They told Samah, “You created us,” and, in a sense, he did. We all did. We all do, through fear and hatred and intolerance.
But I digress.
Fortunately for the mensch and the Sartan—although they couldn’t know it at the time—the Wave continued to try to correct itself. The evil of the dragon-snakes was balanced by good manifesting itself in the form of the dragons of Pryan. If Death’s Gate had remained open, as was intended, the evil and the good would have balanced each other out—the Wave would have succeeded in correcting itself.
But, again, fear ruled Samah’s life. Afraid of the dragon-snakes, and now afraid of the mensch—whose slight magical powers were not affected by the seawater—Samah sent out calls to other Sartan on other worlds, asking them to come to his aid, to fight and subdue these new foes.
His calls were never answered, or at least that is what Samah told his people. According to Orlah, Samah’s wife, the calls were answered. The Sartan on the other worlds told Samah that they were powerless to come to his aid because they themselves were in serious trouble. Samah lied to spare his people—some of whom had relatives and friends in these other worlds—the terrible truth. The grand design was beginning to shatter.
According to Orlah, at this point in time, Samah was baffled, angry. He had lost control of events and he had no idea how or why. The plan should have worked. It had all been so logical, rational. He laid blame on the mensch. He laid blame on weak Sartan. But that did not solve his immediate problem.
If the serpents attacked the Chalice—the Sartan’s home base—the Sartan had no way to defend themselves. All the serpents had to do was toss a bucket of magic-nullifying water on the Sartan and they were finished. The mensch were quarreling among themselves, blaming the Sartan for the appearance of the serpents. Worse, the mensch had seen the Sartan humbled, chastened, routed by the serpents. Samah sent the mensch away from the Chalice, sent them out into the sea to find their own way in the world.
Some might consider this an appalling act. After all, Samah might well have been sending the mensch into the toothless maws of the serpents. But according to Orlah, Samah guessed—rightly—that the serpents were not interested in the mensch. Their main goal was to enter Death’s Gate, and to do that they had to rely on the Sartan.
Fearing that the evil serpents would spread from Chelestra into the other three worlds, Samah felt he had no recourse but to shut Death’s Gate. He should have destroyed the Seventh Gate at this time, but he thought that perhaps its powerful magic might once again be needed. He cast the Seventh Gate into oblivion.
Once this was accomplished, Samah and his people sent themselves into a stasis sleep, planning to wake up in a hundred years. By that time, Samah reasoned, matters would have stabilized on the other worlds. The Kicksey-winsey would be up and running, the citadels in operation. When he awoke, life would be better.
Such was not the case.
Again I find an example of the Wave correcting itself. Due to the fact that Sartan magic had no effect on the ocean of Chelestra, its sun remained unstable. The sun was supposed to be locked into position in the center of the water world, warming the inside of the globe, leaving the outer portion a shell of ice. But the sun could not be constrained and so it wandered, drifting slowly through the water, warming parts of that world, while the rest remained locked in ice.
When the Sartan first moved onto Chelestra, the sun warmed their portion of that world—a part known as the Chalice. (For a more complete description, refer to the volume Haplo called—over my objections—Serpent Mage.) But as time passed and the Sartan slept on, the sun began to drift away.
The evil serpents saw their doom too late. Unable to flee through Death’s Gate and unwilling to leave the Sartan in case they woke up, the serpents waited too long to escape. When the sun wandered off, the serpents did not follow it and so were frozen in the icebound ocean.
The Wave was almost back to normal. The good serpents on Pryan, so as not to disturb the balance, went underground, doing what they could to avoid contact with the mensch and the Sartan.
Arianus
Time passed while the Sartan slumbered. Samah’s glorious vision of four worlds interconnected, working together, failed to materialize. The Sartan population dwindled. The numbers of mensch—who were now thriving on the new worlds (with the exception of Abarrach)—increased. Their populations grew too large for the few remaining Sartan to control. The Sartan retreated, hoping to fall back and regroup, waiting all the while for contact with their brethren on the other worlds—contact that would never come.
On Arianus, the great Kicksey-winsey went to work, but it lacked direction. The mensch had no idea what it was supposed to do. The Sartan left directions for the operation of the Kicksey-winsey with the Kenkari elves—a race the Sartan considered most trustworthy.
But the elves on Arianus were divided among themselves in a bitter power struggle. And all the elves feared and detested the humans, who in turn had no use for the elves. The Kenkari, reading the book on the Kicksey-winsey, realized that the machine would bring the lands of the elves and the humans together, that the dwarves would have control over the machine. This the elves deemed intolerable. The Kenkari hid the book in the libraries of the Cathedral of the Albedo, where it lay forgotten for many centuries.
After turning over the book, the Sartan on Arianus went into hiding in tunnels they had built underground. They sent their young people into stasis sleep, hoping again that when they woke up, things would have improved. Unfortunately, most of the young Sartan on Arianus died in that sleep. (I think it is likely that these mysterious deaths were due to the practice of necromancy on Abarrach, for so it is written that when one life is restored untimely another dies untimely. This is speculation, however. Hopefully, my theory will never be proved!)
Pryan
The Sartan on Pryan lived in the citadels with the mensch whom they had brought to this world. The Sartan ran the star chambers, which were designed to work with the Kicksey-winsey to beam energy to the other worlds. The Sartan were endeavoring to make the star chambers work, and were also trying to control the mensch, whose numbers were rapidly increasing.
Cooped up in the citadels, the mensch races began to fight among themselves. The Sartan, considering the mensch as annoying as quarrelsome children, treated them as such. Instead of working with the mensch to negotiate their problems, the Sartan created “nursemaids.” Thus were born the tytans—fearsome giants who were meant to operate the star chambers (should they ever start functioning!) and serve as nannies to the mensch. Acting out of fear and blind prejudice, the Sartan made matters worse instead of better. The tytans proved too powerful a creation; they turned on their creators.
How or why the Sartan on Pryan came into contact with the higher power is open to conjecture. On his visit to Pryan, Haplo entered one of the citadels and there discovered a room that he describes as an almost exact replica of the Seventh Gate. I can only assume that the Sartan on Pryan constructed what might be called a miniature Seventh Gate, perhaps in the hope of reestablishing communication with their brethren on other worlds or even in a desperate attempt to reopen Death’s Gate.
The Sartan on Pryan claimed that they were forced by this higher power to leave the citadels. I think it more likely that they found it easier to flee their problems than to seek solutions. They laid the blame conveniently on the higher power, rather than on where it belonged—on themselves.