It was an age of discovery.

Many lands — kingdoms, principalities and republics — sent many brave men and women forth on wanderings over earth and sea. Our own land, then ruled by the austere philosopher-priests of the old faith, decided to venture forth as well, after much consideration and weighing of metaphysical concerns. It was decided that expeditionary parties could be sent forth, made up of carefully chosen individuals who would represent a spectrum of attributes and abilities, and helmed by a member of the ruling sect.

These expeditions brought back records and souvenirs that were edited and compiled by the priests to provide their subjects with the most exhaustive and theologically sound information available. These accounts became a byword for accuracy, and the expeditionary forces of other lands prized and coveted them, obtaining them through subterfuge when no other method was possible.

Some expeditions never returned to file a report. Once, only a lone survivor returned. The captain-priest of his expedition, Aranya, returned bearing a tale of a region of great storms that swept away his ship and crew, leaving him the sole survivor. The region he had voyaged to was marked as dangerous on the official maps, and the captain-priest himself was assigned to other duties. He was already high up in the ranks of the priesthood and used his position to prevent another expedition from being sent to follow his own, presumably to preserve others from the tragic fate that had befallen his own expedition. Many years later, retired from active service, he sailed away on a small vessel, given to him as gift by grateful fisher-folk, who had been benefited by his cartographic activities. He was never seen again in these lands. It is rumoured that, never having forgiven himself for losing his first team, he had gone back to the whirlpool to join them.

The real story, of course, is quite different.

Aranya’s ship, The Respectful Exultant, had reached an unknown shore after sailing three weeks through becalmed seas. It was a calm morning when he received a message from the look-out: ‘something is observed; it is not clear what’. He joined the look-out at her post and peered through the seeing-glass. He saw what appeared to be a hump of land, somewhat indistinct and surrounded by a haze.

This puzzled the look-out, who had seen only an oddly shimmering patch of mist, hanging in the distance. Aranya noted that it was early morning, and mists often disperse with the dawn, even as visibility improves. He ordered a slight change of course to bring them to the mysterious land. They reached by mid-day, and dropped anchor in a small bay that had emerged out of the mist earlier that day.

The island looked more solid now, but there was still a certain indistinctness around it, something that was reminiscent of both a mist and a heat shimmer. Aranya and a small advance party rowed to the beach in a life-boat. Ashore, there was a sense of expectance, of nascence, to their surroundings. Still, the crew-members reported indistinct impressions that bore further investigation — glimpses of rocks that might contain veins of precious stones or metal ores, rare and powerful medicinal herbs, the tracks of exotic and magical beasts. Aranya, trained from his childhood to be wary of appearances and mindful of human fallibility, could not swear that he had either seen or not seen any of these things. He kept his doubts to himself and assented to further exploration. As they walked on, he and his crew-members talked among themselves, softly. Aranya’s main concern was for stores — if the water in the bay was fresh and if there were edible plants or beasts on the island, they could replenish the ship’s larder. Then, the conversation turned to how long it had been since any of them had enjoyed a proper bath in fresh water. There was wistful talk of waterfalls and pools. Even as they spoke, they began to hear a thunderous, gushing sound nearby. There was still a haze hanging over everything, but Aranya thought he could see a distant glittering. They pressed forward, and came to a green meadow through which a river flowed, fed by a waterfall that cascaded off the side of a sheer cliff. Everything now seemed almost completely clear, right up to the cliff off which the waterfall ran. The cliff itself was still indistinct.

Then, his crew’s conversation turned to what else they might find here. And Aranya started to notice an odd thing as he led his crew from one new discovery to the next; each novelty was preceded by a relevant comment or discussion. If one crew member mentioned birds, they would soon sight specimens of the island’s avian inhabitants. A discussion about grain-bearing plants was followed by the discovery of rice paddies. It was almost as if they were creating reality from uncreated void, from floating clouds of potentiality — or perhaps it was being created for them by something woven into the fabric of reality in this place.

Aranya joined in the conversation. “It would be interesting if we were to spot an azbakh. I’ve heard they may be found in these latitudes.”

“What are those?” a crew member asked.

“A rare sort of chimera, written of only in a few ancient and obscure texts. In form, they are equine, with the stripes of a zebra, but the branching antlers of a deer, much like...much like...”

“Like that?” the crew member interrupted him, pointing at a roughly zebra-like creature with impressive antlers lazily cropping the grass in a wild meadow just ahead of them.

“Just like that,” Aranya replied, preserving an outward calm. He called a halt, and announced that it was time to return to the ship. The crew protested. They still had most of the afternoon ahead of them, and there were so many new discoveries to be made.

“That’s actually what I need to talk to you about,” Aranya replied. They grumbled, but obeyed.
Back at the ship, Aranya gathered the whole crew in the dining hall and addressed them, standing at the head of the room, between the ends of two long tables.

“We’ve seen many things on the island that waits across this bay, many things that we needed to, or hoped to find. This much, even those of you who remained on board must know by now.” He paused, surveying the faces before him. They shone with excitement and curiosity. “However, we also saw one thing no eyes have ever seen before. A chimera, much like a zebra but with deerlike antlers. A remarkable animal, especially since no one had ever named or described it until I made it up this afternoon.”

Confusion flickered across the faces.

“There is something in the nature of this land that responds to our desires and dreams and makes them real. It can contain anything we want it to.”

Uncertainty was replaced by a new excitement.

“That is why what we must do next is to lift anchor and sail away, and never tell anyone of what we have seen here.”

Disbelief, and then heated debate. Aranya stood his ground. He knew that, in this place, mere mortals could play the role of gods. But it was not humanity’s place to play god, in Aranya’s theology. It was a sin, a danger to their very souls that was even more fearsome to him than any other danger he had ever faced.

There are limits to obedience, even the three-fold obedience Aranya commanded from his crew by virtue of his position as captain, his authority as a priest and his personal ability to command respect. There are also limits to control, if it is to remain essentially just — Aranya’s sect had realised this long ago, and knowing the point at which custodianship crosses over into tyranny was one of their major concerns. At this point, Aranya could ignore his crew’s wishes, and order them to turn back. But they could still mutiny, or at the least start chains of gossip that could eventually rebound on the whole social order Aranya was sworn to maintain. After two days of fraught discussion, he came to an agreement with his crew: that he would leave them to pursue whatever Utopian schemes they were considering on this island, that they were to make no attempt to ever return to their own country, or any other known land, and that he, on his part, would let the world know nothing about them or this place. It was a bitter thing to have to cut his losses and run, but it was the best compromise Aranya could wrest from this impossible situation.

Aranya took a boat from the ship, and through many vicissitudes and minor adventures, returned to the lands he knew.

He often wondered if he had done the right thing by not informing even his order of what he had discovered; but some part of him felt that this matter was his own responsibility, a secret between him and his conscience until he could think of a better resolution. Many years followed, and many more expeditions, until he was too old and important to captain a ship and became an administrator overseeing large parts of the pioneering initiative. Finally, he reached an age sufficiently advanced that he could retire from active duty, and pursue his own projects.

He had only one project to pursue — to return to that strange island of nascence in the southern seas and deal with this last piece of unfinished business. His voyage was uneventful, but hard. When he finally reached the place that was still marked on his own private charts, he was bone-weary. He beached his craft, and collapsed on the shore. When he awoke, aching and thirsty, a circle of people, men, women and children, clad in simple cotton tunics and gowns, stood at a respectful distance from him. When they saw that he was awake, a child went over to him, bearing a waterskin. He drank deep of it, and then looked around him. Presently, an elderly woman approached him, and asked him to follow her. Aranya did so, noting that she wore a priestly robe not very different from his own. She brought him to a small hut nearby, where he was given a meal of fish and fruits.

Once he had eaten and was rested, he spoke to the priestess. He asked her about her people, about their ways, their livelihoods and their customs. It seemed they had formed a society patterned after his own, but with a more collective approach to property, and no money. Everyone was assured of the basics — food, shelter, and clothing, in public dormitories set up for this purpose. But those who wanted more had to work for it, establishing a web of relationships and regard, until he could have a better standard of living through the co-operation of the artisans, craftsmen, workers and merchants he dealt with. He asked them to take him around, so he could see some of the different kinds of people who lived in the land. Everywhere he went, he saw friendly, content people who worked hard and enjoyed life. Even the dormitories were mostly filled with the ill, or crippled, or simply those who needed time to embark on a new path of life. There were a few malingerers, but the easy basic living provide by the community prevented most of them from taking to crime. The punishment for any form of crime was to be put into a boat with a fortnight’s worth of supplies, and set adrift. The people of this land never wandered beyond their own local waters; they had a tradition that beyond the ocean lay only the Lands Of Tears, where the unjust dead gathered, and the homelands of the Gods, where no mortal may travel.

This brought him to a discussion of their religion. At this point they became very diffident, and the priestess brought him to a shrine, where she asked him to tell her if he thought it was good.

It was constructed much like a shrine of his own faith; in fact, as he entered the sanctum, he realised it was a shrine of his own faith, except that the idols bore the likenesses of his own crew. He had to admit that they were well-suited for the gods they had been associated with — the quartermaster and cook was the god of agriculture and the hearth, his first mate was the deity of administration and order, the look-out, of course, was the sentinel god, and so on.

And then he saw it.

His own likeness on the idol of the god of gods, the all-father, the law-giver.
He felt, faint, and had to sit down. After a while, an anxious voice interrupted his daze. It was the priestess, concerned that he was not pleased with what he saw. What could he say to her? Everything he saw here was the vilest of blasphemies, mere mortals cast in the images of the gods — and yet, he had to admit that here was a land that truly abided by the principles of any faith he might claim to adhere to. He could think of no appropriate response, so he simply nodded and said they had done very well. The priestess beamed and asked him if he had come to join the others.

“The others?”

“Yes, your child-gods and goddesses. They have waited for your return a long time, and we must take you to the central temple, where you can be re-united with them.”

Dumbfounded, and feeling himself in the grip of events far beyond his own power of understanding, Aranya assented. He was taken to a horse-drawn chariot, and carried in state through valleys and fields, until he reached a city, and finally the temple itself.

There, his former crew, informed of his arrival, waited for him, bearing garlands and wreaths. This was to be some sort of welcoming ceremony, he saw. He was an old hand at ceremonies, and went along with whatever was happening. Finally, he was brought to an inner council room, where he and his fellow explorers sat down at a round table. After a period of silence, his former first mate spoken.

“Well, Captain, here we are. We’ve kept to our side of the agreement, and now you can see what has come of it. Is it good?”

Aranya nodded, despite himself. It was very good. But wasn’t it blasphemy, a diabolical trap?
“Now we must ask you, will you join us? We had our disagreements, but we have missed your counsel all these years. If you would take your place amongst us again, at our head, we would be greatly honoured.”
Stunned even beyond his previous shock and confusion, Aranya finally asked for a day to think it over. They nodded in understanding, and took him to a comfortable, but simple chamber where he was to stay.

That night, Aranya pondered long and hard over the course to follow. He still had the power to shape nascent reality in this place — he confirmed this by causing a blue rose, a purple feather and a gemstone to be manifest. Somehow, only he and his original crew had this power, it seemed. The people of this land, created by his crew, had no ability to shape reality. But they did have access to living gods who walked among them and could answer their prayers, if their prayers were just. It was all an abomination. And yet, and yet.

This was a good place. A very good place; it seemed like the beautiful city on the hill that his priestly brethren had tried to make of their own land, with only limited success. Did he really have the right to condemn something so beautiful because it conflicted with his own imperfect understanding? On the other hand, could he ever embrace his role as chief among gods without feeling as if he was, in some way, betraying his own beliefs?
The next morning, Aranya had arrived at his decision: that he was unfit to decide. He created a scroll, and wrote a message on it. It said that he had seen the land that his people had made, and he was proud of them. He enjoined them to remember their faith and their values, reiterated that he would honour their agreement, and said that he was leaving, to return to the lands of the gods.

Then, he made his way back to his boat and set out in a direction previously unexplored by anyone. After this, he was truly never seen again by another living being.

As for the island-paradise he left behind? His passing had an impact on the godlike beings there. Gradually, they became more withdrawn, keeping more and more to the temple precincts and intervening less in their people’s affairs. Aranya had been their leader all those many years ago, and despite their mutiny, perhaps they still needed him as a leader, the way a new parent will sometimes long for the shelter and certitudes of his or her own childhood. One by one, each of them left the island as well, never to return. It was said that they had returned to the lands of the gods, to join the all-father. Finally the gods no longer walked the land, people only spoke to their gods in the form one-sided prayers or through the intervention of priests, and the priests spoke to their own consciences rather than to deities in the flesh. Eventually, the people forgot the strictures against travel and became curious about the land beyond. Expeditions were sent forth, contacts forged with foreign lands, and, after an age of discovery, they took their place in the larger world, just another among the many nations of this world.