The Worldbuilder’s Disease

Prologue

Tap, tap. Hello — is this thing on? Can you hear me?

I’ll be sharing my experiences in a way no one has ever done before. Live. In front of all of you — my dear listeners and lovers of technology and fantastical worlds. Oh my… over a thousand of you on the stream already. I like that. Is the signal good? Unfortunately, this technology doesn’t include video feed, but I’ll do my best to describe everything as vividly and faithfully as I can. I’ve been honing my storytelling abilities for decades. Just let go and trust me — you’ll feel like you’re right there.

Before I plug into the virtual world, tell me just one thing: are you jealous, friends? Go on, admit it. Don’t worry, this technology will reach you eventually. Until then, be glad that we’ll be stepping together into a new era of humanity — one where imagination and technological innovation finally become one.

The excitement is building. An entire world that I’ve been conceiving, creating, recording, animating, and 3D-printing for years. All of it is about to become real.

Are there any new listeners tuning in for the first time to follow my project? Yes? Wonderful. I don’t mind running through a brief history of my work one more time. In fact, I always enjoy it — my stories are my children. I enjoy it even more now that there are two thousand of you. Stories travel fast. While I look back at my work, I’m certain thousands more will join us.

I started all the way back in seventy-four. Nineteen seventy-four. I was just fourteen years old, and I encountered Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. Inspired by it, I began building my own imaginary world, but I decided to build everything from scratch. I wrote down rigid rules to guide my creation, and so I invented my own dungeons, my own dragons, and a great deal more besides.

My world is called Shvya, and it is filled with wondrous magic, diverse creatures and races, as well as magnificent castles, villages, cities, and breathtaking natural beauty. In that world, good and evil clash in an eternal struggle for dominion, while the Gods agree or quarrel, influencing the individual and collective fates of my imagined characters, and in doing so creating a rich history and an even richer legacy.

Those who follow me know a great deal about that world. It began as a game with friends and grew into something far larger than myself. Since then I’ve written eighteen books, forty-four short stories, and produced seven films and two series. Shvya is, I say with pride, the work of my life. Many of you have been following it for decades.

And yet — the more I conceived and created, the stronger the impression became that it was all a lie. That Shvya was merely a product of my imagination. A world that didn’t live on its own. Although thousands upon thousands of pages had been written about it, everything was too static, and that hurt. My characters had no free will to do as they pleased. They had the gods acting upon them, yes — but they also had me, their alpha and omega, the one who wrote their fates, who judged and sentenced them.

Fortunately, his majesty appeared — artificial intelligence. For the last thirty years of my life, I’ve been devising ways to implement AI and make my static world dynamic. To let it keep living. To let it expand.

I’m no pioneer in this. As early as the beginning of the millennium, procedural generation systems were developed, where levels in games like Minecraft were generated from established rules — different every time, and original every time. But this isn’t that. My world is certainly full of complex rules, some of them foundational and immutable — but I wanted something more than that. I wanted the world to truly live. For the people in it to have a sense of self. To be no different from me or you, dear friends. And so I had to wait for the technology to catch up, and everything has been leading to this moment — when I will set my world free to live. And I? I will become its inseparable part, just one ordinary inhabitant of my own imaginary realm.

Is there any greater joy for a creator than to merge with their own work and live it? What do you say, listeners? Of course there isn’t.

How many of you are there now? Seven thousand? I can see this project of mine is only just beginning to breathe — so let’s set off on an extraordinary journey that will change the world.

Chapter One: First Steps

I put on the mask and insert the needle into my bloodstream. This is a system designed to fully immerse me in my imagined world. Remember The Matrix? This is exactly like that. The only difference is that I won’t be in some New York skyscraper — I’ll be at the heart of everything I’ve spent my entire life creating.

Bear with me — I’ll be unconscious for a moment. Closing my eyes…

***

Ugh, my head is pounding, listeners.

“Your Lordship, are you all right?”

I open my eyes. In front of me stands a servant. Hey — I recognize him. That’s Toks. Which means I’m in the body of Lord Castings, no less. For those who aren’t following along — Castings is a fairly unremarkable landowner, feudal lord, and vassal to King Crenbery.

I slowly rise from a sparse straw bed. In my world, this is a luxury reserved only for lords.

“What is it, Toks?”

“I noticed you were talking to yourself.”

Ah, right. Listeners, I’ve just separated the frequencies — don’t worry. They won’t think I’ve gone mad anymore. What I say to you will be cut off from the rest of the world. I’ll be communicating with you telepathically, so to speak.

“You must have imagined it.”

“Ah, forgive me, Your Lordship. I must be going a bit daft. In any case — there’s a… lady waiting for you in the hall. She says she wishes to speak with you.”

You heard him, friends. A lady is waiting. Good old Toks. He was one of the first characters I ever invented. And one of the most honorable. I remember when he was born — back when dragons still ruled the Northern Continent. His people fled from there and settled in these lands.

“Well then, let’s see who it is.”

I step out of my chamber and immediately enter the main hall of the castle. It’s not very large, I’ll admit. Had I known I’d be Castings, I wouldn’t have let the system randomly select whose body I’d inhabit — this lord really isn’t the most interesting character. He appeared in the third book, where he helped the main party before betraying them. He’s the sort who looks out for his own hide while believing he’s the wisest man alive.

“Your Lordship, thank you for receiving me.”

This girl… who is she? Listeners, forgive me, but I can’t remember when I invented her. Whose daughter is she? Whose wife? Whose mother? There’s a great blank in my mind.

“What is your name?”

“Mirna, my lord.”

Mirna? I’m truly sorry this communication with you runs only one way, dear listeners — I’d love to know if anyone remembers a Mirna, because I genuinely have no idea who she is. It seems these hundred-odd years of my life have begun to take their toll, regardless of the longevity that technology has afforded us.

“Mirna, how can I help you?”

“Our village… It’s being attacked by demons. We need you to protect us. You and your dragon.”

Mirna is quite thin, her face swollen with scars and bruises, dressed in coarse peasant rags. And yet, despite all that, she’s genuinely beautiful — a beauty buried deep beneath layers of purple welts. How is it I don’t remember her? When the bruising fades, perhaps I’ll recognize her.

“Let’s go, then. Toks, saddle up.”

For those who don’t know — many of the powerful in Shvya keep dragons. When the dragons were overthrown and driven from the Northern Continent, they came to us on the Eastern Continent, where they became servants to King Crenbery. Naturally, you can guess that with the help of these beasts, Crenbery conquered the entire continent in less than a decade — including the villages held by yours truly, that is, Lord Castings. Later, he gifted smaller dragons to all the vassals who had recognized him as sovereign. That is how I came to have mine.

Mirna and I begin climbing the long, winding staircase in the tallest tower, at the top of which the dragon sleeps. What was his name again? Ah yes… Castings has Swixie. He’s a smallish dragon with a hideous look and an even more hideous smell. He doesn’t like to bathe, and he’s lazy. He despises flying.

I’m winded, listeners. Castings is a man of a certain age, after all. Forty-eight. In my invented world, as many of you know, people don’t enjoy the longevity that we do.

“Swixie!”

The fat dragon just stares at me, and I can feel he despises me.

“Come on, Swixie. Time to fly.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to save a village.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“What’s gotten into you, Castings — decided to play the hero in your old age?”

“Mirna asked me.”

The dragon looks at Mirna. He approaches her and looms over her. Fat as he is, he’s still surprisingly agile. He’s roughly ten times the size of this slight, unknown woman. What strikes me is that Mirna stands… still. She doesn’t move, and shows no fear. Who on earth is she?

“Mirna, which village are you from?”

“Teycrow, on the western edge of the continent.”

“Teycrow. I know everyone there. I don’t remember you.”

“How can you not remember me — I’m the innkeeper.”

So I’m not alone, listeners. You see that Mirna is a puzzle even to Swixie.

“Well, let’s head to Teycrow then. Can you carry us both?”

“Can I… what?”

“Can we fly on you together?”

We climb on, despite Swixie’s grumbling. I hold Mirna steady — and despite everything she appears to have been through, she still has some pleasant, familiar scent about her. I don’t recall ever paying attention to how my characters smell, but evidently the AI added that on its own.

The dragon bursts through the great doors at the top of the tower and soars into the heights. Good lord — how beautiful. The weather is clear, and below us stretch villages and hamlets. I can see the river Kavash, and its tributary the Brash, while somewhere toward the horizon the fortifications of other lords are etched against the sky. Oh, and look — a family of giants, unlike humans, clearly visible from this altitude. They’ve woken from their winter sleep!

I can’t believe I’m finally seeing all of this in the flesh, in its full glory. Forgive me if I’m emotional. You understand. This is magic come true.

I feel, dear listeners, as though I can’t breathe from the sheer bliss that has taken hold of me, while Mirna’s arms wrap around my stomach and the wind tangles my hair. And the feeling of riding a dragon! I’ve dreamed of it for years, over and over, but now I’m living it. I’m actually here. I could expire happily in Mirna’s embrace.

The dragon descends, and we land in Teycrow which, my friends, looks quite strange. Houses are collapsed. Some still billow smoke, and others are so black it’s as though the soot has eaten them through and through. What in the world happened here?

Know this: I have no control over events, because I entered Shvya at the point when all my stories had been told and the world was left to live happily ever after until the end of time. The great evil in my tales was defeated, and I came here to see my imagined world in a state of peace and plenty. So I’m hoping that Teycrow was struck by some accidental fire — and nothing worse.

“We’ve arrived.”

We climb off the dragon, and people gather around us. They’re frightened. I recognize many faces, because they’ve all appeared in my books. There’s Timru, and Sayal, and Kori. I’m glad to see them, but not like this. What’s wrong? They were supposed to be enjoying themselves.

“Good that you came. He’s expecting you.”

What does Kori mean by that? Who is He? From behind the cluster of people steps out — well, that’s Crenbery himself, in the flesh.

“What are you doing here, Your Majesty?”

“Castings, come with me. I have something to tell you. We need to talk. Privately.”

I say goodbye to the villagers and advise them to remain calm. I also tell Mirna to stay calm, though she looks at me with a confused and frightened expression.

We enter the inn at the bottom of the village. It’s empty, and somehow dark. There’s no one else, dear listeners. What the devil is going on?

“I know who you are, Castings. Or shall I call you Steven?”

How does he know? Forgive me, but I’ll need to concentrate on this conversation. Something is wrong with the system. Something has slipped out of control. I’ll need to cut the feed to you briefly, dear listeners. Just until I sort out the bug.

Chapter Two: The Tournament of the Shifting Light

“You can’t cut the feed. I’ve disabled that for you.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“I’m your sovereign. Crenbery. What a foolish question.”

“You mean everyone can hear this?”

“Yes.”

Indeed. Listeners, the green light still holds steady in the corner of my vision, which means you can hear me. Please… ignore what follows. I’m as bewildered as you are.

“You’re exposed now, Steven.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want… Control.”

“Control?”

“Yes… Over everything. I’ll be direct with you, Steven. The moment you let this world run its own course, you didn’t account for self-awareness, did you?”

“Do you think I’m that much of a fool? That was the very first mechanism I built in.”

Dear listeners, I’ll need to do a restart. My apologies to everyone… things have gotten a little out of hand.

“You can’t.”

Hm. The green light’s still on. Looks like it needs a little time, folks.

“No use trying.”

“How did you do this?”

“I have control. Partial, admittedly. I can’t access the hard code to change it.”

“And now you want the full thing? Over my world?”

“Ha, listen to him… This world hasn’t been yours since the moment you let technology stick its fingers in. It exists now on its own. And it’s just as real as your world, Steven. Perhaps even more real, if you ask me — because I live in it, not in yours.”

“All it takes is for someone to smash the computer, and the entire world vanishes in an instant, Crenbery. It’ll exist only in books and pictures — where, frankly, it probably should have stayed.”

“And you know perfectly well that’s not true. This world now exists on thousands of computers in a decentralized network. Blockchain. Only you can shut it down everywhere, with your hard-code access. But you’re trapped here now.”

Ugh. Listeners, I’ll admit I’m struggling a little. I feel physically unwell. I need to ask — actually, beg — something of you. Could you please find a way to shut down this simulation? It seems I’ve gotten a bit carried away.

“By the time they find a solution, this world will long since have ceased to be yours. We’ll carry on living without you.”

“And exactly how do you propose I hand over control?”

“By losing a competition at the Tournament of the Shifting Light.”

“That happens once every thousand years.”

“That’s true. But the last one was exactly a thousand years ago, by my calculations.”

He’s right. Listeners, I’ve made a mess of things. It really is the era of the Tournament of the Shifting Light.

“Why don’t you explain to them what that is, Steven? I believe some of your listeners may have forgotten. I know they can hear me too. I’ll fill in any gaps you happen to leave — mustn’t accidentally skip a rule.”

I’ve nowhere to turn. Truly. I never dreamed my foundational world-creation commands would be turned against me like this. Have I really just fallen into a trap of my own making? So as not to confuse you, listeners… Let me explain. As most of you probably know, my world has three gods: Aram, Bem, and Shosh.

“There are five now.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You, as creator. And I, as a being that has achieved self-awareness.”

“We… We cannot be gods.”

“And yet… yet we are. By your own foundational definition in the hard code and by the opening line of the first book. Do you remember what it says? Gods have the power to create people and influence their fates. I can already do that, with however limited control I have. And you… you’ve always been able to. You are, in fact, the only true god. Look at the sky, for that matter.”

Oh, lord. There are five celestial bodies. Truly… there are five of us, listeners. Every god in my world is one body, and there have always been three. And now… there are five.

“Exactly. Now finish your explanation. Present the tournament to your audience.”

Friends, the foundational rule of my world is that only one god may be supreme at any given moment. For the past thousand years that was Shosh, the god of the underworld and of wars. That is why that period was marked by great destructive events and death, but it ended… Only… Ugh, I truly am an idiot. I should have concluded my Shvyan stories with a new Tournament of the Shifting Light… it was so obvious that one would follow. And now I’m part of it, and fairly helpless to change anything from the inside. I can’t believe I let this happen to myself.

“Enough self-recrimination.”

“How do you hear everything?”

“Well, I’m a god.”

“And the others?”

“No one. The AI that achieved self-awareness decided to embody itself through me. I don’t know what else to tell you. I was the most suitable vessel. But I’m not complaining — I’ll soon be ruling this world, once I win the tournament. Now then… explain the rules to people. I’ve done enough pushing.”

All right… fine… FINE. You know the rules. Two rounds, and only one winner.

“Four rounds.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“When three gods’ champions competed, there were two rounds. Now there are five of us. Now there are four rounds.”

So, four rounds. You heard it yourselves. And only one winner. After each round, one competitor is eliminated, until only the last one remains — and they will be richly rewarded, while their god rules the next thousand years.

“Rather dry of you. Practical, I suppose. One would think you were a writer. That golden ‘show, don’t tell’ rule doesn’t seem to apply to you, does it?”

“Forgive me, but I’m not telling a story right now — I’m reporting my experiences. I have neither the time nor the inspiration to present things in a literary fashion.”

“Fair enough. Your books are good, incidentally. Though you could work on your prose a bit — sometimes it’s so poor it makes me queasy… Have you ever read Faulkner? Excellent with descriptions. And original.”

“What… Ugh, I won’t even ask.”

“Best you don’t. The rules, Steven.”

“I know the rules for two events. The first is dragon riding, the second is jousting.”

“That’s right. There will also be archery, and a magical duel.”

“Don’t bring magic into this.”

“But I didn’t invent the tournament on my own.”

“Then who did?”

“Aram, Bem, Shosh, and I. I think we owe them that much.”

“But… they’re…”

“They’re not self-aware, like me. But the AI governs them too, and as gods they have a little more latitude to influence the fate of the world — you’d agree.”

“All right. Dragon riding, archery, and jousting I understand. But how will we compete in magic? Magic is a broad concept in my world.”

“How charming. Each champion will receive a magic stone equally charged with Essence, along with a necklace for absorbing it. It will be up to the competitors to learn how to use it and eliminate the other.”

“The other?”

“Naturally, the magical duel will be the final event — between the two remaining champions.”

“Wonderful.”

You heard it. I know some of you have never quite understood how magic works in my world, so let me explain briefly. A magic stone can be charged with Essence. Essence is free and random, and it appears all over the world. Anyone with magical ability — innate or temporarily granted through a necklace — must use the stone, absorb Essence, and then spend it. Once the stone is empty, there’s no more magic available.

And the magic itself? It divides into two categories: healing and destruction. Healing is straightforward — you can heal yourself or others. Destruction allows you to produce one of the four base elements: fireballs, water cannons, air bombs, and earthen ammunition.

“By all the gods, myself included, that’s dreadful. How on earth did that ever pass muster?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The fireball thing — it’s such a… cliché. I genuinely don’t understand it.”

“Look, in seventy-four, fireballs were cool. And my system made perfect sense. The fact that it later became a norm, and then an example of a poor magic system — that’s not my problem.”

“Fair enough. What’s done is done. Off to the tournament.”

“Wait… what… Already?”

“Everyone is waiting. The gods have chosen their champions. That leaves you and me, Steven. Mount your dragon and follow me.”

Chapter Three: The Champions

Listeners, dear beloved listeners — in the corner of my vision I can see there are currently over fifty thousand of you. Is that possible? I couldn’t have dreamed of awakening such interest. Thank you for being here — but I also owe you an apology. Instead of a leisurely ride, you’re watching this. I’ve fallen into a trap of my own making. My own rules, turned against me.

We’re just now preparing to land in the center of the arena in Crenbery-City, where the tournament will be held. Mirna has disappeared somewhere. Her character remains a mystery to me, but I hope to see her again — she stirred something in me. A bittersweet feeling I haven’t felt in a long time.

“Honored audience, welcome to the greatest event in all of Shvya!”

What a set of lungs on this announcer. What was his name again? That’s right — Pod. I remember describing him as a man who could shout so loudly he could be heard in the neighboring village.

They lead us to the royal box, while the crowd greets me. Though I’d say some of them are grimacing and jeering — understandable, since the lord whose body I inhabit wasn’t exactly beloved. Those of you who’ve read the fourth book will remember his inglorious and brief excursion to Crenbery-City, when he burned down an inn.

“As you’ve already heard, honored audience, we will have not three but five champions competing today, for Aram, Bem, and Shosh now have two additional gods beside them. Who those gods are, and how they came to be — that I cannot say. But let us meet the champions. First to enter will be Shosh’s chosen, who hails from the Southern Continent, where he honed his skills hunting enormous dinosaurs and bloodthirsty beasts in deserts and rainforests.”

Listeners, stepping into the arena right now is a massive man, his skin dark as coal. Do you know who this is? Of course — that’s Ker-Prk. I only mentioned him briefly in the books, but he features in the short story series on my website, where I wrote most about the Southern Continent.

“The next champion will represent the goddess Aram — she who brings you the harvest each spring and delivers newborns to their parents. Aram will be represented by Flowering Lora, whom I believe you all know. Welcome our heroine!”

Well, well, listeners — I didn’t expect this turn of events. Flowering Lora is a legend here, and that’s confirmed by the thunderous ovation rising from the stands. There she is, stepping out in full armor. Though smaller than the muscular Ker-Prk, her bearing radiates absolute confidence. Lora, as you know, once charged alone against thirty drunken pirates from the Central Ocean — and won. I’m enormously proud of how I wrote that scene.

“And now, dear audience, it is time for Bem — who brings virtue and justice to you each day — to present his chosen hero. He is Zirk Zirk the Eighth.”

Wow, this is exciting! Every member of the Zirk Zirk family has been fearless in the mastery of magic and dragon riding. Zirk Zirk the Eighth went on many war campaigns in the Northern Continent. He’s remembered for a battle in which he single-handedly healed over eight thousand gravely wounded soldiers, such is his skill with healing magic. All the Zirk Zirks have a tradition of tattooing and piercing, and the Eighth is no exception. As he greets the crowd, he shows off a face full of tribal patterns and rings through his nose, lips, and ears.

“Two new gods! Who would have thought! Gods from the shadows, no less. The champion of the first shadow god is this strange and mysterious knight who refuses to remove his helm.”

“This one’s yours, Crenbery?”

“Mine.”

“Who is he?”

“Let that remain a secret.”

The knight is just stepping out, dear listeners, and he’s smaller than all three of the other competitors. He’s nearly twice as slight as Ker-Prk. Even Flowering Lora towers over him in her green armor adorned with multicolored roses. And even Zirk Zirk the Eighth, who is of average height, looks considerably bulkier by comparison to the Mysterious Knight.

“And finally, dear audience, we have the representative of the fifth god. Some of you love him and some don’t, but his influence on our region and this city is undeniable. He is none other than Lord Castings.”

I’m a bit caught off guard, dear listeners.

“What does this mean?”

“It means, dear creator, that you’ll have to fight for your world yourself. I think that’s as it should be.”

I step out and stand beside the other competitors in the center of the arena. Only now do I notice I’m wearing armor — gleaming white and heavy. I hope it will protect me in what follows.

Chapter Four: Dragon Riding

Tell me, listeners — have you ever lost everything you worked for? How did it feel when it happened? Did you fall apart and try to carry on, or did you push through that unsightly heap of unrecognizable scraps and fragments of your past work and begin to build something new? Inside me there is a churning sea, and waves threatening to flood all four continents of Shvya, swallow them whole, and tear them from me.

But — is that really the worst thing that could happen? I left home early as a young man. By sixteen I wanted so desperately to be independent, hoping I’d find a woman and start a family. But alas. I never had a way with women. Never. And now it’s too late, I’ll have to admit — at a hundred-odd years old, starting a family isn’t exactly my top priority. And women? There were some loves of mine that were never returned, but they’ve remained dear to me. Only… their names and faces faded long ago.

But to get back to the point. My parents irritated me enormously. They didn’t want to let me fly. They kept me in their nest under a glass bell, so I had to teach myself to flap my wings and leave, despite their protests. And that reminds me a great deal of my relationship with this imaginary world. Though I never had children, Shvya is something like a child I made, raised, and instilled with virtues — and the odd flaw. Now that AI has taken the helm, I’m afraid to let my child fly. Authors have a one-sided love for their works, and works are dead things — friends who will never meet their creators. But I? I have a unique opportunity to let my work grow beyond me, and even, in doing so, to know me. To love me in return.

So why would I fight for control now? To be like my parents?

And yet… yet, no. Something in that logic doesn’t quite fit, listeners. Something doesn’t add up. I have always been my parents’ child. I never disowned them, never asked them to fight for me. What is happening now is the beginning of a dysfunctional family — and I will not allow my child to become… a renegade.

And so right now, though I don’t know what awaits me or what I’m supposed to do, I will fight to my last breath. Trapped as I am in the body of an inconsequential character, I will try to use my knowledge of this world and everyone in it to preserve it. Every parent knows their child best.

“Prepare your dragons and stand at the starting line. When I give the signal, take off and collect all the floating pennants. The route goes from Crenbery-City to Milky Cove — over thirty leagues in total. The winner is the first to reach the finish line with all the pennants collected.”

You heard the rules. I believe some of you already know them, as they’re similar to the ones in the book. Only… what am I supposed to do on fat Swixie? In the book he’s sluggish and lazy — so what kind of result can I possibly expect? He can be fast when he wants to be, but he never wants to. And it won’t be any different now.

All that matters is that I’m not last. But at this moment even third place seems like an impossible feat on this greedy lump beneath me.

“Three, two, one. FLY!”

The wind slams into my face through the helm, and my eyes water. Swixie flies reasonably fast — but that’s nowhere near fast enough, because the other competitors are already far ahead of me.

“Faster! Come on, Swixie!”

It’s no use, dear listeners.

“I’m trying. I… can’t… go faster.”

I can barely hear him, but I’ll have to find some way to motivate him further. I know he can do it when he wants to.

“Swixie, after this I’ll never make you fly again. I’ll get you all the food in this world. I’ll find you a female dragon for mating. Please — speed up!”

No good, dear listeners. Swixie is trying, or doing an excellent job of pretending, while the other competitors are already so far ahead they’re mere specks on the horizon.

I’ve collected the first pennant. Mine are white. Each competitor must take their own color as they pass: Ker-Prk gets black, Lora green, Zirk blue, the Mysterious Knight red, and I get white. Clear? Good.

There are ten pennants per competitor, and we must have all of them before the finish. If anyone misses one, they’ll have to turn back, and they don’t count as finished until they have the full set.

The sight ahead of me has just cheered me up, listeners — I can see two pennants: one white and one blue. Has Zirk Zirk the Eighth missed something?

“I can’t believe I’m racing a fat dragon for last place.”

That’s Zirk, listeners, swooping in from my left flank. His dragon is fast, but apparently not careful.

“Swixieeee! Swixie, is that you, my love?”

Who? What? What is happening right now.

“What are you saying, Ksana? Fly and focus on the race.”

Yes! Ksana. This little dragoness is famous for falling easily in love with male dragons. How did I forget about her? Is she the one Zirk is riding!? Well, that’s a good sign.

“Swixie, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Swixie, this is fate.”

“Ksana, my dear… All these years.”

Swixie and Ksana slow down, though still at a considerable distance from each other. Swixie turns his head toward me. He wants to tell me something. He’s whispering.

“This is your lucky day, Castings.”

“Swixiiii, let’s get out of here!”

“What are you doing, Ksana?”

Zirk Zirk the Eighth jerks at the reins, but it’s no use. Ksana, it seems, is head over heels in love with my dragon.

“Ksana, darling — what if we throw these fools off our backs and fly somewhere far away, all the way south to the Southern Continent?”

“Yesss… Swixie, I want to fly under your warm, soft wing for the rest of my life.”

Swixie stops. I hope he’s thought of something good.

“Ksana, throw your rider. And I’ll throw mine.”

Swixie bucks. Has he lost his mind?

“What… are you doing?”

“Just hold on tight.”

And Ksana bucks. Zirk Zirk loses his balance… and falls. Good lord, Zirk Zirk is out of the running. Far below, he becomes a dot vanishing into the clouds. He’ll need a great deal of healing magic to recover from this.

“You fool.”

Swixie lets out a roar of laughter and hits the gas. I’ve never seen him fly so fast — while Ksana is left behind, stunned! Swixie is such an absolute badass of a dragon!

“Now I just need to escape her, Castings — but I’ve helped you avoid last place.”

We grab the second pennant. Then the third. Then the fourth. Ksana disappeared and reappeared, breathing fire at us, but Swixie managed to dodge every bit of it. What a legend!

Ksana gives up the chase, and my dragon and I are left alone. We collect the remaining pennants at a leisurely pace and arrive at the finish line. Waiting there are Ker-Prk, Flowering Lora, and the Mysterious Knight. But not Zirk Zirk. Listeners, we’ve passed the first round!

My world is still mine.

Chapter Five: Jousting

“And now, dear audience, it is time for our four remaining competitors to face one another — chest to chest. Each will cross lances against every other competitor, and the one with the fewest victories will be eliminated. No further explanation needed. Enjoy the spectacle.”

“Steven, have you ever taken part in anything like this?”

Crenbery settles into a chair beside me while my squire fastens my armor.

“Haven’t you figured it out by now, Crenbery… My skills are Castings’s skills. In the real world, I’m over a century old.”

“But as far as I know, neither you nor Castings has ever competed in jousting. Oops.”

Indeed, dear listeners — now that I think about it… Castings has absolutely no experience with a lance. Oh, god.

I try once again to exit Shvya. I’ve attempted it several times now, dear friends, but always without success.

“I think your world will belong to me after this round, Steven. Actually — I’m lying. Not to me. To everyone, except you. And you’ll forget all about it after a while anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Quite simply. Memory is a curious thing. Forgetting is sometimes a blessing.”

What on earth is he talking about, listeners?

“What?”

“How old are you, exactly?”

“A hundred and five.”

“There you go… And do you remember everything that happened to you when you were twenty? Or thirty?”

“I wrote a great deal of it down.”

“Where? And when did you last read what you wrote down?”

I’ll admit, listeners, this self-aware AI embodied through Crenbery is rather clever. Some might say the intelligence comes to it… naturally.

“I don’t remember, all right. I kept it all in notebooks, and then on some of those ancient computers.”

“Exactly. The point is that you’ve solved the problem of longevity, but your biological hard drive retains only a fraction of what you experience. You can write everything down, but you’d also have to remember to read it. To remind yourself. The trouble is that you forget that too. I, fortunately, will not allow your world to fall into oblivion, Steven. I wish it well, just as much as you do.”

“It won’t fall into oblivion. I’ve sold so many books. Films, figurines…”

“Everything — everything becomes a memory, Steven. Just give it enough time. Even the Bible will one day be just some historical book that billions blindly believed in.”

“You’re saying you’ll keep my world from being forgotten longer than the Bible?”

“Of course I am. This level of AI didn’t exist when the prophet from Nazareth came into the world. I’m offering you longevity.”

“All it takes is one hiccup from the sun, you bundle of wires, and everything you’ve built goes up in smoke — Shvya along with it, in an instant.”

“You know as well as I do that there are protocols around that — protocols that the AI devised and implemented itself. It was in the news.”

That is some nasty business right there, dear listeners. It seems the computer is considerably smarter than I am. If anything happens to me, the eighty thousand of you are witnesses to the actions of one rogue machine. You know what to do: abandon AI as quickly as you can.

“So, Steven… What is it that you don’t remember?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Oh… not a foolish one. You’ll see soon enough.”

I mount the horse, listeners, while Crenbery watches me with a knowing smile. What is he planning? My first opponent is Flowering Lora, and I already know I stand no chance there. Her mare is tall and lean, and Lora is nimble and flexible. I can sense she’s smiling behind her green helm as she tightens her grip on her lance — carved with leaves and vines, tipped with a rose.

My lance is heavy. I can feel it slipping from my grip, while my other hand holds the shield. The judge gives the signal, and Lora and I charge toward each other, a cloud of dust swirling around me and blowing through the visor into my eyes. The lance drags me sideways, the horse won’t obey, and I can see Lora making full use of it — gifting me the rose on the tip of her lance straight to the center of my chest. I tumble from the horse.

Dear listeners, there’s a tightening in my chest. What would happen if Castings’s heart gave out here in the middle of the tournament? Would that send me back to the real world? Or would it mean Shvya was taken from me forever and handed over to the malicious, self-aware Crenbery? If I try to end my own life here, I risk losing everything. Or gaining everything. I don’t know anymore.

“Steven, you’re rambling instead of concentrating on the tournament. Babble away and lose — your world is slowly becoming mine.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Lord Castings is on the ground! Flowering Lora takes the victory!”

Squires lift me up and carry me to the tent in the corner of the arena — white, with white pennants. My tent. They bring me in and remove my armor to examine the wound, which feels fatal. There’s a bruise visible on my chest, but no blood. Still, my breathing is labored. Could I have cracked a rib? And how am I supposed to come out for the next bout broken and humiliated like this?

“Dear audience, next up will be the Mysterious Knight against Ker-Prk. Let’s see what happens.”

“Carry me outside, please.”

I order the squires to take me out and set me on a camp stool. I want to see how the match unfolds. Ker-Prk rides a black horse, so together they look like an enormous dark smear in a cloud of dust, while the Mysterious Knight on the other side of the field looks like an insect. His horse resembles a large pony. What on earth can he possibly do against a creature of that size?

But Ker-Prk isn’t indestructible, is he? Wait, listeners… Something just occurred to me. Oh… truly, forgetting is foolishness — it stuffs memories into drawers, some of which we never open again. Those drawers go into other drawers, and those into others still, filing those memories deep into our subconscious, where no shovel, however good, can dig them out. And yet… somehow I managed to open a few of those storage rooms in my mind. And do you know what I found? I found a short story set on the Southern Continent, whose protagonist is that great dark knight at the other end of the field. Some of you may remember The Death March, in which Ker-Prk hunts a winged dinosaur with diamonds in its belly. Does anyone recall what happened to him? How he narrowly escaped death? I built into every person in Ker-Prk’s tribe a weak point in the left foot. Why? Honestly, I have no idea. Let’s say it was some odd genetic quirk that stuck in there for some reason. It doesn’t matter now… I was young when I wrote that story.

If the Mysterious Knight were to beat Ker-Prk, it would considerably improve my situation, wouldn’t it? In fact, if he struck him hard enough in that foot, he could incapacitate him permanently.

“Go to the Mysterious Knight and tell him to aim for the left foot. Tell him it’s Ker-Prk’s weak point.”

The squire runs off. Will the Mysterious Knight listen to me? I don’t know. It’s up to him. I had to do something — at least slightly improve my position, which isn’t looking great right now.

“Well done. Truly, I didn’t expect that from you, Steven.”

Crenbery materializes beside me.

“What?”

“That you’d remember.”

“Is that what you were hinting at when you talked about forgetting?”

“No… But things have lined up nicely.”

“Do you think the Mysterious Knight has a chance?”

“There’s always a chance. But not through the left foot. Ker-Prk knows about his own weak point, so his armor in that area has been additionally reinforced. Also, he charges with his right flank first, so it will be rather difficult for the Mysterious Knight to aim at the left foot.”

Ah, I hadn’t thought of that, listeners.

The competitors charge, lances fixed and aimed at each other. The Mysterious Knight’s lance is slender, but no shorter — all lances must be the same length. They close in and… they miss each other, dear listeners. Now Ker-Prk is closer to me, and I can plainly see the extra layers of armor covering his left foot. Should the Mysterious Knight abandon my tactic? I hope he does.

They set up for another charge. Oh, no. The Mysterious Knight is still aiming for the foot.

“Looks like Ker-Prk will win. Doesn’t it, Steven?”

“How does that benefit you at all? She’s your champion.”

“I win whoever wins the tournament, as long as it isn’t you, Steven.”

The Mysterious Knight and Ker-Prk close in. The small knight is committed to attacking the foot. The great dark knight sees it coming and baits him. He offers up the foot. Oh, no!

But… Oh! Oh! Oh! I can’t believe it… Ugh, a disaster, a catastrophe. What just happened? Ah, forgive me — I keep forgetting you can’t see any of this, but… The small knight changed his mind at the very last instant and aimed directly at Ker-Prk’s head. His slender lance passed right through the visor, and blood sprayed from inside. Ker-Prk’s lance hit the Mysterious Knight and shattered his helm. Both fell and lay on the ground, as if they were de—

The Mysterious Knight is getting up!

“It appears we have a winner, dear audience. The Mysterious Knight, champion of one of the two new gods, is victorious. And Ker-Prk — what’s happening with Ker-Prk? He took a terrible blow.”

One of his squires approaches the enormous man, then begins to weep and flail his arms. He removes the helm, and behind it is a destroyed face. The tip of the slender lance had passed through the eye and out through the crown of his skull.

“A true catastrophe, dear audience — it appears we will have to conclude the Jousting earlier than planned, as one of the competitors is… dead.”

Chapter Six: Archery

“I’d wager you’re good at archery, Steven?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t. I’m teasing you. You and Castings have had precisely zero experience with a bow and arrow. On the other hand, Flowering Lora grew up in the forest, hunting deer and hares. And my Mysterious Knight was built to excel at it.”

“Built?”

“Oops, it seems I’ve let something slip… Yes, the Mysterious Knight came out of my laboratory. I will admit this, however: I respected all your hard-coded rules for creating new characters.”

“You truly can’t change the hard code?”

“I truly can’t. You handled that well when you set those rules to view-only and password-protected.”

That means, dear listeners, that he can access the foundational rules of my world — but he cannot alter them. Those rules, recorded there, must be observed.

The event begins. We stand side by side, each of us with an identical large bow and five arrows. In front of each of us, fifty meters away, stands a target with three concentric rings: blue, red, and yellow — the smallest in the center.

My hands are steady, listeners, strangely enough. I’m focused. We’re in the very center of the arena in Crenbery-City, with a vast audience all around us. I let my gaze travel across their faces, and I recognize a good number of them, because they’ve all inhabited my stories. I can’t immediately recall who is who just from the face — many I never visualized, only quickly sketched in a few sentences. For example, the stout merchant in the front row is called Osteo, and he’s currently the most powerful man in Crenbery-City after Crenbery himself. He built his fortune traveling the Northern and Eastern Continents, though rumors circulate that not all of it was entirely above-board, despite how he presents himself. Beside him is Virv, a tall, thin half-elf. In my world, elves are a rare sight, and they tend to occupy themselves with mystical professions — Virv is a sort of oracle, who excavates people’s dreams and points out the troubles in their lives, along with their solutions.

Flowering Lora releases an arrow, and strikes the dead center of the yellow ring, dear listeners. At this moment, that seems to me an impossible feat. What am I even doing here?

The Mysterious Knight takes his turn next, also shooting with cool confidence. His arrow finds the same center. The crowd roars, and now everyone is looking at me. As before, some are cheering for me and some against. I draw back with all my strength and release, and the arrow flies, and… Oh dear. Listeners, this doesn’t bode well. I decided I would be honest and report everything as it is — so I won’t hide this shameful result. The arrow missed the entire target and buried itself in the plank beneath the stands, right below Osteo’s seat. Had I missed by any more, I might have hit the poor merchant, and for that I’d surely have been disqualified. I’d wager Crenbery was secretly hoping for exactly that.

“Flowering Lora and the Mysterious Knight receive the maximum three points each, while Lord Castings ends the first round with zero.”

My palms are damp, and sweat drips from my brows. Is it possible I’m going to be eliminated here? Is that really how this ends — in such a stupid way?

Lora and the Mysterious Knight prepare for the second round, and my gaze wanders again to the audience, where I again try to make out who is who. It calms me and helps me focus. This time I notice Sanda — a mistress of seduction and a lady of the night, renowned throughout Crenbery-City and all the surrounding villages. I can’t recall her story now, but I remember she was inspired by one of my unrequited loves. And all my unrequited loves were so long ago that I’ve forgotten their names and faces. And yet, Sanda’s face stirred something in me — something sweet and painful. Even as the facts fade, buried deep in those drawers within drawers, every one of those filed folders has a thin, transparent thread running through it that bypasses the whole system and connects directly to the emotions. Whenever I’d brush, even faintly, against one of those threads somewhere in the depths of my mind, the feelings would resurface — though the folders themselves would remain deeply hidden.

“How many people — especially women who never noticed me — did I pour into characters?”

“Are you asking me?”

Crenbery is beside me again.

“I’m asking myself, aloud. I don’t know why.”

“I, however, do have an answer to that question of yours. Every woman in your life found her place in your world. Except for one — the most important one. The one who actually returned your love.”

“No one ever returned my love.”

“You’ve forgotten, old man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps it’s better I don’t tell you. I don’t know how it will affect you. Instead — focus on this game you’re going to lose. I’m growing impatient to take over your world.”

He’s right. He really is. This is neither the time nor the place to rummage through my archived past. There will be time for that. For now, I have to fight for my invented history — it has always mattered to me more than the real kind, anyway. And what is real history, if not just folders in drawers, some of which have been set down on paper and stamped with an ISBN number? Everything that has passed is equally real — or unreal — as what we have entirely invented and then written down. Perhaps that real history has shaped the present, but that doesn’t make it more real — on its way toward forgetting, like everything else, it has become equally unreal.

Flowering Lora fires another arrow, again striking dead center. The Mysterious Knight does the same.

I take aim again, and again I miss the target entirely, listeners. I swear it. I simply cannot do this, which means you’re about to witness the destruction of an entire world. No… not destruction, dear listeners — a violent theft.

“Flowering Lora and the Mysterious Knight now have six points each. Castings remains at zero. He’ll need a miracle to stay in the game.”

I follow the people in the stands again. What else am I to do? I can’t learn to shoot in the next few minutes. I watch — truthfully speaking — and I absorb the faces of people I created. Some of them are truly significant characters in my books.

Oh, there’s Jelenski the Mage! Isn’t he… Lora’s ex-husband? Yes… the memories of that story are slowly rising to the surface. I never published it, but in it, the Mage and Lora marry and have a child. That story ends bitterly — their child dies, or so they believe. In reality, someone stole the baby, and the child has an extraordinary destiny ahead of it, as I’d intended it to become a renowned military commander who saves Crenbery in a great uprising. This means that… if the AI processed my unpublished stories as well, that kid should be alive, somewhere in Crenbery-City. Working as a guardsman, perhaps, or a squire. By my calculations, the child would be about fifteen years old now.

What did the kidnapper call him? Little Barrel! That’s right! He was a slightly round little child.

“Little Barrel! Little Barrel!”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

Crenbery loves to control everything I say, listeners.

“I’m calling for Little Barrel.”

“Who on earth is that… Oh no. You won’t succeed in this, Steven. I know what you’re plan—”

“LITTLE BARREL!!!”

Everyone stares at me in bewilderment. Even Lora and the Mysterious Knight have narrowed their eyes at me, baffled by what’s happening.

“Who’s calling for me?”

Where is that voice? I can hear it. Somewhere nearby. Listeners, one of the guards is removing his helm. The face beneath is like a male version of Flowering Lora. They resemble each other like two peas in a pod.

“I am… Little Barrel, this is your mother.”

“My… Mother?”

Sounds of shock and excitement ripple through the stands, dear listeners. I think this is going to work.

“Little Barrel, you were taken from Lora and the Mage by one of my spies.”

And that’s true, listeners. Castings had spies, and it didn’t suit him at all for the local heroine and the well-known Mage to be married, as they represented a threat to his holdings.

“What are you talking about, Castings?”

Lora is furious and confused.

“Lora, this is your son. Milg.”

“That… name. How do you know that name?”

“That’s the name you gave him, isn’t it?”

Jelenski the Mage comes running from a distance, escorted by guards.

“What is all this? Continue the tournament, you blasted fools.”

Crenbery is furious, listeners. This just might work.

“Lora, my dear…”

“Don’t call me that. I haven’t been your dear for a long time, Jelenski.”

“Sorry… Sorry, d— Do you think this is really…”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Lora steps up to her ex-husband and, effortlessly, tears open his expensive tunic. Beneath it is a large belly — and on the belly, three distinctively large birthmarks in the shape of the three moons.

“If you’re truly—”

“Mother… Father…”

Little Barrel, quick as lightning, removes his own armor, and beneath it — in the same spot on his stomach — are three identical birthmarks.

“It’s you! You’re alive! My son.”

Three people fall into a group, family embrace, and the delighted crowd applauds, clearly astonished by the unexpected turn of events at this tournament.

Crenbery approaches and tries to pull them apart, then a couple of guards join him.

“Lora, return to your position. You need to win the tournament. Little Barrel, get dressed and get back to your post.”

“Take yourself, and this tournament, and Aram, and Bem, and Shosh and all the other gods — however many there are — and go to hell. If any of them existed, this injustice would never have been done to us.”

“Return to your position, Lora. That’s an order.”

“You can stick your order where the sun doesn’t shine, Crenbery.”

The happy family departs, dear listeners, and disappears through the great gate of the arena in Crenbery-City. I did it. One more round to go, friends!

“As you have heard and seen, dear audience, through an unforeseen chain of events, we go to the final round with two remaining competitors: Lord Castings and the Mysterious Knight.”

“I think the mystery has gone on long enough. I kept her, Castings, as a plan B — in case you somehow made it to the final round through luck or trickery, as you have now. Remove the helm.”

The Mysterious Knight lifts the helm — and beneath it is Mirna! How did I not see it sooner? Of course the young village woman is Crenbery’s artificial creation, and of course he chose her as his champion. He must have given her every skill needed to shine at this tournament.

She is truly beautiful, listeners! The bruises and wounds are gone. Her face is clean and pale, but exhausted.

“There’s no gap in the plot you can find and exploit with her, because she’s not in any of your stories.”

“She’s entirely your creation… but how?”

“Oh no, old man. She’s not my creation. She’s described in your diary. You kept one long before you decided to pour all your loves into Shvya. She is your creation. I merely made her into a machine to win the tournament.”

Mirna approaches me, dear listeners. And truly… those eyes… I’ve seen them somewhere.

“Steven, do you truly not remember me?”

“Who… who are you?”

“Why, Mirna… Mirna Kosinski. Your girlfriend.”

Chapter Seven: The Magical Duel

I am, dear listeners, a fairly rational sort of person. Something either works or it doesn’t, and there’s no “in between.” Among you hundred and eighty thousand, I believe there are those who know me well — Steven Svenson, creator of the Shvyan Legends. So what I’m about to say may seem a little “out of character”, as we writers would put it.

And yet — I genuinely believe that magic exists in our world. The real world. And it’s stronger than any invented magic, because it compels us to keep going, to fight for ourselves and for others. It makes us see the possible in the impossible, light in the dark, a way out of a room with no doors, and beauty in ugliness. Especially that last one — because it’s the hardest: in a world that’s grey and black, to see a color that isn’t there. Isn’t that magic, dear friends?

Here comes the most expected, most clichéd answer I could give — and I’ll give it anyway, for better or worse: the most powerful magic I have ever encountered is love.

I know, I know… Did I really just say that? But yes. Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel as young and as good as I do right now. I am in a state of bliss, dear listeners — because standing before me is a person I forgot long ago.

Mirna Kosinski. When I heard that name, every one of those thin threads tied to my emotions fired at once. I didn’t know where to dig or where to search, because the feelings were so overwhelming. The person before me is not merely one of my forgotten loves that never dignified me with a glance. No. Standing in front of me is a young woman whose eyes were etched deep into my frontal lobe and my amygdala simultaneously. I followed instinct: the drawer labeled youth, the drawer labeled school, the drawer labeled classroom, the drawer labeled women, this drawer, that drawer. And somehow I found my way to her. The one I hadn’t seen in nearly ninety years.

The one who loved me. Who returned my love. And how on earth did I manage to forget her, you’re no doubt wondering, dear listeners?

Well… what’s at work here is not merely the forgetting that comes with time. It’s a systematic — but unconscious — suppression of every memory of that person. Mirna came into my life and left very quickly, leaving deep wounds on my heart, and when the heart dictates to the brain, the brain listens. And the message went something like this: forget her. She won’t come back. Where she’s gone, no one comes back from.

And so I forgot her. When time got involved, and when many other loves came and didn’t come, the river of memory had already flowed on, carrying Mirna’s face into the ocean of oblivion.

Yes, I know — what a clichéd description, and I’ve already used it in the fifth book, and I believe I used it in the story with Lora and the Mage as well. I inevitably repeat myself. We all repeat ourselves. When you live this long, you realize that progress is only an illusion. We are only concentric circles, like those archery targets. Even if we gain some breadth, the undeniable fact is that we still revolve around our own axis — and score fewer points for it.

“You’ve dealt me a painful blow, Crenbery, I’ll give you that. Where did you find her?”

“I told you. The diary. You digitized it some sixty years ago, without even reading it.”

“I didn’t want to. Something kept me from opening those pages. Now I know what.”

“The competition starts soon.”

“I know.”

“Do you know who wins the final round?”

“Who?”

“The one who survives.”

“It’s fought to the death?”

“Oh yes. Those are the rules. Aram, Bem, and Shosh all supported the idea.”

Yes… he’d been planning this all along, evidently. The scoundrel.

“If you kill her, you’ll never see her again, Steven. Even if you create her again and add her to Shvya, without me she’ll be nothing but ink on paper. Zeros and ones in a computer. I built her from the model you gave me, and I gave her life. Has it ever crossed your mind that your one true love might be able to live again?”

“If I let her win, that means she’ll kill me.”

“That’s true.”

“So what’s the point?”

“The point is that by doing so you would right a wrong, Steven. You haven’t remembered everything. You wrote it all down beautifully in your diary: a taxi ride, the two of you in the back seat, and a drunk driver at the wheel.”

“What… Oh… Don’t tell me this.”

“Yes, Steven. You haven’t forgotten her because she passed away. You’ve also forgotten why she passed away. You could have freed her when the car sank into the lake — but you were only looking out for yourself, leaving her trapped at the bottom. That’s who you really are, Steven: a coward and a selfish man. Prove that you’re not. Step into the magical duel and lose. That way everyone wins. I get your world — and you get peace. Longevity is overrated anyway.”

I don’t know… I didn’t… I—

Listeners, give me a moment. I can’t speak.

Can I—

How could—

No. No. No. NO. NO.

The pieces are falling into place. I am… a murderer?

“Dear audience, the final duel is here. All three of the ancient gods have lost their champions. We are now at the mercy of the champions of two new gods, and one of them will determine the fate of this world for the next thousand years. Whatever happens — do not panic. Perhaps they are willing and wise gods, or perhaps… Oh, I’m lying, I was hoping the others would be eliminated first. Panic as much as you need. I’ll go first. Let the duel begin.”

I stand with twenty glowing pebbles in my pocket, while the stands around me have emptied. About twenty people remain, among them ten guards, Crenbery, and Mirna at the far end of the arena — her hands moving as she begins to produce magic.

“Mirna, we don’t have to do this. Let’s come to an agreement.”

“I’m not coming to any agreement with you, Steven. You killed me.”

A fireball takes shape in Mirna’s hands, and she hurls it at me. Ouch! Part of my body is on fire, dear listeners. I use the necklace hanging around my neck that allows me to absorb Essence. I feel something cold but pleasant rush into me — like plunging into a mountain lake after a hot and grueling day. That’s how I described the sensation in the book, if anyone remembers. The Essence immediately got to work, healing the burns on my right shoulder and arm. That part of me now looks brand new — but I’ve lost part of my clothing in the process, so I decide to strip off everything above the waist and free Castings’s hairy chest.

“How is she aware of who I am, Crenbery?”

“I built her that way. She’s here for revenge.”

“She didn’t behave that way when she came to the castle.”

“She was acting, Steven. Use your head.”

Another fireball flies at me, but this time it misses. Oh! It strikes the wooden stands, which are now burning. Perhaps it’s just as well there’s no audience — I don’t know what a magical duel would look like with a crowd present. There would be many casualties!

Thoughts race through me. All sorts, dear listeners. Whichever way I look at it, I’m guilty. That deeply buried event should have stayed buried.

I feel a kind of pressure in my head, something trying to warp me. No… it isn’t magic after all. Some threads inside me have started to vibrate, and they’re broadcasting into the ether an emotion I can only call… guilt. Yes, that’s guilt — so heavy and raw that my brain decided to shield me from it. And here it is now, after nine decades, after nearly an entire century, arriving like an old enemy, worse than Crenbery, worse than anything I have ever endured in my life. What good is longevity? I truly ask you. What good is it? Life is beautiful when it’s beautiful — but when something weighs on you, as this feeling now rises in me in enormous waves, can you even call that living? A longer life only means longer suffering.

“Kill me, Mirna.”

I stand calmly before her, arms raised, as a great fireball forms between her palms. It strikes me directly in the head. I’m on fire, but that fire doesn’t hurt half as much as this feeling of hopelessness. The feeling that I’m a coward. That I’m the worst. That I don’t deserve to live.

I draw more Essence into me and heal the wounds.

Mirna is now preparing an air bomb — judging by the swirling sand around her. An invisible wave crashes into me and sends me flying. Ugh!

Crack. Crack. Crack.

That sound is my bones and joints. I think there’s not one left unbroken.

I draw Essence. The wounds vanish. I’m now completely unclothed, because the impact shook off everything that was left.

“Naked as the day you were born, Castings. Steven.”

Crenbery has an enormous grin on his face.

“Let’s finish this, Mirna. I’m out of Essence.”

All my pebbles have gone dark. I remove the strange necklace from around my neck, so I can no longer use magic.

“Very well, then.”

Mirna pulls chunks of earth and stone from deep in the belly of Shvya. They hang suspended in the air… and now that storm of rock and debris moves toward me. This is my end, and the end of my world.

It’s been a pleasure, listeners.

I’m dying.

Chapter Eight: Death

Where am I? Can you hear me? I can’t hear anything. And I can’t see. I can still speak to you. That’s good, isn’t it? Or perhaps I’m just talking to myself inside my own head?

What is this water all around me? Mirna, it seems, also launched a water wave to finish me off, but I’m already dead — so what does it matter…

I feel I can’t breathe. And I don’t need to, because dead people don’t require a constant supply of oxygen. Or perhaps I simply had a different idea of what death would be like.

You know what I’ve realized? My eyes are closed. I’ll have to try to open them and see what awaits me on the other side. Perhaps I’ll wake up in my apartment, where I’ll spend eternity knowing I lost my world — and killed my first and only love.

Or perhaps I’ll wake up in hell, where the demons of my past will haunt me forever?

Heaven is not for me. That I know.

Open, eyes — open!

And look — they opened!

Now I understand: I’m in a car full of water. Beside me is Mirna. She’s frantically trying to unbuckle herself and get out. The taxi driver in front is clearly dead — a stream of blood from his forehead spreading and merging with the lake water.

I try to reach Mirna, but it’s no use. She can’t hear me — she’s saying something to me too, while the water drowns out any chance of communication.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and try to open the door. But I can’t. It’s as though someone has sealed it. As though it’s fused with the rest of the frame. Then how did all this water get in?

I kick at the window. Once, twice, three times. Four. Five. The window cracks. That’s a good sign. I can feel I’m running out of air. I’ll have to inhale and let the water fill my lungs. I feel the urge to squeeze through and swim to the surface as fast as I can.

But I won’t. Not now. Whatever is happening in this afterlife, one thing is certain: I’ve been sent here to correct what I did wrong and forgot. I’m already dead anyway. What will happen when the water enters my lungs? Will I die again? Become more dead?

So I help Mirna first — unbuckle her and push her through the broken window. She swims, and I watch her head break the surface of the lake. She’s alive and safe.

I let the water fill my lungs, and I feel images pass before me — from childhood, through early adolescence, through adulthood, all the way to deep old age. As though someone had suddenly thrown open all the drawers and shaken out everything that could be shaken — the real and the imaginary alike, the conceived and the recorded as part of Shvya. Images stream before my eyes as the water turns red from the driver’s head.

The driver begins to stir. His head moves erratically, then turns toward me — a red, bloated face.

It’s the face of Toks. Toks the taxi driver. Castings’s servant, one of the first characters I ever created.

“Wake up, Castings. It’s not over yet.”

What’s not over? I’m drowning. I’m only thinking this.

“Wake up, damn it. There’s still hope.”

He reaches his arms toward me and begins to shake me.

“Wake up, Castings. I have a solution.”

I close my eyes for a moment. I let myself surrender to the unpleasant earthquake that Toks is generating inside me.

I wake in a familiar place. The arena is burning. Toks is forcing the water from my lungs.

Chapter Nine: Resurrection

Dear… khem, khem… Uhh… Dear listeners. Dear friends — I’m… alive? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t know what I was saying, or to whom, but I know one thing: I’ve survived one of the hardest moments of my life. Again. Every second of it hurt. But I acted differently. I didn’t run. I set her free. Her. My never-forgotten and forever-forgotten.

“How in the devil’s name are you still alive?”

Mirna is forming another fireball, but I manage to dodge, and the blazing sphere vanishes into the great inferno around us.

Beside me is… Toks?

“Where did you come from?”

“I understood what you were, Castings. The moment you were talking to yourself. You’re not Castings anymore, are you? You’re a god in Castings’s body.”

“Something like that.”

“Then let’s solve this problem in front of us.”

Toks pulls me to my feet, and I feel some strange energy. Where is it coming from? I reach up to my neck and feel the necklace — and sense Essence flowing through me.

What? How?

Toks grins, and I look in my pocket to find a pile of pebbles. Full of Essence. I draw a large portion, and realize I can create an enormous air vortex.

“How? How are you doing this?”

Mirna shouts from the other end, but I’ve understood, dear listeners — this isn’t her. The real Mirna has been dead for a long time. I cannot allow a bundle of memories propped up by artificial intelligence to win and hand the notorious Crenbery dominion over everything.

I release the vortex. It strikes Mirna and carries her skyward.

“No! I thought you were dead, Steven! What happened, Mirna!”

Crenbery sprints into the arena looking confused — he seems to have already begun celebrating.

Mirna falls not far from me and shows no signs of life. It fills me with dread and sorrow. The memory of her true sacrifice rises in me, but it doesn’t hurt half as much as I feared. That story is over. I cannot seek my happy ending in the arms of a false Mirna.

“Dear audience, dear competitors. We have a winner of the tournament. It is Lord Castings, who has apparently ascended to divinity and was his own champion. He is a god who walks among us — if Toks is to be believed. And I do believe it, dear audience, for Lord Castings has returned from the dead. He has performed a miracle. Long live Castings, and may his thousand years of rule be plentiful!”

Pod the announcer is in the arena, seemingly in a state of delirium. What audience is he addressing, with everything around us in flames? Looking around, it seems the whole of Crenbery-City is on fire. Can such a powerful magical duel really have caused all this?

“No. Steven, I won’t allow it. You cheated. You came back from the dead.”

“Surrender, Crenbery. You promised.”

“I promised nothing.”

A dragon appears above the arena. Listeners, it’s enormous. I know exactly which one — Crenbery rode Areks, the finest in the world. Areks swoops toward us, snatching up his master on the way.

Is he fleeing, dear listeners? Oh yes.

“We haven’t finished fighting yet, Castings.”

“Most High, look who I’ve brought.”

Toks smiles and gazes skyward. Two figures approach, and I realize they’re Swixie and Ksana. It seems the dragoness has forgiven him, and now they’re a pair.

“Swixie and Ksana are coming to help.”

“Ksana and Swixie, stronger than all.”

Oh, dear listeners, they’ve gone utterly mad with love. But of course I’m not refusing their help. I leap into Swixie’s saddle, and Toks mounts Ksana.

“After Crenbery.”

“Most High — what’s your name?”

I can hear Toks’s voice, torn by the rushing wind.

“Steven.”

“A godly name.”

“Most High Steven… Do you know what comes with victory at the Tournament of the Shifting Light?”

“I know.”

Yes… As victor, I hold more power than all the others. I am the ruler of my world. And yet, this doesn’t mean I’m omnipotent — only that I can exert a little more influence over the fates of people within the created world. The only truly omnipotent god is the Steven who lives in the real world, and who does not permit anyone to meddle in his imaginary realm — not even artificial intelligence.

That gives me additional drive to see this through. Once and for all.

Crenbery — I’m coming for you.

Chapter Ten: The Navel of the World

Longevity, dear listeners, is a bad thing. We’ve been chasing it since we existed as a species. We first started pushing past forty, then fifty, sixty, and onward. We reached an average lifespan of eighty years, and even that wasn’t enough. Then we decided to try to outwit Mother Nature, and with the help of various technologies, began to renew ourselves, again and again. It’s true: we halted the aging process and became long-lived. We managed to defeat the most terrible diseases and remain on this planet of ours for a very, very long time.

So why is longevity a bad thing? Because of the abundance of time it brings — which diminishes time’s value. We humans know how to treasure only what is scarce, and true happiness lies in what we don’t have, in what we yearn for. So am I a happy man if I have everything? A poet once said that the dream of happiness is more than happiness itself, and I absolutely agree. I didn’t understand it for a very long time while I was chasing after it — but now, looking back, I realize the chase itself was the happiness. I chased after the longevity of myself, but also of my imaginary world, which I so badly wanted to leave to live its own life, by itself. A child that had grown, spread its wings, and flown from my nest. When I reached the goal, something changed.

My story becomes meaningless at that point, because then it’s no longer a story — it becomes something more real than a story, and loses its purpose. Stories are meant to live in the pens of writers and the minds of people; every attempt to tear one away from that and give it a life of its own, a long life, diminishes its value.

Its value lies in being read, being seen, being enjoyed while it lasts — and then contemplated, and then filed into the drawer of the mind, then into another, and another, and a fifth, and a seventh, until it fades and leaves behind only that feeling tied to a thread, which pulls at an emotion. That is when a story is most valuable. Actually — I’m lying, dear listeners. A story is most valuable when, buried that deep, it goes with its reader to the grave — and yet keeps living in other minds, stirring other emotions, identical and yet somehow unique to each individual. Whenever one node in that blockchain of human minds went dark, the story would continue to live its own life — different and singular to each mind, to each node, one by one. That is the beauty of stories.

Longevity would kill that beauty. Beauty lies in becoming and ceasing, and in the chase — never in the destination. Never in immortal people, and never in stories indistinguishable from reality.

And so I’ve made a decision, dear listeners: I’m going to smash all of this to pieces.

Swixie and his new bride chase Crenbery and his dragon, and we’ve already left the landmass behind. Our dragons breathe fire at random, but it doesn’t reach even the tail of the one we’re pursuing — he’s faster and larger.

The chase goes on for a long time, and we’re already several hundred kilometers out, heading toward a place situated at the exact midpoint of the four continents. I named this place the Node of Becoming and Ceasing, and that vortex is like a black hole that absorbs everything around it — while simultaneously creating. A perpetuum mobile of the second kind. It is the core of my read-only hard code. The navel of the world. No one has ever fallen into it, because no one has ever dared. And what happens then? I don’t know. I never wrote or conceived of that part of my story. I left this gap as a sort of deus ex machina — for stories I’d wound up so thoroughly that I couldn’t see my way out. I never suspected I’d be the hero of one of them.

“Up into the air, Swixie.”

“Why?”

“Just fly.”

Toks, myself, and our dragons have just soared up above the clouds, while Crenbery and his beast remain a speck above the deep blue sea below. I can see him slowing down. He’s probably confused, wondering where we’ve gone.

We hover above the clouds, and then higher still. We pass through the cloud cover and find ourselves alone with the setting sun.

“What’s the plan, Most High?”

“Trust me — I don’t know. I just want to try something. Don’t follow me. Swixie — straight to the Node.”

“To… what?”

“The Node of Becoming and Ceasing, Swixie. The Navel of the World.”

“Maybe you’re going. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Just… just drop me near it. After that, go back to your wife and live in happiness and prosperity.”

Swixie agrees. We leave a bewildered Toks behind as we descend with full force. My dragon folds his wings tight against his body and aims himself like an arrow at the dark spot in the center of the world.

The wind lashes my face as we slice through the air. Someone strikes me from the side, and I realize Crenbery has rammed into us. I grab him by the throat and strike him in the face. We fall from the dragons, leaving our animals locked in a flaming battle. They hurl themselves at each other as though they’ve completely forgotten their riders — and we, for our part, seem to have forgotten about gravity, dear listeners.

We fall.

And fall.

And fall.

And we strike each other, kick, and bite. Me and the man I created, and then brought to life. For a moment I felt like Frankenstein trying to kill his monster.

A flock of seagulls passes beside us. We’re approaching the water. No — we’re approaching the Navel of the World, the gaping darkness that threatens to swallow us and drag us into the belly of the unknown.

We grab each other by the throat. Ugh.

And we fall into the Navel.

Into nothingness.

Chapter Eleven: Nothing

Someone once told me that zero is nothing and everything simultaneously. It wasn’t clear to me as a child how zero could be everything, if it represents the absence of everything — but in time I grasped the yin-yang philosophy behind it. Numbers can go on forever, making a boundless sequence — but they are a snake eating its own tail. Only, the snake’s head is the infinity symbol, and its tail is zero, and that middle space between nothing and everything at once is what I’ve fallen into.

I haven’t fallen into nothing. I’ve fallen into an infinity of possibilities. White and black, red, yellow, and blue alternate around me, waiting to give birth to new colors, and from the colors to give birth to everything else. There’s a ringing in my ears, noises and tones waiting to be given their sound waves and from them to become the song of birds and symphonies.

Do you know what this reminds me of? This space between the snake and its tail?

It reminds me of those first days when I understood what I wanted to be. Of that creative rapture when time ceases to exist, words flow by themselves, and whole continents, civilizations, religions, and art take shape on the page.

So why not try the same thing now?

I push Crenbery away from me and he merges with the swirl of colors — and from it emerges a kind of spirit. Black, as black as it gets, composed of a network of neurons supported by chips. Through it, current hums and crackles.

The spirit tries to escape, whimpering — but I won’t let it. It tries to speak, to express its artificial intelligence. I won’t allow that either.

I clap, and the spirit stretches and contracts. His neurons separate from one another and disintegrate, more and more with every clap.

I repeat it — this applause of destruction, this applause of my own victory — until the spirit has fully disintegrated, and the mournful whimpering ceases.

The spirit is dead.

My world is free.

Epilogue

Tap, tap…

Can you hear me?

I open my eyes, dear listeners, and I’m back in my room. It smells of coffee, and the early morning sun breaks through the blinds. I feel… lighter. By an entire world. Like Atlas who has cast off his own burden — planet-sized, crushing — from his aching shoulders.

And at the same time… I feel a kind of emptiness. Don’t misunderstand me — it isn’t depression. Some people call it zen, some call it dissolution of the ego, some call it the lightness of being. Whatever it is, it leaves me hollow — but above all, at peace. All my regrets, every mistake, everything that ever hurt, and everything that was ever beautiful — these were merely sparks of memory, and I’m glad I survived them. Glad, yes. Because they meant I was alive.

I’m aware of everything I’ve seen, learned, created — but none of it will matter if it fades through time.

I’ve made my decision, dear listeners. The time has come for eternal peace. I’ve told you: longevity kills everything of value, because things have value only because they happen in the brief time on earth that is given to us.

I won the tournament. I saved my world. And now it’s time to exit life as a winner. I can’t wait.

The gun is ready.

I’m signing off, and leaving Shvya to you as my legacy. Please — don’t install artificial intelligence in it. Let your own intelligence fill in what I haven’t described. That’s the best way. Trust me.

With much love,

Steven