Onine/Fiction002
The Island on the Edge of the Wood - extended
Writer's Comment: This was the original full introduction to the beginning of the Legend of the Porcelain Child, however I felt it gave too much away, thus I cut it partly halfway through - anyway here's the full version for you to enjoy and pick apart!
The traveler was alone. The forest seemed to stretch on for an eternity. This far east, a man could walk untill he no longer set his feet on mere ground, but undergrowth and foliage so thick that it would support the weight of ten men. Here, shadows warped strangely, long blacknesses fell, and the welcome sunlight could never penetrate the dense canopy. The forest was lit by nothing more than a cool green ambient light. It was a magical place. Still he walked on. He had passed places of unerring beauty, where the forest became a holy place of green filtered light and staunch pillars of wood. He had seen places of unrivalled horror, where thorns grew as impaling spikes, and the hallucinating mind sometimes saw pieces of human flesh dangling almost decoratively from the boughs. He drank only the dew on leaves, and ate only the shrunken black fruit of the forest floor. Still he walked on. There was a place here, that he had been led to. A place that would change creation.
As a king, the man had seen the hollow pleasures of the rich. Their luxuries mere distractions from the agonies of life. He saw the fake smiles that even the bearers believed were genuine. He felt nothing. As a pauper, he had discovered the longing for the trappings of the rich, the distractions they hoarded to give meaning to their lives. He had seen naked suffering, stripped bare of the pleasantries and lies. He had seen it. And he reviled it. He had seen how dreams were the only places that man was truly at peace, free from the frozen, solid creation that constricted and suffocated. Within dreams everyone was equal, and everyone's shapelss, formless creation was perfection.
He had travelled to the harsh seas of the west, through pirate dens and struggling settlements. He had travelled to the frigid north, where people huddled for warmth and safety of predators both malicious and instinctive. He had travelled to the south, saw the spirits of the desert, tortured in life, tortured in death. The very fight to replenish the liquid in their veins was stripped bare for him to see. He travelled to the center of creation, the Empress' crumbling realm, the very heart of suffering, concioius and unconcious of their plight. There the people dreamed of freedom, not from tyranny, not from opression, but from creation. The traveller had stood upon the very peak of the Imperial Mountain, the anchor of creation, and he wept.
There, he too dreamed. And in these dreams was an answer. The answer was to bring the dreamer to the dream. He did not know why he knew, nor why he travelled east past the edge of the world.
The traveller pulled himself over yet another gargantuan root, using one of the great thorns as a foothold. He remembered this, from his dreams.
The sense of deja vou overwhelmed him. He had made it. Before him lay his destination. It was a rare sight indeed, the trees gave way to grassy open ground. In the center, lit by a shaft of sunlight that never faded was a circle of perfectly fitted polished marble. Even after countless ages, the surface bore no dust, only poison ivy had dared to cover it. The traveller lowered himself down to the grass, nearly losing his footing. His heart pounded with anticipation. He knew. This was it. He half-ran half-limped over to the circle, shielding his eyes from sunlight that he had not seen in many endless months. Upon it were six bird glyphs situated around a black marble circle in the center. Four of the symbols were arranged in quarters around the central disk, the final two were on either side, connected by a darker line of stone. The traveller knew these symbols, The Wings of Heaven, they were called.. Knowing the order would allow the island to rejoin creation.
He crouched over them as he did in his dream and reached out for the Great Eagle on the left of the central disk and suddenly pulled his hand back. In his dream it had been a claw, not a hand, but his nonetheless. It had been different.
"No..." he murmered. "I was closing it then. The order is reversed...the order of death opens the pathway..."
Instead he reached out to one of the four bird glyphs on the edge of the disk, The Harrier. The engraved sections lit up with pale lavender light as he touched the polished surface and a transparent glowing phantom of the bird lifted off the stone for a mere moment, screeching its call before falling back to the stone again. A throbbing hum of magical energy rose, echoing and resonating in the stone. Next was The Swallow, which glowed a flickering silver-white. The Owl emmited a rich orange. Finally The Turtledove. His hand brushed over it and violet light streamed through his fingers. The traveller licked his lips nervously as the light of the four played across his features. This was it.
He stepped over to the right-hand symbol, that of The Falcon. Pressing his palm against it, the noble falcon's shape was filled with brilliant gold. Lastly, the traveller looked over to the symbol of The Great Eagle. A strange familiarity filled him. The noble bird, the traveller, the majestic soarer. The Eagle was his symbol. He knelt before it and his hand guided itself to brush the marble. The light that burned from the
Eagle's glyph was red like that of spilt blood.
The hum of magic had reached a feverant pitch. Pulses of energy leapt across the marble from the symbols and into the black disk in the center which slowly began to glow white with increasing intensity. The entire forest seemed to echo and rumble with the mighty ageless magics that had been placed there. The earth around the circle began to crack and sunder as the energies built, the fragile island began to shake itself apart, time was critical. The traveller stepped onto the circle and into the light opening his arms wide. The time had come for the dreamer to rejoin creation.
And in an instant he and the island was gone.
