eight {video
[Around Sheik's head, there is the still-dark sky, cloudless and sharp. He seems to be sitting on a stone roof - the keen-eyed might be able to figure out that he's actually on top of the temple.
The music is there. Isn't it always, with Sheik? But it is not the focus of the broadcast - in fact, it's softer than usual, barely audible. It is but a suggestion - all be it a powerful one, for music can be a powerful thing, and this one is low and perhaps a little dark.
When he speaks up, there's a subtle difference to his voice. It is utterly without the brusque quality sometimes present in his tone. Instead, he sounds indulgent, the words rhythmic and clear.
It would be very easy to fall into the pattern of it. To become wrapped in the story.]
There are worlds, and there are worlds within worlds. There are times and choices that create new worlds of their own, on different planes and different axis, and all of them spin at once, independent, but not disconnected.
Sometimes, the space between them is very thin indeed, and one world bleeds into another, and lines are crossed. The threads of each realm grow tangled, and the tapestry can be disrupted, changed irrevocably.
But an axis cannot turn without a pin to hold it together, and at the end of all worlds - for all worlds have an end - there is a tower, tall and dark. It rises from a sea, a sea of water, then of bright red roses, and though one may see only sky around it, the other realms revolve around it, anchored to it, bound to it. All roads lead to it, if one can walk long enough, but the road is labyrinthine even when running straight as a spear.
End World, after all, is between the worlds. It is the pockets of nothing within each realm, the void which can be as black as stone, red as roses, white as absolutely nothing.
There was a king in that tower, and may yet be, and a goddess, too. But kings and gods can die just as simply as worlds can. What we knew, what we might know, the road that stretches behind us and before - all of it can crumble. One world falls into the next and sometimes, we fall with them.
The Dark Tower is not here, and the world may well have moved on - but some of us walk yet in its shadow.
[There's a pause, and then, unseen, his lips quirk, and the music ends, the lyre set aside.]
A man can walk for all his life and get nowhere.
Or he can take a single step, and reach another realm entirely.
Funny, isn't it?
The music is there. Isn't it always, with Sheik? But it is not the focus of the broadcast - in fact, it's softer than usual, barely audible. It is but a suggestion - all be it a powerful one, for music can be a powerful thing, and this one is low and perhaps a little dark.
When he speaks up, there's a subtle difference to his voice. It is utterly without the brusque quality sometimes present in his tone. Instead, he sounds indulgent, the words rhythmic and clear.
It would be very easy to fall into the pattern of it. To become wrapped in the story.]
There are worlds, and there are worlds within worlds. There are times and choices that create new worlds of their own, on different planes and different axis, and all of them spin at once, independent, but not disconnected.
Sometimes, the space between them is very thin indeed, and one world bleeds into another, and lines are crossed. The threads of each realm grow tangled, and the tapestry can be disrupted, changed irrevocably.
But an axis cannot turn without a pin to hold it together, and at the end of all worlds - for all worlds have an end - there is a tower, tall and dark. It rises from a sea, a sea of water, then of bright red roses, and though one may see only sky around it, the other realms revolve around it, anchored to it, bound to it. All roads lead to it, if one can walk long enough, but the road is labyrinthine even when running straight as a spear.
End World, after all, is between the worlds. It is the pockets of nothing within each realm, the void which can be as black as stone, red as roses, white as absolutely nothing.
There was a king in that tower, and may yet be, and a goddess, too. But kings and gods can die just as simply as worlds can. What we knew, what we might know, the road that stretches behind us and before - all of it can crumble. One world falls into the next and sometimes, we fall with them.
The Dark Tower is not here, and the world may well have moved on - but some of us walk yet in its shadow.
[There's a pause, and then, unseen, his lips quirk, and the music ends, the lyre set aside.]
A man can walk for all his life and get nowhere.
Or he can take a single step, and reach another realm entirely.
Funny, isn't it?