The Horned Land

A lot of people who get this far begin to think that what I do is communicating with the dead, but I have to disagree. There is something so fundamentally different about Arc and Ahkra, and the ones that came later. They felt so very alive, and carried on lives in worlds of their own for most of the time. I visited those different worlds as much as I could, driven by curiosity and amazement as I surveyed landscapes so impossibly diverse and different.

The term "spirit" started to feel wrong when I applied it to them. They weren't just ghosts or insubstantial beings floating around. Far from it, really. When I visited them on their own terms, in their own worlds, they were flesh and blood, vibrant and real. If anything, it was more like I was the ghost in their world.

They were imperfect beings struggling to find or maintain happiness and peace in the same way that it seems like every human does, even if the ways sometimes differed. Ahkra battled his own temper and struggled with a vicious sort of amnesia that consumed many of his memories from the past in an attempt to erase the tragic pain that had been inflicted on him by his cruel twin brother many aeons ago. Arc had similar memory problems; he hadn't escaped Ahkra's brother's notice, mostly due to his relationship with the mysterious green-eyed man. Still, they had each other, and even if they could only be called broken when studied individually, they found a way to be whole together.

I began calling the 'spirits' that I met 'connections' instead, in reference to the strange bond that we held. It felt more accurate. The fact that Ahkra stopped raising an eyebrow judgmentally when I referred to him or Arc was enough for me to assume that the term 'connection' was more acceptable to them, too.

I became pretty familiar with Arc and Ahkra's world after meeting them. I could use that ethereal bond between us like a compass, and found myself sleeping less and stepping out of my body to explore far more.

It was vast and beautiful, and very different from this world. They called it Maika Tenei, which means something like "the horned land". I'm not sure what sort of meaning it has, but it was good enough for me.

Maika Tenei, although in no way geographically resembling Earth, makes me think of a younger version of our planet. Great forests still stretch over the land, massive and awesome; rivers run clean and full of fish... unless you count the Cari Keivy, which looks red due to the minerals in the riverbed.

Although the majority of the main continent and it's southern islands are well-populated and thrive with vegetation for the most part, to the north is what the people call "the Deinnan". It is an expansive wasteland dotted with ruins older than anyone can count. The land is harsh and unforgiving to anything that attempt to grow there, the ground broken and dry. Only the most dangerous or talented animals and races are able to live in this land, including dragons, the Wilderfae, who appear to be nomadic and very magically inclined elves with stripe-like markings on their skin, and Deinnan unicorns, which are far more vicious and colorful than their friendly southern cousins.

The main continent is home to a ridiculous variety of different denizens. Many of them are very human-like, some of them less so. Towns are small vales there; their largest cities are roughly the size of a small town here, and most buildings are humbly constructed of wood, bricks, stone, and other such natural resources, as opposed to the concrete, glass and metal behemoths that we boast in our world. Horses, wagons, and ships are the main mode of transportation. Most weapons are blades, with only the most rudimentary guns having been invented. Even those are rare to find, though.

It's not that the people of Maika Tenei aren't capable of technological advancement. It's more that they haven't had the push that we've had. Why should they focus on harnessing electricity and science? After all, the most notable thing that I immediately noticed was that Maika Tenei was rich and abundant with what we would call magic. Almost everyone seems to have at least a little bit. There is no need for electricity when with just a touch, a whole building can be lit up as if by daylight.

Now, I've always enjoyed a nice fairy tale, but at the same time I have had a huge respect for science at the same time. My rational mind was starting to ask questions. I couldn't discredit my own experiences, but I was starting to worry about the state of my sanity. After all, it was hard to explain another world full of magic and magical beings. Not to mention Ahkra and Arc's impossible ages (Ahkra claimed to have witnessed the birth of Time, and Arc, though younger, was older than our own planet Earth) -- especially when you consider their youthful appearances. For that matter, the fact that I would have any sort of voices in my head was alarming.

Whether I was crazy or not, I still trusted Arc and Ahkra. They had been reliable and trustworthy friends, and even though my doubts threw their very existence into question, I still shared them. I explained why I was struggling with believing in everything now, and why I worried that I was simply going off the deep end.

Everything considered, they took the news pretty well. I suppose I expected Ahkra to fix me with one of his famous glares and storm off having lost a good deal of respect for me, or something like that. Instead, the way that his expression softened just slightly, I could swear that he had been expecting this for awhile. Arc, too, just gave a reassuring smile, as if he understood and didn't blame me.

They knew that I'd always been a sucker for science, and, I suspect for my own sake, they used just that to explain all of this.

Things got pretty heavy from there, especially for a twelve-year-old girl. Sure, I had always been quick to pick up science, and I considered myself to be extremely literate for my age, but I got the feeling that Ahkra was giving me the explanation for dummies.

First, he explained the general belief held as true not only by him and Arc, but also by most of the denizens of Maika Tenei.

"In the beginning," Ahkra began, as if he were recounting a famous tale, "there was the Lokoi. It was everything, and nothing, all at once. It was the great sleeping beast that came before all worlds, and time itself.

"For a very, very long time, it slept peacefully, completely still. One day, something happened to disturb the Lokoi. No one knows what could have done this, but the Lokoi gave a small tremble, like a sleeping bear shifting just slightly.

"This event was tiny in contrast to the Lokoi, but it's effects were cataclysmic. Small motes fell off of the Lokoi as it shifted, each one of them giving birth to a new world, and a new Incarnation. These were referred to as Children of the Lokoi."

"Incarnation?" I interjected suspiciously. I knew what the word meant, but wasn't sure it had anything to do with Ahkra's story.

"Yes, an Incarnation. Each of the Incarnations born of the Lokoi were a unique and vast ocean of energy focused into a single being. Fire, Water, Earth, Air. Darkness, Light, Time, Corruption."

"Darkness, huh?" I fixed him with a scrutinizing stare. The way he said that reminded me all to much of when he had given me his 'name'. And then there was the fact that he claimed to have witnessed 'the birth of Time'. Suddenly I felt like I was starting to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

Ahkra simply gave me a knowing smile, looking almost smug. I was sure that he could tell exactly what was going through my head, and somehow reveled in making me put everything together myself.

"Among others," he replied coolly  giving me no indication whether my sneaking suspicions were correct. I was sure that they were though.

I was almost positive that the Incarnation of Darkness was the vain bastard standing before me. Nevertheless, Ahkra continued with his story. It was probably for the better, anyway. Figuring out the mystery that was Ahkra could wait until I decided whether I was still sane or not.

"Those small worlds that had been cast off by the Lokoi into the void began to flourish," Ahkra continued. "They grew, and in turn gave birth to even more new worlds. In time, a myriad of beautiful and different universes had arisen, like the different facets of a single gemstone, reflecting every possibility that could ever be."

I had a thousand questions about the Incarnations that Ahkra had only barely mentioned, but set them aside for later.

"So, a nice story about a great beast giving birth to a whole bunch of worlds is supposed to make me feel less crazy?"

I was being hard on him, and I knew it. He didn't hold it against me, though.

Ahkra simply gave me his trademark grin. "Would you prefer the cold, hard logic? Personally, I find it to be a much less elegant tale, but I suspect it is exactly the cup of tea you desire."

"Well, you've got that right," I retorted. I suppose I expected him to attempt and fail to explain all of this scientifically -- probably because the world he hailed from was far from scientifically advanced. I was wrong.

Ahkra was right about one thing -- it was a far less elegant tale, but far more believable. He explained to me that we live in a multiverse -- a grouping of an infinite number of universes that have to exist in order to play out every possibility that could ever possibly happen. Emphasis on ever. And magic was in there, too.

I had also never heard such a dull and rational explanation for how, exactly, magic worked, either. According to Ahkra, magic and science were not mutually exclusive at all. Rather, magic was simply harnessing and converting energy. In extreme cases, it involved the breakdown of matter into energy, or even the creation of matter from energy. Maika Tenei was abundant with some sort of an energy field that made magic easy. I was pretty disappointed when I asked about our own planet Earth.

"It's a dead planet," he told my sympathetically, dashing all hopes that had started to rise within me. "Arc and I are very powerful and skilled with magic, and yet while we can accomplish great feats back on Maika Tenei, our abilities are far more limited in your world. A few thousand years ago it was a different story."

It was all well and dandy that there were, according to Ahkra and Arc, an infinite number of different worlds out there, including worlds that operated on completely different laws of physics and seemed, by our perspective, full of magic and fantasy. It still didn't explain how I had connected with Ahkra and Arc, though, and that was it's own very hairy subject.

When I asked them, Ahkra got that expression that meant he was frustrated with the limitations of my language. His answer was full of images as much as words this time.

"Although each universe is independent and separate," he commented, frowning, "they do effect each other."

The image of each world as a different face on a gemstone with a complex cut, part of the same whole, flashed through my mind for a moment, before being replaced by a stack of thin paper, each sheet representing a different world. In that mental image, Ahkra set a stone down on the stack, and drew my attention to the way that many of the papers on top of the stack had bent around the stone, even if they weren't directly in contact with it.

"You might not be able to travel between them physically, short of using a portal, but such petty limitations hold only to matter. Something like energy can pass through or affect them far more easily. For instance, a person's spirit. Mine, yours, or Arc's. You are a natural wanderer. Your spirit looks for weak spots between the worlds and wanders between them."

Okay, so he said portal, but I could tell he was referring to wormholes. I wasn't quite convinced yet, though. Frowning, I crossed my arms. "That sounds all right..." I agreed reluctantly, "but I'm not sure that's something that could be proved."

One of Ahkra's eyebrows rose as he studied me. He wasn't mad, necessarily, but I could tell he already knew that I was going to read up on this and double check his logic later. Rather than giving me a lengthy explanation again, he shrugged.

"Look up Dark Matter," he offered enigmatically, before taking off, presumably to meet up with Arc and give me some space to think.