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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: A short but cosmic fantasy. A young man with a knife versus the magus who controls the world? No contest....

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Beyond Lands of Never, ed. Maxim Jakubowski, 1984
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2004

16 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [47 KB], eReader (PDB) [22 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [8 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [8 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [60 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [78 KB], hiebook (KML) [29 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [34 KB], iSilo (PDB) [7 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [9 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [36 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [15 KB]
Words: 2422
Reading time: 6-9 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

It had been cold at first, when Tirik climbed above the clouds. White ridges and peaks towered ahead, hard-edged and perfect against the sky's unearthly blue, almost painful to the eye. To descend again through those puffy clouds to the softness of the valley ... after this it would be like wallowing in mud, Tirik thought, exalted. It had been cold at first, each breath scouring his throat and nostrils like splintered ice: but now it seemed less so. He climbed on, gloved hands fumbling for purchase on the treacherous slope, towards the topmost peak and the place of power.

"Can you hear me coming, Magus? Can you hear me coming?" he whispered.

The mountains which ringed the one valley were called the edge of the world; they might be or they might not; nobody knew what was beyond. Once the world--the valley--had been larger, perhaps hundreds of miles across rather than a puny five; but lately the edges of the world were closing in. By night or even by day, the foothills would shuffle inward. Another farm, another family, would be gone. Even day and night were not the reliable things they had been. The brightest summer afternoon might be disfigured by an hour-long patch of night, or the hues of sunset swallowed in a wholly improper dawn. It was not to be tolerated. There were dreams and visions, signs and portents, as always, as ever. Appalling things stalked the darkness, as though demanding propitiation. The word "sacrifice" was mentioned rather too soon and rather too frequently for Tirik's liking--he knew that his own burning ambition and manoeuvres for power were resented. And sure enough, with much flattery of his youth, strength and cleverness, the village fathers chose Tirik for the ostensible task of pleading with the legendary Magus in his place of power. None of them dwelt on the tradition that people had gone that way before, or the lack of any tradition relating to their return.