Horizon - Chapter 6 - Horizon In Paradise

While Horizon was flying on his horse Volvan, he put on the Soul glasses left to him by Levil and looked down. He saw, amongst the world of darkness, a walled town that was glowing as brightly as a small sun and he thought “Surely this must be a place of great goodness”, so he landed there but although it looked like a paradise, and a sign outside of the town read, in large golden lettering, “Welcome To Paradise”, his arrow of destiny refused to enter it.

“Why do you refuse to enter?”, asked Horizon.But the arrow did nothing to indicate an answer besides point stubbornly away from the gates of the town.

So Horizon, deciding that his arrow of destiny must be wrong, entered the town of Paradise and at first it was just as he had imagined it would be, it was beautiful and bright and he was waited upon by beautiful women who fed him and did everything for him and, looking round about him, he saw that he was not the only hero there. All around, he saw warriors and adventurers who had hung up their swords and were doing nothing but bathing in the sunlight and feeding on the fruits of heaven.

However, after four months had passed by in that place, he had another strange dream. It was like the dream he had had in the Traveller's Tavern, the night that he had narrowly escaped Levil’s demon. He dreamt that he was in a forest and there was a stag, but this time the forest was dying and the dream-stag that had spoken to him in his other dream was lying on the ground, bleeding, with a hunter’s arrow in its side.

“What has happened to you?”,asked Horizon, dismayed by the sight of the wounded and dying animal.

The stag, which was the soul of nature, answered him; its voice weak and full of pain.“Although you think that you are in Paradise,” said the Stag, “You must understand that the things that attend to you are not women but Angels and Angels,being the opposite of Demons, live off of human happiness and ecstasy, the way that Demons live off of pain.They are making you happy merely to drain that happiness out of you”.

“But”, said Horizon, shrugging, “What if they are? Is this still not a good place. A happy place. Without suffering or sadness?”.

“Perhaps”, answered the Stag, “But while heroes lie in Paradise, the world outside grows ever darker and more like hell. Goodness does not survive because heroes have ceased fighting for it. And look at yourself”.

The stag became a pool in which Horizon could see himself reflected and the pool spoke like the trickle of water. “Look at yourself”,said the pool, “You have become fat and weak because the struggle and the problems that made you strong are gone. Too much good can be an evil just as too much medicine can be a poison. And look
at the edges of your precious paradise. Look and you will see that the darker the world
outside grows the more it will overpower this golden place until Paradise itself will
be snuffed out”.

And so then Horizon woke and he ran screaming from Paradise, back into the world of troubles with the wisdom of the great spirit of nature ringing in his ears. “Good things must be fought for and won. To have joy there must be labour. To have happiness there must be sacrifice. This is the natural balance and it will always be so.”

But though Horizon did as he was instructed he still felt some sadness for he missed the Paradise he had experienced and so the spirit of nature told him “Do not live in dreams of the past but dream of your life in the future; though you have given up Paradise, you will one day find a realer and truer happiness”.

But Horizon was still not satisfied and started to cry, “Alright”, said the soul of nature, “If you wish I will allow you to return to Paradise whenever you are sleeping but you must spend the hours when you are awake in the world outside Paradise; the world of reality,mortality and need”. This last kindness satisfied and pacified Horizon who, the spirit of nature realized, was still a child although he had the body of a man and Horizon then felt that he could go back to his duty of being a Hero.