Okay, let’s try a story! Hope you like it.

The Dimming War

Here is a tale of an age long, long past, from a time before there were shadows, before there were suns and stars and moons, before there were days or nights, before there were sunrises or sunsets, at least as we know them today. This is a tale from the Time of Separation, when the kingdoms of Earth and Air, Fire and Water, were all held apart from one another, and when the kingdom of Darkness and the kingdom of Light came together only to make war.

Now, each of these kingdoms had a proper name, of course, and each of them kept a collection of poetic names, too; the kingdom of Fire, for example, was properly known as the Place of Burning, but it might be called the Endless Hearth to no one’s confusion. Likewise, the kingdom of Darkness was properly called The Hidden Place, but sometimes it was called Glooming. The kingdom of Light, on the other hand, was formally named the Place of Radiant Glory, but most people simply called it Shining and left it at that.

It should come as no surprise that each of these kingdoms had a king or a queen, though they referred to themselves as king, queen, emperor, archduchess, sultan, khan, and so on, each according to their own tastes. The Hidden Place had a queen, and she did indeed call herself Queen. Likewise, the ruler of Shining preferred the simple majesty of King, but neither King nor Queen could tolerate the existence of the other, and so waged ceaseless war upon each other.

The Shining King and the Hidden Queen did not simply detest each other, however; they hated each others lands and people, too, and their people shared their monarchs’ hatred. Thus, the war was fought with remarkable viciousness and enthusiasm, and neither monarch ever had to persuade their people to fight. Each kingdom believed that it was locked in a war of survival, for how could Light tolerate the Darkness, and how could Darkness survive in the presence of Light? For one to continue, the other must end, or so both sides believed.

So the war raged on and on, with no end in sight. The peoples of both lands lived in a weird mingling of confidence and fear, surety of their own strength and confusion over their failure to conquer their enemy. Vast armies would sweep out of Shining and pierce the thick darkness of Glooming only to be swallowed up and snuffed out, while endless swarms of the Hidden Queen’s soldiers would pour into the brilliance of Shining only to be overwhelmed and burned away. Never could one side strike deeply into the domain of the other, though they spent countless lives in the attempt.

It should be pointed out that The Place of Radiant Glory was not the hero of this story, and neither was The Hidden Place the villain. Men such as we are creatures more used to light than dark, with eyes more accustomed to day than night, and so we tell ourselves the fairy tale that light means goodness while dark means evil; but such is not the case. Nowhere is it written in the Great Book that governs the manner and means of all things that Light must be kind and Darkness cruel, or that Light must reveal and Darkness deceive. Indeed, nowhere is it written that Light must not be cruel (and it often is) or deceive (which it often does), or that Darkness can be neither kind nor truthful (and it is as honest as ever Light is, and at least as kind). We men depend upon such lies to make us feel that we understand, for understanding makes us feel safe.

Strangely, the Hidden Queen was not really as hidden as the peoples of the other kingdoms would believe, for she was readily accessible to all her subjects, who revered her as both queen and goddess. How could they not?; for she was and is the embodiment of all that Darkness is, both cruel and kind, truthful and dishonest, beautiful and ugly. Her subjects were many and varied, and included those fair of face and cruel of heart, cruel of face and fair of heart, black angels and blacker devils, wicked things and virtuous creatures. The most vicious wretch was as dear to her heart as the most compassionate maiden, so long as each was born of Darkness.

Many would think it stranger still that the Hidden Place was not an empty space of blackness, but rather a land of fantastic and wonderful sights to see, if the seer had eyes of Darkness. How could it be otherwise, for to these dark folk the Darkness was as clear as the air of a mountain top, unless it wasn’t, for there were thick and murky places there, too. Even so, the people of Glooming knew their land better through their ears and noses than through their eyes. There were gardens full of night blooming flowers where the air was heavy with perfume, and deep forests of black trees where the air was still and quiet except when a leaf fell with the rustle of silk. Wide plains were covered with long grass that sighed in the wind, and stinking, treacherous bogs pulled at travelers’ feet with sucking, squelching noises at every step. Caves there were aplenty, filled with strange echoes, and there were bare mountain tops, too. Shriveled things cackled and pranced around plumes of smoke in dead groves, and quaint villages stood along picturesque roads that wound through fertile farmland. Deep seas and babbling streams there were, and rocky wastes, too, and deserts filled with hissing sand; and all of it, sea and mountain, desert and bog, farm and forest, were made of Darkness, for nothing else could exist in the Place of Darkness but darkness.

And if Glooming was a place of wonder, so too was Shining. It would be easy to think that all was bright as crystal there, but there were places that glittered like jewels in candlelight, too, and places that were bright as the glowing embers of a dying fire. Even in those gentler places there was neither shadow nor darkness, however, for everything and everyone in Shining, and Shining itself, was made of Light. Bright, blinding light of a thousand hues and colors, golden light that rang like grand bells, and light that sparkled more than it shone, and tinkled like fragile chimes of spun glass. Damsels in rainbow gowns danced and flirted with knights clad in blaze-bright mail, while minstrels strummed lutes strung with thin-stretched rays of light. There were forests in Shining, too, filled with trees whose trunks looked like nothing so much as broad sunbeams, and were crowned with clouds of silver or gold or colored motes for leaves. Blinding deserts there were, and seas of liquid light. Cruel-eyed villains stole through searing alleys strewn with cast-off rays and broken gleams, and sturdy farmers covered in a sheen of sweat toiled in their wide fields of glowing barley.

Over all this land ruled the Sun-Bright King, and he was fair as a sunrise, unless his brow was wrinkled in fury. Then his gaze was as harsh as a spotlight, and no more forgiving. He wore a crown studded with a thousand bright jewels, and a robe woven of the finest sunbeam silk, stitched with threads of dawn at the hem that brightened to the glare of noon about his shoulders. His scepter was a shaft of blinding light, and his palace a maze of radiant crystal, blazing gardens, resplendent galleries, and halls filled with shifting torrents of moonbeams. The Sun-Bright King was wise and generous but quick to judge, and his judgements were often harsh and cruel. And whenever he cast his blinding gaze to the frontier where his kingdom met Glooming, his rage was terrible to behold. Then the whole of Shining would shake with his fury, for it galled him that his sight could not pierce the wall of Darkness, that he could not look upon the black-leaved forests that grew there, or upon the mysterious face of his enemy, the Hidden Queen.

But if his fury shook Shining and set the edges of Glooming to trembling, no less was the wrath of the Hidden Queen. The light of Shining was a torture to her, such that she could not look to the frontier without covering her eyes against the glare, which set tears streaming down her face for the pain. Then she would hiss and spit, and pull her dark hair and rend her dark gown, and her armies would sound trumpets and beat drums, and march against the glittering hordes of her enemy.

Many great heroes of Shining died, and so did many of its cruelest villains. Likewise, many honorable knights of Glooming fell beside multitudes of its most depraved fiends. Those heroes of Shining would have turned their bright blades upon the villains of their own land if not for the common enemy, and so too would the heroes of Glooming have fought valiantly against the treacheries of Glooming’s fiends. In truth, the hearts of heroes on both sides held more in common with each other than with their evil fellows, but they could not or would not see. They blinded themselves to their enemies’ virtues, and so committed ever more grievous acts in the name of patriotism and loyalty to cause and king.

Only two were there who had the fortune to see, the wisdom to acknowledge, and the bravery to act.

But the story of those two heroes must wait for another time …