The Grand Journey

The poet steered his sailing ship swiftly across the surface of the sea, and it felt to him as though he were racing the swells, surging forward together with the waves.

His hand rested on the sailing ship. It was from the dream spirit that he had first come to know metal, this creation.

Hard, smooth, supple.

On his travels the poet had once seen a kind of stone that gave off a faint sheen much like it, though whether the two bore any true connection he could not say.

He ran his fingers over the white sail. Silken, pure white, soft and light, this creation was harder for the poet to imagine.

Such materials could surely be made into other things, and in the space of a single thought the poet had already imagined several uses for them.

"If Yinsai had things like these too, wouldn't that open the way to a whole new age?"

The poet's thoughts had carried him that far, and he let out a sigh.

"I'm afraid only the power of the divine could ever craft a treasure like this."

"The dream spirits truly do hold a power as wondrous as any dream."

Waters that would once have taken many days to cross, the poet passed through in only two.

Crossing the Abyss once more, he came again to the waters around ancient Yesael City, and there he met the People of the Abyss once again, the soldiers who patrolled that stretch of sea.

This time, Tito did not hide himself away.

Instead, he stepped forward of his own accord.

He wanted to see the king of the Demon Abyss Kingdom once more. There were things he wished to tell him.

A band of armed People of the Abyss burst up from the seafloor, a prawn knight at their head, and circled round and round Tito's ship.

They eyed the ship with wary suspicion, unable to tell what manner of thing this was that could glide and sail upon the surface of the sea.

At the same moment, the prawn knight recognized Tito.

This was the blind poet who had once followed the Demon Abyss Kingdom's former king, and passed through Yesael City at his side.

Tito said to the prawn knight, "I wish to see your king."

He too now possessed wisdom ability, and could speak directly with the People of the Abyss through his own consciousness.

Because of Tito's connection to the old king, the prawn knight did not dare stand in his way, and sent word to the royal capital at once.

The poet stood at the bow of his ship and waited. Before long, People of the Abyss rose from the seafloor one after another, an army in all but name, encircling both him and his ship.

At last, the crowned Demon Abyss King appeared before him.

"It is you! The man of Yinsai who lost his sight!"

"Where is he?"

The king of the Demon Abyss Kingdom asked the poet, his eyes searching the inside of the ship for any sign of the other man.

Tito knew he meant Old Stone Helm. He spoke.

"He went with me to search for the God-Given Land. Together we set foot in that paradise God had promised."

"He had taken a wound. We had only just reached the foot of the halls of the divine when he died there."

"We were fortunate. And there is regret in it too."

At once the king's expression changed. Shock came first, then a helpless bewilderment.

And at last, a thread of grief welled up within him.

"He... died?"

He had feared his father's return, and yet hearing that he had died like this brought him a grief beyond words.

It was as if a great hole had opened in his chest, hollow and empty.

The blind poet nodded. "He is dead!"

"He died in the God-Given Land, and has gone home forever before the Garden of the Divine."

The king of the Demon Abyss Kingdom asked, "Did he say anything before he died?"

The poet answered him. "He told me he had found his answer."

The poet sank into memory, calling back Old Stone Helm's face, and the peace that had shone in his eyes.

"He never once told me what answer he was searching for. But I believe I understand something of it now."

He gave the Demon Abyss King a copy of the Hymn of the King of Wisdom he had carved with his own hands. Then he spoke to him.

"Your people trace their origin to the God-Given Age, to Ense and Boon, King Redlichia's own sons."

"Just as your father told you."

"You too once had the love of God and King Redlichia, and once lived beneath the halls of the divine."

Tito paused a moment, then spoke in earnest.

"You..."

"...are not monsters. You are people."

The king of the Demon Abyss Kingdom held the stone tablet in his hands, and fell silent for a long while.

At length he waved a hand and had every Person of the Abyss clear a path.

"Let him go."

Tito hoisted the sail and steered his ship away into the distance.

This time no one dared stand in the way of Tito's little boat as it crossed the territory of the Demon Abyss Kingdom. He went by the Island of the Dead once more, and there, at a distance, he even caught sight of the brutal lord of the Sal Domain.

The lord stood watching from afar with the soldiers under his command, yet none of them dared draw near or give offense.

The two of them locked eyes across the distance, and as Tito's mental power swept over him, he could see the shock plain on the Sal Domain lord's face.

This lord of the Demon Abyss Kingdom could never have imagined that the naive, stubborn poet had truly reached the halls of the divine, and paid homage to the very divine that both the Yinsai people and the People of the Abyss shared.

Outside the God-Descended City, the people of a fishing village saw something strange and unfamiliar in the distance, cutting through the waves toward them. The whole village fell into panic, certain some monster was crawling up out of the sea.

Before long, someone came rushing headlong into the God-Descended City.

"He's back!"

"He's back."

"The poet's back from the God-Given Land! And he's brought a treasure with him too, one the Divine Messenger granted him!"

The whole of the God-Descended City erupted into an uproar. Countless people poured out of their homes and gathered along the streets.

Word reached even the former city lord, and he led his own people out of the God-Descended City and down to the shore.

The poet Tito had only just brought his ship in to dock upon the shore when the people and nobles of the God-Descended City closed around him, ring upon ring. Every one of them eyed him in disbelief, doubting whether he had truly accomplished so great a feat.

The city lord hurried forward, overcome with emotion, and came to a stop before the poet, setting a hand upon his shoulder.

"You!"

"You truly found it?"

No sooner had the words left him than he saw the poet's blinded eyes.

The city lord froze in that instant, his excited words dying in his throat.

Then, when he spoke again, his voice carried a note of sorrow.

"It seems you have lived through a great deal."

Tito paid it no mind at all. "It was precisely because of all I lived through that I was able to reach the halls of the divine."

"It was precisely those experiences that gave me the courage and the will to find the God-Given Land, and to complete the Hymn of the King of Wisdom."

Tito turned back and climbed aboard his ship.

"This is a treasure the divine bestowed upon me, one that can harness the raging wind to cross the sea."

"It was this that carried me across the deep sea Abyss so quickly, and back through the Demon Abyss Kingdom."

He took King Redlichia's inscribed stone tablet from the ship, and raised it high above his head.

"What is this?" The others had no idea. But the city lord, born of the royal bloodline himself, knew the moment he saw the tablet what it must be.

The poet nodded, and spoke to everyone gathered there.

"An inscribed stone tablet carved by King Redlichia's own hand, hidden away beneath the Wisdom Palace."

At that, not a single person doubted any longer whether Tito had truly reached the God-Given Land.

Everyone there knelt before the tablet of writing, as though making pilgrimage.