Another way to levy crimes on Kabel, she thought. The more faults, the less the Church would claim damages for the death. If they did, it created a definition of objectives. No more would they be a society of good and religion, but one of power and might.
The Great Clans allowed the control but hated the awareness of it.
You control us, but don't let us know of it.
She responded. "Nothing. I found a need to observe my people, and Kabel provided a means for it."
"He knew of a secret passage."
"The Church knows many things." Argon scowls. "He is dangerous."
"So is every Excubitor, Merchant Lord, Caster, or even Handlers with their Ta'renheals. We might as well lock them all in the Black Jails. Of course, we would risk the full occupancy of Stone Bastion and Iron Shire."
He sighed. "Must you always counter words with me?"
"As you said," Ivory replied. "One day, my child will achieve the sameness."
This elicited a smile. "I wonder how well you will fare against your offspring."
Again, she thought of Kabel and said, "When the moment comes."
"That, they all say," he repeated, sighing. "A different question then, what do you know of your attacker?"
"He was Fermen," she said. "Rare, perhaps, but it is known that those lots can be bought for assassinations. Any one of the thousand clan enemies could have commissioned for the outcome. From within or not."
"You suspect the enemy is within the castle?"
"I suspect the enemy is in Valor," she corrected, her tone temperate. "Though the law of Inheritance rarely affects the switching of heirs, I doubt that would stop the occurrences."
He sighed, tapping his fingers on the sleek board. "We have yet to receive any confirmation from the Fermen."
"I doubt any body of society will willingly accept a wrongness, even if some truth was held within it."
"I see…" He delved into his inner awareness, likely cataloging her words into proper memories—this he would later recall, then disperse into the mind of a deadEyes. To know more. Ah, many still think those things prescient, yet what they do was merely a trick of an enhanced mind. Pondering. Using the collection of questions to impose a pattern on the observed reality. Questions, in a way, were their own answers. This was the might of the deadEye. One, any advanced caster was sure to inevitably gain.
Others, however, she recalled Mother Samara; that distant gaze of hers as though retrieved from the observed world, peering above from a distant one. That was the mark of a deadEye, or at least the process of their mentation. Samara, despite not being one, had achieved that level of internal cogitation.
Marvelous.
Ivory considered attempting it. A cough snapped back the immediate consciousness, Argon glaring. "Pay attention," he said. "I have questions."
"And I wait for them," she replied, reining in the disruptive thought.
He said after a moment of contemplation. "How had you survived?" *And here it comes…*This she dreaded, showed no reaction of course, but even that, she knew, to a discerning eye revealed more than the unsaid.
Argon had little of the trait—so a moment longer, and he would draw harmful conclusions. Was she a caster? The first, and soon: Did she use an Emerlt? That would follow. The ideation required halting. She said, "I don't know."
Their eyes met, his, doubtful. I suppose there is only that alternative. "I suspect it was the dream being…" A briefness passed. "They call themselves I AM."
A quake reverberated through the chamber, walls trembling, dust dripping down. Even the wave of constant light had dulled for an instant, fading into a lower vibrancy of light browns. Now, he glowered. "He—They returned?"
Now! "But I suspect they are not a caster, nor human." Eyes narrowed, piercing. She continued. "I believe they are one of the Formless, or at least something of a sentient symbol. That explains the absurdity of force, and the immaturity of it."
Something flickers through him—a screen of emotion. What? They exist? Ivory gasped within; the words, in their totality, were mere placeholders till the creation of a better solution. Not this. Argon, in his concealed attempts, revealed the trueness of her words.
Not mere theories, or futile words concocted by moss-drunk loremasters, but a realness…. That beckoned the recollection of Symbolic laws and knowledge. This was unknown to her. Argon saw then the expectant gaze. She made him see it, tilted his head. "Where did you learn those words?"
"From them," she said. "After the attack, they revealed the given aid, and proclaimed themselves non-humans, something formless." A load of instantaneous concocted hogwash. He believed it, however, eyes lowering for the inner ponderings.
"Hmmm." He rumbled. "These are things that I thought were already gone and forgotten."
She took the lead. "Explain what exactly these things are."
"You do not need to know." There was no finality in the tones—that meant something.
"Are they part of the Oral History?"
He watched her. "No."
"Then I am privy to all its knowledge."
"That, my daughter, is the problem," he said. "If what you say is true, and not deception." A glare came with the words. "Then knowing it—" A pause. "First of all, the sentient symbols and Formless are one and the same. The birth of a sentient symbol is the birth of a formless. That, rather interesting name of course being because of the rather shifting form of theirs."
"I see."
Suddenly, he smiled. "This is an opportunity!"
"What?" The words left before control.
"These things are rather known to contain knowledge unknown to us."
"Because they are symbols."
"One knows their home better than any," he said. "We can learn something from this."
Ivory smelled ambition, a scent seldom found on Argon. "You want to pry knowledge from them?"
"For years now," he said. "Valor has rarely achieved something, not since Gladwell. Call it pride. But I desire something." "What an unexpected change." He frowned. "That does not mean you gain recklessness; however, these are fundamentally symbols, you might learn…you might snap."
"And Stone Bastion?"
"You will have nothing to eat for the entire day tomorrow."
"Hardly a true consequence."
"I can also have your arm severed."
"This is enough," she said, bowing.
"Now," he said. "Tell me more about this formless."
The Cintry Range lies in a crater, west of the Ashmountains—Eastos.
The first sound was the padding of feet in the darkness. Pain. A scuttering noise of hard trotters—solid, stony, somewhat. Pain. A breath left him, agony, his mouth filled with an odd-tasting gurgling liquid. Strange but familiar flavor. Blood. Much was swallowed during the breathing process. Yet the pain persisted. Always there, laughing, whispering. Then, there were the hard steps. Closer, almost in a teasing sense. As though it drew near only to scurry away.
Annoying.
But what was annoyance? Such knowledge was bereft from the internal mentation, just him, drowning in blood, devoured by the agony of it all. Everywhere was pain. Merrin knew to think; no thoughts came. Just him. Darkness, the ground's searing heat, and him.
Pain.
In such times, memories acted as the cushion; there was none. How unsure he was about the existence of his brain. Maybe there wasn't anything like a brain, and instead, like everything else, this was a construct of his delirious mind.
Mind—was it another made-up word? This, he wondered, a soft whimper occasionally escaping his lips. They were once mighty cries, he knew that. Maybe a day or an hour? No, there were moments when he screamed for something. Help? It didn't come, obviously. There was just him…and the silent passenger.
Pain.
His toes crept into themselves, retreating from the wrecking ache of it all. Origin unknown. Merrin, if that was his name, knew he fell from a vast height. Maybe he had tried to fly. He could, right? Regardless, he fell, so maybe he couldn't. Yet, from stone to stone, crashing against peaks, hills, and boulders. Over and over, coated in something. A layer of—air? Not that it helped; eventually it shattered, or did he? Were humans supposed to survive such falls, or was he not human?
A bird could speak, couldn't it?
Am I a bird?
There was no true way to test the theory, was there? Then, there was the drowsiness of it all—a need for rest. Oddly, despite the pain, the mind urged the shutting down—but he didn't want to. No idea why, but he shouldn't. Something bad could happen. He must stay awake, always.
But there was the tyrant that stood against that desire…The pain. How monstrous it was, like a guardian of a gate…Gate. He visualized a gate; it vanished. I can't imagine anymore now…
More and more. Losses.
It began with the slowing of the mind, the memories fade, then the mental universe drifts into nothing. No internal eye, just the inner words. Then, that too vanishes. Merrin repeats the words, no notion of the reason. But every 20 breaths, he must do so.
Keep awake. Do not fall asleep.
Why though?