We probably couldn’t count the number of stories written about human mortality. Well, we could, because we understand how the decimal system of counting works, and can name numbers so large that humans could not have written that many stories if every human who ever lived did nothing but write stories for the entire lifetime of the universe. The point is that exploring mortality in all its dimensions in stories is commonplace, and a writing prompt about immortal terrors is clearly pointed at further exploration of human finitude through the lens of said terrors. One of the advantages of writing speculative fiction, though, is that we can explore elements which humans could not experience in the real world, like immortality. In my typical fashion, therefore, I turned the Elegant Literature prompt on its head and wrote a story about the terror of an immortal existence.
It’s something I’ve been considering a lot recently, the nature of immortality and its effects on the beings, human or otherwise, who might experience it. Stories in myth and in genre fiction are replete with immortal beings, from dragons to artificial intelligences, but since these characters are rarely viewpoint characters, few authors tend to explore what it means to these characters to be immortal, to watch the world changing around them. Brooks explores it a little in Shannara with the druids, some of whom see successive generations go through trials and tribulations – this is one of the reasons his druids are far more ominous and distant than Tolkien’s Gandalf, to whom Allanon is often compared (reasonably: The Sword of Shannara is pretty derivative of The Lord of the Rings, although Brooks’ later entries become more creative and distinct). Asimov dances around the notion a bit in Foundation, but the context there is different. Myth explores the pursuit of immortality, but rarely the consequences of being successful in that pursuit.
Another idea I’ve been interested in exploring recently is witches. Not the modern, rather sanitized and multicultural witches, but the origins of witches as wielders of wild magics for good or for ill, incarnations of an older order, and, perhaps most significantly, makers of deals with strange powers. Traditionally, of course, witches made deals with devils, or the Devil, or so the Church liked to say, which was a darker and more culturally complicated direction than I wanted to go with the story. Instead, I followed a train of logic that went something like devil->serpent->dragon, which gave me a witch who made a deal with a dragon for immortality. The dragon traded away its immortality to the witch, in exchange for…well, that bit’s not important to the story.
Thanks to this deal, the woman, who practices both mundane and magical forms of witchcraft, gains immortality and a certain…draconic aspect, and she returns to her village to continue healing and providing other services to the people there. She does the best she can, saving some people, unable to help others, falling in love, having a family, doing all the things people do. Then, after maybe fifty years, she looks around and almost everyone she knew is dead, and she hasn’t changed since the day she took the dragon’s deal. That’s okay, there’s a new generation to occupy her abilities and passions. Maybe she tries to live up to the legends being told of her after a hundred years by giving a magic sword and a noble charge to some upstart knight who could become a king. More people die around her, and she goes on. And on. And on. Imagine the regrets, the consequences, the joys and pains with which she would have to live as the centuries drag by. Now, imagine if she could talk to those people again, be reassured of her decisions, pour out her regrets to the people around whom they are focused and be forgiven. Would it not be a terrifying prospect to this immortal witch? Would it not be a perfect trap?
And that’s the story. Oh, there’s some regicide, a stolen magic sword, and some flashy sympathy magic, but mostly this is a story about an immortal witch and the way she traps herself in her own mind with the terrors and regrets of centuries of living in the world. It’s not the only vision of immortality we could depict, but it’s the one I chose to explore this time, and I think you’ll find it interesting in Terror of Age.
Two-score knights stole upon Awazuka’s cottage, their armor and Woyword sigils soot-darkened and muffled with cloth. Individually, they were too weak to trigger the outer wards; that was the trap into which many of the powerful fell, whether dragon or immortal witch.
Her eyes snapped open when they crossed the threshold. “What? WRETCHES!” She reached for her hat. A knight struck a spark into a linen-wrapped bundle. A brilliant flare expanded across her vision. Her room, and her cottage, vanished.
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