"It's like the crimson rot!" Another said, "They released it into the mines. To kill us all. I hear even the leaders are infected."
Did I do this?
"Does it matter?" Another said, "And even, why would they use some plague, why not the excubitors? Those lot can do it real easy."
"Kill everyone?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, Almighty above."
"They can't do that! We are slaves, not beasts."
"We need to escape. If we stay, we die….We sleep forever."
"What about her?"
"I don't know."
"Trust the sunBringer!." A voice broke through the amalgamated tones. A familiar voice, Merrin quickly identified as Moeash. "He brought you from the Sisters. Trust him. He will do it again."
For a moment, though, Merrin sensed a distress over Moeash. Does he not trust that I can do it? He deliberated for a while and said, "Let me see."
So did the circle part. Like a monotonous whole, they shifted to both sides, cutting a path between him, the highstone, and the girl in between. He stepped forward and studied her. In those spans of inner awareness, Merrin found idiotic notions present.
Why don't you try tapping her, screaming her name?
Drop a froststone into water and pour it over her.
As always, he dismissed such things. They were a distraction to the relevant—a mere echo of the inner human self. Stupidity seemed a core aspect of a person. But he was not to be that. A person. He is to be more. To these people, at least. sunBringer.
Merrin knelt, cradled the woman, and saw then the fullness of her being. Black hair, as all darkCrowns, dry lips with a sign of self-chewing. She had an oval face, an aspect he did not connect to his knowledge of clans. More so, the ignorance increased as her eyes remained closed. Eye color was a factor in knowing one's origin.
He sighed within and trailed his fingers through her hair. They felt dry, lacking any inkling of moisture. Not in the mines, of course, but outside, when the rain remained a constant, this hair would be lush, silvery in sheen, and beautiful.
They won't have her.
Merrin found himself coiled in an emotion. Anger, loss, pain. A warmth deep in the body. This was his people—as much as the ashmen were his, they too were his. Nothing can take them. Even if this affliction was of his making, then its reversal would come just as easily.
He took a breath and felt the distant echoes drown in silence. An audible stillness.
You are not going anywhere!
And in that moment, Merrin surged the waters within. The force that beckoned domination over all things. It moved him, strengthened him, awakened him.
The world turned grey.
So came the shapes, whispers. Things in transition from one form to another. Chains floated, doors without hinges, spirals of black threads. Too many to see. Too many to care for cognitive comprehension.
Merrin looked down at the woman held. She was the important one. And so he peered in. This brought a sure wave of weakness, a feeling of strength waning, draining by the passing of instants.
He saw the familiar symbol which, by situational provision, had become greatly acquainted with him. They were floating glyph-like things. Sharply pointed, sliding to the left and ending with a line to the right. A z. Dark and solid, they hovered around her head—a sequence that brought a feeling of drowsiness from observation.
Merrin quelled this and pushed the tide of force within. He was to move the symbols—as was the means to cast. With the symbols pushed, the woman would wake up. This, he quested now. The awareness expanded, his mind, a surging wave, bashed against the symbol.
It felt like he gripped a snake's head, wrestling it out from the ground. But with each drag, it forced back into the earth. Stronger. Merrin tried again, pushing the collection of solid Zs. They strained as though held to the woman by a rope. When he relaxed, they snapped back. There was a futility to the endeavor.
Yet, Merrin persisted. They would not take her. He swore this in a special isolation of normalcy within. The rest of his mind roared with power as force now became a tumultuous sea. They surged and surged.
And in that moment, a scene, alien to the perceived symbols, blurred into his mind. He saw a castle in the distance, dark, bizarre. Inhumane in every way. Before this castle was a thing, a two-eyed creature of obsidian black, its wings stretched, meters wide.
A hand suddenly gripped him, throwing back the scene, awareness, and perception of Caster reality. The world returned to its regularity. And there, he knelt, cradling the woman, eyes closed, surrounded by the witnesses, dread pressed hard into their faces. He realized the passing of time that had gone unnoticed. Sweat drenched his clothes. Breath a hectic exhale.
How tired he felt.
They, too, however, perspired.
"This thing now impossible."
Merrin turned and beheld the giant of a man. His words. Those simple words felt like swords, cutting deep into his being.
I couldn't do it…I can't save them.
"Did it work?"
Merrin dreaded the question.
"Has she woken up?" Another asked,
And so the trumpet of repeated words echoed through the cave room. Merrin remained, rooted, silent. There was nothing he could say. Nothing to do. He now knew the cause of this…
This is not something the sisters would do…He thought, They would never release such a thing into the mines. That thing is a sin to the church…
Fallen.
Their lived a fallen in the mines.
Black eyes flashed into his awareness, and Merrin gritted at them. You come again. You took Leim, now you come again. Why don't you just stop? Not this one's. Almighty please.
He felt the coldness of tears swell in his eyes. No, not here. Nothing will happen. I can tell the sisters or maybe an Excubitor about it. They would listen, right? No, wait. This is nightfell, how would a Fallen even get in?
There was an oddness somewhere, Merrin sensed it. In all the greatness suggested as being the El'shadie—a name he still feels little relevance to, pride or stupidity in deeming uniqueness for that reason, existed not. As powerful as he was, or could be, there was little doubt that stronger beings did not exist.
If he could sense this, why couldn't they? The mines had itself a caster. Why didn't he notice a fallen intruding on the mines? Strange questions. Little answers.
Merrin battled the storming rage and said, "A fallen had come."
Silence overcame the murmurs.
"This is no plague. A fallen hides in the mines, and it does this to bring ruin and death."
Why did he say that?
Merrin scanned, and as expected, Terror. What horrendous terror. Many huddled together, screaming. Women grabbed the like, scribbling prayers on the floor. Men, too, delved into the fervent madness of repeated things.
"God save us!"
"Almighty above!"
"Call the excubitors!"
"Call the sisters!"
"We're all dead."
"No, let's inform the clan!"
You shouldn't have done that. The thought whispered. And Merrin sensed the selfishness by which he did this. Fear. What would they think if he failed? This question brought the acceptance of a countermeasure. He chose to invoke the name of the fallen. That brought dread, and with it, his name cleared, and their reverence saved.
How petty he was….to do this. Repulsion. These were not Ashman ways. Cunning. Wild things. Merrin lowered his head. But there was little solace to be found in thought, which too cursed at him.
"What do we do?" Another touted.
"sunBringer, save us!" a unified shout.
And Merrin knew it then, a time for himself gone. What use was there in wallowing? These people needed him. What stain was another lie? To assure, to protect, to relieve, he would do so.
Let them see the savior they crave.
Merrin released—the sameness that these people loved about him—the sunBringer. Light ringed around his head, raying out like slanted pillars of white luminescence. He was the source. It's maker.
Merrin, in those moments, pondered the true relevance these people drew from this. This show. But he cycled to the realization that if God appeared before him, he too would fall into religious fervor.
If it calmed them…it does not matter.
The greatest hope comes from the false certainty of hope.
Merrin found himself pondering Yoid's words. All a lie. This was a lie. The sweetest lie. One, he must now tell again.
"I stand with you.
They looked to him, eyes wide, rayed alight with his radiance.
"This will not be your fate. It won't happen again. Now I am aware."
He looked at Ron, the giant of a man, who was carrying something. Merrin knew it. Observed it in the manner of the bulge drooping from his sleeves.
"I stand with you and so does the light."
Written confession from a member of the witnesses—name left undisclosed by the order of the Gresendent sonitras.