Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [74]
All the while, the other figure inside the iron thing was talking to someone else—someone who spoke in a crackling voice.
I know now, of course, that he was talking into a communications device, located inside his landrover (a type of vehicle similar to a carriage except that it operates by the Dark Arts of Technology, not by magic). I can still hear the man’s words quite clearly, though at the time I didn’t know their meaning. Months after that, in my struggles against madness, his words came to me over and over in my night-dreams.
“We’ve checked out the alarm. There’s two of them on the Border this time—a man and a woman.”
I remember nothing after that. The man who knelt beside me pressed something cold against my arm, and I sank into sleep.
When I awoke, I found that Gwendolyn and I had been transported to a new world—or perhaps you might consider it a very old one—to begin living a new life. I married my poor Gwen—to keep her safe and secure—and part of every day I spent with her in the quiet, loving place where she stayed while the healers of Beyond endeavored to find some means to help her.
It has been ten years … ten years in our new world … since she has spoken a word to me or to any living person. She talks only to those her eyes alone can see. She talks to the dead.
I came to know many people in this world of Beyond, including a man who was not of that world but is of our own. His name is Menju, but he calls himself Sorcerer, and I have spent much of my time during those ten years learning his true nature and doing what I could to thwart his rise to power.
I do not have the time, nor is it the intent of this document, to describe the world Beyond. Suffice it to say, the world Beyond is a world of Technology, a world beyond your comprehension. You would understand little and believe less of what I could tell. Alas, you may come to know it all too well….
In closing, I will leave you with some thoughts regarding our world and how it relates to the universe. One of you, I pray will have wisdom enough to understand and accept, not shut your eyes to it as you have done for so many centuries.
The ancient magi, finding themselves persecuted for being “different,” fled what they considered a dying world—a world that was becoming too dependent on technology, a world that denied and even feared the magic. Seeking a place where they might live in peace, the ancients traveled through time and space. Their coming to this world was no accident, for here is contained the source of magic in the universe. The magi were led here by the magic’s siren call. Once they arrived on these friendly, welcoming shores, the ancients burned their ships and vowed never to leave.
Not only did they cut off all contact with their old world, they built a barrier around this one so that there was no possible way anyone from Outside could enter. So powerful was this magical barrier, however, that it not only shut the universe out, it sealed the magic within.
In their ardent desire to secure their present, the ancients destroyed their past. Instead of keeping memories of the old world alive—and thus reminding themselves that it was still out there—they destroyed the records and banished the memories until now it has become, for you, a House Magi’s tale, less real than the realm of the faerie.
And because you forgot there was a land outside, distant and remote as it might be, you felt safe and secure—safe and secure enough to cast out those you believed did not belong in this world—even in death. Thus evolved the custom of sending people into “Beyond.” It is a neat and simple means of dealing with those who are different. It rids the world of them quickly and