The Redemption of Althalus. David Eddings
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from under his cloak, reaching for his spear. He heard only one voice, but whoever was talking seemed to be holding a conversation of some kind, asking questions and seeming to listen to replies.
The conversationalist was a crooked and bent old man, and he was shambling along with the aid of a staff. His hair and beard were a dirty white, he was filthy, and he was garbed in scraps of rotting fur-covered animal skins held together with cords of sinew or twisted gut. His weathered face was deeply lined, and his rheumy eyes were wild. He gesticulated as he talked, casting frequent, apprehensive glances up at the now-colorless sky.
Althalus relaxed. This man posed no threat, and his condition wasn’t all that uncommon. Althalus knew that people were supposed to live for just so long, but if someone accidentally missed his appointed time to die, his mind turned peculiar. The condition was most common in very old people, but the same thing could happen to much younger men if they carelessly happened to miss their appointment. Some claimed that these crazy people had been influenced by demons, but that was really far too complicated. Althalus much preferred his own theory. Crazy people were just ordinary folk who’d lived too long. Roaming around after they were supposed to be lying peacefully in their graves would be enough to make anybody crazy. That’s why they started talking to people – or other things – that weren’t really there, and why they began to see things that nobody else could see. They were no particular danger to anyone, so Althalus normally left them alone. Those who were incapable of minding their own business always got excited about crazy people, but Althalus had long since decided that most of the world’s people were crazy anyway, so he treated everybody more or less the same.
‘Ho, there,’ he called to the crazy old man, ‘I mean you no harm, so don’t get excited.’
‘Who’s that?’ the old man demanded, seizing his staff in both hands and brandishing it.
‘I’m just a traveler, and I seem to have lost my way.’
The old man lowered his staff. ‘Don’t see many travelers around here. They don’t seem to like our sky.’
‘I noticed the sky myself just last night. Why does it do that?’
‘It’s the edge of things,’ the old man explained. ‘That curtain of fire up in the sky is where everything stops. This side’s all finished – filled up with mountains and trees and birds and bugs and people and beasts. The curtain is the place where nothing begins.’
‘Nothing?’
‘That’s all there is out there, traveler – nothing. God hasn’t gotten around to doing anything about it yet. There isn’t anything at all out beyond that curtain of fire.’
‘I haven’t lost my way then after all. That’s what I’m looking for – the edge of the world.’
‘What for?’
‘I want to see it. I’ve heard about it, and now I want to see it for myself.’
‘There’s nothing to see.’
‘Have you ever seen it?’
‘Lots of times. This is where I live, and the edge of the world’s as far as I can go when I travel north.’
‘How do I get there?’
The old man stabbed his stick toward the north. ‘Go that way for about a half a day.’
‘Is it easy to recognize?’
‘You can’t hardly miss it – at least you’d better not.’ The crazy man cackled. ‘It’s a place where you want to be real careful, ‘cause if you make one wrong step when you come to that edge, your journey’s going to last for a lot longer than just a half a day. If you’re really all that eager to see it, go across this meadow and through the pass between those two hills up at the other end of the grass. When you get to the top of the pass you’ll see a big dead tree. The tree stands right at the edge of the world, so that’s as far as you’ll be able to go – unless you know a way to sprout wings.’
‘Well then, as long as I’m this close, I think I’ll go have a look.’
‘That’s up to you, traveler. I’ve got better things to do than stand around looking at nothing.’
‘Who were you talking to just now?’
‘God. Me and God, we talk to each other all the time.’
‘Really? Next time you talk to him, why don’t you give him my regards? Tell him I said hello.’
‘I’ll do that – if I happen to think of it.’ And then the shabby old fellow shambled on, continuing his conversation with the empty air around him.
Althalus went back to his camp, gathered up his belongings and set out across the rocky meadow toward the two low, rounded hills the old man had indicated. The sun rose, climbing above the snowy peaks of Kagwher, and the night chill began to fade.
The hills were darkly forested, and there was a narrow pass between them where the ground had been trampled by the hooves of deer and bison. Althalus moved carefully, stopping to examine the game-trail for any unusual footprints. This was a very peculiar place, and it was entirely possible that unusual creatures lived here. Unusual creatures sometimes had unusual eating habits, so it was time to start being very careful.
He moved on, stopping frequently to look around and listen, but the only sounds he heard were the songs of birds and the sluggish buzzing of a few insects just starting to come awake after the chill night.
When he reached the top of the pass, he stopped again for quite a long time to look to the north, not because there was anything to see in that direction, but because there wasn’t. The game-trail went on down through a narrow patch of grass toward the dead snag the crazy old man had mentioned, and then it stopped. There wasn’t anything at all beyond that tree. There were no distant mountain peaks and no clouds. There was nothing but sky.
The dead snag was bone-white, and its twisted limbs seemed to reach in mute supplication to the indifferent morning sky. There was something unnerving about that, and Althalus grew even more edgy. He walked very slowly across the intervening stretch of grass, stopping quite often to bring his eyes – and his spear – around to look toward his rear. He’d seen nothing threatening so far, but this was a very unusual place, and he didn’t want to take any chances.
When he reached the tree, he put his hand on it to brace himself and leaned out carefully to look down over the edge of what appeared to be a precipice of some kind.
There wasn’t anything down there but clouds.
Althalus had been in the mountains many times before, and he’d frequently been in places that were above the clouds, so looking down at the tops of them wasn’t really all that unusual. But these clouds stretched off to the north with absolutely no break or occasional jutting peak for as far as he could see. The world ended right here, and there was nothing past here but clouds.
He stepped back from the tree and looked around. There were rocks lying here and there, so he lifted one that was about the size of his head, carried it back to the tree, and heaved it as far as he could out over the edge. Then he cocked his head to listen.
He listened for a long time, but he didn’t hear anything. ‘Well,’ he murmured ‘this must be the place.’
He stayed some distance back from the edge of the world and followed it off toward the northeast.
There were places where tumbling rock-slides had rolled down from nearby mountainsides to spill over the edge, and Althalus idly wondered if those sudden avalanches might have startled the stars. That thought struck him as funny for some reason. The notion of stars whirring off in all directions like a frightened covey of quail was somehow vastly amusing. The cold indifference of the stars sometimes irritated him.
In the late afternoon he took his sling and picked up several round stones from a dry creek-bed. There were hares and beaver-faced marmots about, and he decided that some fresh meat for supper might be an improvement over