Prologue: Losing the Sky

Ashilis was in heaven again. That's what he called it, at least, because while he was here, he could understand things. Everything in heaven was a fractal of something familiar, gemlike facets reflecting one another down into infinity. Each tuft of grass Ashilis saw was every tuft of grass. Look deeply into any individual blade's reflections and you would be able to find other blades. From the deep blue-green grass that Ashilis was familiar with to exotic red, orange, white, and golds. Some tall, some short, some soft, some barbed. Heaven's grass didn't really look like grass, with its partial transparency and the rainbow of colors that its reflections cast, and yet it was every kind of grass simultaneously. Regarding it, Ashilis thought he understood—really understood—what grass was.

Then he looked away, and that understanding puffed out from his mind like a snuffed candle. Everything was like that in heaven. The grand tree in the distance had wildly varied forests in its roots; the clouds had vast horizons for silver linings; the raindrops reflected the rivers, ponds, lakes, seas, and oceans that they might one day become part of. Ashilis could perfectly understand the entire scope of anything he could see here, at least for as long as he continued to look at it.

Anything except himself. Ashilis pried his eyes away from his surroundings to inspect his own body. Dressed in rags, chains around his arms and legs, covered in dirt. He barely reflected anything, and he lacked the fractal quality of other things in heaven. Ashilis could faintly see only one other him in the muddy reflection of his flesh. Unbound, clean, and confident. An Ashilis that he couldn't remember, even here, where his memory was strongest. Juxtaposed with the glorious clarity of his surroundings, he felt starkly out of place.

He looked around, ignoring the waves of understanding that flowed through his mind as his gaze passed over the gemlike plants, rocks, and dirt. There had to be some way to escape heaven. A cave, or a hole to fall into, or a magic portal. Something. Ashilis tossed aside rocks, dove into ponds, and even climbed a few trees in his search for a way out. He kept looking all the way until he heard the first shuddering crack.

No luck today either. Ashilis sighed, falling backwards onto the grass. He wasn't sure why he still searched. Maybe the idea of not even trying to do something about what he knew was coming felt worse than the disappointment of realizing that there was nothing he could do.

As long as he was here, Ashilis could remember his many previous trips to this place, but he could never recall anything upon his return, or reawakening, or however it was that he stopped experiencing this and went back into the real world. He had run this race dozens of times, and still hadn't even found the finish line. So, he wasn't entirely surprised when the sky dissolved.

Spiderweb cracks ran through the reflective sheets of blues, oranges, purples, and blacks that made up heaven's sky, then the whole thing shattered into thousands of individual images. Clear skies, stormy nights, sunsets, and starry expanses hung overhead, each one consigned to its own shard of broken sky, like a shattered mirror reflecting different parts of the same room. A fresh series of cracks ran through each image, dividing them again into smudgy collections of colors, like a painting that had been dissected and ordered by hue. Finally, the whole mess exploded into twinkling colors that slowly faded away, leaving nothing behind. The suns, moons, stars, and rings still hung overhead, but the expanse that framed them was gone. There were no more clouds, no more color, just a mind-numbing infinity of nothing.

Ashilis stared blankly up at where the sky used to be. This was how it always went, though he didn't think it was usually quite so dramatic. He was given a few moments to appreciate the beauty of heaven, then something was taken away. While he was here he could remember that the things he'd lost once existed, if not precisely what they were. The sky used to be up there. It wasn't anymore. That was all he could remember.

Ashilis pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and groaned. This place was wondrous, but it was also painful. Each time he was here, he felt like a scholar piecing together lost information by the references to it in a dozen disparate sources. Ashilis could know the names and see tantalizing hints of the things he had lost, but any meaning he could put together was guesswork, at best. Worse, each time he visited, the list of things that he had to cobble together a meaning for grew.

Sky above. That's a common phrase. So, the sky was above everything, like a roof, Ashilis thought, searching for a memory to cling to. Maybe it held the sun, moons, stars, and planetary rings up. Maybe it kept something out. But then, some creatures could fly "through" the sky. Does it have trapdoors to pass through? Is that what the stars are? Then maybe there's burning light beyond the sky, and it only lets in enough to give us light, but not to destroy us. 

Not knowing was agonizing. The fact that, moments ago, he understood the things that he was now struggling to put together made it feel like there was a fresh wound in his mind. Really, there were dozens, maybe hundreds of wounds, one for each chunk of excised knowledge.

Maybe I'm the wound, Ashilis thought ruefully. A festering one that destroys a piece of this beautiful place each time I come here.

Blessedly, Ashilis' surroundings began to fade, and Ashilis' clarity of mind went with them.