Ok, so this is some world-building disguised as a short story. Think of it as exploring setting for my fantasy story, without having anything to do with the main characters in that story. It actually takes place a few thousand years before Spear of the Ancients. As far as questions that I have, 1) After reading the story, what do you understand about the Sundered Earths and Minyavaethan? 2) Does the concept behind the Sundered Earths and Minyavaethan seem like an interesting setting, one that you'd be interested in reading more about? 3) Any other comments.
Adalwhin ta’Doren found the old druan lying in a ditch just off the way.
The weather had been foul the past month—longer, really—with storms of sleet mixed with true snow rolling in from the sea like soldier marching to battle, a new one pounding the coast every other day. The Faith be praised, the skys above were clear at the moment, the sun a pale ball hovering just above the far western horizon, though a stiff easterly tugged at Adalwhin’s thin, in some places ragged, cloak and toyed with his shoulder-length hair as he scrabbled down off his horse, careful to keep from disturbing his clerical supplies. Bad enough that he, a scribe of no small renown among the western princedoms, was forced to travel alone through these Ward-abandoned lands on horseback; kicking his inks, sands, quills and papers would only compound the mess.
The druan groaned—a deep sound like rocks grinding—as Adalwhin splashed through the ankle deep runoff, but otherwise remained still. He was a huge creature, easily twice as broad as Adalwhin at the shoulders, and just as thick all the way down to his thick, sausage-like toes, which were bared to the biting cold. In truth, Adalwhin could hardly believe the druan was still alive . . . a thin skein of ice had begun to form along the edge of the pool.
One tug on an arm twice as thick as Adalwhin’s thigh was enough to convince him he’d never be able to haul the druan up out of ditch unaided. Some old cord he’d packed away in his saddlebags over a year ago soon solved the problem. His horse managed to drag the creature up out of the muck and into the tall grass west of the road with minimal protest, and was soon munching placidly in its feedbag while Adalwhin set lighting a small fire. He unloaded a small kettle from the bag opposite his clerical supplies, and using most of the day’s water, soon had some tea warming over the hissing flames.
The druan began to come round just as the tea was ready. Adalwhin had cut the creature’s sodden clothing off using his knife then wrapped one of his two blankets around the druan as best he could—it was like trying to cover a child with a single kercheif. Aside from his shirt and pants, the druan had only a small satchel strung around his neck. Adalwhin cut this off to, hoping that inside he might find a clue about where the druan had come from, or where he’d been headed before luck had dropped him in the ditch.
All he found was a single smooth stone, black as midnight and a little larger than the palm of his hand. It was shaped like a plain disc, save that it tapered towards its edge, so that its center was a good finger thicker than its outer circumference. Thin streaks of some white crystal that gleamed in a dozen soft colors like mother-of-pearl cut through the smooth black rock, and the black parts were flecked with small points of light that didn’t seem to reflect the waning light of the sun so much as gleam with an inner glow of their own. Turning it over in his hands, he found that the top had been inscribed with a strange device: in lines made of the same crystal that cut through the dark stone, a twelve-sided star had been set.
Adalwhin shivered, and it wasn’t at the wind. The twelve-sided star was an old symbol, as old as the earth itself, some said. Men claimed that in the past it had meant something other than it did now: faith and hope, maybe. Now though, it only mocked men and all they had lost.
Words had been inscribed along the outer edge of the disc, but they were in what looked to be haelyren, and Adalwhin had never learned that language—no man had, not if he wanted to live among his own kind and be regarded as a Faith-fearing soul.
“I see you’ve found my great treasure, Son of the Earth.”
The deep booming voice caught Adalwhin so off guard that he actually dropped the strange disc. The druan was eyeing him with its great jewel-colored eyes. The creature hadn’t moved, but now that Adalwhin was looking at him, the druan pushed himself up into a sitting position, groaning laboriously and adjusting the blanket around his huge shoulders.
“Well,” the druan continued, scratching at the long side burns that sprayed from its blocky face like strange black fans. It met his gaze again with those huge eyes. “Did you pull me from the ditch just to rob me afterwards?”
Hastily scooping the stone back up, Adalwhin used a corner of his robe to clean the mud off of the smooth black disc and then proferred up to the druan, who accepted it with a hand that could have swallowed both of Adalwhin’s hands, and probably both of his feet as well.
“Forgive me sir, I only opened the pouch to see if I could learn where you’d come from.” Settling back down on the opposite side of the fire, Adalwhin pulled out his battered tin cup and poured some tea. “You must understand my surprise at finding one of”—his tongue stumbled, but he hid it by passing over the steaming cup. “It is rare to find a druan this far south.”
The huge male chuckled and nodded his head in agreement, savoring the warm steam from the tea with his hatchet nose. “Quite right, Son of the Earth. Quite right. And it is only unhappy chance that finds me this far from hall and kin. But now you must forgive me, I owe you my life and more, but have neglected to give any thanks.
“My name,” the druan intoned, touching his bare forehead with the index and middle fingers of his right hand, “Is Huaroq, and I and my kin are forever in your debt, Son of the Earth. May the Ward bring safety to all of your days.”
Silence fell over the two, broken only by the rising wind. Adalwhin poured what was left of the tea into his canteen, then filled the kettle with the rest of his water and set it to boiling. Digging around in his packs he produced a few shriveled potatoes, some woody carrots, an onion and a few sprigs of dried goodleaf and added them one by one to the water. A soup would do the druan well, especially if he hadn’t eaten in some time, and the warmth wouldn’t go amiss with Adalwhin either.
While he waited on the kettle, he tried to compose a few lines of poetry, his eyes drifting over the empty plains to the east, where the wind played idly with the tall grass. The first few stars were gleaming like ice on the horizon.
It wasn’t until the druan spoke again that Adalwhin realized his eyes had drifted back to the black disc and with the strange carvings on top and around the edge.
“You’ve taken an interest in my treasure, have you, Son of the Earth?”
“I’ve never seen its like before,” Adalwhin admitted, “Is it old?”
“Ah, yes. A good deal older even then I am.” The druan turned it over in his hands, one thumb, nearly as thick as Adalwhin’s wrist, caressing the sparkling rock fondly. “It is a Mapstone.”
“A mapstone?” Adalwhin repeated, confused. “But there’s no map on it, only that . . . that star, and the writing.”
“The dosestreya, the star was called in ancient times, before the raising of the Ward and the fall of the Defenders.” Huaroq held the mapstone up so that it caught the growing light of the fire. “You are right of course, there is no map inscribed on the disc, but in the Old Days, before the Defenders raised the Ward, this disc truly was a map, though of a different kind than you are used to.”
“Can you,” Adalwhin swallowed, suddenly and inexplicably nervous. “Can you read what’s written around the edge?” His voice was nearly a whisper.
Huaroq smiled and nodded, but instead of reading the writing, he closed his eyes and began to recite:
This earth is no bound to my vision,
A Stone without eye sees no end,
Through all the earths of Creation,
All bounds and holds I shall rend.
The druan’s lips turned down at the end in an apologetic smile, and he said, eyes still closed, “Or something close to that. I’ve never been very talened at rendering the High Speech into the mannish tongues.”
“What does it mean?”
Huaroq’s smile deepened, and when he opened his eyes again, they gleamed brilliant orange in the firelight, like a cat’s eyes. “The verse is, simply, a description of what the mapstone does; or did, rather, before the Ward was and the Shadow fell or this earth and all earths.
“You have heard, no doubt, of the Sundered Earths and of the gates that led to them along the winding paths of Huaq’choaqnar, or as the haelyr term it, Minyavaethan.”
Adalwhin fished out two bowls and pair of spoons and began ladling out the thin soup. “I’ve heard some tales that speak of the Sundered Earths.” He passed one of the bowls to the druan who murmured graciously, then tossed the old male a spoon. “But I’ve never heard of this Min, er . . . Minya-”
“Minyavaethan,” Huaroq rumbled. “In your tongue it would be ‘What May have Been’ or perhaps ‘What Could Be’.” He smiled good naturedly around another spoonful of soup. “The haelyr and their High Speech have always been a bit to . . . well, fluid, for my tastes.”
“I’ve never heard mention of that place,” Adalwhin admitted, careful to avoide repeating the word. “Not in any tale.” He leaned back against his packs and began eating. The soup was less than he could have wished for, but the warmth was welcome. Huaroq had already finished his.
“You wouldn’t have a pipe and some leaf about you?” the druan rumbled, and his eyes turned mournful when Adalwhin explained that he’d lost it all in a storm three weeks past. “Well, the food is some comfort yet, and the fire is welcome.” Leaning forward and cupping his broad hands around the flame to catch the heat, the druan began to speak.
“The Sundered Earths were a creation of the Aradlim, fathers of the haelyren, powerful beings who were at once the greatest champions of Creation, and her greatest enemies. Long ago they broke the Heartflame and shattered Creation. Where once there was one earth, whole and bright and good, there were now untold numbers of earths, but each of them only a dim reflection of the Master World’s original glory.”
Adalwhin nodded. This much of history, at least, was familiar to him. Nearly all of the stories spoke of the mighty Aradlim and their pride. A pride that had broken Creation, killed untold millions, and eventually destroyed the Aradlim themselves.
“Yes,” Huaroq continued, “it was the Aradlim who created the Sundered Earths, but it was my kin, the druanei, who discovered them, and in doing so, discovered Minyavaethan, gateway to them all.” The druan held the mapstone up to the light once more. “These mapstones were the keys to entering Minyavaethan, and the guides that led from there to the Sundered Earths.”
“What were the Sundered Earths like?” Adalwhin asked. “More lands like our own?”
Huaroq shook his great head, the fans hair on either side of his chin rustling softly. “All of the Sundered Earths are in a way reflections of the Master World, and as such, resemble this earth to some degree or another. But you must remember that our world, the Master World, was born from the fires of the Sourcebloom when that well of power was whole and uncorrupted. The Sundered Earths were born from the shattered remnants of the Sourcebloom, some—like the burning earth Turiel—were created from a single element of the Heartflame; fire, in the case of Turiel. Others, such as the fabled Colony Worlds, were created of nearly all of the elements of the Sourcebloom, and nearly as rich and varied as this earth.”
“A world of fire?” Adalwhin whispered, staring with wonder into their own tiny cooking fire. “How could anyone live in such a place?”
“Live?” Huaroq grunted, shifting closer to the heat. “No, no one could live on Turiel or any of the Inner Earths. Such earths, created from a single element of the Heartflame were never colonized by any beings, mortal or immortal. Even the Middle Earths, created from a combination of two elements, were too unstable to habitable. The Inner Earths . . . shifted, if you will. The very reality of those earths was constantly in motion, unseen storms that were constantly tearing those worlds apart and reforming them. Even the Middle Earths were deemed too dangerous to be populated . . . though the boldest of adventurers did map what they could of those lands. The Outer Earths, though still much more unstable than the Master World, were colonized by mortal folk and the Aradlim. And, of course, there were the Colony Earths, shining jewels that, in the height of their power, very nearly rivalled the splendor of the Aradlim’s seats of power on this earth.” Huaroq fell silent, for a moment, eyes closed. Then he murmured, “That was, of course, before the End. Before the fall of all things good.”
Rousing himself, Adalwhin fished a rag from his packs and, after rubbing the inside of the kettle with a handfull of grit from the road, began wiping it out. “And all of these worlds were connected by this Min . . . Min”— he growled in disgust. Faith, it was no wonder men didn’t learn the High Speech! It was impossible!
“Minyavaethan,” Huaroq said, and then a fit of coughing took the druan, wracking coughs so deep that Adalwhin was surprised when the druan wiped his mouth and the hand didn’t come away red with blood. He passed Huaroq the last of the tea, and the druan took it gratefully. “Minyavaethan, What May have Been.” He took a long drink, throat bobbing, then said, “That land was a mystery from the beginning.
“The first of my ancestors who found Minyavaethan never returned. After a time we sang more ch’aqnim open, and sent more searchers through, but none ever returned. I doubt very much that we would have discovered the Sundered Earths that lay beyond Minyavaethan if the Aradlim hadn’t taken a personal interest in our discoveries. It was they who first made the True Roads that lead through Minyavaethan, and after those paths were laid, my kin entered and sang open more ch’aqnim, which then led us to the Sundered Earths.”
“But what was so dangerous about that earth?” Adalwhin asked. “What happened to your searchers?”
“Minyavaethan was not like other worlds.” Huaroq lifted his hands, palms up, and shook his bald head wearily. “I make no claim to understand the old writings, but some texts suggest that Minyavaethan was . . . detatched, somehow, from the rest of Creation. In Minyavaethan, reality was in constant motion, like the surface of a river. Everything around you could change in an instant, so that at one moment Minyavaethan might be identical to our world, and in the next instant it might appear as our earth might have had the Ward never been erected. Or, perhaps, it would appear as our earth did ten thousand years ago, or two days ago, or twenty years in the future. Sometimes it reflect one of the Sundered Earths, as tempestuous as Turiel, or as idyllic as Islla Valar.”
Huaroq sighed, like a great bellows deflating, and leaned back from the fire, eyes turning upward to gaze at the bright stars. “Imagine it, young one. In Minyavaethan the future is an open book to read, the past an experience to be relived.”
“Then there are people there?” Adalwhin said, scratching at his chin. “How do they live, if time and reality is constantly changing?”
“Only the shades of mortals walk Minyavaethan,” Huaroq said, and then he began coughing again. Adalwhin had no more water to offer—he wasn’t worried, springs and creeks were fairly common in the area—so he merely waited while the elderly druan caught his breath. “But you bring up an excellent point. Minyavaethan is a dangerous place, and those caught in its ever changing grasp were forever lost. It is believed that our first searchers met their dooms thus . . . torn from reality and cast adrift in Minyavaethan.
“Only the True Roads were safe, islands of calm in the storm. The Aradlim anchored them to the rest of Creation, so that mortals could tread through Minyavaethan unscathed and so enter into the Sundered Earths. Once my kin had sang open the ch’aqnim to the Outer Earths and the Colony Earths, many of your kind braved the True Roads and founded the first cities in the Sundered Earths.”
Adalwhin could only shake his head in wonder as he began repacking the kettle and various utensils. “I wouldn’t mind seeing these lands you speak of, Huaroq,” he confessed. Setting the packs aside he began unstrapping his horse’s saddle. “They sound wondrous.”
“I fear that you would find them less than welcoming, Son of the Earth. The Shadow has claimed all but this Master World and Minyavaethan, and even that land has grown more perilous with time, hard as that may be to believe. Besides, the Ward has shut us in. We are trapped here as surely as our ancient enemies are trapped without, Son of the Earth.”
Pulling his own blanket out of his pack, Adalwhin wrapped up as best he could, then lay down next to the fire.
“My name is Adalwhin, by the way.” He’d completely forgotten to mention that.
Huaroq grinned at him as he settled down among the high grass. “Again I thank you, Adalwhin, Son of the Earth. I owe you my life.”
“Your tales have more than made up for any services I may have provided,” Adalwhin said with an easy smile of his own. He liked the druan, and that in itself was surprising. Making friends had never come easy for him.
“Oh, these are more than tales, young one,” the druan rumbled—Adalwhin could almost feel the earth trembling beneath him as Huaroq breathed. “They are truth. Faded by time and worn out by passing from tongue to paper and back to tongue again, but truth nonetheless.”
They both fell silent for a moment, eyes lingering on the dying fire.
“Perhaps now I’ll tell you have the Palace of Ten Thousand Mirrors that lies beyond the True Roads in Minyavaethan. It is said to be the only thing in that world that does not change. Anyone who reaches the Palace, it is rumored, can peer at will into any time and place.”
“Sounds nice,” Adalwhin murmured, sleep thickening his tongue.
“More than nice, I should say, Son of the Earth. It is not for nothing that my kin say, ‘For a prophet, all roads lead to Minyavaethan”.”
The old druan was still talking when Adalwhin finally fell asleep.
