Once upon a time, as the story goes, there was a woman who had a strange knack for mechanical things. Anything that was broken became whole again in her skillful hands, and she became known far and wide as the tinkerer, willing to build anything and take as much time as was needed to discover if it would function as designed. The ways of warcraft interested her only as a curiosity, a place where she could test out her theories and discover what was true and what did not work. Though she had never put her hand to a blade in her life, the weapons she created had leveled entire cities; though she had fought in no war, her inventions had protected thousands from certain death. The city that had given her shelter was one of the strongest and most powerful in the land, and the work she did to protect it was one of the reasons why.

But one of the great failings of humankind is to forget the things it has grown used to, and after years protecting and being protected by the city, the tinkerer fell from favor, replaced by a warrior who but wielded the weapons made for her. Weary of political machinations, and her eyes finally opened to the destruction she had caused through her experiments, the tinkerer decided that she had had enough of this city and this land. She had heard legends of a blessed land far to the west, beyond even the setting sun, and the curiosity that once drove her to take things apart and put them together in new ways now spurred her to discover whether these stories possessed even the slightest grain of truth. She was tired of the games played around her, sick at heart because of the base nature of humanity, and terribly lonely for human contact, for the people of the city avoided her as if she carried plague. She had been loved once, had held a lover tight against her and felt the pull stronger than any other, but those days had long passed with the exile of her lover. Perhaps this new land could be a new start for her, and even if it was only a myth, she could settle somewhere else. She needed nothing from the vast stores in her workshop; anything that interested her enough along her way would satisfy her. A small pack of food, a few coins, and other basic traveling necessities would be her only burdens. For a moment, she considered taking a horse from the castle's stables, but she had no right to their steeds, and asking for one would lead to questions about her destination. She wanted no company, no questions asked, no obligations that needed fulfilling.

Instead, she left the castle on foot and the islands of the city by ferryboat. The winter wind was cold against her face, but the freedom she had yearned for was worth the discomfort. She had allowed herself to grow stale and complacent under the city's aegis. She would be that no longer. Already, ideas were coming together behind her dark eyes faster than they had in years.

So began a journey that would take months across the vastness of the continent. She had had no idea the world was so large, but her unparalleled mechanical skills served her well on her travels. She was often able to barter repairs for food, shelter, a ride in a wagon, or coin to pay those who had no need for her talents. Though her original plan had been to hew as straight a course as she could across the continent, she found that the rides proffered her took her north and south along her path, so that although she traveled steadily west, she meandered as carelessly as a mountain stream.

One gray-clouded day, she hiked through a rocky patch where loose stones could cause a traveler to plunge into the merciless lake that shimmered below the cliff. Caught up in trying to keep her footing, she almost did not hear the grating cry that purported to belong to a hawk. Only the most primal sense of self-preservation warned her of danger, and she ducked as the arrow flew over her head. "I'm only a traveler! I mean you no harm!" she shouted in the direction of the archer.

"Nor I you," the archer replied in a resonant alto. The woman emerged, clad in blues and grays that camouflaged her perfectly in the rocky landscape. Ignoring the tinkerer, she crossed the path and knelt next to a fallen deer. "There. Dinner for tonight and the next week. You're welcome to join us if you've something to add to the meal or coin to buy a share."

"I've spices, coin, and sure hands if you and yours have need of anything fixed. I'd be honored to join you now that I can be sure you did not seek to kill me."

The woman who had impersonated the hawk laughed. "I doubt we'll have any need of your sure hands, my lady, though if you are who you seem to be, your presence is an honor. Come. The house is not far, and a warm fire awaits us."

A few strides later, sharing the burden of the dead deer, the tinkerer and the archer arrived at the promised house. Another woman awaited them by the roaring fire. "I see you've brought us company. What brings you to the northern forest?" she asked the tinkerer. Briskly and efficiently, the woman began skinning and carving the deer without waiting for a response.

"I seek the west," the tinkerer replied, impressed by the woman's skill.

Both of the locals immediately stopped what they had been doing and stared at her for a long moment, their dark gazes searching her so thoroughly that she felt as if she had been stripped naked and paraded before them. "Why do you believe yourself worthy, child?" the archer asked.

"I did not know I had to prove my worth to travel there, yet if I did, I would say that I am good of heart."

The other held her skinning knife casually, yet something in her stance suggested that she could swiftly turn the blade into a deadly weapon. "Why do you seek the west, child?" she asked in turn.

"To know whether that land exists. I have heard many legends, yet legends cannot be taken as truth until someone proves them to be true."

The two women looked at each other; it was impossible to tell whether they approved of the answer or not. Together, they asked, "And what would you do in the west, child?"

"Rest. I have grown weary of the endless power struggles. The devices I have made have engendered war beyond my imagining. I have seen the scars along my travels, and my heart aches for each and every single soul I have harmed so blindly. I would experiment, no more. Only if I were utterly certain I could cause no harm would I allow others to use what I would devise."

"Aye, you are a good woman," the archer said. "But that I knew before you ever set foot in this house. Had you been otherwise, that arrow would have been meant for you, and you would not be here to state your case. But whether the west is for you…" She turned to the other.

"Aye. She is worthy. I have seen her soul, and she is as weary as she claims. Understand, child, that the land beyond the sunset is a place of rest and retirement from the world. Enter there and you cannot leave. Are you certain you wish to withdraw from the wider world? There is still much good that you can do here. Is this truly what you want, or is it only something you are driven to?"

"Should I stay here, I would become nothing more than a pawn in the endless power games. I have already experienced this, and I can stand it no longer. I have no kinfolk to mourn me, no lover to yearn for me. The only ones who would seek me are those who would use me, and I will not live that life any longer."

"Then you may pass into the west, as you desire. But before you leave forever, child, there are secrets of this world that have been lost to the years that I think you would long to know. You seem a curious sort, and I have long desired to share the knowledge I gathered. Sit by my knee tonight, child, and listen well."

The tinkerer's eyes widened, for now she recognized the woman's face from a tapestry woven in the halls of her old home, a story of the heroic and the divine that had inspired her as a child. If even the gods were curious, then surely it was acceptable for a mortal to ask questions about the way the world was put together. And as her gaze swung to the archer, who had taken over preparing the carcass of the deer, she recalled that there had been a huntress in the story as well, whose arrows never missed and who shot faster than the mortal eye could see. She was in the presence of divinity, then, and she bowed deep to the two women to acknowledge that she understood.

She ate at their table, too awed to speak, nor could she form words when the divine meddler brought her close and bade her listen. Through the night, she learned secrets that no human had known in a hundred lifetimes, and sorrowed that such knowledge would pass with her into the west. When she awakened the next morning from the deepest sleep she had ever known, the stone house and the goddesses were gone, but her pack remained. She thought she had dreamed the entire encounter, perhaps had hit her head and seen visions in her delirium, but her pack was strangely heavy. When she opened it, she found stores of dried venison tucked in with the supplies she had bought at the last village.

Now that she was blessed with permission to travel into the secret land of the west, she encountered far more travelers toiling in the same direction as she had before. Some of them preferred to make their journeys alone: a black-haired woman with a sharp smile and a longbow slung across her back; a warrior with the build of a tree trunk and a bearskin stretched across her broad shoulders; a keen-eyed archer with sinewy muscles stretched tighter than the string of her bow. They did not welcome company, even for trade, and the tinkerer wondered why the powers that be allowed them passage, although she was uncharitable enough to wonder if this was simply to remove them and their bad manners from the rest of the world.

Others traveled in small groups. A cavalier on a proud steed rode next to a grim-faced woman with a feral look about her. A knight so heavily armored that she seemed to be in a shell protected the two of them, and all who gazed upon her feared her. All three wore the same colors of green and orange, and somehow the mix did not jar. A proud woman, who said she had once been a queen, traveled with a dented and rusty crown atop her sandy locks, and forever by her side was a shy young farmgirl who watched her with wide eyes; perhaps the self-proclaimed queen thought the attention born of admiration, but the tinkerer saw fear and shame instead. A woman in ancient armor, a red plume exploding from the high crest of her helmet, led a small troop of warriors, all of them clad in the same red with jewels sparkling at their throats and upon their fingers; were the tinkerer not so skeptical of things beyond her ken, she would have seen a spectral figure among them. A knight in shining golden armor rode next to a knight who wore scarlet over her suit of steel, and though they stopped often to joust, their easy banter made it clear that they were friends and shieldmates; each had a second to guide them, a heartbreakingly beautiful temptress with a devilish smile on her face and a pensive scribe in a white fur cape. Two orange-robed desert women, one who spoke with the singsong accent of the deep south and one with a slow voice and narrow eyes, stayed together at all times, watchful of their fellow travelers. Barefoot women with road-grimed heels and sky blue regalia limped slowly along the path, but no pain or hardship could stop them. The most curious of these were two who appeared to be nothing more than prospectors for gold, tall, dark women in green and gold who kept a constant eye on the ground; the blades fastened to their saddles, though, revealed that they were more dangerous than they might first seem. They were all glad to share their fires and their stories as the tinkerer added eastern spices to their meal or mended broken straps. And all said the same thing.

"We journey to the land beyond the sunset." It was like a password admitting entry into a secret sisterhood. There were unspoken rules to this as well; one who came alone must stay alone, and one who traveled with a group must stay with that group, which might explain the seeming unfriendliness of the other travelers. Some seemed ready to bend that rule for her sake, but none dared break it. "You must come as you were" was another statement she heard often from the strangers' lips.

She took her time, taking in the beauty of a world she had never before observed, letting others who yearned more for the peace of the west pass her on the single road as she lay back on the grass and watched the clouds, or stared for hours at the blooming of a single flower. She spent a day sitting on the bank of a beautiful stream, absently plaiting blades of grass and dried straw into neat ropes as she watched the world go by. Her once busy and frenetic mind calmed and slowed, yet she still thought constantly about the world around her. There were days on her travels when she thought the inquisitive goddess was right and the land beyond the sunset was not for her, that there was too much left to see in the world for her to so easily leave it. But then she recalled the uses to which those who had claimed to only protect her had turned her contemplations, and her will became steely. She had to depart. There was no other option. So she turned her eyes to the west and the sunset, and thought no more of what lay behind her.

As she approached a green and inviting wood, she saw again many of those who had passed her before. She slipped into the crowd next to the knight in golden armor and asked, "What has happened here? You and your shieldmates were three days' ride ahead of me, and yet I find you here. Has the path been blocked?"

"We have come to the entrance of the land beyond the sunset, and it is well guarded," the golden knight explained, lifting her visor to reveal a shadowy but stunningly beautiful face. "We must all wait our turn to be judged worthy."

"I thought that was already done in order to allow us to travel into the west in the first place."

The knight assayed a shrug, a difficult task in her armor. "Perhaps if you change too much on the journey, you cannot enter," she suggested, and the conversation ended as she brought the visor down over her lovely features. The tinkerer pondered this, and a cold stab of fear cut deep into her heart. Had she come all this way for nothing? Would she be left to wander the world, forever afraid to settle in one place lest she be taken advantage of for her knowledge and skill? She would die first, and she knew it. Again she steeled her will and prepared to face the guardian of the land beyond the sunset.

She tried not to be afraid, but even stronger women had quailed at the sight of the guardian, a woman as black as jet and stronger than steel. There was no mercy etched in her sharply planed features as she swiftly judged those who had come seeking the land beyond the sunset. Most she allowed to pass after an eyeblink's worth of consideration. Others she barred for longer before deciding to allow them entry. One or two she pulled to the side and whispered softly to, and they turned and walked away. Though the tinkerer did a better job than most of controlling her fear, she still trembled slightly when her turn came at last. The guardian looked her up and down and a smile cracked the impassive mask of her features. "You have learned more than most, but then, I should not be surprised, considering whose blessing you bear. You may ask one thing of me before you pass through the gateway."

"What of those who turned back towards the sunrise? What did you say to them?"

"Ah, you are a curious one indeed. Most ask what they will face once they pass beyond the sunset. Self-interest is their motivation. Those who I turned away were not ready yet, and I told them as much. Perhaps they still had earthly ties that need tending before they can return. Perhaps they simply were not yet suited to giving up everything they once knew. I cannot say for certain, only that they I looked upon them and they were not worthy." The guardian's face turned stern again. "You have had your answer. Now enter."

The tinkerer did not dare hesitate, passing through the gateway as quickly as she could. Once she was through to the other side, she found herself in a sunny landscape filled with small farms. The pastoral scene filled her with a peace that she had never before felt. She gave in to the childish temptation to run barefoot through the grass until she stumbled and fell laughing. As she lay on her back in the field, gazing up into the perfectly blue sky, her mind emptied of worries and fears, of farfetched notions and complicated plans, of everything she had spent her waking days thinking of. She thought of nothing but the chirp of birdsong and the soft whisper of the wind in the trees that lulled her more deeply into relaxation. She had never before realized how weary she was even when she was freshly rested; the troubles that had nagged her were no longer her concern, and she drowsed in a state between sleep and trance for what seemed like a too-short eternity.

"Arise." The voice sounded as if the speaker were not accustomed to being disobeyed, and the tinkerer regretfully opened her eyes. A tall, imposing woman stood over her; although the woman wore a tunic and breeches, the memory of armor hovered over her, and even a fool would have recognized her as a leader of armies and a champion of her land. "You have further yet to go. Peaceful as this place is, it is not your destination."

"I thought I had already crossed beyond the sunset. How can I have further to go than that?"

The champion shrugged. "I know not, but another waits for you further down this path. If you do not go of your own free will, I will make you leave, for this is my land, and the price I pay is obedience to the higher powers."

The tinkerer eyed the champion and decided that it would not be in her best interests to press the point. Reluctantly, she arose from her comfortable resting place upon the field, shouldered the pack she had hoped she was finished carrying, and continued down the road that followed the arc of the sun. Distracted as she was by the beauty of the land, she did not allow herself to stop again.

But even in movement, she was distracted, and her steps slowed as she watched the world go by around her. Bemused by the beauty of the world, she did not notice the dark-eyed and shrouded figure before her until it was too late. Crashing to the ground, she apologized swiftly to the other woman, but her words were waved off as nothing, and well they might be, for the figure before her was as terrifying in her own way as the champion had been. Robed in royal purple, she wore the aura of great power like a cloak, and magical fire danced in her hooded eyes even as the hint of a mischievous smile pulled at her mouth. "Fascinating as this land may be, it is not your destination. Further west you must go, deep into the sunset. There and only there will you find rest and love that you have always needed and never before understood. Do not dally on this path when another destiny awaits you, for powers higher than either of us have determined your course." The magician raised one hand, and violet fire danced on her fingertips. The tinkerer knew better than to meddle with such powers, and she continued on her way without the sense of wonder that had possessed her earlier.

It seemed strange that the land beyond the sunset should have a sunset, but the tinkerer had swiftly learned that logic had no place in this land, so she was no longer surprised when she saw the sky turn to red and orange as the sun descended, nor was she truly amazed when a small stone house came into view just when she thought it would be best if she stopped for the night. Twice she knocked on the door of the house and received no answer, but as she raised her hand for a third attempt, the door opened. "Come, my child, here you can rest at last."

The tinkerer lost her self-control, the dignity that had always kept her apart from those she had once sought shelter with, for the woman before her now was someone she had thought she would never see again. It had been years since the last time she saw her mentor, the woman who had loved her like mother and sister rolled into one. "I… I… I thought you were dead! I never thought I'd see you again!" She threw her arms around her mentor, tears of joy pouring from her eyes.

Her mentor smiled, stroking her braided hair as if she were a child. "I know, I know. It was not an easy decision to withdraw from the world, and the guardian turned me away once because I had unfinished business on the side of the sunrise. Only when I could be certain you had grown into a successful woman could I lay down my burden and come into the west. So come in, come in. There's a fire roaring and dinner to be prepared. I long to hear of your adventures out there in the wild world."

The tinkerer reluctantly released her mentor and entered the house. To her surprise, though, her mentor did not immediately close the door, instead shouting into the dusk, "You too! I know you've followed her across the land, and you've no need to hide any longer. There's more than enough here to feed three, or three hundred should the need arise. Loyalty such as yours should be rewarded, not ignored."

A figure detached itself from the gathering darkness and came through the doorway, as black and silent as the shadows that had sheltered her. A nod of acknowledgement was all she gave the mentor as she seated herself behind the tinkerer, her dark eyes still searching for danger that was not present. When the tinkerer asked, "Who are you?" she did not respond, merely fixed her steady gaze on the tinkerer as if expecting her to provide the answer.

"Has it been so long, then? Even I knew of this, and it has been many years since I passed into the west. Perhaps you have allowed yourself to forget, run away from the pain you knew you would feel if you remembered. We are beyond pain here. Let yourself remember, my child. Let the memory return." The mentor brushed her student's forehead with a gentle hand and released a flood of memory that had been held back for too many years. Behind closed eyes, the tinkerer relived years of her life that she had chosen to bury beneath theories and experiments, not even allowing them to resurface in dreams until now.

When she looked up again, she spoke to the woman who had followed her loyally across even the roughest of lands. "I thought you had abandoned me when you went into exile. I thought you would forget me and move on with your life. Was I so special as that that you dared play havoc with the spirit of the law? I never thought…"

A soft kiss silenced her and answered any questions she might have. I would never forget. I would always remember.