplest action might have on our fellow mortals. Thus we need to be conscious, all of the time, of our place in the ocean, of our place in the world, of our place among our fellow creatures.

“For if enough of us join forces, we can swell the tide of events—for good or for evil.”

The above is a portion of a speech made to the Council of Seven in the days just prior to the Sundering, shortly after the creation of the Seventh Gate. The speaker was an elder Sartan of great wisdom. His true Sartan name may not be given here, since he is still alive and I do not have his permission to reveal it. (His permission cannot be obtained, because he has tragically lost all memory of what he was.) We know him now as Zifnab.

In the remainder of the speech, the elder Sartan— who was formerly Councillor before Samah—goes on to argue passionately against the proposal to sunder the world. Many of the Council members who heard him that day remember being deeply moved by his speech, and more than a few were starting to waver in their decision.

The Head of the Council, Samah—having listened with cold politeness—spoke afterward. Samah portrayed in vivid detail the rising power of the Patryns, how they had taken over mensch kingdoms, how they were raising armies with the intent to conquer and overthrow the Sartan.

The Council members recall being elevated by the elder Sartan’s image of the world and terribly frightened by Samah’s. Needless to say, fear won out over what Samah termed “worthy but impractical idealism.” The Council voted to proceed with the Sundering, the capture and incarceration of their enemies.

THE CREATION

OF THE SEVENTH GATE

Were the Patryns actually plotting to conquer the world?

We have no way of knowing for certain, since—unlike the Sartan—no Patryns remain alive from that period in time. Knowing the nature of sentient beings, I think it quite probable that Samah had his counterpart on the Patryn side. We have some indication of this in the later portion of the elder Sartan’s speech, in which he refers to a now forgotten Patryn leader by name and urges the Council to consider negotiating with this person, rather than fighting.

Perhaps negotiation would have been impossible. Perhaps war between the two powerful forces was inevitable. Perhaps just as much or more destruction and suffering would have come from such a war as from the Sundering. Those are questions to which we will never know the answers.

Having made its decision, the Council was faced with a monumental task, the working of magicks the likes of which had never been seen before in the universe.

First, the Council created a headquarters, an actual structure with a physical presence in the world. This is the room I knew later as the Chamber of the Damned. Samah referred to this room as the Seventh Gate, after the plan proposed by himself for the re-creation of the world, a plan which would in later days be reduced to a meaningless litany.

The Earth was destroyed.

Four worlds were created out of the ruin. Worlds for ourselves and the mensch: Air, Fire, Stone, Water.

Four Gates connect each world to the other: Arianus to Pryan to Abarrach to Chelestra.

A house of correction was built for our enemies: the Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth is connected to the other worlds through the Fifth Gate: the Nexus.

The Sixth Gate is the center, permits entry: the Vortex.

And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.

The end was the beginning.

Once the Seventh Gate had physical existence, the Sartan gave it existence on a magical plane, making it a “well” similar to that constructed by the Patryns on Abri —a hole in the fabric of magic wherein the possibility exists that no possibilities exist.

When this magical slate had been wiped clean, so to speak, the Sartan were able to go in and imbue this chamber with the specific rune-magic necessary to bring about (1) the defeat and imprisonment of their enemies, (2) the salvation of those mensch considered worthy of saving, (3) the destruction of the world, (4) the building of four new worlds. A monstrous undertaking. But the Sartan were strong in magic and desperate in their fear. Creating the Seventh Gate took them many years of work, during which they lived in constant terror that the Patryns would discover them before they were ready to act.

Finally, however, the Seventh Gate was completed, its magic ready. The Sartan entered and discovered, to their astonishment and terror and chagrin, that they were not atone. A possibility existed that they had never before considered—they were not the masters of the universe. A power existed that was far greater than themselves.

BITTER WATER

How was this power manifested? How did the Sartan discover it? I could not find a single Sartan willing to discuss the experience, which each described as soul-shattering. Based on my own experience the first time I entered the Chamber of the Damned, I must conclude that the perceptions of the higher power are varied and highly personal. In my own case, I felt, for the first time in my life, loved and accepted, at peace with myself. But I gather that, for other Sartan, the revelations were not so pleasant.

(Certainly, it was—as Haplo has suggested—this very same force that drove the Sartan on Pryan out of their protected fortress-citadels and into the jungles, which they had created, but for which they refused to accept responsibility. I will return to this event later in the text.)

Unfortunately, the knowledge that a power existed in the universe greater than his own did not deter Samah from his plans. Rather, it fed his fear. What if the Patryns discovered this power? Could they somehow tap into it? Perhaps they already had! Samah and the Council members and the majority of the Sartan gave in to their fear. The drops of bitter water swelled to form a wave of terrible force and power, which crashed down on the world.

Those Sartan like Zifnab who protested against the Council’s decision, who refused to join it, were considered traitors. In order to keep such treachery from contaminating and weakening the magic of the Seventh Gate, these traitor Sartan were rounded up and sent into the Labyrinth along with the Patryns.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE PATRYNS

One might think that the capture and incarceration of the Patryns would have proved extremely difficult, provoking magical battles of the most tremendous magnitude. That the Sartan were afraid of this very outcome is witnessed by the fact that they created magical weapons such as the Cursed Blade and armed and trained the mensch to fight for the Sartan “cause.”

But, in the end, according to the Sartan with whom I spoke, the capture of the Patryns was relatively simple, made so by the very nature of the Patryns themselves.

Unlike the gregarious Sartan, the Patryns tended to be loners, living for the most part by themselves or in small family groups. They were a selfish, haughty, proud people, having little compassion even for each other, no compassion for anyone else. Such were their jealousies and rivalries that they found it impossible to unite, even against a common foe. (This was one reason they preferred to live among the mensch, whom they could intimidate and control.) Thus, the Patryns were picked off one by one, easy prey for the united forces of the Sartan.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The elder Sartan whom we now know as Zifnab refused to leave the world. When the Sartan guards (of whom Ramu was one) came to arrest him, the old Sartan could not be found. He had been tipped off, forewarned. (Was it Orlah who warned him? She never said, but I often wonder.) The Sartan searched for him. To give them credit, they did not want any of their number to face the horror of what they knew was coming. But he eluded them. He remained in the world and witnessed the Sundering.

The sight drove him mad, and he would undoubtedly have perished, but he made his way—somehow—to the Vortex and from there entered the Labyrinth. How he managed this is not known, for Zifnab himself has no memory of it. The dragons of Pryan—the manifestation of the higher power in its form for good—might have had something to do with his rescue, but, if so, they refuse to discuss it.

The remaining Sartan removed those mensch deemed worthy to repopulate the new worlds, took them to a safe place (the Vortex). The Sartan then shut themselves up in the Seventh Gate and worked the magic. (I will not go into that here. You will find a description of what I saw and experienced when I was magically transported back to that time in Haplo’s more extensive notes on the subject, compiled under the title The Seventh Gate.)

THE END

OF THE BEGINNING

Once the Sundering was complete and the new worlds were created, the Sartan—those who had survived the horrific forces they had themselves unleashed—were sent out to begin new lives in new worlds. They took the mensch with them, intending to shepherd them like flocks of sheep.

Samah and the Council members chose Chelestra as their base of operation. At this point, Samah should have destroyed the Seventh Gate. (I believe that he had actually been directed by the Council to do so and that, in leaving the Gate intact, he directly disobeyed Council commands. I have no proof of this, however. The Council members to whom I spoke were all very evasive on the subject. They are still intent on honoring Samah’s memory. Ah, well, he was not an evil man, merely a frightened one.)

I think it likely that Samah intended to destroy the Seventh Gate, but that circumstances combined to convince him that he should leave it open. He almost immediately ran into trouble in his new world. Events strange and unforeseen were happening—events over which the Sartan had no control.

THE SERPENTS

The seawater of Chelestra turned out to have a devastating effect on Sartan magic, rendering it useless, themselves powerless. The Sartan were baffled. They had certainly not created such a magic-nullifying ocean. Who had? And how and why?

But this was not the worst.

The tremendous magical eruption had upset the delicate balance of creation—what the dwarves on Chelestra would later come to refer to as “the Wave.” Think of the Wave as the sea on a calm day, the waves flowing in to shore, one after the other, falling and rising, falling and rising. Now, imagine a tidal wave—a wave out of control, rising and rising and rising. The wave would naturally seek to correct itself and, in this instance, it did so. The evil that had always existed in the world prior to the Sundering had now gained the power to take on physical shape and form. Evil was manifested in the serpents or dragon-snakes.

The serpents followed Samah to Chelestra, hoping, undoubtedly, to learn more about the new world in which they suddenly found themselves. They knew of the existence of Death’s Gate, but not how it worked. They could enter it only if the Sartan opened it for them. Perhaps they were also searching for the Seventh Gate, although that is conjecture. At any rate, their appearance was another bitter shock for the Sartan, who couldn’t imagine how such loathsome creatures came into existence. Alas, it was the Sartan themselves who brought them into being.

They told Samah, “You created us,” and, in a sense, he did. We all did. We all do, through fear and hatred and intolerance.

But I digress.

THE GOOD DRAGONS OF PRYAN

Fortunately for the mensch and the Sartan—although they couldn’t know it at the time—the Wave continued to try to correct itself. The evil of the dragon-snakes was balanced by good manifesting itself in the form of the dragons of Pryan. If Death’s Gate had remained open, as was intended, the evil and the good would have balanced each other out—the Wave would have succeeded in correcting itself.

But, again, fear ruled Samah’s life. Afraid of the dragon-snakes, and now afraid of the mensch—whose slight magical powers were not affected by the seawater —Samah sent out calls to other Sartan on other worlds, asking them to come to his aid, to fight and subdue these new foes.

His calls were never answered, or at least that is what Samah told his people. According to Orlah, Samah’s wife, the calls were answered. The Sartan on the other worlds told Samah that they were powerless to come to his aid because they themselves were in serious trouble. Samah lied to spare his people—some of whom had relatives and friends in these other worlds—the terrible truth. The grand design was beginning to shatter.

SHUTTING DEATH’S GATE

According to Orlah, at this point in time, Samah was baffled, angry. He had lost control of events and he had no idea how or why. The plan should have worked. It had all been so logical, rational. He laid blame on the mensch. He laid blame on weak Sartan. But that did not solve his immediate problem.

If the serpents attacked the Chalice—the Sartan’s home base—the Sartan had no way to defend themselves. All the serpents had to do was toss a bucket of magic-nullifying water on the Sartan and they were finished. The mensch were quarreling among themselves, blaming the Sartan for the appearance of the serpents. Worse, the mensch had seen the Sartan humbled, chastened, routed by the serpents. Samah sent the mensch away from the Chalice, sent them out into the sea to find their own way in the world.

Some might consider this an appalling act. After all, Samah might well have been sending the mensch into the toothless maws of the serpents. But according to Orlah, Samah guessed—rightly—that the serpents were not interested in the mensch. Their main goal was to enter Death’s Gate, and to do that they had to rely on the Sartan.

Fearing that the evil serpents would spread from Chelestra into the other three worlds, Samah felt he had no recourse but to shut Death’s Gate. He should have destroyed the Seventh Gate at this time, but he thought that perhaps its powerful magic might once again be needed. He cast the Seventh Gate into oblivion.

Once this was accomplished, Samah and his people sent themselves into a stasis sleep, planning to wake up in a hundred years. By that time, Samah reasoned, matters would have stabilized on the other worlds. The Kicksey-winsey would be up and running, the citadels in operation. When he awoke, life would be better.

Such was not the case.

THE SERPENTS FROZEN

Again I find an example of the Wave correcting itself. Due to the fact that Sartan magic had no effect on the ocean of Chelestra, its sun remained unstable. The sun was supposed to be locked into position in the center of the water world, warming the inside of the globe, leaving the outer portion a shell of ice. But the sun could not be constrained and so it wandered, drifting slowly through the water, warming parts of that world, while the rest remained locked in ice.

When the Sartan first moved onto Chelestra, the sun warmed their portion of that world—a part known as the Chalice. (For a more complete description, refer to the volume Haplo called—over my objections—Serpent Mage.) But as time passed and the Sartan slept on, the sun began to drift away.

The evil serpents saw their doom too late. Unable to flee through Death’s Gate and unwilling to leave the Sartan in case they woke up, the serpents waited too long to escape. When the sun wandered off, the serpents did not follow it and so were frozen in the icebound ocean.

The Wave was almost back to normal. The good serpents on Pryan, so as not to disturb the balance, went underground, doing what they could to avoid contact with the mensch and the Sartan.

THE WAVE ROLLS ON Arianus

Time passed while the Sartan slumbered. Samah’s glorious vision of four worlds interconnected, working together, failed to materialize. The Sartan population dwindled. The numbers of mensch—who were now thriving on the new worlds (with the exception of Abarrach)—increased. Their populations grew too large for the few remaining Sartan to control. The Sartan retreated, hoping to fall back and regroup, waiting all the while for contact with their brethren on the other worlds—contact that would never come.

On Arianus, the great Kicksey-winsey went to work, but it lacked direction. The mensch had no idea what it was supposed to do. The Sartan left directions for the operation of the Kicksey-winsey with the Kenkari elves —a race the Sartan considered most trustworthy.

But the elves on Arianus were divided among themselves in a bitter power struggle. And all the elves feared and detested the humans, who in turn had no use for the elves. The Kenkari, reading the book on the Kicksey-winsey, realized that the machine would bring the lands of the elves and the humans together, that the dwarves would have control over the machine. This the elves deemed intolerable. The Kenkari hid the book in the libraries of the Cathedral of the Albedo, where it lay forgotten for many centuries.

After turning over the book, the Sartan on Arianus went into hiding in tunnels they had built underground. They sent their young people into stasis sleep, hoping again that when they woke up, things would have improved. Unfortunately, most of the young Sartan on Arianus died in that sleep. (I think it is likely that these mysterious deaths were due to the practice of necromancy on Abarrach, for so it is written that when one life is restored untimely another dies untimely. This is speculation, however. Hopefully, my theory will never be proved!)

Pryan

The Sartan on Pryan lived in the citadels with the mensch whom they had brought to this world. The Sartan ran the star chambers, which were designed to work with the Kicksey-winsey to beam energy to the other worlds. The Sartan were endeavoring to make the star chambers work, and were also trying to control the mensch, whose numbers were rapidly increasing.

Cooped up in the citadels, the mensch races began to fight among themselves. The Sartan, considering the mensch as annoying as quarrelsome children, treated them as such. Instead of working with the mensch to negotiate their problems, the Sartan created “nursemaids.” Thus were born the tytans—fearsome giants who were meant to operate the star chambers (should they ever start functioning!) and serve as nannies to the mensch. Acting out of fear and blind prejudice, the Sartan made matters worse instead of better. The tytans proved too powerful a creation; they turned on their creators.

How or why the Sartan on Pryan came into contact with the higher power is open to conjecture. On his visit to Pryan, Haplo entered one of the citadels and there discovered a room that he describes as an almost exact replica of the Seventh Gate. I can only assume that the Sartan on Pryan constructed what might be called a miniature Seventh Gate, perhaps in the hope of reestablishing communication with their brethren on other worlds or even in a desperate attempt to reopen Death’s Gate.

The Sartan on Pryan claimed that they were forced by this higher power to leave the citadels. I think it more likely that they found it easier to flee their problems than to seek solutions. They laid the blame conveniently on the higher power, rather than on where it belonged —on themselves.

Abarrach

As for the Sartan on Abarrach, their situation was the most desperate of all. The mensch they had brought to Abarrach had almost all died due to the poisonous atmosphere. The Sartan were faced with the knowledge that unless help came soon, they were doomed as well. It was a group of Sartan on Abarrach who, seeking to regain contact with their lost brethren, stumbled on to the Seventh Gate.

The Sartan knew they had found a tremendous source of power, but—having lost much of their ability to perform Sartan magic—they had no idea what it was they had discovered. These Sartan came closest of all who had gone before to understanding the higher power. But their own evil—brought about by greed for power, exacerbated by the heinous practice of necromancy—proved their downfall. Violence entered the sacred chamber and all within were destroyed.

Appalled, terrified, the Sartan who survived inscribed runes of warding on what was now called the Chamber of the Damned. No one dared enter it, and eventually, all knowledge of the location of the Seventh Gate was lost.

The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth had become a prison house of horrors. According to Orlah, Samah had intended that the Sartan serve as wardens of this prison, monitoring it as well as their prisoners’ progress toward rehabilitation. When the Sartan lost control of their own lives, they could not hope to control the Labyrinth. The dark magic of the Labyrinth fed off the Sartan’s hatred and fear. It turned deadly. And from the Labyrinth, born of hatred, came Lord Xar.

XAR, LORD OF THE NEXUS

The history of Xar’s early life is unknown, but certainly it must have been similar to the countless histories of those Patryns who were born in that dreadful prison. Xar is different in that he was the first Patryn [1] to escape the Labyrinth, to fight his way out through the Final Gate. He was the first Patryn to see the Nexus.

To give Xar credit, he worked unselfishly, often in dire peril of his own life, to save his fellow Patryns from the Labyrinth. It is no wonder that, to this day, the lord’s memory is still honored among them.

Xar’s ambition was his downfall. He was not content to lead his people, but on discovering that four worlds existed, sought to rule them as well. He learned how to open Death’s Gate—not completely, only a crack. But this was enough. He was able to enter, and this brought about catastrophic change. Xar’s rise to power caused the Wave to shift out of balance.

Death’s Gate opened. The first Patryn, Haplo, left the Nexus, entered Arianus. At the same time, Chelestra’s sun floated back around to the Chalice. The warmth caused the ice to melt, freeing the serpents. The

1 I make the distinction—first Patryn—because the Sartan known as Zifhab apparently managed to escape the Labyrinth and enter the Nexus. He claims to have written a targe portion of the manuscripts and books which Xar found in the Nexus. These works are mostly lost to us now, having been destroyed in the fire set by the serpents—one reason that Haplo and I are working to replace them.

No one (including Zifnab himself!) is quite certain how he managed to leave the Nexus. During his more lucid moments, he claims that the good dragons of Pryan traveled to the Nexus and found him there. Impressed with his abilities as a great and powerful wizard, they turned to him for leadership and guidance.

The dragons of Pryan tell quite a different story, one which I refrain from repeating, since it might unnecessarily hurt the old man’s feelings.

knowledge that their cousins were awake caused the good dragons of Pryan to come out of hiding. These events, occurring simultaneously, might be taken as coincidence. I prefer to see in them the Wave attempting, once again, to restore the balance.

What happened after that I will not describe here. Suffice it to say that by a curious series of incidents, I met Haplo and his remarkable dog.

Those interested in reading more about the exciting adventures of Haplo and the humbler adventures of myself can find them in what has come to be known as the Death Gate Cycle.

In closing, I will add, for those who might be interested, that the Wave continues to ebb and flow. The Patryns and the Sartan now live together in an uneasy peace. The Sartan have split into two factions: one led by Balthazar, which desires alliance with the Patryns; the other led by Ramu, who—though still somewhat bothered by his unfortunate injury—refuses to trust the Patryns at all.

Headman Vasu is leader of the Patryns. He and Haplo and Marit have formed bands of what are known as Rescuers, brave men and women—both Patryn and Sartan—who risk their lives venturing deep into the Labyrinth to try to aid those still trapped in the prison. I am proud to say that I am myself a Rescuer.

The evil serpents are diminished in power, but are present still and will be forever, I suppose. They are kept in check by the dragons of Pryan, however, and by the concerted efforts of the Rescuers.

We have no knowledge of what is transpiring in the worlds of the mensch, but I hope all is well with them. I like to think of them traveling between worlds in fantastical ships, propelled by hope and curiosity.

Haplo and Marit set out on a search for their daughter—and returned with numerous daughters, all orphans whom they rescued from the Labyrinth. Haplo states proudly that any one of them could be his child, and Marit always agrees. They have several sons now as well. They all call me “Grandfather Alfred” and tease me unmercifully about my big feet.

Haplo has a dog now. A real one.

The mad old Sartan Zifnab wanders the Labyrinth happily, watched over by his dragon. He hardly ever remembers the bad times, and we take care not to remind him.

He has decided, now, that he is God.

And who are we to argue with him?

APPENDIX II

Concerning the Theory and Practice of Chaos, Order, and the Power of Magic

Author’s Note: I have elsewhere noted the history of the Seventh Gate and the Sundering (see Appendix I) and the chronology of events that brings us to our present era. It occurred to me, however, that there may be students of the magical arts who might have wondered what went wrong with the Sundering and why the Sartan vision of the Sundered Realms did not work as they had hoped. To this end I now write.

In reviewing the histories I note there is but one recorded instance of Sartan and Patryn magical structures being used together—that being when Haplo and I fought our final fight. While reflecting on the various treatises of magic that have attempted to illuminate this chronicle—as well as the now seemingly incredible events in which we have played a part—I was moved to pen these observations.

Is there a greater power than rune magic? Most certainty. Is this a benevolent mind in the realm of spirit that exists beyond our physical world, or the combined essence of our joint spirits? Are these musings the window to where we have come from and how we arrived at our present state? Are they the key to our future hope? I cannot say. It is left to our children and their children to answer such questions fully. As for me, I am at peace with what I believe.

—Alfred Montbank

DEFINITION IN MAGIC

The quest for magical power has, throughout the ages*! been a quest for definition. This is inherent in both Sartan and Patryn rune magic. Both forms look into the Omniwave in search of a possibility that the rune wizard wishes to bring into existence. Once the possibility fa found, the wizard then uses rune structures to weave die possibility found in the Wave into the reality of existence. These basic principles form the foundation of rune magic. These principles have been thoroughly studied for uncounted ages. [1] Yet the question of definition-— being able to fully define the possibility that the rune < magician has in mind—has never been resolved completely.

Patryn magic came closer to understanding in this regard than did that of the Sartan. While Sartan magic talked about looking, “concentrating on the Wave of possibilities,” the Patryns spoke in terms of an object’s “true name.” Patryn magic saw itself as a search for true name of a possibility and the calling of that name into reality. Naming an object completely was the ultimate objective of Patryn magic. [2] While Sartan magic

1 Dragon Wing, vol. 1 of The Death Gate Cycle, Appendix titled “! in the Sundered Realms: Excerpt from a Sartan’s Musings,” for detailed explanation of the Wave and the basic principles of nine, magic.

2 Elven Star, vol. 2 of The Death Gate Cycle, Appendix titled “I Runes and the Variability of Magic.” See text under heading ” Rune Magic: Theory and Practice.

viewed this process in more nebulous terms, it is essentially this process of defining completely the probability required that was the essence of all magic.

THE GRAIN OF MAGIC

The flaw in all our epochs of magical theory and practice came down to a single word: completely. The Patryns were first to understand the limits of their own rune structures through the insights of Sendric Klausten. [3] Rune magic is constructed of runes within runes. Before Klausten it was believed that this succession could be infinite—rather like cutting an apple in half, then cutting the half in half, then cutting the half of the half in half, and so on an infinite number of times. Klausten, however, realized that there came a point in writing the definition where the presence of the rune itself affected the definition—and beyond which magic rune structures could not go.

The Sartan of Abarrach also discovered this limitation during their research into Necromancy. [4] The limits of the runes they defined as the “Runestate Boundary” in necromantic writings. Other advanced research writings in Patryn magic talk about the “Barrier of Uncertainty,” beyond which runes are too coarse in structure to pass. Both of these terms speak to the same limits written of by the Patryn Klausten: the inability to define any magic beyond the grain of the runes themselves.

3 Ibid. See text under heading Grain of Magic and Variability.

4 Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle, Appendix titled “Necromancy.” See text under heading Material as Coarse Existence Structure.

BEYOND THE BOUNDARY:

FINE AND COARSE STRUCTURES

Both magicks attempted to come to grips with this Runestate Boundary or Barrier of Uncertainty, and how to pass beyond it in different ways and for different reasons.

Patryn Magic and the Barrier of Uncertainty

Sage Rethis [5] established the laws of Patryn rune magic. While Patryn magic certainly existed before Rethis, his attempts at defining the magic itself became the touchstone for Patryn magical thought for many ages and included the writings of Klausten in their definition. His thoughts shaped Patryn approaches to the barrier from that moment on. His basic laws are:

First Law of Rethis: An object’s name has balance. For a Patryn rune to work—or that of a Sartan, for that matter—the rune structure must be balanced. A pillar whose base is not square with its sides will not stand upright. Nor will that pillar stand if one side is heavier than the other. So it is with rune structures.

The problem came when the “true name” of the object—the name that was fully balanced—extended past the Barrier of Uncertainty, where the rune structure could no longer fully define it. No matter how carefully the rune was constructed, it remained unbalanced because the true name required a balance that had a finer grain of definition than the runes could provide.

5 Elven Star, vol. 2 of The Death Gate Cycle, Appendix titled “Patryn Runes and the Variability of Magic.”

Rethis reasoned that if this alone were true, all advanced and intricate magic would be unbalanced and, therefore, could not work. This he knew from experience was just not true. His research at this point was taken as somewhat ridiculous by some fellow Patryns and as bordering on heretical by others: Why did Patryn magic work at all? His research turned in astonishing results and led him to his second and third laws.

Second Law of Rethis: An unbalanced name tends to balance itself. This has also been called the Equilibrium Factor. He found that the Wave of probabilities from which all magic was born was not a static state entity but rather a dynamic force that obeyed laws of its own beyond the Barrier of Uncertainty. The Wave itself—from beyond this barrier—acted to correct for any small imbalances and imperfections of the rune structure itself.

Third Law of Rethis: No rune has infinite balance. In the end, I believe, Rethis gave the equivalent of a shrug in his third law. Essentially he was saying, since no rune has infinite balance and since the Wave will correct for any small imperfections anyway—well, why worry? Make your magicks, trust that the Wave will correct for any small flaws in its balance, and get on with getting out of the Labyrinth.

It was this Third Law of Rethis that attracted the attention and the praise of Patryn researchers and popular thought. From that time on, Patryns explored ways of influencing the Wave in their approaches to the barrier in order to bring the exact probability they wanted into existence.

Forgotten in the thunderous clamor over the third law was the astounding implications of the second law, that the Wave itself may have something to say about the fate of all creation.

Sartan Necromancy and the Runestate Boundary

In their attempts at Necromancy, the Abarrach Sartan had more success in penetrating their Runestate Boundary than the Patryns had with their Barrier of Uncertainty—although both proved to be the same thing.

The first major insights came from an aging Sartan mage named Delsart Sparanga, [6] who discovered the Delsart Near State, or Delsart Similitude. Delsart said that the “spiritual state of all things is a much finer reflection of the physical state. All things that exist in the physical are also expressed in this spiritual state. Delsart taught that no thing exists in what he terms the coarse physical state except that it also have existence in the spiritual state.” [7] This spiritual reflection of all things was thought to exist beyond the Runestate Boundary; thus all things existed in a coarse physical state (accessible by runes) and a spiritual state (beyond runes). [8]

The mensch have had many gods in all their wonderful and varied lands. They have always believed in the spirit state. We—the Sartan and the Patryns—thought such whisperings to be foolish and childlike imaginings. How could we have known that in our ignorance of such things we would cause such misery on an unprecedented scale.

6 Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle, Appendix titled “Necromancy.” See text under heading The Delsart Solution.

1 Ibid.

8 Ibid. See text under Cycle 290: Coarse and Fine Existence.

THE NATURE OF CHAOS

Both Sartan and Patryn had considered the working of the universe to be something like a Geg machine: If you turned the wheelie then the lifter-arm would raise. The universe was absolutely predictable. No matter how often you turned the wheelie, that lifter-arm would raise just the same.

All of this was fine in the coarse state—that crude physical world that we had increasingly come to recognize as the domain of the runes. However, the runes’ power shattered entirely at the Runestate Boundary. Beyond that lay a realm of Chaos where entropic forces were at work. It was truly an “Uncertainty Barrier” in that nothing that happened beyond it could be predicted with any surety.

However, this image of complete chaos was incongruent with Delsart’s teachings of the Near State as a finer reflection of the physical state, as well as with the Second Law of Rethis. If complete chaos reigned beyond the barrier, why then did the spiritual effects of Necromancy work? Further, why did the Omniwave, which by definition existed on both sides of the barrier, act dynamically toward a stable, ordered state when chaos and entropy were the accepted rule beyond the barrier?

The problems of spiritual essence were not confined to the realms of rune magic alone but were also reflected in the lesser magicks of the mensch as well. The Kenkari elf practice of trapping the souls of their ancestors [9] for the enhancement of their own crude magicks touched on this spiritual world beyond. They, too, had no context in which to put their discoveries and, like

9 The Hand of Chaos, vol. 5 of The Death Gate Cycle. See also Dragon Wing, vol. 1 of The Death Gate Cycle.

both the Sartan and the Patryns, covered their ignorance with cobbled-together theory that either masked or excused the truth.

DEATH’S GATE

The Sundering, in the light of the knowledge we have gained since that time, was an arrogant folly of unparalleled proportions. In structuring the complex runes to sunder creation into the realms, we had supposed that the magic would be perfect in all its detail. Yet the magtc was coarse even in its finest detail when it came to the Uncertainty Barrier. Its magic had no choice but to extend itself beyond that boundary and into the spiritual realms. In doing so, the Wave corrected as best it could to such a catastrophic inclusion.

Part of that correction, I believe, involved the rune structures that gave name to “Death’s Gate.” Imperfect as it was and heavily intrusive into the realms of the finer spiritual structures, the calling of Death’s Gate into reality was more apt than the original designers had supposed.

Death may well be a gate: a spiritual gate through which our finer selves pass on to other realms and other realities. Indeed, I am left to ponder if we truly exist more in that spirit state than in this physical one. Who is to say which is real and which is ephemeral?

When the Sundering opened Death’s Gate in the physical, coarse reality, I believe it closed the spiritual gate beyond the Uncertainty Barrier. Our actions not only brought suffering and horror in the physical realms but damned the souls of our countless dead as well, cutting us off from whatever higher existence we would have beyond this physical realm as well as from other spirits that may already exist in that finer place.

Yet we were not entirely cut off, for the Wave continued to correct itself. We may have upset the boat, but the waves of our foolishness subside and the pond again becomes placid and at peace.

THE ORDER BEYOND

Who or what observes the Wave in the realms beyond? Are there gods of the spirit with powers higher than our own? Were the mensch far wiser in this than we with all our power?

I believe now that there is an existence beyond the physical whose purpose we can only now guess at. It is in that realm of the spirit that the greatest power of all is found, somewhere in the correcting Wave. If there is something or someone out there beyond this life, I know I shall find it when the time is come. We have closed the physical gate; the spirit gate is now open once again.

Only in closing the gate on our prison are we now truly free.

Closing the Seventh Gate