Wordscapist, The Myth

It will never end

Because it never began

And if it feels like the past

It’s probably tomorrow

It always was and will be

And you have my word on that

The Historian

It was over and done with, finally. After almost two months of detailed interrogations and discussions, I was free again. If that’s what you call persona non grata status at the Guild and the Free Word, and an unspoken but perfectly obvious death threat from the two most powerful wordsmiths in the world. Although of course they weren’t the most powerful, not anymore. They weren’t even close. I had seen the boy face them both down. That said they were still powerful enough to snuff me out without a second thought. The CCC knew this and provided sufficient round-the-clock protection. I think I was more bait in the trap to apprehend Zauberin or Silvus, should they turn up - I was just a pawn in the game, and I was all too aware of that.

Pawn or not, I had done a remarkable job of staying alive through all the madness. I was part of some of the most tumultuous happenings in the history of Wordkind and had survived to tell the story. Not really. My tale would not make it into the historian archives. But I had noted it all any way. There would come a day when I’d find the time, place, and stage to tell the tale. Before that, I had a lot more recording to do. I was done with the Guild and the Free Word though. I had to find the boy. He was the one to watch. He was the one to follow. I had thought long and hard about it. I knew the dangers associated with such a foolhardy enterprise. But that is the purpose of a historian’s life. To record worthy deeds. And I could think of no honour greater than to be the personal historian of the Wordscapist. I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish that, not yet. But it was the direction I was headed in. Even historians have resources. Even historians have methods. And I would use everything at my disposal to make this happen, even if it was the last thing I did.

The first thing to do was to arrange a meeting with some friends I had made recently. Isis and Wind were no longer with the Free Word. There were two more who were out there; Necros and Lonigan. I had heard from them not long after the Glasgow debacle. They wanted to know who else could be relied on. I had been the coordinator, and soon we were all to meet. There was a definite agenda, a common purpose; to find and help the greatest wordsmith in all of history...the Wordscapist.

A young man makes his way rapidly up the stairs of a seedy motel, on one of the lesser frequented streets of Venice. He takes the stairs two at a time and quickly makes his way to the narrow corridor on the third floor. He pauses beside an ancient looking door and knocks twice, and then after a pause, twice again. The door is opened by a pretty girl, about his age.

“That wasn’t the password! Why did you open the door?”

“I can recognise knuckle-heads by the quality of the rap; the number doesn’t make a difference.” She smiles playfully at him.

He responds in kind, and then raises one hand in acknowledgement, “I’ll have to give it to you though, that was a good one!”

“So are you ready for this?” she asks, “She’s supposed to be one of the old ones. She pretty much ate up a wordsmith who tried to summon her.”

“Isn’t that what they do? I mean they aren’t called succubae for nothing! Except, I think there is supposed to be some pre-meal sex as well.”

“Ha! You wish!” The girl throws in a punch with that.

“Ow! Alright, fine! I’ll keep my distance. Though I always wonder why you get so uppity about it!”

“Go have your succubus sex! And come back as a dripping doggie bag, what do I care!”

At this point, there is a brief warp in the air and a translucent figure, barely a few inches in height, materializes over them.

“If you kids are done, we have business to do. Louise is in her room. You have a scryscape to weave and a call to surf.”

“You don’t surf calls, Alain. You make calls.”

“Make, surf, click. Whatever. Get to it. Amra’s team is watching, so be careful.”

“No worries, Alain. This will be an easy one. I even have a little love letter to deliver to Amra. I was writing it while I took a gondola to this godforsaken street.”

“What love letter?” the girl aims for casual curiosity but misses it by some.

“Oh, nothing at all,” the boy pockets the note and heads for the phone. He makes a motion in the air that brings up a polished warp. The warp starts as a grey swirl that clears to show a beautiful woman in a red dress. A hotel room can be seen in the background. The boy smiles and picks up the phone. He dials a number. The woman in the warp picks up the phone.

“Louise...?”

“Oui...Qui est-ce?”

The Wordscapist starts weaving his next scape.

A conversation between Lirii is impossible to document in a coherent format. A structured maelstrom of thoughts, ideas and intents that transcends time and space is exchanged through a shared communal pool. One such exchange however is critical to this tale, and is summarized here for the sake of context.

There is a place outside the universe as we know it. It is outside time too, existing in a pocket of probability that will never happen. This place is home to inter-galactic mystics who are known to Wordkind as the Lirii. What they call themselves doesn’t translate too well into any language known to beings that use standard means of communication (written, spoken, telepathic).

There aren’t many Lirii. Sexless and formless, the Lirii sustain their numbers by voting into being any required additions. Formed by thought and purpose, with the Continuum as their only sustenance, each Lirus is powerful enough to destroy entire worlds.

The Lirii are omniscient. This isn’t the same as omnipotence, as knowledge of everything that can and may happen does not necessarily translate into knowledge of what will happen. The Lirii have their ways though of working through high probability futures and narrowing down options. At times, for the odd rare occurrence that is important enough for them to want a particular outcome, the Lirii meddle. With their all-seeing vision into all possible pasts, presents, and futures, the Lirii realize the severe repercussions of this interference (an extreme outcome of what is known on Earth as the Observer effect). At times, they deem these repercussions acceptable. The Lirii have been concerned about half a millennium’s worth of space-time planes on an otherwise inconsequential planet called Earth. Some possible futures show that a Continuum source might open up on these planes and might even find a sentient host, who could control this power. A sentient being connected to the Continuum is either a Lirus or a myth. Once in a time-space eternity, a third possibility opens up; a physical life form with the power of multiple Lirii.

Such a being is usually outside the Lirii vision. There is nothing the Lirii detest more than a blind spot. This occurrence needs to be mitigated at all costs, through indirect facilitation or direct intervention. This particular blind spot had managed to evade the Lirii for too long. They had tried indirect facilitation and it hadn’t worked. It looked like the problem had compounded now. There might even be two of them.

It was time for direct intervention. The possible extinction of all life on Earth comes up as a possible outcome on some planes. The Lirii unanimously agree that this is an acceptable loss. They have started planning for the event. It would take time and painstaking effort, at least by Earth standards. But to one outside time, patience isn’t a virtue; it’s inevitable.

Arpan Panicker is an enthusiast - whether it’s travelling, food, gadgets, movies, motorbikes, theatre or animals. He has always found solace in reading everything he could get his hands on. His favourite author and inspiration is (and will always be) Terry Pratchett.

After experimenting with careers in journalism, copywriting and web design he settled in the Learning and Development field, which satisfied his need to write, be creative and keep up with the latest technology. He and his wife currently work together as Learning Consultants in Pune, India, with their very dog-like cats.