Текст книги "The Wide World's End"

Автор книги: James Enge

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SIGIL

I, Deor syr Theorn, told this tale at your request, the true tale of our harven-kin’s exile from the Wardlands. It is a mostly true tale, I think: I talked to many people, even some I hated, to learn the things I put in it. Other things I had to guess at. That’s true in any history, and don’t trust the historian who says differently. I began the tale long ago but finished it only tonight. You may no longer remember that you asked for it. But I think it’s a tale that you need to hear.

Wyrththeorn, you are the youngest of my many sons, and you have caused me more worry than the others put together. From the time that you were hatched, I constantly found you causing some kind of mischief with your clever fingers, your crafty mind, your crooked, insistent urge to know and do.

I have here beside me a letter from Rystyrn, your most recent master in the arts of making. He says that he will not have you in his shop. You are disruptive; you are defiant; you cause dangerous fires with your experiments in making; you disturb the other apprentices with your odd remarks about geometry and ethics. He says you cannot be taught, and it is almost true: you cannot be taught by him. And he is the last master of making under Thrymhaiam who would consent to take you as an apprentice, and then only because your ruthen-kin, the Eldest of Theorn Clan, begged him to. Your shadow walks before you, my son, and it is very dark.

There is only one other person in my life who has caused me so much wonder, amazement, and grief.

And so, Wyrth, if you have read this far, I give you a choice. In the morning, go to Master Rystyrn and make your humblest apologies. Be a good student to him, and he will be a good master to you, and someday you will have a place of honor under these mountains.

Or leave these mountains. Leave the Wardlands. Find our harven-kin Morlock in the unguarded lands, as I long ago tried to do and failed. We hear many tales of him these days, and few of them good. But all agree that he is a wonderworker beyond compare, even beyond what he was in his youth, when the greatest makers of Thrymhaiam already acclaimed him as their master.

Stay or go. I know you will be a trouble to me wherever you are. It’s that way with everyone I love.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

The Lands of Laent during the Ontilian Interregnum

Laent is a flat or shield-shaped land mass bordered by ocean to the west and south and empty space to the east; north of Laent is a region of uninhabitable cold; south of Laent is a large and largely unexplored continent, Qajqapca. Beyond that is believed to be an impassable zone of fire.

Along the western edge of Laent lies the Wardlands, a highly developed but secretive culture. It has no government, as such, but its borders are protected by a small band of seers and warriors called the Graith of Guardians.

Dividing Laent into two unequal halves, north and south, are a pair of mountain ranges: the Whitethorn Range (running from the Western Ocean eastward) and the Blackthorn Range (running from the Eastern Edge westward). There is a pass between the two mountain ranges, the Dolich Kund (later the Kirach Kund). North of the Dolich Kund there are only two human cities of any note, Narkunden and Aflraun. The rest of the North is a heavily wooded and mountainous region inhabited by humans and others of a more or less fabulous nature (e.g., the werewolf city of Wuruyaaria).

The Whitethorn Range, by custom, forms the northern border of the Wardlands. The Blackthorn Range is divided between the untamed dragons and the Heidhhaiar (the Endless Empire) of the dwarves.

Immediately south of the Whitethorn Range was the wreckage of the old Empire of Ontil, ruined by its rulers’ ambitions, ineptitude, and misused powers. A period of general chaos and more or less continuous warfare obtained in these lands until the advent of the Vraidish tribes and the rise of the Second Empire of Ontil (ongoing in the present story).

South of the former Empire of Ontil lay the so-called Kingdom of Kaen. The ancient cities of the Kaeniar considered themselves at perpetual war with the Wardlands, which lay just across the Narrow Sea. The Wardlands, however, took little notice of the Kaeniar or any other domain of the unguarded lands.

The region between the Grartan Mountains and the Whitethorns was called the Gap of Lone by inhabitants of the unguarded lands. Inhabitants of (and exiles from) the Wardlands called it “the Maze” because of the magical protections placed on it.

Immediately south of the Blackthorns was a wooded region of extremely poor repute, Tychar. Farther south was the Anhikh Kômos of Cities, Ontil’s great rival who unaccountably failed to take advantage of Ontil’s fall to extend its domains. The largest Anhikh city, where the Kômarkh lives, is Vakhnhal, along the southern coast of Laent. Anhi may or may not extend its domain to the Eastern Edge of the world—accounts differ.

Appendix B

The Gods of Laent

There is no universally accepted religious belief, except in Anhi, where the government enforces the worship of Torlan and Zahkaar (Fate and Chaos).

In Ontil an eclectic set of gods are worshipped or not worshipped, especially (under the influence of Coranian exiles from the Wardlands) the Strange Gods, including Death, Justice, Peace, Misery, Love, and Memory.

In Kaen, each city and many places in the country have at least one local god, whose priesthood serves as one of the two branches of government (the other being the military and civil power of the tirgans). There is, at least in theory, a higher rank of national gods, and an upper echelon of universal gods, although their actual existence has been disputed by a significant minority of Kaenish heresiarchs.

In the Wardlands at least three gods, or three aspects of one god, are worshipped: the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Avenger (“Creator, Keeper, and King”).

The dwarves of the Wardlands evidently assent to these beliefs. (At any rate, they have been known to swear by these deities.) But they have another, perhaps older, belief in immortal ancestor spirits who watch the world and judge it from beyond the western edge of the world. The spirits of the virtuous dead collect in the west through the day and night and pass through at the moment of dawn, when the sun enters the world and the gate in the west is opened. Spirits of the evil dead, or spirits that have been bound in some way, may not pass through the gate in the west. Hence, dwarves each day (at sunrise, or when they awake) praise the rising of the sun and the passage of the good ghosts to Those-Who-Watch in the west.

Appendix C

Calendar and Astronomy

1. Astronomical Remarks

The sky of Laent has three moons: Chariot, Horseman, and Trumpeter (in descending order of size).

The year has 375 days. The months are marked by the rising or setting of the second moon, Horseman. So that (in the year The Wide World’s End begins) Horseman rises on the first day of Bayring, the penultimate month. It sets on the first of Borderer, the last month. It rises very early in the morning on the first day of Cymbals, the first month of the new year. The other two moons set simultaneously on this occasion. (The number of months are uneven—fifteen—so that Horseman rises or sets on the first morning of the year in alternating years.)

The period of Chariot (the largest moon, whose rising and setting marks the seasons) is 187.5 days. (So a season is 93.75 days.)

The period of Horseman is fifty days.

The period of Trumpeter is fifteen days. A half-cycle of Trumpeter is a “call.” Calls are either “bright” or “dark” depending on whether Trumpeter is aloft or not. (Usage: “He doesn’t expect to be back until next bright call.”)

The seasons are not irregular, as on Earth. But the moons’ motion is not uniform through the sky: motion is faster near the horizons, slowest at zenith. Astronomical objects are brighter in the west, dimmer in the east.

The three moons and the sun rise in the west and set in the east. The stars have a different motion entirely, rotating NWSE around a celestial pole. The pole points at a different constellation among a group of seven (the polar constellations) each year. (Hence, a different group of nonpolar constellations is visible near the horizons each year.) This seven-year cycle (the Ring) is the basis for dating, with individual years within it named for their particular polar constellations.

The polar constellations are the Reaper, the Ship, the Hunter, the Door, the Kneeling Man, the River, and the Wolf.

There is an intrapolar constellation, the Hands, within the space inscribed by the motion of the pole.

This calendar was first developed in the Wardlands, and then it spread to the unguarded lands by exiles. In the Wardlands, years are dated from the founding of New Moorhope, the center of learning. The action of The Wide World’s End begins in the 407th Ring, Moorhope year 3242, the Year of the Hunter.

2. The Years of The Wide World’s End

407th Ring, 2843 N.M.: Year of the Door

1. Cymbals.

New Year. Winter begins.

1st: Chariot & Trumpeter set. Horseman rises.

8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

2. Jaric.

1st: Horseman sets. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

3. Brenting.

1st: Horseman rises. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

4. Drums.

1st: Horseman sets. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

Midnight of 94th day of the year (19 Drums):

Chariot rises. Spring begins.

5. Rain.

1st: Horseman rises. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

6. Marrying.

1st: Horseman sets. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

7. Ambrose.

1st: Horseman rises. 8th and 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

8. Harps.

1st: Horseman sets.13th: Trumpeter rises.

Evening of the 188th day of year (19 Harps):

Chariot sets; Midyear—Summer begins.

9. Tohrt.

1st: Horseman rises. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

10. Remembering.

1st: Horseman sets. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

11. Victory.

1st: Horseman rises.13th: Trumpeter rises.

12. Harvesting.

1st: Horseman sets. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

6th: Chariot rises, noon of 281st day of year. Fall begins.

13. Mother and Maiden.

1st: Horseman rises. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

14. Bayring.

1st: Horseman sets. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

15. Borderer.

1st: Horseman rises. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

407th Ring, 2848 N.M.: Year of the Kneeling Man

1. Cymbals.

New Year. Winter begins.

1st: Chariot, Horseman & Trumpeter all set.

8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

2. Jaric.

1st: Horseman rises. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

3. Brenting.

1st: Horseman sets. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

4. Drums.

1st: Horseman rises. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

Midnight of 94th day of the year (19 Drums):

Chariot rises. Spring begins.

5. Rain.

1st: Horseman sets. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

6. Marrying.

1st: Horseman rises. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

7. Ambrose.

1st: Horseman sets. 8th and 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

8. Harps.

1st: Horseman rises.13th: Trumpeter rises.

Evening of the 188th day of year (19 Harps):

Chariot sets; Midyear—Summer begins.

9. Tohrt.

1st: Horseman sets. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

10. Remembering.

1st: Horseman rises. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

11. Victory.

1st: Horseman sets.13th: Trumpeter rises.

12. Harvesting.

1st: Horseman rises. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

6th: Chariot rises, noon of 281st day of year. Fall begins.

13. Mother and Maiden.

1st: Horseman sets. 8th & 23rd: Trumpeter rises.

14. Bayring.

1st: Horseman rises. 13th: Trumpeter rises.

15. Borderer.

1st: Horseman sets. 3rd & 18th: Trumpeter rises.

Appendix D

The Wardlands and the Graith of Guardians

According to Gabriel McNally’s reconstruction (generally accepted by scholars of Ambrosian legend, always excepting Julian Emrys), the Wardlands were an anarchy with no formal government at all. According to legend, the Wardlands had not been a kingdom since the golden age at the beginning of time, when the King (usually identified with the divine aspect known as God Avenger) ruled in person in Laent and elsewhere. Since then it has been considered blasphemous, or at least irrationally presumptuous, for any person to assert a claim to rule the Wardlands. Those who try to do so are exiled or (in extreme cases) killed.

What in other cultures would have been state functions (national defense, dispute resolution, even road building and repair, etc.) were carried on by voluntary cooperatives: the Arbiters of the Peace, the Guild of Silent Men, the League of Rhetors, etc. Most famous in the unguarded lands was the Graith of Guardians, sworn to maintain the guard.

The Graith had three ranks of Guardian: the lowest and most numerous were the thains, wearing a gray cape of office. They were hardly more than candidates to the Graith proper, and they undertook to obey their seniors in the Graith, even more senior thains.

Vocates, in contrast, were full members of the Graith, privileged to stand and speak at the Graith’s councils (known as Stations). Their only obligation was to defend the Guard, and the Guarded, as they saw fit. Their cloak of office was blood red.

Most senior in the Graith were the Three Summoners. They had no power to command but were generally conceded the authority to lead the vocates of the Graith proper. The Summoner of the City convened and presided over Stations of the Graith. The Summoner of the Outer Lands was charged with watching for threats to the Guard from the unguarded lands. The Summoner of the Inner Lands was charged with watching for internal threats: those who would try to disrupt the fertile anarchy of the Wardlands and establish the sterility of political order.

The greatest danger to the anarchy of the Wardlands was obviously the Graith itself. Members of the Graith were pledged to abide by the First Decree, which forbade any acquisition of power or authority over those under the Guard. Nevertheless, Guardians were exiled more often than the Guarded for political aspirations to government (euphemistically referred to as “Impairment of the Guard”). Power corrupts, and the Guardians wielded power more often than their peers among the Guarded.

Appendix E

Note on Ambrosian Legend and Its Sources, Lost and Found

Readers of these collections of Ambrosian myth and legend are already aware that Morlock’s exploits beyond the northern edge of the world were not the end of his career as a hero. It took centuries for that to be evident to his contemporaries, however—or even to Morlock himself, and in that time his path took a number of severe turns, some sinister, some comic, many disgraceful.

The dwarves of Thrymhaiam cultivated his legend (as they are wont to do for their kin, whether harven or ruthen), but as far as they were concerned this was its final episode, and the various verse retellings of his deeds in the struggle against the Sunkillers apparently took the tone of an obituary, with one famous exception. We know that Defender Dervanion wrote up an account for the Graith of Guardians, although we don’t know if it went into general circulation, and the anonymous Seventh Scribe of New Moorhope wrote an alliterative epic of the entire matter, including the Balancer of the Two Powers.

All of these sources have been lost. What we have is a series of verse plays in Late Ontilian, which may have been based on one of the talkier Dwarvish song cycles, and an epic, if that’s not too strong a word, in rhyming verse by the pseudonymous Ninth Scribe of New Moorhope, and the Khroic ekshalva about Morlock, which purport to be based on direct visionary contact with the events they narrate.

I am not going to discuss the issue of whether the Ontilian plays are based on Dwarvish sources or whether they derive from a lost Mandragoric account of Morlock’s life. First, because Dr. Gabriel McNally and Reverend L. G. Handschuh have debated the matter at length in the columns of the Journal of Exoplenic Folklore, and their total inability to reach any kind of agreement indicates the matter is undecidable at our current state of knowledge. Second, because I don’t care.

I don’t care about the overly solemn lost Dwarvish song cycles, and I don’t care if there were any Mandragoric analogues or parallels, and I don’t care about the lost epic of the Seventh Scribe, and I really have no interest in daydreaming about the papers that may or may not be filed in the distant and inaccessible archives of the Graith of Guardians.

The only one of these lost sources that I regret is a version that is supposed to have been made in old age by Deortheorn for the benefit of his last son, Wyrththeorn. It would be good to have because Deor was a witness of and participant in many of these events, and someone who knew Morlock well enough not to idealize him. And it must have been Wyrth’s first real introduction to the career of his harven-kinsman Morlock. It must have had a great influence, and the time would come when Wyrth had a great influence over Morlock, both drunk and sober.

Some have questioned my attempt to re-create Deor’s lost account using the Khroic ekshalva as sources. Dr. McNally, indeed, has warned me that he will count me with the dead if I continue: he’ll never speak to me, write to me, or mention my name again on Facebook. That’s too much to hope for, but it would be reason enough to forge ahead on a task which has sometimes proved difficult.

Other reasons include the fact that I have a contract and have already banked the advance. But, though satisfyingly cynical, that doesn’t really account for my intermittent but persistent thirty-year quest to tell this particular story.

I think one reason I kept at it was an attempt to understand why: why the young hero Morlock syr Theorn became the old, embittered wonderworker and part-time monster Morlock Ambrosius. Maybe this is misguided: myth is multiform, and there’s no reason that characters have to be consistent between different versions. But if there was a Morlock, he took some particular path from his alpha to his omega, and this is my attempt to trace that path.

This reminds me of something Reverend Handschuh says about the Ambrosian cycle. He’s one of its most severe critics and considers it mere romance, not true epic. Like his hero W. P. Ker, and like many another gentle well-read scholar, he prefers the harsh, unforgiving world of classical or Germanic epic. In that tragic vision of life, heroes face their fate without hope of redemption or escape, and Reverend Handschuh rather scorns Ambrosian legend for its lack of tragic doom. “There is always hope,” he writes. “There is always hope.”

He means it as a criticism, but I don’t think it is a criticism.

About the Author

© J. M. Pfundstein

James Enge lives with his wife in northwest Ohio, where he teaches classical languages and literature at a medium-sized public university. His first novel for Pyr, Blood of Ambrose, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2010. He is also the author of This Crooked Way and The Wolf Age, not to mention the Tournament of Shadows trilogy (consisting of A Guile of Dragons, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and the thing you’re reading here). His shorter fiction has appeared in the magazine Black Gate, in Swords and Dark Magic (Harper Voyager, 2010), in Blackguards (Ragnarok Publications, 2015), and elsewhere.