Jorun spent the next days building a map of the world as Latty understood it. She wasn’t a perfect source, but she had once known the world in detail. The only problem is that she couldn’t really see well. Jorun had known about this for a long time, but this is the first time that it really got in the way of things. She would look at the map and not be able to tell what was what.
So there was a lot of redrawing involved in this.
He would have her describe things to him, sketch them out, and then try to get Latty to understand what he had put on paper. He found that she was able to follow his finger relatively well, if he traced the paper with it. Using that trick he was able to tell roughly when he got things off, but he knew that it wasn’t perfect. Latty’s memory was probably fine, but he had no guarantee that she had ever understood the geography of the place that well.
Still it seemed that they were residing on the southwest corner of the continent. The country that occupied this region was different from the one that was west of the waste. Latty had no idea if they were the same countries, but Jorun had a feeling that the people living here were referring to a different capital than the one his family had referred to. That one had been to the northwest of here. Latty was reasonably confident that there was a third country to the southwest, as that was originally a vassal of the tower.
That meant that the Holy Tower was to the northeast, near the center of the continent.
She knew more about the other towers of the land than the countries. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were, but she insisted that they housed powerful sorcerer’s who rivaled the power of the Holy Tower itself. They weren’t exactly enemies, because the Holy Tower could crush them, if it was necessary. However, they were mostly independent. He would need to steer clear of those locations if he wanted to be able to grow.
The land was so big, and he had only seen this one tiny piece. It wasn’t even a corner of the world.
The number of people in this world were countless.
“Latty, how many people live in a city?”
“Hundreds of thousands. I have no idea, but it is a lot.”
“Would you say there are at least a hundred cities in this world?”
“Yep.”
Jorun wasn’t that good at math, but he knew a big number when he saw it. He stared at the map for a while, before he realized what he was noticing. If there were that many people, there were a lot of people dying. There were a lot of people in need of help.
It was a little early, but he decided to go over and visit Narlin and ask him about numbers. If he was right, he was onto something that would be useful.
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Narlin was working the fields. Jorun had been less active in that part as he had been working on the oil project. It had become a regular routine, and Jorun was learning how the fat was slowly gaining the smell of the plant.
He went over and helped Narlin work on the garden, and noticed how big the plants were getting.
“Going to help with the garden? What is the reason for this change?”
“I need to learn how to do math. I was trying to draw a map, and I realized there are a lot of people in this world. I am not sure what I am looking for, but I think math would help me figure out the answer.”
“What are you trying to figure out?”
“How many people are dying in a day.”
Narlin didn’t answer immediately and the silence stretched out as they worked on the plants. It wouldn’t take long with both of them working on it.
“A lot. More than you can count. Almost as many are as born. Math can definitely help with understanding that, but…” Narlin looked down as his voice grew silent. His hands, normally tireless in their work, drifted to a stop.
“I can teach you a lot about numbers. If you think it will help.” He didn’t look happy, but he went to work on the plants.
“I don’t know if it will help, but I feel I need to learn it. I need to understand how many people are dying. How many people are sick.”
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“Then what are you going to do?!?” Narlin yelled at Jorun, causing him to flinch away, “Are you going to try and save them all? You can’t do it. There are just too many people. There is a limit to what you can do. Don’t think I don’t realize how hard you are pushing yourself.”
Jorun almost yelled back, his face was flush with anger, “I can’t do nothing either! I need to do something!”
“Your family is dead!”
Jorun slumped to the ground sobbing. Narlin huffed a couple times, and then sat down in the dirt, “Sorry lad. I just… Sorry.”
It took Jorun a moment to catch his breath, “I know they died, but I can’t walk away from them. I can’t just pretend like there is nothing I can do.”
“There isn’t anything you can do. Death is final. There is no cure.”
Jorun started to open his mouth, an angry snap on his lips. It took all his strength to keep quiet.
“What is death?”
Jorun looked into Narlin’s old eyes.
“It is the end of everything lad. We are born and we die.”
Jorun wanted to confide in Narlin more than ever before. A part of himself desperately wanted someone to understand what he was trying to do and what it would mean for everyone.
A world without death.
The perfect cure.
No pain, no fear, no horror, no regret. Just an endless sea of existence with an eternity of happiness.
“What if there was another divine aspect?” It was all he could say. He knew that people would be horrified to learn of the plague and curse. How Jorun had taken them into himself would have terrified himself in the past.
“There isn’t the possibility of that. There are only twenty aspects. There aren’t any others.”
“Just pretend there was another one. What would that mean?”
“It would mean that the entire world’s order is wrong. Everything we know about this place is built around the understanding of the divine.”
Jorun didn’t know what to say to this.
“You don’t know much about the divine do you? I am hardly an expert, so I really shouldn’t talk on this subject. I have only briefly met high ranking members of the divine.”
“I don’t think I know much about them. You are really the only person I have ever met to talk to me about them.”
Narlin sighed, “They represent the elements of this world. Things like time and fire. These exist everywhere, without them we cannot live.”
“So if there was another aspect, that would mean that the world has other rules that we don’t normally consider. We would assume that the rules of this world work one way, but there is more to it than that.”
Narlin looked long and hard at Jorun, “You are dangerously close to heresy.”
“Here-what?”
“Taking a stance that is directly against the rules of the divine. If certain groups heard you speak of this, they would probably kill you on the spot.”
“Why? Didn’t you say it was important to consider every possibility?”
Narlin held a hand to his head, rubbing what little hair he had, “I suppose I did. I also want to be clear that I was worried about you from the start of this conversation, and I think that I wasn’t entirely wrong.”
“I am not trying to do anything bad. I just want to find …” Jorun broke off.
“Find what?” Narlin’s eyes burned into Jorun’s and he did his best not to look at them.
“A cure.” ...to death. He wanted to say it, but he just couldn’t get it out.
Narlin sighed, “I can’t blame you for wanting to save people’s lives. If I had power, I might do something similar. Let me try and explain it like someone told me. He was a prominent water mage, and he was considered an expert on magical law.”
“Magical law?”
Narlin held up a hand, “Don’t ask questions, or I will spend all day answering them.”
“The point is that he understood this a lot better than either of us ever will. He said it this way. If he creates rain to help a village during a drought, what happens to the other villages?”
“I suppose they would get some of the rain and it would help them as well.”
“Yes, but is that what they need? Do they need the rain or do they need the drought?”
“Who needs a drought?”
“He said it was about erosion. If there is too much waterfall, it can wash away the soil. If the soil gets washed away, what happens to the crops?”
“They cannot grow.”
Narlin nodded, “Exactly, this is the point. By taking an action, such as helping people get water, he could destroy the lives of those downstream. It would wash away the soil that they needed to grow their crops.”
Narlin rubbed his head, “I am not an expert at these things. I hope you can understand that. His point is that he can use his power, for a good purpose; and cause suffering and harm. This is the nature of all the divine aspects. They cover everything. There is nothing in between. There cannot be a ‘hidden aspect’.”
“I think I understand.” Jorun couldn’t shake the look that he had seen in Narlin’s expression.
If Narlin learned the truth, he wouldn’t be safe to be near.
Heresy.
What a strange word.
He had never bothered to look closely at Narlin, because he hadn’t seen anything worth looking at. Now he wondered about a gemstone somewhere on his person. He saw a small pouch on Narlin’s belt. It was fitted against the belt and Narlin himself. Jorun couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that there was the gemstone of whatever group that would kill him inside that.
It was time to deal with the hermit, as he had always planned.