Posted on by Abe Austin

Raise the Black Sun: Part Four

aerial view of landscape
Photo by Mengliu Di on Pexels.com

 

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

I do not know why I did not abandon my post then. I cannot say that I held some glimmer of hope that was absent in the others. I suppose that men simply take despair down different roads. I saw no relief in abandoning this world, I suppose I assumed that our misery was of a more eternal nature, and thus could not be escaped so cheaply.

The next day six more left their post.

Things started to become very difficult now. At this point we had only been one week from the end of our circuit, but that had been assuming we could carry the wagons in one trip. Now our hands were so few that we would have to carry half of our wares a day’s journey, leave them, travel a day back to the second half, and then spend a third day dragging them up to the first half. One week had just become three.

Not only that, but we would have to leave some of our number to guard each part of the caravan when it was split up. At one point there would be a group waiting guard over the front-half of the wagon, a group waiting guard over the back-half, and a third group walking the space in between. And given the straits we found ourselves in, there was no telling but whether one of those groups would entirely abandon their post and the other two would not know it.

And that, of course, is exactly what happened. It occurred one time when I was in the party guarding the back-half. Taft, Kintil, Po’Lago, and Birrits were supposed to come back and help us carry our load up to the front-half. We were only supposed to wait for them two days. After four we finally concluded that they wouldn’t ever be coming.

It takes a minimum of three men to push a single wagon, and there were only five of us present now. Thus we could only push one wagon on our own, and we had three of them to move. We didn’t dare split our group once more, so all five of us set out with one wagon, entrusting the other two carriages to the fates. That was simply how things had to work out now.

Halfway through our journey we passed the bodies of Taft, Kintil, Po’Lago, and Birrits, sprawled out unceremoniously five paces off of the main road, each in their own direction. Shortly after that we met two of the members of the front-party coming back to see if we still lived. Obviously everyone else of their group had also surrendered to the bleakness.

At first we just stared at each other. They at us and we at they. Without words we all understood. Seven survivors meant two wagons at a time. Six wagons in all. A day’s journey, a day’s back, a day’s journey, a day’s back, a day’s journey…all to make one day forward overall. Now we had more than a month remaining in our journey. It wasn’t as if the Job knew or cared about the change in capacity, we still had to fulfill our orders or perish for our betrayal.

And right then, every one of us was wondering if it wasn’t better to perish now. Surely with five weeks we were doomed to fail already, so why prolong the inevitable? Why not die with as little suffering as we could and see if things were any better in the afterlife? Perhaps we had been the fools to not quit earlier when our companions did.

And then Ro’Kano looked me right in the eye and let himself break. His eyes filled with months of unshed tears. We were of the age that to show our fears and brokenness was a great shame, but finally he couldn’t care about that anymore, and so spilled all his shame right down his cheeks and onto his boots.

And seeing that, I could not help but weep myself. And then all the other joined as well. All seven of us heaved out our agonies, exhaled our pain, baptized each other in our rivers of sadness.

It was the only thing that could have saved us. We could not have lived a moment longer with our hearts so locked.

Without another word we all took our place alongside the wagon and began to push it forward. We remained sad as ever, but we were not sad alone anymore.

We moved our wagons forward day-by-day. Every so often one of us would break down and weep once more, then all of us would weep, then we would dry our eyes and continue forward. We took the wagons two-at-a-time and proceeded together. We did not dare dividing our numbers anymore, we needed each other. We just had to take two wagons alone and leave all the others unprotected on the side of the road. It wasn’t as if these roads were very populated anyway. Surface roads never are as a general rule, and all the more so in regions such as these.

Though it took an age, we made our next two deliveries without incident. They were to mean villages, filled with gaunt souls that had been flung out from ordinary society and left to unify over their peculiarities. In fact, they were so destitute that they lived upon the surface level, with all their homes naked under the sun, right where we could see. But they did not crawl out of those holes to see what wares we brought to them, they just peeked out from half-closed doors and half-drawn curtains while their nervous magistrate concluded the business as quickly as possible and sent us back on our way.

“We’re coming to the end of the world,” Nanth said after we left the second of these outposts. It was the perfect summation for what we all were feeling. These were barren wastelands on the surface level, and forsaken societies down below. Both space and humanity seemed to be growing thinner and thinner, signaling the end of all the world.

We did not know how literal the truth of this was. What we did know was that we were down to our last delivery: Graymore Coventry. This meant we had only two wagons remaining, and once again were able to push forward without doubling back for the rest of our load.

Knowing this, we kept our eyes ever fixed on the horizon, scraping its line for any sign of our final destination. In this region all the landscape was perfectly flat and gray, so any promontory would be immediately noticed. There was hardly even any loose gravel upon the rock. It was so pristine and flat that it seemed almost to be made of metal. We could see for miles, and thus we expected to see our destination at every moment.

It was Bayhu who did at first. He pointed out the place where he saw a single, solitary bump along the line where sky met ground. None of the rest of us could make anything out, but as we continued pressing forward we were able to verify his claim one-by-one.

Then a must peculiar sensation occurred. For not ten minutes later the bump had grown twelvefold in size and we were able to start making out individual towers and spires. And though it had grown so much within our view, still it seemed perched upon the very farthest extent of the horizon. It gave us the dizzying impression that it was yet a very great way off, yet at the same time rushing up to meet us.

“Why it must be massive,” Zolar breathed. “To already appear this large, yet still be so many miles away.”

And still the illusion continued. Five minutes later and we were counting individual windows along the tower walls, and guard posts along the bulwarks.

“But I can hear voices,” Moal scratched his head, “the voices of a city close by. It truly must be right before us…then why can we not see anything past it?”

Though we saw the road winding up to the Coventry’s gates, we took a diversion, and proceeded around the edge of the city walls. We simply had to see what defined the horizon beyond this last element of the skyline.

“Going round for a look?” an amused voice called down to us, and peering up we met the face of a guard looking over the edge of the ramparts. It was a very strange experience, looking up at a city. Evidently the entire Coventry was also built upon the surface level, just as the lowly villages preceding it had been. This was very odd, given that the size and quality of it suggested that it was not a lack of resources that had kept them from burrowing down to safer ground.

But I digress. As mentioned before, the man had said “Going round for a look?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s just–we don’t know–”

“Not to worry,” he said. “We don’t have many visitors here at the Coventry, but whenever we do they are just as puzzled as you. You aren’t the first to go around to settle your senses.”

“But what is it that’s going on?”

“Better for you to see. You won’t believe me if I just tell you.”

“Alright then.”

“You see over there where the walls recede? Just past the old, crumbling tower?… Yes, just around that corner you should find a little footpath to follow. Just keep to that and be sure you stop when it stops! You don’t want to be falling in.”

“Falling into what?”

“Alright, off you go, then. I’ll still be here when you return.”

He was clearly done speaking with us, so there wasn’t anything for it but to follow his instructions and continue on ahead. We pushed our wagons along the city’s edge, just far enough from the walls to keep our wheels clear of any skirting rubble. Upon rounding the corner in the wall, we found the footpath, exactly as the man had described, no doubt formed by the feet of all the passerby who had sought to satiate the same curiosity that we now held.

It was another three-quarters of an hour before we finally cleared the last of the city walls. It became apparent that the Coventry was generally triangular in shape, the outer point of it facing in the direction we had approached, and the base facing in the way of our mystery. This meant that the sloping wall beside us obstructed most of what lay behind. What degrees we could see of the horizon still seemed a paradox, though. We could only make out the landscape that ran level with the back wall of the Coventry, and then nothing beyond. We stopped trying to make sense of it, we just kept pressing on, convinced that answers would only be found at the edge of the walls.

And so it was. Just as we passed the last section of the city, so too the footpath came to its sudden stop, and so too all the ground ceased before us. It was like when one comes over the summit of a hill, and only upon cresting the very top being is able to perceive the backside of the slope running beyond. Only the difference was that there was no backside, and no sloping beyond. We had reached the summit, the edge, the very horizon…and only pure blackness stretched before us.

“What is it?” I furrowed by brow as I craned my neck over the lip and tried to focus my eyes on the blackness, tried to tell what it was all made of. And as I looked downwards, and puzzled as to what I saw, I sharply realized that what I saw was empty infinity. There was no great, black object, no other side to a chasm, no floor far down below…there was nothing.

I flung myself backwards with a cry and fell to the earth. My heart raced, and I gasped for breath. There, as I lay on my back, I saw how the fringe of the Coventry descended right over the edge of the horizon, and into that abyss. It truly was the very edge of humanity.

We had come to the end of the universe.

Well…I suppose at this time I should pause and admit what has surely already occurred to you. It was not the end of the universe that we had discovered, merely the furthest limit of our arm in the Kolv Mass. But, of course, this was long before we had discovered True Groundscape or even the Outer Networks. At that time, to us as we were then, this was the edge of all eternity. And who knows…perhaps it truly was. For who can tell if anything unseen ever existed before it was found. Perhaps we make things in the looking for them.

In any case, after we had all gathered our wits, we shook our heads in mutual awe and made our way back to the main entrance to the Coventry. As we neared it we heard the salutation of our friend, the guard.

“Quite a shock, isn’t it?” he smiled.

“Yes,” Moal nodded. “I did not know that man had discovered the world’s end. Have you lowered anything down the side?”

The man scratched his thin, for surely he knew far more than we had capacity to receive, and had to consider how to explain things in a way that we could understand.

“There have been…many experiments,” he said, “and we have gleaned many secrets of the void since far-flung antiquity. I dare say you are already acquainted with the sacrifices that are performed here at our Coventry?”

“Of course.”

“Yes, for some reason that aspect of our work is storied abroad, but never the nature of the Void. And we know that all the world looks askance at our sacrifices, because they simply cannot be understood without the knowledge of the Void. The science of the two is one and the same, and neither can be properly contemplated alone. But come in through the gate now and you will find answers…. Or at the very least more questions.”

Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven

 

On Monday I promised that our Treksmen would discover another of the unexplained wrinkles in their world: that of the Void at the end of their world. A lot more questions are raised by this discovery, but the final line given by the guard is a hint to the reader that they are not about to find all the answers. Our Treksmen are going to be educated, but they are not going to obtain understanding. In this story, the more that is learned, the more unknowns are uncovered.

This a central theme to my tale. It is a story of finite beings dealing with the infinite. The people of Graymore Coventry have studied the cosmos, and by their research have discovered genuine patterns of cause and effect. But they are dealing with matters that are beyond them, and through their experiments are inadvertently bringing forth all manner of unforeseen consequences. They are pulling at the string, and all that is connected to the other end must come forward as a result, not all of which is desired.

Before we come to that end of the string, though, I want to examine a pacing pattern that I’ve enjoyed using in Raise the Black Sun. It is a diamond pattern, one of expanding and contracting scope, going broad and then going narrow. Come back on Monday where we’ll look at this technique in greater detail, and also explore some famous examples of it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Toymaker: Part Six

white and brown concrete building
Photo by Jack Gittoes on Pexels.com

 

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

A sudden chill ran through the drummer and he spun around on the spot, just in time to see a stream of metal sheaves flowing through the center of the doorway and straight into him. He didn’t even hear the impact as he was flung him across the room and slammed into the wall. Still the shafts kept pressing forward, skewering through his chest and pinning him to the spot. The metal blades that weren’t pinning him began to spin and slide, morphing into an erratic form, somewhat like a metal hand, walking on its fingers.

Wincing through the pain the drummer gripped his hammer tightly and swung it in a wide arc. Or at least he tried to. He barely got it more than an inch before one of those metal fingers snapped out, bursting the hammer into a thousand pieces. The blades piercing the drummer’s chest drove in deeper. A humming sound came from inside the metal demon, and now the skewers began to push out in each direction, straining against the drummer’s core, trying to burst his whole body apart.

“What do you–? Why–?” the drummer’s voice came out strained and weak. He was vaguely aware of another of these strange demons bursting into the room and charging down the squealing teddy bear.

The drummer’s eyes fluttered rapidly, his vision floated in and out of focus. “I’m the maker,” he mouthed. Cracks were widening in his chest, snapping up his body, splitting across his lips. “I made every toy.” His body made a loud popping noise and the metal blades sprung partway open. The drummer’s few remaining fibers began to twist and divide. “I made the hands that made you,” the two separate halves of his mouth motioned. “I am you.”

There was a tremendous snap and the drummer’s body burst apart, his entire torso exploding into a cloud of splinters. All thoughts ceased within his mind, and what chunks of body still remained collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

And yet. With that snapping of his body, all of his silent words suddenly reverberated off the walls like a great, rushing wind. It pounded through the space and quaked through the core of the scowlie. Though it had not been fashioned with any ears, it heard it all, and the fingers it walked upon flailed about wildly. A spasmodic shriek emanated from its rubbing sheaves, and the blades started folding and turning, reassembling, fusing together in fervent heat. The edges became less sharp, the pallor less cold, the features less random. The whole being glowed bright yellow, lost entirely from view as it shone like a mortal star!

Sparks rained off of the fusing metal, and as they showered downwards they landed on the boots of a new, metal drummer. It was not merely similar to the wooden version that had just been destroyed, it was the exact image, fresh as the day the drummer had first created. Even his original coloring had somehow been baked into the steel. Though this new version stood in this room, still there also lay the broken and lifeless version of the drummer on the floor. The one that was crafted of cheap wood, stained black by soot, and cracked by heat. The one that still held the handle of the hammer in its glove.

The second scowlie, which had finished with the bear, turned and shrieked at the metal drummer, trying to discern if this was another target or not. The drummer turned and faced it back, unflinching.

“I am you, too,” he said confidently, then raised his baton and brought it down on the drum. It’s metal top resonated much more brightly than when it had been made of wood, and a spasm rippled through the scowlie. It gave one more shriek, then dashed out of the room.

The drummer nodded approvingly, then exited the room himself. He walked back to the hole that had once been a window. He ignored the ladder-bridge, and instead leaped out, falling the full four stories to the ground. He landed gingerly on his boots, then marched off down the street, heading in the direction that the knight had led the guards down.

It did not take him long to find them, the clatter of metal and wood soon echoed to him from a side-alley. There, at its end, he found the knight laughing in combat with the guards. He was outnumbered 20-to-1, but he was a well-made figure, cast from solid pewter. The guard’s thin blades were simply too weak to do more than scratch his armor, and so he danced about, systematically cleaving their spears in two.

“Charge him!” the Guard-Sergeant shouted. “Your weapons are useless, grab him with your arms!”

“His weapon isn’t useless!” one of the guards returned, not wanting to put his own, wooden neck anywhere near the knight’s sword.

“Cowards!” the Sergeant charged forward himself. The knight spun quickly and put a well-placed kick in the assailant’s chest, knocking him back to the ground.

“Haven’t we done enough of this?” the knight chortled.

“The scowlies will get you!” the Sergeant spat, slinking away while rubbing his chest.

Immediately the knight’s jovial nature turned dark. “What’s that?!” he demanded.

“Knight, don’t worry,” the drummer said, rushing to his side.

“I leave you toys alive and you’ll send scowlies after me next, is that about right?!” the knight continued after the Sergeant, pointing his sword at the toy’s chest.

“Knight, the scowlies aren’t a problem.”

“No drummer, you haven’t seen them. They absolutely are a problem. I know you won’t like this, but we have to break these toys now.”

“I have seen them. In fact, I am one of them.”

If the knight’s helm could have opened his jaw would have been agape. Instead he just cocked his head in a strange away, unable to fathom why the drummer would even say something like that. Even the guards cowering against the back wall stared to the drummer in bewilderment.

“You don’t know what you’re saying–” the knight began slowly.

Before he could continue the drummer closed his eyes, then his face split and his metal sheaves began to unfold, twisting and re-forming back into the shape of a scowlie.

“A trap!” the knight cried, driving his sword into the heart of the creature. The scowlie grabbed the sword lazily, and yanked it out of the knight’s grip. Then it shuffled again, reforming back into the drummer, holding the sword aloft in his hand.

“No, knight. It’s still me.”

The knight made a strange, flustered noise, and flailed his arms like he was in danger of losing his balance. “But–but all this time?”

“No, just now. When the scowlie killed my old body up in the Administration Building.”

“A scowlie…killed you…?”

“Killed the body. But I was in the scowlie, just as much as I was in that old body. Just as much as I’m in you. Just as much as I’m in them,” he nodded his head towards the still-cowering guards.

“You mean–wait, just what are you trying to say?…Surely not…the Maker?”

The drummer cocked his head in amusement. “Didn’t you say that the Maker put part of himself into each toy?”

“Did I? I think that’s what they say, yes.”

“I liked that part. So I decided that that was who I was. So I don’t think it’s just me who is the Maker. So are you, if you to decide to be. So is everyone. And if everyone decides to be the Maker, and brings their part together, we’ll finally be able to make him again.”

The knight didn’t respond. He took a few shaky steps over to the guards he had just been fighting, and sat down among them. All the toys stared at the drummer in a silent stupor.

“I thought you’d be happy,” the drummer frowned.

“I–I’m overwhelmed,” the knight’s voice was hollow.

“Why?”

“Because it…it…well it breaks everything I thought I knew.”

“So? Isn’t this better?”

“Yes, I suppose…if…”

“If what?”

“If it’s true.”

“So you don’t believe me?” the drummer sounded hurt.

“I don’t know. Really I’m not saying that. Just that it’s–overwhelming. You figured all of this out while you were up with the bear, did you?”

“Yes.”

“See, it doesn’t come that easily for the rest of us.”

“It wasn’t so easy. I had to die to figure it out.”

“Oh,” the knight said stupidly, really not sure how to properly respond to that. “Little drummer, please don’t be offended. But it’s really going to take some time before I even know what I think about what you’re saying.”

“Oh…okay, I guess. We can talk about something else if you’d like.”

“Um, sure. Uh, did you find out where the dancer was?”

“No, I didn’t,” the drummer’s face looked troubled, then almost instantly brightened. “But I’ve just thought of a way to find her.”

“I’m sure you have. Why don’t we go find her, and maybe–maybe that’ll give me some time to just think about everything you’ve said along the way?”

“Alright.”

“What about us?” one of the guard’s piped up.

“What about you?” the knight returned. “You’re free to go if you’ve had enough.”

“Or free to come with us if you want more,” the drummer added enthusiastically.

The Sergeant frowned at that, rose to his feet, and ducked down the alley with his head bowed. One-by-one the other guards followed until only two remained. Each of them looked to one another, and then back to the drummer.

“We’d rather come with you. Come and see–whatever it is you’re doing. Looking for a dancer, you said?”

“Yes,” the drummer nodded. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but she and I came up with a dance, and when I played the music for it we always knew just how to move together.”

“So…?”

“So follow me.” And with that the drummer whisked out his baton and brought it back down on his drum. Rump-a-dum-a-dum-a-dum! And as he struck out his old, familiar tune, his legs snapped to attention and whisked him down the alley. His rhythm reverberated loudly off the walls, and the knight and two guards fell into step behind him.

They marched out into the street, then made a turn and were off on their way. One street, then another, then another. The whole area was still reeling from the attack on the Administration Building, but whatever toys recognized the drummer and the knight were much too frightened to approach them. Instead crowds parted and stared wide-eyed at them as they passed. After a little while the marchers were past the heart of the city, and on their way into the next district.

Here the houses were more modest, and had wide spaces between them for growing groves of trees. The ground hadn’t been leveled here, and naturally rose and fell in little hills and dells. As more and more of the city-proper fell behind them, it became clear that the drummer’s dance was leading them in a straight line for the gutted remnants of an old town in the distance.

It was perched atop a steep rise in the land, an old suburb of the city that had been almost entirely consumed in a terrible fire long ago. There was no official community there now, only vagrants and gangs of criminals, competing with the local wildlife for a hole to sleep in. Of course the knight with his sword and the guards with their half-spears were already better armed than any peasant that they might find, and so the party wasn’t too worried as they followed the slope of the land into its blackened ruins.

No one tried to molest them anyhow. Indeed, they didn’t even see any of the toys, only the ratty bedrolls and smoldering fires of their camps. So strange in this place was the sight of the visitors, that the inhabitants had scurried for cover, and now peeped out at them in awe from their hiding places.

The journeyers marched straight down the central street, old rubble crumbling into dust beneath their feet. The drummer’s beat echoed unnaturally off the half-toppled buildings, as if it had been so long since those old walls reverberated sound, that now they didn’t quite remember how.

All at once the drummer felt his feet turning, taking him off the central road. He quickened his rhythm, beating a trail down a nearby alley. Over the moldy frames fallen out of the windows, and across the crunching beads of shattered glass. His feet began to slow, and presently he came face-to-face with a small apartment, its door hanging on just one hinge, yellow paint peeling off in chunks.

The drummer stilled his batons, then looked back to his accompaniment, they looked back at him, eyes unblinking. He turned back, swallowed, and pushed his way through the creaky door. The knight and the guards waited respectfully outside.

Part Seven

 

This last Monday I discussed the importance of self-reflection in a character, and how it is most often used to signal a fundamental change within them. I took a very literal route with that in today’s post! Previously the drummer chose to spare the bear, only doing so after he took a little look inside of himself and decided what he wanted to be.

Of course even though he had made that choice, he had still betrayed the fact that his heart was quite changed from what it once had been. Yes, this time he managed to restrain himself, but what about next time? I felt it was essential for him to have a token of grace, a chance to be reborn entirely. It was then that I decided his old, tortured husk had to die, and he would be remade, as clean and pristine as at the very start of his tale.

Now, having been restored, he is at last ready to rejoin the dancer. As I reread this segment I realized that I rushed things quite a good deal here at the end. I’m sorry about that, unfortunately I did not have time to correct this imbalance. At the very least I can pause here, and take the time to give our penultimate scene between the drummer and the dancer some proper breathing space. As such, the conclusion of this story is going to come next Thursday.

Before we get to that, though, I want to take a moment to talk a bit more in-depth about how my vision for this story shifted while writing this tale. I actually had a pretty clear idea of where I wanted it to go when I began, and then it got off the rails quite quickly! On Monday I’ll pull back the curtain on what my original intent was, how and why it changed, and how it then proceeded to change again and again several times throughout. I hope you’ll find it interesting, and until then have a wonderful weekend!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Journeys and Detours

aerial photo of winding road
Photo by David Bartus on Pexels.com

The Journeyman’s Questions)

When we are children, we tend to set our hopes and dreams on moments that are in the immediate future. We long for a birthday that is only a few weeks away, and then enjoy the fulfillment of that desire quickly.

Later, though, our imagination grows deeper, and we crave for things that are further out-of-reach. Some things can only be attained after years of effort, such as a higher degree, retirement, or notoriety in a particular field. Some things might never be attained at all, such as complete peace and happiness. In either case, we set our sights on shores far distant, so far that the path to them is sure to be unstable; for it seems a truth of life that a road cannot extend past a certain length without being broken up by detours, stray turns, and unexpected obstacles. There is no straightforward route to anything of substance.

It isn’t just the road that turns and changes, though, it is also those who take them. Whenever people pursue life’s greatest quests, not a one of them ever meets their destination. For many are forever lost in diversions and pitfalls along the way, while those that overcome these obstacles and reach their destination, are so changed as to be unrecognizable from the individuals that first began the journey.

Two great questions arise in us then. Am I the sort of journeyer that can make it through to the end? And if I am, who will I be at the end of it?

 

Questions Into Stories)

And as with all of life’s greatest questions, our race has learned to turn them into stories. We take the soul’s deepest pondering, and make it into a narrative thought-experiment.

Let us consider first the story of Dorothy who is seeking a way back home to Kansas. She is brought to a yellow, brick road that leads straight to a Wizard, which Wizard she is told will be able to help her return home. Though the path seems straightforward at first, she encounters many surprises along the way. She also meets some kindred spirits that need rescuing and finds an enemy in a frightful witch.

Then, upon reaching her destination, Dorothy is given a new quest, to retrieve the broomstick from that evil witch. This journey does not have a clear-cut road to follow. Dorothy and her friends must forge their own way from here on.

Finally, after this new set of hurdles have been cleared, it is revealed that Dorothy actually had the power to return home all along. Although…really she didn’t. Yes, maybe she had the magical shoes that could transport her back to Kansas, but she was not ready to go home until this final moment. Because really the journey has been one of emotional maturity. There was a reason Dorothy came here: to make her transition from girlhood into womanhood. Only now, at the end of her long and winding path, is she prepared to stand on her own. And with that, her inner change is complete and she goes home.

This same basic outline is repeated in The Way, a 2010 film starring Martin Sheen. In this story a father decides to undertake a pilgrimage that his own son perished along. The man has felt that he never really understood his son, and hopes to fill that void with this journey.

Along the way he meets a few friends, each of which have similarly come on this pilgrimage to find something better in life. By the end, most of them have not obtained what they intended, but have instead found that which they needed. The man who wanted to lose weight, for example, has instead found something to believe in.

Why was there a disconnect between what these pilgrims wanted and what they actually needed? Generally it is because what they think they need is in the past. The man who wants to lose weight, for example, wishes to do so to regain the affection of his wife. But like Dorothy, the wish to “go back home” is insufficient. Journey’s are not about getting back to where you were, they are about going somewhere different.

 

Less Direct Routes)

The Lord of the Rings is a famous “journey” story, and one where the hero is certainly changed by the voyage. Frodo leaves the Shire and returns to it…but also he never does return. The Frodo that left his home naive and unscathed is markedly different from the warrior who returns. He is discontent with the smallness of hobbit-life now, and in the end he decides that he must leave.

But I would like to draw attention to the story’s use of detours in its epic adventure. Frodo’s path is defined for him in only the vaguest of terms: get to Bree, now on to Rivendell, then all the way to Mount Doom. But the roads to each of these places are far from clear. On every leg of the journey things go awry and the adventurers have to find their own path forward.

For example, on the way to Bree two of the hobbits become trapped by Old Man Willow and the party have to be rescued by Tom Bombadil. They spend two nights in his home, where they enjoy a brief respite, free from all their cares. It would be nice to stay here longer, but the world outside still needs saving. Ultimately the heroes have to reject the sanctuary and move back into danger, so that they can go on to do greater deeds.

Another detour takes place later when Frodo and Sam follow Gollum through a side-passage into Mordor. This route takes them into Shelob’s Lair, where disaster strikes and Frodo is seemingly killed. Sam grieves for the loss of the friend, but ultimately claims the burden of the ring for himself, resolute to see the mission through.

In each of these examples we see distractions and obstacles to the way forward. When a story features detours they provide the characters a chance to throw in the towel. They are inflection points where the entire journey could theoretically come to an end. When the heroes resolve to move forward, then, they do so all the more committed. If journeys are about characters changing and growing, detours are the catalysts to speed up that process. All good detours will not slow a story down, then, they will actually speed it up.

That was my intention with my drummer’s detour in the last section of The Toymaker. Getting waylaid at the factory took him off the path of rescuing the dancer, but he overcame the distractions here, put his head down to work, and earned his way back to freedom. Thus he was delayed in his quest, but the narrative was continuing to progress. He was still journeying forward, if only on the inside.

In my next story post we’ll set things up for the next switchback on his journey. It’s not going to be an easy quest, and there will be more detours along the way.

When the dancer and drummer do finally have their reunion, I will display another application of journeys in story-telling: usually you are only seeing one of several journeys happening at the same time. All this while that the drummer has been growing and changing, so too has the dancer. When they finally do reunite we will be able to see how their separate paths compare and contrast to one another. They will have been made unrecognizable to the innocent, carefree toys that began their journey together, and they will have to ask whether they can still make their trek together or not.