Here on Pryan, as on Arianus, the mensch are at war with each other. Elves hate the humans, the humans mistrust the elves, the dwarves hate and mistrust everybody. I should know. I traveled with a bunch of humans, elves, and a dwarf. You never saw such quarreling and bickering and fighting. I grew sick of them and left. I have no doubt that they’ve all probably killed each other by now. That, or the tytans have slaughtered them.
The tytans.
I encountered many fearsome monsters in the Labyrinth, but few equaled the tytans. Gigantic humanoids, blind, with limited intelligence, the tytans are magical creations of the Sartan, who used them as overseers for the mensch. So long as the Sartan survived, they kept the tytans under control. But on Pryan, as on Arianus, the Sartan race mysteriously began to dwindle. The tytans were left without instruction, without supervision. Now they wander Pryan in large numbers, asking all the mensch they meet these strange questions:
“Where are the citadels? What is our purpose?”
When they receive no answer, the tytans fly into a rage and beat the wretched mensch to death. Nothing, no one, can withstand these terrible creatures, for they possess a rudimentary form of Sartan rune-magic. They came very close to destroying me, in fact, but that too is another tale.*
* Elven Star, vol. 2 of The Death Gate Cycle.
And what is the answer to their question? Where are the citadels? What are the citadels? This became my question as well. And I found at least part of the answer.
The citadels are shining cities, built by the Sartan upon their arrival on Pryan. As near as I can determine from records the Sartan left behind, the citadels were intended to gather energy from Pryan’s constantly burning sun and transmit that energy to the other worlds, through Death’s Gate, via the power of the Kicksey-winsey. But Death’s Gate remained closed; the Kicksey-winsey didn’t work. The citadels are empty, deserted. Their lights shine feebly, if at all.
ABARRACH
I traveled next to Abarrach, world of stone.
And it was on this journey I picked up my unwanted traveling companion: Alfred, the Sartan.
Alfred had been navigating Death’s Gate in a futile attempt to locate Bane, the child I’d taken from Arianus. Alfred bungled it, of course. The man can’t walk without falling over his own shoelaces. He missed his destination and landed in my ship.
At this point, I made a mistake. Alfred was now my captive. I should have returned him immediately to my lord. Xar would have been able to elicit, painfully, all the secrets of this Sartan’s soul.
But my ship had just entered Abarrach. I was loath to leave it, loath to travel back through Death’s Gate—a fearsome, disturbing journey. And, to be honest, I wanted to keep Alfred around awhile. Passing through Death’s Gate, we had—quite unintentionally—switched bodies. For a short while, I found myself in Alfred’s mind, with his thoughts, fears, memories. He found himself in mine. Each of us returned to his own body, but I know I was not quite the same—though it was long before I could admit it to myself.
I had come to know and understand my enemy. And that made it difficult to continue to hate him. Besides, as it turned out, we needed each other for our very survival.
Abarrach is a terrible world. Cold stone on the outside, molten rock and lava on the inside. The mensch the Sartan brought here could not long live in its hellish caverns. It took all our magical strength—both Alfred’s and mine—to survive the blistering heat rising from the molten oceans, the poisonous fumes that fill the air. But people live on Abarrach.
And so do the dead.
It was here, on Abarrach, that Alfred and I discovered debased descendants of his race—the Sartan. And it was here we found the tragic answer to what had happened to his people. These Sartan on Abarrach had begun to use the forbidden art of necromancy. The Sartan were raising the dead, giving them a semblance of cursed life, using the corpses of their own people as slaves. According to Alfred, this arcane art was prohibited anciently because it was discovered that whenever one of the dead is brought back to life, one of the living will die untimely. Either the Sartan on Abarrach had forgotten the prohibition—or were ignoring it.