Never Look Beyond the Edge of the World - 3

I did a new proofread of the entire story, after which I corrected a number of errors and rephrased some sentences, both in the illustrated chapters and the remaining ones. The text should be much better now.

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Why can demonologists summon demons and let them into our world, but they cannot enter their world? Those who ask this question are unfamiliar with the nuances of demonology and the magic of summoning in general.

Summoned things and entities appear only for a while, and only a few have managed to call them permanently. Safaxer, being an inexperienced summoner, was able to open the "door" to another plane only with the help of a demoness, who struggled to do it herself. And this was despite the fact that the opening could only be held for a few blinks.

This relates to moving to another plane. Communication between demonologists and demons is different. The cut in space here is not like a door, but a glass window, good only for communication, nothing more. However, there are more complex rituals, where the cut is like a transparent cage — the demon is summoned to our world but cannot step outside the boundaries of the marked figure. In such rituals, meditation and tuning into the right threads of the magical web are much more difficult.

Of course, as we know, there are demonologists who can open portals and fully summon creatures from there that can walk in our world. But, as I mentioned earlier, the summoning will only move the object for a certain amount of time, depending on the mage's skill and the complexity of the summoned entity. So, in such cases, the summoned beings are usually mindless wild beasts and monsters whose minds are easier to control and keep in our world.

But what about traveling to another plane without the constraints of time and desire? After all, the two-tailed fox managed to do just that. We made the obvious assumption that somehow, she was able to untether herself from her home plane. We just had to figure out how. She certainly hadn't told Safaxer everything about herself — I was, and still am, sure of that. She must have performed a special ritual or used some unknown magic to bind herself to our world. We also couldn't completely exclude some incomprehensible divine will, but it's hard to believe in such things.

Johann was also concerned about another detail: whether she knew where she was traveling to. As I mentioned, this madman wanted to go to Helnor, the place from which the gods saved us, according to the legends of our ancestors. According to those stories, nothing lived in that forsaken home — only ghosts doomed to eternal suffering, barren earth, and an air filled with sulfur and poison. But this didn't frighten him at all; on the contrary, it only fueled his excitement. He was eager to challenge the gods and test the truth of the stories.

Based on his experience and the help of the two-tailed fox, Johann proposed that he could use his desires and associations with the place to find the right plane. But this was a dead end because Johann was only a helper in the ritual, sharing his energy. He didn't know all the details. How to leave his own plane, Johann had no idea. We couldn't find an answer in the newly formed guild either. He reacted skeptically to my suggestion of making a deal with a demon to learn the secret, saying it wasn't certain we could find someone who knew and would agree to it, and that it would be a waste of time and resources.

Unable to find an easy solution, Safaxer wilted. He was consumed by despair, then anger and obsession. Johann insulted me for the first time and even dared to threaten me if I didn't enlist other mages to help him. The next day, however, the sadness overcame him again. The dog apologized to me, and from then on he fell into hopeless melancholy and apathy, spending his days aimlessly drinking in a local tavern. I visited him regularly during this time and observed the state his broken ambition had brought him to. Johann, like a little puppy, confided in me his fantasies and plans for Helnor. He imagined himself as an explorer and pioneer who would set foot in uncharted lands. He told me how he would befriend the locals, become their hero, marry a beautiful woman, and finally rest on his laurels — something he couldn't achieve in our gray world, where he was just an ordinary mortal. Truly, his fantasies were mind-boggling.

Knowing his nature, I thought that Johann Safaxer would accept defeat and choose a new goal to pursue with the same tenacity. To my surprise, I was wrong. Even two and a half months later, he was still as melancholy as ever. Until there was a straw he grasped.

***

I decided to visit Johann at the inn, expecting to find him in a depressed state, to listen to his lamentations and console him. But unexpectedly, my friend was sober and appeared very cheerful and enthusiastic. As soon as he noticed me, he immediately waved his hand and insisted I sit down right away.

I assumed that all this time he had been daydreaming and drinking, having abandoned all activity. However, it turned out that he had been actively corresponding with like-minded people near Kaldenburg. None of them knew how to bind to another plane, but they knew someone who claimed to know how.

Johann was advised to turn to Jedidah of Valderath. Jedidah was a wandering demonologist from Eveador, a distant kingdom to the northwest. She was revered in numerous ways: some claimed she was a descendant of a royal bastard and a legendary sorcerer from those lands, others said she possessed the most powerful destructive spells, along with knowledge gathered from all corners of the world, and much more. But the most important thing for Johann was that she had mastered communication with demons to such an extent that she could visit their realms at will and remain there for as long as she pleased.

She was on her way to the Empire, and at Safaxer's request, she agreed to meet him here. For two months his agonizing wait had lasted, and that very day it came to an end. The meeting was set for late afternoon in an abandoned house, and I agreed to keep him company.

It used to be a large mansion, but it was ravaged during the war. As we made our way to it, we feared that the guards might mistake us for looters at this late hour. But all was well, and there was not a soul around the building when we arrived. Jedidah was already inside; we could tell by the light shining through the window.

To my great regret, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to forget the eerie and chilling impressions of my first encounter with this witch. We walked through the dark and dilapidated corridors until we reached a room that had once been a living room. The place was in ruins, but amidst the wreckage was a small island of calm. Yet, even in that room, I remember a subtle feeling of unease that made my heart race and my feather stand on end. This "island" was a small table, untouched, unlike the rest of the furniture, which was in shambles. On it was a single candle, its bright flame illuminating a black goat dressed in a dark red robe. The goat sat in a chair, smoking a pipe and looking at us with a haughty smile, never blinking its single eye. It took me a while to notice in the dim light, but she only had one eye. In the socket where her other eye should have been was a bright, faceted ruby. It seemed to glow from within, occasionally pulsing with a slow, ghostly light.

Johann was apparently equally caught off guard and could not speak first. Jedidah was amused by this: she maintained the awkward pause for another half a minute, until finally, after another puff from her pipe, she waved her fingers at us. Johann approached her first and was immediately hit in the face by a cloud of tobacco smoke. The goat woman let out a languid laugh and, having finished this absurd scene, finally introduced herself. We, too, gave our names, and Johann quickly moved to ask his question.

Jedidah confirmed that she had indeed visited other planes and was ready to show them. And for free. Without even thinking about it, Safaxer asked her to reveal the secret of traveling between realms. His request made her smile. Before answering, she took a long drag, openly and shamelessly mocking the young demonologist. Letting out a stream of smoke, the witch revealed her secret: it was necessary to renounce the gods, to break the connection with one's home. Without this, complete teleportation was impossible.

I was immediately disgusted by what I heard. Johann, on the other hand, seemed only surprised and puzzled. Instead of spitting in the witch's face, turning around and walking away, he asked the next logical question: How is it possible to renounce the gods and break the connection with one's plane of existence? The very idea of such a notion was difficult to comprehend. After all, who are we compared to our creators? They are entities with powers and abilities beyond our understanding. Can mortal beings deceive their divine protectors and escape their control?

Jedidah grinned arrogantly and declared that these limitations were really only in our minds. Breaking the connection with the gods was extremely simple, and the solution literally lay on the surface.

Johann suggested that a way to renounce the gods and their world might be to desecrate their aspects and break the commandments. But there were major flaws in this theory, which I immediately pointed out aloud. The first was that there are no mortals in the world without sin. Everyone has at least once committed an act considered sinful in the eyes of some divine domain, but it did not affect their connection with the world and other gods. The second was the sheer number of gods, whose teachings often contradicted one another. There was a paradoxical situation: the same mortal in the eyes of one deity could be a sinner, and in the eyes of another, a righteous person. So why hadn't the world been left with only a handful of the most virtuous souls?

But the goat resolved these contradictions by revealing the details of the renunciation. Johann was right in his thinking, as was my judgment, but to renounce the gods, it was necessary to truly anger the most powerful ones — the supreme deities of all eight domains. One had to become an irredeemable sinner in the eyes of each of them to sever their threads and step into another plane. When I asked about the lesser gods, Jedidah dared to say that they were only puppets of the greater deities and could not hold the souls of mortals in this realm.

Becoming a sinner in the eyes of all the supreme gods, and such vastly different ones at that, was still a daunting task, but a more feasible one than desecrating the entire pantheon. And finding a solution to this dangerous and outrageous challenge lured us in with a sly allure.

We were free to choose how to anger the gods ourselves. She promised to wait for us here after the renunciation so that we could travel to Helnor together. According to her, she had been there as well.

"Our ancestral homeland holds many secrets waiting to be discovered," the witch lured Johann into her wicked game. The fool could not resist and proclaimed that from now on the gods of Eanor had no power over his body and soul. I, to my great shame, agreed to join him out of curiosity and friendship. We were to think of heinous deeds for which no god would tolerate us in their land.