Free The Return of Kavin by David Mason

Kavin, once prince of the lost land Dorada,” Thuramon said, slowly. “I was with him; and when he and the remnant of his people fled in the end from their destroyed valley, I was also there. And when they came to the land to the east, Koremon, which lies near the Isle of Dragons… there too. I went with Kavin, and a few companions, out of Koremon, into the great mountain, where we found a place of evil. A place that was one of the seedlings of that evil I spoke of… and we destroyed it,”
    Hugon nodded. “I know the tale,” he said, “ though it seems difficult to believe even a warlock can live so long as that. Old man, that story is of a time… why, you would be two hundred!”
    “Well, then?” Thuramon said, and grinned again.
    “I wish I knew how it is,” Hugon said, shrugging. “I’ve been able to resist the artful tales of fine charlatans in a hundred places… and here I sit, believing your wild story. I do believe it… and I cannot understand why.” He chuckled, “But go on, then.”
    “There’s so little truth in the world that it’s easy to distinguish its face in a crowd, by reason of its oddity,” Thuramon said.
    “I believe him,” Zamor said suddenly, and fell silent again, watching Thuramon.
    “I’ve heard the tale of Kavin,” Hugon said, resting his chin in his hand. “How he fared forth to the Black City, where three evil ones ruled; broke their power, and returned to Koremon. Ruled there, and left numerous offspring… one of whom was an ancestor of my own, founder of my clan.” Hugon chuckled. “A wild rogue, too, it’s said, who had to flee Koremon and return to the mountains of Meryon for something of the same reasons I’ve had myself, at times.”
    “All true,” Thuramon said, solemnly. “But… there was a tale never told. I shall tell it to you now… for a reason.”
    Beware magician’s reasons, Hugon thought, but said nothing.
    “The last and greatest of those evil ones whom Kavin fought was called… Ess. He was not human. There was nothing at all of humanity in him; he came from a world no man could know. I called him evil… but he was not. He was neither evil nor good, only so much a stranger to this world that such words had no meaning. And what he was, the things he desired… no human could know. And one thing more… he could not die.”
    Hugon stared. “I had heard of some such monster… but didn’t Kavin slay him, as the story goes?”
    Thuramon shook his head. “Here, there lies a deep mystery. Kavin went to the place where Ess dwelled, and then…” He stopped and pulled his beard, staring at Hugon. “There are deep things here; it may be too deep for your mind. But let me try. Think now of time, the progression of days and nights as you know it… and of the world, the lands and seas and folk, known to you. Of… reality.”
    In the silence, Hugon felt cold. He listened, trying to understand.
    “Think now of worlds folded upon worlds, time turning upon itself like the spiral shell of a sea worm, and days that return again, the same yet changing,” the old man said. His eyes held steady, earnest. “Yesterday becomes today… and today, yesterday, and worlds spread on, through an endless time and space… and only one thing remains constant and real through the spinning mist. One thing alone.” He stared, hard, into Hugon’s eyes. “The living spark that shapes itself, into man. Or into other beasts, who live, spawn, and die… but the spark lives.”
    “This I know already,” Zamor said in his deep voice. “We are taught, in our Almor lodge…”
    “Were you taught this, too?” Thuramon asked. “That a man may live in two, in a hundred places and times… at once? That he may move in many worlds at once, in one as a prince, another a beggar… or that his life may fold backward upon itself, so that he meets his own form in a shadowed street?”
    Zamor grunted. “Certain things were told us,” he said. “And we also learned that