Four Gates connect each world to the other: Arianus to Pryan to Abarrach to Chelestra.
A house of correction was built for our enemies: the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth is connected to the other worlds through the Fifth Gate: the Nexus.
The Sixth Gate is the center, permits entry: the Vortex.
And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.
The end was the beginning.
Once the Seventh Gate had physical existence, the Sartan gave it existence on a magical plane, making it a “well” similar to that constructed by the Patryns on Abri—a hole in the fabric of magic wherein the possibility exists that no possibilities exist.
When this magical slate had been wiped clean, so to speak, the Sartan were able to go in and imbue this chamber with the specific rune-magic necessary to bring about (1) the defeat and imprisonment of their enemies, (2) the salvation of those mensch considered worthy of saving, (3) the destruction of the world, (4) the building of four new worlds. A monstrous undertaking. But the Sartan were strong in magic and desperate in their fear. Creating the Seventh Gate took them many years of work, during which they lived in constant terror that the Patryns would discover them before they were ready to act.
Finally, however, the Seventh Gate was completed, its magic ready. The Sartan entered and discovered, to their astonishment and terror and chagrin, that they were not atone. A possibility existed that they had never before considered—they were not the masters of the universe. A power existed that was far greater than themselves.
How was this power manifested? How did the Sartan discover it? I could not find a single Sartan willing to discuss the experience, which each described as soul-shattering. Based on my own experience the first time I entered the Chamber of the Damned, I must conclude that the perceptions of the higher power are varied and highly personal. In my own case, I felt, for the first time in my life, loved and accepted, at peace with myself. But I gather that, for other Sartan, the revelations were not so pleasant.
(Certainly, it was—as Haplo has suggested—this very same force that drove the Sartan on Pryan out of their protected fortress-citadels and into the jungles, which they had created, but for which they refused to accept responsibility. I will return to this event later in the text.)
Unfortunately, the knowledge that a power existed in the universe greater than his own did not deter Samah from his plans. Rather, it fed his fear. What if the Patryns discovered this power? Could they somehow tap into it? Perhaps they already had! Samah and the Council members and the majority of the Sartan gave in to their fear. The drops of bitter water swelled to form a wave of terrible force and power, which crashed down on the world.
Those Sartan like Zifnab who protested against the Council’s decision, who refused to join it, were considered traitors. In order to keep such treachery from contaminating and weakening the magic of the Seventh Gate, these traitor Sartan were rounded up and sent into the Labyrinth along with the Patryns.
One might think that the capture and incarceration of the Patryns would have proved extremely difficult, provoking magical battles of the most tremendous magnitude. That the Sartan were afraid of this very outcome is witnessed by the fact that they created magical weapons such as the Cursed Blade and armed and trained the mensch to fight for the Sartan “cause.”
But, in the end, according to the Sartan with whom I spoke, the capture of the Patryns was relatively simple, made so by the very nature of the Patryns themselves.
Unlike the gregarious Sartan, the Patryns tended to be loners, living for the most part by themselves or in small family groups. They were a selfish, haughty, proud people, having little compassion even for each other, no compassion for anyone else. Such were their jealousies and rivalries that they found it impossible to unite, even against a common foe. (This was one reason they preferred to live among the mensch, whom they could intimidate and control.) Thus, the Patryns were picked off one by one, easy prey for the united forces of the Sartan.
The elder Sartan whom we now know as Zifnab refused to leave the world. When the Sartan guards (of whom Ramu was one) came to arrest him, the old Sartan could not be found. He had been tipped off, forewarned. (Was it Orlah who warned him? She never said, but I often wonder.) The Sartan searched for him. To give them credit, they did not want any of their number to face the horror of what they knew was coming. But he eluded them. He remained in the world and witnessed the Sundering.
The sight drove him mad, and he would undoubtedly have perished, but he made his way—somehow—to the Vortex and from there entered the Labyrinth. How he managed this is not known, for Zifnab himself has no memory of it. The dragons of Pryan—the manifestation of the higher power in its form for good—might have had something to do with his rescue, but, if so, they refuse to discuss it.
The remaining Sartan removed those mensch deemed worthy to repopulate the new worlds, took them to a safe place (the Vortex). The Sartan then shut themselves up in the Seventh Gate and worked the magic. (I will not go into that here. You will find a description of what I saw and experienced when I was magically transported back to that time in Haplo’s more extensive notes on the subject, compiled under the title The Seventh Gate.)
Once the Sundering was complete and the new worlds were created, the Sartan—those who had survived the horrific forces they had themselves unleashed—were sent out to begin new lives in new worlds. They took the mensch with them, intending to shepherd them like flocks of sheep.
Samah and the Council members chose Chelestra as their base of operation. At this point, Samah should have destroyed the Seventh Gate. (I believe that he had actually been directed by the Council to do so and that, in leaving the Gate intact, he directly disobeyed Council commands. I have no proof of this, however. The Council members to whom I spoke were all very evasive on the subject. They are still intent on honoring Samah’s memory. Ah, well, he was not an evil man, merely a frightened one.)
I think it likely that Samah intended to destroy the Seventh Gate, but that circumstances combined to convince him that he should leave it open. He almost immediately ran into trouble in his new world. Events strange and unforeseen were happening—events over which the Sartan had no control.
The seawater of Chelestra turned out to have a devastating effect on Sartan magic, rendering it useless, themselves powerless. The Sartan were baffled. They had certainly not created such a magic-nullifying ocean. Who had? And how and why?
But this was not the worst.
The tremendous magical eruption had upset the delicate balance of creation—what the dwarves on Chelestra would later come to refer to as “the Wave.” Think of the Wave as the sea on a calm day, the waves flowing in to shore, one after the other, falling and rising, falling and rising. Now, imagine a tidal wave—a wave out of control, rising and rising and rising. The wave would naturally seek to correct itself and, in this instance, it did so. The evil that had always existed in the world prior to the Sundering had now gained the power to take on physical shape and form. Evil was manifested in the serpents or dragon-snakes.
The serpents followed Samah to Chelestra, hoping, undoubtedly, to learn more about the new world in which they suddenly found themselves. They knew of the existence of Death’s Gate, but not how it worked. They could enter it only if the Sartan opened it for them. Perhaps they were also searching for the Seventh Gate, although that is conjecture. At any rate, their appearance was another bitter shock for the Sartan, who couldn’t imagine how such loathsome creatures came into existence. Alas, it was the Sartan themselves who brought them into being.