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The Domain of The Followers

By Thalia Drogna

“There is a system of government in the Domain that gives everyone the right not to have a say in the running of the world. The Domain is a difficult place to look after and no one wants the job. When a world is so near to destruction at every second and so close to being the complete answer in a moment, government has no object. The people have their own methods of government and it involves a two sided stone with a "yes" symbol and a "no" symbol. Throw the stone; get a decision. “Yes” we go to war with the new influx; “No” we allow them to over run us.

The Domain is on the edge of infinity and not far from the time line of oblivion. The Domain, being unstable, allows rifts to form in its substance. Thus an influx occurs whenever there is a rift and through the rift comes oblivion, power, change, universe, substance, magic, theory, knowledge, death, life, light, stars, time, ideas and all things unknown and dangerous. Beneath the Domain is the abyss of eternal darkness and above is the well of perpetual iridescence. Time and space and matter and anti-matter twist themselves and nothing is ever the same.

Forever the Domain have been fighting the influx and advancing to stop the change of their world. One minute the crystal plains are whole and the next minute they are dust scattered across the cosmos.
My name is Solitude. I walk in the Domain of the Followers. I walk near the Weeping Virgin and when I am unhappy I go and weep with her. She tells me not to cry because I surely have no reason. Being Solitude isn’t easy because I am always alone with my inner self and that is Solitude too. Everything in the Domain is flux and change, things appear in the Domain, change and disappear. Nothing here is ever the same and from where I stand I can see the cracks in the continuity. Huge crystal cracks of bright blue which make the Virgin weep more loudly, for surely the world is about to end. I know it, but it always reforms. The landscape changes as I walk in it and perhaps I shouldn’t search any longer.”

The speech was given to the Council of the Cracks in the Sky. It was important to Solitude. If she could not explain the government and mechanics of her world, she would not be allowed to enter the Domain. This was the test of her creation; to see whether she would be viable. She felt it had gone well, but they could refuse to allow her to enter and, even if she was allowed to enter, she would still be on probation. She looked up to the spokesman.

The Council of the Cracks in the Sky nodded at Solitude and sent her down to the surface of the Domain.

Solitude found herself standing in the Domain of the Followers. She crunched across the Killing Field Path, with each step crushing the hundreds of bones and skulls which made up the path under her red shoes. Ivory white and black of bone stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions. In front of her thin figures of men walked, each exactly the same distance from the other, all completely featureless, no eyes or nose or mouth. Except for the unbearable crunch of bone, the noise of silence was the only sound that buzzed in her ears and Solitude knew for certain that none of the figures lived. They moved as automatons, taking steps in sequence, crushing bones under their white feet in utter silence. The painful snap of brittle bone and anguished crack of haunted snarling skulls had no obvious effect on the figures. These men were as colourless as the bone path, skin of ivory white and wearing cloth of the same shade as their skin around their middle. The whole land was of one shade of calcium white, except for the blue cracks in the crystal sky and thin black lines that bordered the Killing Field Path from the great masses of bone on either side. This place had driven others mad with its bleakness but to be Solitude was to be mad already with loneliness.

Solitude was cold and shivered to her inner light as she saw in her mind the picture of the never ending walk of those on the path. As each figure passed they turned an unseeing, destroyed head towards her and, without thinking, Solitude joined the line of striding figures, allowing her legs to walk while a mind of her own wondered who these creatures were. The path continued, on and on, endlessly infinite, and she saw no end in sight. She knew already that the path was truly without end but belief was lacking in what she knew. It was a time before she forced herself to stop walking. Solitude stepped over the black, charcoal edge of the path and collapsed into the sleep of exhaustion and tedium.

When Solitude awoke, the Weeping Virgin was sitting beside her, crying oily tears of despair for the world. The Domain needed no tears, the Domain simply was, but the Virgin wept anyway.

“Who are the Followers?” asked Solitude of the Virgin.

“They are the failed inhabitants of the Domain. They were unable to assimilate the constant influxes, they were the first inhabitants of the Domain, some say even before the Lords of Domain arrived.

They tried to leave the Domain through an influx and this is their punishment. They walk forever,” sobbed the Virgin. “Now they never change unless they are taken by the influx.”

“But be careful when you walk with the Followers, Solitude,” said a tiny red octopus that crawled past them on its eight legs. “It can be very tempting not to change, always to be a follower and never the leader. The followers gain strength from any who chose to join them and thus are able to resist the influx when it comes. The Domain is weakened by those who join them. Do not be pulled in by the Followers, their lack of change is persuasive but not healthy for a prospective inhabitant of the Domain.”

“Is that why I walked so far with them?” Solitude asked the red octopus. It waved its tiny tentacles at Solitude and the Virgin, snapped its beak and crawled into a skull’s eye socket.

“I don’t know,” came a muffled answer from the octopus. “No one walks with the Followers unless they want to. They do seem to have some attractive power though.” The octopus emerged from the skull as a large, black carapaced beetle. Solitude did not like this transformation.

“I have performed the task, I have walked in the Domain of the Followers, where do I go now?”

“Keep walking and you will find out,” said the beetle, previously an octopus. “Find the Philosopher of the River,” it said, and flew away.

So Solitude roused herself, turning to find that the Weeping Virgin had gone elsewhere to weep for the sky. The blue cracks continued to grow and Solitude knew that there was little time before the next influx took over the Domain. She must walk out, away from the Killing Field Path and quest onwards for her answers to the search. She turned her back on the Killing Field Path and walked over the mountain of bones to be confronted by a flowing river that stretched as far as she could see to her left and right. The river was also wide but Solitude could see no bridge. The strange thing about the river was that it had no banks but simply flowed over the ground like a massive snake writhing on its belly. Perhaps this was a snake and not a river. But Solitude reached out her hand and it felt wet, in her mind, at least, this made it a river. Then she noticed that an old man sat beside the river, in a bright blue robe that was the same colour as the strange river. This was the Philosopher of the River, one of the people whom Solitude must speak to if she was to complete her search, she knew that this was the man.

“Philosopher?” asked Solitude.

“The new Solitude,” said the Philosopher. “You are looking for the crystal ship.”

“The crystal ship?” Solitude had no understanding of the philosopher.

“To mend the sky,” said the Philosopher. Solitude assumed that the Philosopher was talking in metaphors. How was she to mend the sky?

“Why are you the Philosopher of the River?”

“The River is always the same river even though new water flows through its banks, it is always The River. This is what I preach to those who come to The River.”

“How will that help me?” said Solitude, as Solitude is always selfish.

“Domain may change, have new things in it, but Domain will always be. Your predecessor joined the Followers, became a Follower, you must not. We are all one and if we cannot change we are weakened. If we cannot change, we cannot defeat the influx. Only the Domain itself can resist change without weakening,” explained the Philosopher. Solitude realised she knew very little about the Domain.

“I did not know that I had a predecessor,” stated Solitude, with caution.

“You are not the first to be Solitude. You are not the first to fight the influx.”

“But the influx is change, you told me change was important,” she accused.

“The influx is not true change but regression and assimilation. True change is new and unusual. This is why you must find the crystal ship to mend the sky, or the influx will scatter the crystal plains and the Domain itself will end. This influx will be so powerful that nothing will survive, maybe not even the Followers. You were tempted by the Followers but resisted their cosy walking death, it is time you walked away from The River also. You have no time to talk to me any longer. Find the crystal ship, it was created to mend the sky by the Lords of Domain.”

Solitude said farewell to the Philosopher of the River and looked for some way to cross the watery barrier to her path. It was then that she noticed the white of the waves was not spume as she had supposed, but the white of the flesh of the drowned dead. It seemed that the Domain wished to taunt her with the number of lives it had taken, there was no doubt that the Domain was a hard master. A tiny fish splashed in the river and blew bubbles at her.

“Come on, Solitude,” said the fish, “don’t let the landscape stop you from walking on.”

“How do I cross The River? There is no bridge, it’s too deep and far to wade across.” Solitude was dismayed that a strange river would end her journey.

“Walk through it. It can’t carry you away unless you are dead, the living carry too much with them to be light enough to be swept away. The River is where all the dead of the Domain are buried. After the influx it will be overflowing with the dead. Keep moving.” The fish morphed into an eel, which buzzed with electricity in the fashion of an eel, and then turned tail and swam with the current.

Solitude stepped into The River and traversed it, stopping occasionally to let a dead person float past her, the white flesh reminding her of The Followers. When she reached the other side, soaked by the water, she began to shiver. Not because she was cold, but because she was certain one of the dead in The River had turned its face to her and smiled.

There were huts on the other side of The River, and they looked to be inhabited as cooking fires burned, sending their smoke up to the blue crystal cracks of the sky. Solitude approached them hoping that some one would allow her to exchange her damp clothes for dry ones, but before she reached the huts she noticed that her clothes were dry. Curiosity made her continue to approach the rustic dwelling places, but she reached the centre of the village before she saw anyone to talk to. A woman stirred something in a pot. Solitude approached her and greeted her. Then she saw what was boiling in the pot. The mixture was bright blue and had a gooey consistency, almost like toffee.

“What are you making?” asked Solitude of the woman. The woman was tall and had striking red hair which fell about her face, unkempt and unbraided.

“This is the mixture for the crystal ship to turn into thread to mend the sky,” said the woman as if this was the most natural thing in the world for her to cook.

“I am Solitude,” she said, feeling that this was a necessary introduction.

“Then this is for you. I am Lost Wisdom,” replied the woman. “You must take this mixture, as your predecessor did, to the Cave of the Artificers. There you must speak to Daedalus and he will take you to the crystal ship. This service has not been performed for many years, so few of us remembered anything about it. We have the Lords of Domain to thank that I was created and none of our wisdom will ever really be lost. Talk to Daedalus, he knows about the crystal ship.” Lost Wisdom handed the pot to Solitude and showed her the direction to take to reach the Cave of the Artificers.

Solitude thanked the woman and began to walk across the wide grass prairie, which was in the direction she must go. The plain was vast and warm and it was not long before Solitude had to rest. As she sat on the ground, with long grass waving its green heads around her, a small lizard ran past her and as it ran past her it said: “No time to stop now when you are so close. The Domain must be saved.”

Solitude got to her feet once more, and with the pot in her hand, she purposefully walked onwards across the prairie. Her mind connecting things as she walked so that soon she would have a full picture of what this all meant. On the horizon she saw a tall man wearing brightly coloured clothes, but as she approached the man she noticed that he was made of metal. The metal man turned to face Solitude and looked at her as if she were something unusual.

“Who are you?” asked the metal man.

“I am Solitude,” she replied, slightly scared of the strange object.

“The Lords have seen fit to recreate you again when you plainly were not viable the previous times. If I were still a Lord of the Domain, I would not have made such a foolish mistake again.” The metal thing shook its head and frowned at Solitude.

“Who are you?” asked Solitude, disliking the way he talked to her.

“I am known as the Mechanical Sorcerer. I used to be one of the Lords of the Domain, but I acted against the wishes of the Council of the Cracks in the Sky. Now I am a spirit living in this mechanical body, performing miracles for the benighted denizens of a world that I helped to create. I know you are trying to mend the cracks in the sky but no other Solitude has survived past the end of her task. They all commit suicide or join The Followers or even get taken by an influx. Solitude is not part of the Domain and the Domain can not always protect her. Don’t bother to continue with your search, it will mean the end of your life.”

“Don’t listen to such a bitter diatribe, Solitude,” said a rabbit that had popped out from its hole.

“But is he right?” asked Solitude.

“He’s the Mechanical Sorcerer, he was once a Lord of the Domain but you can’t believe every thing he says. He is not interested in the good of the Domain any longer because he does not want it to survive if he has no part in it. He still retains some of the power of a Lord but uses it to impress those around him.” The rabbit became a mouse and disappeared back into the rabbit hole.

“Stay here, Solitude, you don’t need to mend the sky,” said the Mechanical Sorcerer. His jaw squeaked as he spoke and his iron eyes glinted in the light.

“I have to go. I am searching for answers and I haven’t found them yet.”

Solitude walked past the Mechanical Sorcerer and towards the Cave of the Artificers. Behind her the Mechanical Sorcerer cried out, the sound echoing from within his hollow body. Metal joints creaking as he turned away from the disappearing Solitude, not wanting to see her walk away. There was true anguish in his existence, incompetent Lords were not treated kindly.

It wasn’t a long time before Solitude saw the mountains called the Gravitic Range in front of her; this was where she would find the Cave of the Artificers. She walked onward until she found the path to the cave. At the end of the path was the bell which must be rung to summon the Artificer, so Solitude rang the bell but no one answered the bell. She rang the bell twice more but still no one came to see who was at the bottom of the path. Solitude decided to climb up the path and approach the cave anyway. The climb was made easier by steps cut into the rock but she was still out of breath when she reached the top of the path. The Cave of the Artificers was huge originally but it had been bordered up so that only a small doorway remained in the gaping mouth. People entered and left the cave like bees returning to a hive; it was no trouble for Solitude to enter the cave and find some person to ask the whereabouts of Daedalus from. She found him at the back of the cave with a wedge-shaped structure that she didn’t recognise.

“I’m Solitude,” she said, wondering how she would be received.

“I am Daedalus,” he replied and then something seemed to click in behind his eyes. “You brought it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Solitude and handed him the cauldron of bright blue stickiness.

“You are to fly the crystal ship,” said Daedalus.

“I don’t know how to do that,” she stated.

“You will remember, we all know that Solitude must fly the crystal ship. She is the only one who can. We are all one but only you are alone as Solitude.”

Finally Solitude realised that every one in the Domain was linked by the Domain except for her. That was why she was Solitude. That was why she was so tempted to be a Follower rather than lead, she was so totally alone. Others could not leave the surface of Domain. She was the only one who could do this.

A spider on the wall spoke to her from its web. “Solitude has finally understood. You are part of the Domain and yet not part of it. You are the pilot of the crystal ship which weaves a web like a spider to mend the cracks in the sky so that the Domain will never be destroyed by too much change. You had to find all this out for yourself though and journey to this place having seen the Follower you could become. You had to have free will, the Lords of Domain believe in this, but they are allowed to help those whom they create. Think of yourself as a yo-yo, you will go out to the sky but a string will pull you back to our hand. You were created for this purpose, your predecessor could not live with this knowledge but I think you are stronger than she was.” The spider crawled away before Solitude could ask it any questions.

“Every thousand years, as the Lords of Domain measure them, the influx gathers enough strength to destroy the Domain if it is allowed to break through. We must always fight this influx, the stone that is tossed to make the decision is always double sided. The answer it gives is always “yes”. It is time that you began your work,” said Daedalus.

The arrow head shaped, glassy craft was beautiful to Solitude’s eyes. This was her purpose in life. Daedalus had designed and built the space craft at the beginning of the world when the Lords of Domain requested it. It was like an arrow of time, shafting through the atmosphere of the Domain and high up to crystal sky, full of splitting blue cracks. It was as if Solitude had done this thousands of times before. She knew the craft as well as she knew herself and the sewing of the sky demanded no great effort from her part, this was her purpose in life. The bright blue cracks were covered by bright blue silken thread that held them firmly together. Her job was done and it was time for Solitude to return to the Domain, but, while she had been sewing the sky, Solitude had been given a glimpse of wide starry horizon. She didn’t know why, but it called her more than returning to the Domain. Maybe a purpose that came once every thousand years was not such a wonderful way to lead your life. Just as she sewed the final crack, she manoeuvred the ship so that it shot through the gap before it closed forever on the Domain, and in front of her were the stars she had seen through the shimmer of flux, more iridescent and beautiful than she had imagined them to be.

“I’m going to see something of the other worlds that invade ours,” whispered Solitude, “if the Domain needs me again, they’ll call, and I’ll hear them and come back. But until then I don’t want to be Solitude anymore, it’s time to find out what the Domain is missing.”

In the safe dome of the Domain the spider smiled to itself, if spiders do smile, and changed into an octopus before it scuttled away to tell the Lords of Domain how well their plan had succeeded. The task they had set themselves was to keep a Solitude alive until she was needed again, to set her free was the only way they had never tried with a Solitude before. It seemed to have worked; but the Lords of Domain had a tendency to play with their creations until they broke.

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