Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [43]
Anja snorted. “Leave the Corridor open, then,” she snapped. “It matters little to me. We will be gone only moments. Now get on with it!”
“Very well,” the catalyst muttered.
Using Anja’s Life, the catalyst opened the window in time and space to her, one of the many Corridors created originally by the Diviners, the Time Magi. The Diviners had long since vanished, and with them had died the knowledge of how to build the Corridors. But the catalysts, who had controlled them for centuries, knew still how to operate and maintain them, taking the Life needed to keep them active from those who used them.
Stepping into the window that appeared as a dark void within Father Tolban’s cozy living quarters, Anja and the child vanished. Glancing at the open Corridor apprehensively, the catalyst discovered himself toying briefly with the idea of closing it and leaving them stranded on the other side. He came to himself with a start, shocked at what he had been contemplating.
The Borderland, he thought, shaking his head. How strange. Why go there, to that desolate, life-forsaken region?
There are no guards at the Borderlands. None are needed.
To pass from the world into those drifting, floating mists is to step Beyond. To step Beyond is to die.
As for guarding the realm from what lies Beyond, there is no reason to do so. For nothing lies Beyond, nothing except the realm of Death. And from that realm, no one has ever returned.
The first line of the catechism states, “We fled the world where Death reigned, taking with us the magic and those creatures of magic we had created. We chose this world because it is empty. Here the magic will live, since there is nothing and no one to threaten us ever again. Here, on this world, is Life.”
There are no guards, but there are the Watchers.
Stepping hesitantly into the Corridor, his hand clutching his mother’s, Joram experienced an instant’s sensation of being squeezed, very tightly. Lovely, sparkling stars burst in his vision. But before his mind could quite truly register what was transpiring, the sensation ended, the sparkling light faded, and he looked around him, expecting to see the catalyst’s small room. But he wasn’t in the catalyst’s house. He was standing on a long, barren stretch of white beach.
The child had never seen anything like this before and was pleased by the feeling of the sun-warmed sand beneath his feet. Reaching down, he started to pick up a handful, but Anja jerked him roughly forward, striding across the beach with long steps, pulling the child after her.
At first, Joram enjoyed walking in the sand. That ended very soon, however, as the sand grew deeper and walking became more difficult. He began to sink in the shifting dunes, and when he tried to move ahead, they slid away beneath his feet, causing him to flounder and stumble.
“Where are we?” he asked, panting for breath.
“We stand on the edge of the world,” Anja replied, stopping to wipe the sweat from her face and gain her bearings.
Glad to rest, Joram looked around.
Anja was right. Behind him was the world—the white sand yielding to sparse green grasses that in turn yielded to the lush green fields. Tall, darker green forests carried the life of the world upward into the purple of the mountains, whose snow-capped peaks lifted it into the clear blue sky. And the sky seemed, to Joram’s gaze, to leap from the mountains, soaring in a vast, serene expanse above him. Following its curve, he turned and looked ahead of him to where the sky fell at last into the misty void beyond the white sand.
And then he saw the Watchers.
Startled, he clutched at Anja’s hand and pointed.
“Yes,” was all she said. But the pain and anger in her answer made the child shiver in the waning sunlight, though the heat of midday radiated still from the sand beneath his feet.
Gripping Joram’s hand firmly, Anja tugged him forward, her tattered gown dragging behind, leaving a snakelike trail through the dunes.
Thirty feet tall, the stone statues of the Watchers line