"Mirages" by Kim Schoonover (FreeBSD/i386 [moose] [ttyv5])

Mirages of the End of the World

The world ended on the eighth of October, unbidden in its ending, but not unexpected.

On the seventh, the quest of the Forgotten Ones remained unhalted.

It had begun some months ago with a whimper and the deaths of thousands at the passing of a plague so brutal it decimated an entire race. One alone of those people proceeded to live, accompanied only by a group of furred ones who had abandoned their previous heritage altogether, to form a new one, that of the wolves. These were the first of the sentient wolves, and she, Eleridea by name, was the last of the elves, and collectively they were lost beyond all meanings of the term.

And with that, they were Forgotten.

There was no cause for their lives to continue, but those worthless lives did nonetheless.

Time passed with listlessness unmatched as the bodies rotted to dust, untouched by the decomposers of this world, until something changed. A traveler passed through, silent and invisible, but the residents of that dead land knew it for what it was. It was the Evithere, the plague bringer, the conglomeration of the lost souls of spirits long dead who simply wanted to add to their ranks new souls. Their scent held strong long after they passed, the scent all there ever was to evidence their passing.
It was enough, though.
The wolves immediately picked up themselves, for they needed nothing else, and followed for reasons solely their own. The Valkyrie Eleridea followed them in turn, mounted on a great steed so as to keep up, but as the direction held fast her reliance on their noses faded. She went for revenge, for the wergild, although it was with reluctance that she pledged to fulfill the ancient oath.

Now, sometimes the grey-furred runners led, sometimes the fair rider, but the end was approaching and they all knew it, for the trees whispered it to all who would listen. They pressed on, however, and the moon changed much as the land did, and when they unknowingly passed through the last of the great bamboo forests, they wept. They had left their own realm, and entered that of the mortals.



Shades of blue and black flickered across a landscape still as death; the creatures of the night had gone to sleep, the mortals of the day not yet risen. The full moon lit the land with its stark contrasts, but the only humanoid present to appreciate it refrained from doing so. There was much distance to cover and her dresthina steed was well-rested.
The shadow dashed through the clearings and woods, moving so swiftly she was never there.

Harsh panting followed, but only out of coincidence, now. The grey-furred runners traversed that land as well, low to the ground, taking in the smells of the animals, the elven rider, the resident humans nearby who were deep in the slumber of the early morning. Wolfish eyes glowed softly and met, passing unspoken messages and commands.
This way.
Look at the moon.
I smell the flower, so beautiful.
This tree still sings, hear what is says.
Our quarry passed through here.

It was a different quarry, though, from that of the rider.

It had changed.

Woodland passed into hilly grassland and the near-silent pursuit continued. The rider knew of the runners' presence, but as they ignored her, she ignored them.

Clouds moved to cover the moon as it lowered itself to the mountains ahead. The east lightened and the silence faded as life regained the land, but the destination of both parties was yet far off. The wolves would need to sleep again, rest during the day, as such as they were feared so by the daywalkers,
Eleridea stopped because the runners did, they being her only magic relatives in this world, and also because her steed would be thought odd.
Very odd. Dresthinas were, effectively, large panthera.

As the sun mounted the horizon to a greeting of glorious flaming clouds, they ended for the night by nearly hitting a tree, evidencing some level of fatigue. The great panthera curled up, bowing its head to her apologetically, and the elf responded, ending the ritual, by stroking the darling's fur lovingly and curling up as well.

But something nagged, and sleep kept distant. The end was so soon, so off yonder... Eleridea needed answers, and more than that, she needed the wergild, the blood money paid.

She sought the spirits, the wolves sought a flower; it was time they parted.

Wordlessly, the Valkyrie of the night stood and contemplated the mountains.
She would find them there. Her gaze turned to the dresthina sprawled beside her: it looked up innocently and met her eyes.
It was decided: they would continue after all.

Dresthinas were natural sprinters; fast running long distance, but a blur in their occasional bursts of speed.
Only a crazy one would go all out for long, or a determined one, with a determined rider. Anaerobic activities can continue much longer than normally possible when another lends energy, although both will tire. But the still wind that whipped the robes and fur into complete disarray of the merged pair did not lag as they traversed the long miles. The sun mounted the sky and the golden leaves on many an ash tree fluttered to the ground, and slowly, so inexorably slowly, the mountains grew in their perspective size.
Exhaustion would of course set in, given time, and it did. The foothills, with much granite poking from the dead, waving grasses and exposed to the elements on their slopes, surrounded Eleridea and her dresthina. There they stopped, the rider toppling limply from her mount, the dresthina itself heaving to the ground, and there they lay, staring into the noonday sun as it beat mercilessly down upon them.

Some time later the elf awoke, noting vaguely that she had apparently blacked out and that a dragonfly was perched on her nose. Now she caught the scent of the spirits to the west, strange, as she was no wolf, and she was drawn to them. The dresthina emitted a soft snore, and the lost sojourner wondered how she would ever make it to those mountains with so little residual energy.
Slowly, Eleridea sat up.

The mountains were nearer than she has thought. They loomed above her, somehow dark on this brilliant autumn day, and as she gazed over their sharp peaks she noticed something lower, something closer. There was a cave. Its mouth yawned wide, seemingly unreachable, but within she would find that which she had sought for so long. If she didn't, she was finished, anyway. It was finished.
Her agonized muscles screamed as she rose to her feet, but she continued nonetheless and proceeded with the horrifying process of placing one foot in front of the other. Slowly, with fermented muscles aching, she walked up the mountain.

The stars twinkled down upon her as Eleridea gained the entrance. Inside, the darkness pervaded all, but her keen eyes pierced this darkness easily. It was empty, save for piles of rocks, and on one upright natural pedestal there lay a crystal, arranged with small slivers of brightly colored gems in the shape of a flower. The elf had not the acute sense of smell of the the wolves, but the scent was so strong here, so beautiful to her, too.
She peered into the starlight flower, unsure of what to expect.

In it. she saw a universe.

That was all it was.
It was everything, and nothing, and empty. She saw a reflection of herself standing there, but deeper within she saw violent explosions, supernovae, the ends of worlds, the claustrophobic beginnings and ends of life itself. And it was this universe, in its infinite glory, bared to the naked eye so that no mirages were excluded. A galaxy which seemed so near collapsed and imploded in on itself, sending out a blast of particles that incinerated everything in their path and would have obliterated this world, had it truly had such a proximity. Wormholes formed as physics became hazy and they connected to other wormholes, creating passages that no life could pass through, but those things that could came out so intriguingly different than how they had started that it did not matter.

She saw space and time, how they remained relative only to that around them, and they warped everything, adding a greater degree of chaos to the whole magically organized mess. Everything there was so fragile, so apt to disintegrate, but when it did only something more delicate, more pristine could take its place and end in turn.

She saw this very cave, a natural cathedral, underappreciated by all save the bears and the spirits. Those lost souls she saw in their whole, beautiful selves, glowing with the light of magics unseen by all. But most especially, she saw what they were: they were her people, their ghosts. They were the ones who had martyred her race and left her friendless, the ones who must be avenged.

The blood money must be paid.

Positive nucleus to their negative electronic ethereal selves, the crystal was their magnet. As opposites attract, so do equivalents when the right variables are applied, and so they stuck to it and to each other... and it had caused their partial spacial deaths, with its pulsing cationic force.
This starlight crystal was what created the Evithere, and added to it, and even as Eleridea watched, it consumed still more of the glowing spirits.

The tear she shed fell to the ground as shattered crystal, but she knew what she must do.

Blue swirled with green as red mingled with black in a ball of pure energy that formed in her hand, and she raised it. The Valkyrie, such a herald of death to undeath that she now was, then brought that mingled end down upon the starlight blossom and smote.

Eleridea's oath was fulfilled.

The world ended on the eighth of October, unbidden in its ending, but not unexpected in the slightest.
Only the mirage remained, but that was enough.

So what if she was now a mortal, and mortals were all there were...