He could speak, but he couldn't. Fear. Great fear came with it. It was not one born from the recognition of apperception, but a more primal instinct. Like an animal that had its eyes and mouth tied. It did not recognize but it feared it.
And Merrin was so very afraid.
Softly. Softly. Move.
He did. He walked on. Now, it was no longer a desire, but a sense. What would happen if he stopped moving? He didn't know, and how greatly he feared figuring out.
What if he stopped? He was tired, it was surely the right thing to do. No.
But why was he walking?
He refused it.
He could stop, rest, and see what was on the other side. What lay on the path when his legs stopped? He refused it.
It would be so easy to do that. So freeing to respite, to sit on the thing he walked on. The solid surface that pressed against his feet. It supported him, which exempted it from vileness.
Stopping could be the right thing to do.
He refused it.
But why?
"Now I see." A voice said, "This would hurt."
The awareness to understand was unseen.
Something touched his face—face, right? Hard. He slammed back, his mind drowning into the darkness.
Softly softly Move—word speculation of a preacher of preservation.
He was here again. In this space of darkened skies, churning with winds and lightning. He was there, floating. Aware.
Faster than before, his mind was clearer or was becoming that. The weakness lingered like an echo, a faintness that turned just that the longer he stayed.
This was the cure, huh? He glanced up, staring at the gates. So far they were that he feared the true size was that of a mountain. Big, dark, brittle, partially hidden within clouds of gray and black.
That was meant to be his inheritance, and he failed it. He looked down. But this, did this mean he was accepted again? Merrin reached for the sky—willed it. His body floated up, edging closer to the vast gates.
But
Something pushed against him—hard, illusory, unseen. Like a wall of solid nothing, he knew it was there, but could not see it. But it stopped him, stopped his ascension. He could not reach for it, the high door of blackness the size of a mountain. He saw it, but could not touch it.
Still, he was refused.
Merrin felt a calm in the face of this, the understanding and speculation of the outcome giving him a clear outlook into it. He expected it, so seeing it didn't frighten him.
At least I'm still here. Merrin thought, his eyes shifting to a darkness moving toward him. Wide with scaled wings like obsidian metal. The bird.
"To think this is what you require to come here," the bird reached and sneered, "An El'shadie that requires a punch to behold his power." The mockery of it was unsurprising.
But. I was punched? Then, he realized a retained memory. A voice, a man, something familiar about it. That man—person, whoever had punched him, why?
"Do you know who did it?"
"I can't see them—maybe if you weren't mindless through it." The bird said, its wings flapping.
So it sees what I see? Merrin turned to the distance, the stretch of darkened sky-like veils over the heavens. They churned with wind and lightning. Questions, questions. He had many questions, and now that it appeared a chance had been given to him, it was a blunder not to cease them.
And Merrin was no fool.
He asked, "What exactly is happening to me?"
"Stupid." The bird said, "You are an El'shadie. What else do you require to know?"
"How do I control this? One moment I'm strong, and the other I'm so weak I forget myself. And just now, I was lost. I wasn't myself; there was no self, just movement. I was gone."
"The mind was," there was an assurance in its voice, "You cast with the force of the mind. Isn't it natural to become retarded when said force drains? You use much for simple tasks, that is what caused that."
"But I lost myself, I was thinking, knowing differently." He recalled the memory of his movement; one without reason, only instinct.
"Merely a human's natural state. To speculate and bind yourself with chains of superstition. Without proof, you remain docile enough to accept it. That was your issue. You could have stopped, but you feared. Stupid. You will have to overcome that if you wish to survive as an El'shadie."
Survive as an El'shadie…A word he yet did not know the significance of. But, the bird did offer some insight—his power—casting. He was doing it wrong.
Then what's the right way to do it? What's the right way to control it? I can't always be so weak after casting. There will be no point or usefulness in it. His eyes drifted past the bird, to the distant horizon; there was no light, yet the world was alit with grayness—a light color. It was unsettling to see. The darkness was calm, serene, but here was light.
Was this what the world was like before the darkening? A mere fleeting thought as he moved his gaze to the bird—wide, menacing, like a fallen. A docile fallen, maybe.
"Where are the ardents?" he asked the noticeable occurrence.
"Everywhere," the bird said, "They observe the world when the El'shadie has not summoned them. One El'shadie, a man who sealed his son, was fond of this power. Knowledge was a tool he used well. What about you, what uniqueness do you have?"
Again, the mockery. Merrin asked, "So they can leave this place?"
"Obviously. How then would you explain me taking the form of a child?" The bird said, and Merrin felt he heard a sigh from it.
Knowledge is useful…But should I summon them? he thought and counter thought, There will be no point in doing so, but maybe one of them has some information I can use. Should I then summon them for that reason?
His eyes trailed to the bird. What else can I do with this place? "Can I see what they see?"
The bird seemed to pause, its wings freezing outside the motion of curling. "Good," it said, a tone of amusement present. "A good question. So you were clever, or maybe just a hoax….Yes. Yes, you can see what they see."
"How?"
"That's for you to figure out." the bird said, "Though an El'shadie once said it a feeling of connection. Find it…If you can of course."
It's the same as anything else.
Merrin went within himself—the understanding of one that stemmed from practice. The dance of self awarded him this knowledge, and he used it well. Expertly, he hoped. In that darkness of his own mind, the part of his being that begged for the steam and heat, he searched. He urged for something else.
Just like he felt the force of mind like a river of power that surged without stop, a power that broke all boundaries—enforcing itself on the world, now he looked for another. He found it.
There in the horizon of his cognition, he felt a presence. A fleeting image of figures, countless, all staring with headless necks. This creatures had an outline of furious white—like flames pressed against dark edges. Robe pooling in darkness.
One among the countless was intriguing—for no reason except an instinct, this one called for his presence. He answered it—like a feeling of hands stretched out. He reached for this darkness boarded with white and it enveloped. Swallowing him in the frightening blackness.
He saw a hall. Clean with walls dotted with many froststones. Lamps shone from the base, bringing rays of radiance over it all. Many walked this hall, women dressed in heat-pressed dresses, and men, excubitors, silent and imposing.
But somehow, seeing them all brought no distraction to what beckoned his eyes. A woman, bright haired like silver white walked calmly. She carried a book, pressed on her chest and a gaze, cold, blank—doll-like.
She dressed in a dark dress, black like iron, skin pale with the froststone embedded on the left chest. Ample. A coat buttoned to the side, yet elegant on her person.
Who was this?
And this brought the awareness that what he saw, he saw through the eyes of the ardent. So they had eyes, this proved.
Why did it show me this?
I pray every day, yet the Father does not answer me! Is the Almighty true? Does he truly exist?—words of a possible convert.
Ivory Valor walked the stone corridor, the darkness pushed by the white, buzzing lamps at the wall's base. They were along the masonry, that, and the blueish shine of froststones. Some called them stars; gems said to have once dotted the night sky. This was, of course, a time before the Darkening.
She deliberated them.
The froststones, gems of frosty blue, still had will within them, giving far more illumination than the murky ones in the Ethalen. The library could do with more gleam. Thinking about that, Ivory pressed the thick, leather-backed book against her breast, her lips flattening into a thin line.