After dropping off four people and four horses along the way, and then flying for another full day while looking down on land where lava flowed like rivers, we reached the sea.
A sea so packed with drift ice and reefs that it would never permit ships to pass through.
“Is that the End of the World?”
[No. The End of the World lies on the land beyond the sea.]
But our destination lay even farther away.
Three more days passed in an environment where the water in our containers froze if we let our guard down even slightly, where the wind made it difficult to light fires, and where sleeping was nearly impossible unless either the mage or Inquisitor stepped in.
[We are nearly there.]
And when the sea of half ice, half water finally ended, we at last faced the End of the World.
It looked very different from what I had imagined an “end” would be.
“So that’s the End of the World…….”
“Doesn’t really look like an end……?”
[It may appear that way.]
“Isn’t there more land behind that?”
[No. That is not land.]
Honestly, if I simply described exactly what I could see, it looked like another continent.
A continent of snow without even the slightest rise or depression, with black water flowing across its surface.
There was none of the kind of effect I had expected.
No abrupt cut-off.
No bleaching away.
No crumbling apart.
Nothing.
If the Vermilion Bird hadn’t told us, we wouldn’t even have known this was the End…