Quick paths

(this post was written on December 8, 2025, but backposted to November 8, 2025)

In certain world to travel the wilderness quickly the traveller sacrifices to the demons, to the dead or to the dreams. 

art by Rovina Kai

Either of these will do. Either of these will take the traveller and carry them through the pathways known only to the forsaken – safe and mostly sound until they arrive at their destination, mist-eyed and a little numb. Thankfully, all three like one thing in common: the memory of the travels, their realms and themselves seen through mortal eyes, so when one travels this way they don't retain the memories of their travel – just vague smudges of colours and smells where memories used to be. The friendships of lifetime can be made during the travel, and animosities may blossom, scars made and healed, divine vistas beheld – but by the end the traveller stands just as ignorant as they were when they took their guide's hand.

In addition to the mandatory memory sacrifice each asks for two more specific payments, one major and one minor. The major payment is valued more and goes a longer way, while minor payment is throwaway coppers, and a mortal needs to sacrifice a lot in this way to get at any significant distance if they don't have anything major to give.

– Demons (by far the most popular choice) have no history of their own, so the passage is paid in artifacts of significance to the real history, be it the actual objects of the significant past or of the art dedicated to it. Barring this, demons will take a history crafted for them specifically, false as it is – the tales of mighty demons fighting kingdoms of gods, or stories of tricksters binding mortals to deeds made foolish by their own greed. Lacking the weight of a real history, these fake histories have to be well-crafted, and supported with false artifacts and false manuscripts to be valued.

The traveller might need such fake history to go the long way (or for the real history bauble to be extra important) because demons also ask for each traveller's blood as a minor payment and the amount depends on mileage (almost as if demons are fueled by it). The drain is not enough to be a danger for occasional short haul, but with repeating or long travels with nothing else to offer is almost always lethal. As agreed, the demons will deliver the traveller to the desired point kept alive by demonic means but if the mortal body cannot support life once they let go of a traveller's hand (and thus fulfill the agreement) this isn't demons' problem anymore.

– The dead are ground into mulch by time, forgotten by the living, with no future in the world, so the passage is also paid in time of living, in the future they have. Not the time of one's life, as it is commonly and  mistakenly believed (travelling with the dead doesn't shorten the lifespan), not even in time lost to the traveller, but rather time of their prominence or relevance in the world. It is a little tricky to explain but one who travels with the dead forsakes any notion that they themselves might to leave a footprint in a history for a number of years taken as a payment – instead of them getting into any kind of spotlight, a long forgotten poet comes back into vogue, or a neglected general gets re-discovered by the public, or victims of past crimes acquitted, or a long-forgotten hatred raises its head and again gains power. The traveller is not invisible or mysteriously erased from the present – their actions still have all the normal consequences, and any short-term reputation gained is their, all how it should be. But if they had any chance of getting noted for the future for the deeds done in such years, this chance is irrevocably lost to the dead who will take their place in a spotlight of the history, and for the time thus lost the traveller leaves no legacy in the world. While this kind of payment is the least obtrusive to the traveller, they only have so many years of possible prominence in their life so they will run out rather quickly if they take dead passage too often.

Aside of this kind of time, the dead also take some negligent parts of traveller's body, pruning them carefully as not to do much permanent harm. Hair, eyelashes, nails, skin, some non-blood body liquids that aren't often required, milk teeth, non-essential organs. People who often travel with the dead have very smoothed out appearance with way too thin of a skin, and a difficulty with begetting children. Long travels that aren't paid in sufficient time are occasionally fatal, leaving a traveller skinned raw, peeled down to a bone, or as a pebble lacking limbs.

– The dreams don't care about the future or the past, but desire the freedom of the present. As they are insubstantial in a waking world, the dreams long to be seen. Thus the dreams will copy some aspect of traveller's identity, one thing a travel – be it the face, the body, the name, the mannerisms. All and everything can be copied over time until a they have a perfect duplicate of a traveller, their whole identity; most people run out of themselves after about three dozen travels in their lifetime. While people do change over time (new names, older bodies, 37-years old corporate unrecognizable against their own 16-years idealistic self) any part of a traveller, once acquired by the dreams, can keep up with the changes. Or mostly keep up, at least: the copied name might be slightly out of date, the looks slightly distorted, identity slightly out of step with the most current form. In an ownership of such form the dreams can and will go into the world, a protective suit of somebody's else identity driven by fleeting unshaped chaos.

With demons taking blood and the dead scrubbing everything else, the dreams can only to take away the traveller's quietude, the ability to feel solitude and stillness, to have a calm rest. It doesn't deny the mortals their sleep and recovery per se, but eliminates the peace that comes with it, leaving them on low-burning disquiet and anguish for a quite a long time. Ascetics often bet themselves against the dream travel in order to test their mental fortitude, and in many realms the criminals, the fair sex and slaves are forbidden to use path of dreams in fear they would become unruly. 

If fast travel is impossible or undesirable, the only way through the wilderness is a long way.

(But this is a story for another time.)