The Worlds of the Sheaf

Shonnla - Part 3

     Thomas spent many long hours after that thinking, puzzling out the situation they'd found themselves in, and one afternoon he found himself alone in the sitting room with Matthew. Jop Sonno and Roj Villa were out exploring the city, and Drenn was in another room practising with a length of wood he was using as a makeshift quarterstaff; a weapon that was looked down upon by most professional soldiers of their world but which priests of Samnos respected greatly. It was a worthy substitute for a sword, and as such the priest only practised with it when their hosts were away, not wanting to alert them to the fact that he wasn't as unarmed and helpless as they thought he was.

     The wizard and the Flight Leader listened to the priest grunting and cursing in the next room, but Matthew could see that Thomas had something else on his mind and he asked him what it was.

     "Oh, just thinking," the wizard replied. "Nothing relevant, nothing that'll help us. Just stuff that I can't get out of my head."

     "What kind of stuff?" asked Matthew. "Come on, maybe I need something to take my mind off things as well."

     Thomas smiled, then nodded. "You remember I told you about the mighty civilisation that existed on Tharia, thousands of years in the past? The images Tak saw of it in those artifacts Gannlow discovered, that Tak thought might be some kind of diaries? Cities with tall towers of glass. Flying carriages, living metal servants.” Matthew nodded. “It means we now know of three worlds linked by the portal, three worlds of the Sheaf, that had mighty civilisations in the distant past. Three very similar civilisations. The Tharian civilisation, the Veglian Citybuilders and the people who built the ring and the skyscrapers of this world. Three civilisations that grew mighty through the use of natural philosophy.”

     “You think these three civilisations may have been part on one civilisation?" said Matthew. "One civilisation that spanned many worlds across many dimensions? It’s possible, I suppose, but they may only look similar to us. The way all Fu Nangians look alike to Beltharans, because we’re unfamiliar with them. No doubt all Beltharans look alike to Fu Nangians, and maybe these three civilisations would have looked completely different to an inhabitant of one of them.

     "And it’s no coincidence that the three worlds we’ve walked on have all had ancient civilisations," the Flight Leader continued. "It was because this world had the ruins of an ancient civilisation that we came here, remember? We came looking for the Rossem Shipbuilders. And the felisians only came to Tharia because they were scared we might invade their world, like the Masters did, while the Masters only went to Veglia in the first place to plunder the ruins of the Citybuilder civilisation. So you see? There's no great mystery here. Events have directed us to visit worlds with lost civilisations. Don’t forget that most of the worlds accessible through the portal are barren and lifeless, according to the felisians. They say that only about one sun in a hundred has a living world circling it.”

     Thomas nodded. "I thought of that," he said, "and you're probably right, but I’m more worried by the possibility that these three civilisations may have been entirely unconnected to each other. I'd be a lot happier if we could get a clearer idea of exactly when these three civilisations fell."

     "Why?" asked Matthew, puzzled.

     Thomas shook his head, aware that what he was about to say would sound silly. It was silly, he knew that, but the thought just wouldn't go away nevertheless. "I'd feel a lot better if we knew for sure that these three civilisations fell centuries before or after each other, preferably thousands of years. That way, we'd know for sure that all three planets fell individually, that they weren't all stricken by the same disaster, at the same time..."