How to end a world

Yesterday I noted that: “I had one of those amazing epiphanies during the weekend when a lot about the world you are writing in (or building) becomes clear. I had known for some time that the stories of Airthai which I am writing at the moment are a build-up to more and more of the history of a changing world.”

The Time of Tears 

I had had some vague ideas about the rest of the future of Airthai – for example, the Diminishing (during which the Talent bestowed on people at the creation of the world gets less and less) and the changing technology of the world during the ages. At first I had only a second Sundering in mind (to read about the first, or Great Sundering, click here), but this soon grew until I ended up at the destruction of the world.

For the Creation of Airthai – read here.




The Second Sundering, The Time of Tears
Five generations before the Second Sundering took place, the Elders of the Keepers of Holt Haliern all received the same dream. In this dream the people of Airthai were warned of a catastrophic change which would take place. Great waves, earthquakes and fires were told of in these dreams. An, indeed, the Midlands and Eastern Lands often felt tremors of the earth and smoke was seen rising from the great mountain in the Circling Stone.

The Midlands and the Eastern Lands tore apart

Because the great library of Holt Haliern was still being kept in tact during this time, the scholars could turn to the old texts telling of the Great Sundering and realized with much trepidation that this may happen once more. This time, however, the people of Airthai had not stood together to beg a sundering of the lands by the Creator, but the darkness in Airthai was as great, if not greater than before the Great Sundering.

In the Second Sundering, the great mountains – the Grey Mountains and the Cloudstepped Mountains – that once served as the border between the Midlands and the Eastern Lands tore apart. Great fire spewed from the area of the Circling Stone and great quakes ripped at the mountains, unlike any of the quakes which had been felt since the Great Sundering. And so, in the Second Sundering – also called the Time of Tears – the Continent ripped apart and lost being known as the place chosen by the Creator; unlike the Sundered Lands which lay to the south.

Forge: paths of fire 2, by Miguel Saavedra 

The Third Sundering and the Great Reckoning
Just before the Second Sundering, some of the Elders were visited by the Airus and warned that the Second Sundering would take place, but that this would not yet be the last of the breaking of the land. There would be a Third Sundering, breaking the lands once more and this Sundering would be brought about by the people of Airthai themselves.

After this Third Sundering, the time would not be long before the fourth and final sundering would take place. During this, the Final Sundering, the oceans would churn and rise and swallow all the lands. This would mean the death of all on Airthai, but there would also be a Great Reckoning of all, when those who followed Allwaldans would be sundered from those who had followed the Lewjan Lords and the darkness. And so it would be that the world of Airthai would end in fire and water.