Sea Without a Shore by Sean Russell

Author:Sean Russell
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780886776657
Publisher: DAW
Published: 1996-01-01T07:06:24+00:00

The great whale appears With the sun’s last rays. And stars light to mark our way Like islands cast upon the sea.

Suddenly the scene changed, the stars wavering like reflections in disturbed water, then they were gone. In their place Jaimy could see three curving structures, bridges he realized, that crossed over each other high in the air, supported so infrequently that they seemed to defy the forces of gravity. Behind them, painfully bright against the night sky, stood towers of brittle glass and light. As he drew in his breath in amazement, a noxious odor of unwholesome burning gagged him, and he saw that the air was an unnatural brown, and the stars had been blotted from the sky leaving only a stained moon, drifting in the pall.

Beneath the bridges men and women moved, but Jaimy could see that they were ragged and shuffled along with the slow pitiful steps of those“ utterly discouraged or ill beyond hope. A few stunted trees grew in the shadow of the great city, but their foliage was so sparse they seemed to be winter trees, despite the warmth Jaimy could feel in this filthy air.

It is the world that we build, a sudden intuition told him. The world of empiricism and commerce—but not the world of men.

A sallow boy darted across the opening behind the flame, and Jaimy saw lights moving, both on land and in the darkened sky. And then this scene changed as well.

They looked out through the branches of a forest, barren of leaves and blackened, as though it had been fired. On the horizon hung the slender crescent of a waning moon. For a moment it seemed that he looked into a world devoid of life, but then, on the darkened hillside beyond the wood, creatures moved. They were men, he realized, on a terrible field of battle. The stench of death was carried to him, and he felt bile rise in his throat. And then he saw the armies, or their ragged remains, drawn up upon opposing hills. About one hill lightning flickered from a cloudless sky, and the green sea-flame spread like

a tide of light, while about the other he saw flames erupt while terrible explosions drove men screaming in terror. Faint cries of anguish reached him. Jaimy knew that this was the final battle of men: the forces of empiricism against the forces of magic. He felt all hope was lost, and then a cry went up from the gathered armies, like a note of grief and horror, and they charged once more across the field of the dead.

And, mercifully, the scene changed.

A moon floated over distant mountains. Peaks that rose out of calm water. From a mountainside, a single light flickered, and then the countess spoke out strongly in the tongue of the mages, and this flame guttered and died.

Jaimy was overwhelmed with distress by this sight, and then realized that these were the feelings of another within him. But was there only one? The flame within the chamber began to waver, and the countess spoke again, and then cried out.

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