The two men set off the next day. Etylred looked back at the small oasis behind them, where Carter and Jamie probably still dealt with the manager's scrutiny. They were just mortals, not even cultivators, their lives tough and their struggle meaningless, fast fleeting.
Kaleb turned to Etylred at that moment. "You came with Carter and Jamie, didn't you? Good lads, really. They told you, didn't they, how I've wronged them, that you should be wary of me." He laughed bitterly, then sighed. "They didn't deserve it, but I am no man to make amends. Not anymore."
It would take them about two weeks to reach Radum. They initially made good pace, as both men were only carrying light weights. Kaleb was in possession of a simple spatial artifact, something a man with dealings from the desert to Radum should not possess. But Etylred didn't investigate; his business clearly lay elsewhere. Getting introduced in Radum by Kaleb, ideally to a local tavern offering a few nights of stay. That would be all the time he needed to figure things out, how to proceed, and to accomplish this most burdensome of tasks he was given.
The desert, however, would not be kind to him.
The two men barely spoke a word to each other. Kaleb made no secret of his rather advanced cultivation of foundation establishment. Thus, Etylred feigned apprehension. This Kaleb was not the ideal travel companion Etylred had wished for, and perhaps his choice would become a grave mistake. Moreover, he could feel it watching.
The ban on flight and the vitality-draining nature of the desert made it difficult for mortal cultivators to display significant parts of their prowess. Kaleb, however, seemed to test that limit regularly, perhaps due to recklessness or simple ignorance. He casually used concepts to light fires and for other small conveniences.
And so its attention was drawn to him, or perhaps even to them both.
Etylred felt pressured, his thoughts and will numb, not necessarily because of outer influences, but because his thoughts constantly roamed the day they would arrive in Radum and what he would have to do then.
In fact, he had not even decided on a way of action as of yet. Any idea that came to mind seemed more crime than solution. He was like the old camels that Carter and Jamie owned, a beast of burden at the end of its line.
On the ninth day, when the hard, dry earth again turned into loose dunes of yellow sand, the two men made only slow progress. By afternoon, as the last rays of sunlight gave that characteristic golden hue to the sand that signals the coming cold of the night, the tame wind turned stronger, and a small sandstorm of gold obscured the two men's vision.
"We should take cover, this storm is strange—how it howls unsettles me," Kaleb said.
And indeed, even Etylred, with his will and vitality hidden and withdrawn, could feel it. It was no ordinary storm; the wind lacked direction, circling around the duo as if to ensnare them on the spot.
Kaleb crouched by a dune, securing the stakes of a small leather shelter. But before he could finish, the wind abruptly died. The sand, which had lashed at their faces moments before, now settled eerily. Fifty paces around them, a ring of stillness emerged. Beyond it, the storm remained, a wall of golden sand.
Etylred knew what was coming.
The sound of flowing sand marked its arrival. Gold, not sand this time, slowly emerged from the wall in front of them. A large draconic skull of only golden scales; behind them was nothing but empty space. The flowing continued as the dragon entered the sandy prison fully. Almost its entire body was covered in those golden scales; gaps in its armor showed only emptiness, no flesh, no being.
The empty dragon, Value itself.
Pressure descended as the sand settled and the long, incomplete form of the dragon took its stance only a few paces away from the two men. Kaleb, his head tilted upwards almost unnaturally so, only stared at the being of gold in awe.
Then its head tilted, focusing on Etylred. He knew that he was found out as soon as it appeared, but now its vacuous gaze cast something else than indifference at him. The sand began to move again, began to vibrate, as Value's reptile-like growl turned to slow, inhuman, perverse laughter.
"Ah, Etylred of the Order, the Silence fallen from grace. Did you think you could hide?"
Its voice, like metal, ended only in that perverse, growling chuckle.
"Lord Value, I am here on behalf of the order itself. We have a treaty, why come to spoil my journey? See, my companion here cannot withstand your magnificent presence."
Etylred strained, as he himself was resisting the being's pressure. It was more raw than the consul's, but similarly insidious.
Again, the desert shook as Value answered.
"No, no, your friend is fine. I restrained myself towards him, for your sake. And so he can be witness." Slow and deliberate.
"You dare infringe on the order's business, Value?" Etylred hissed. Only this accursed order now gave him that off-tasting bravado to stand against the dragon.
"Oh, but Etylred, you must know that you are abandoned, a sacrificial lamb. The order will surely grant me my little interference here. And is it not inconsequential to your task whether you remain hidden or not? Are you not… simply delaying the inevitable?"
The dragon coiled around the duo, its enormous shell now surrounding them.
Etylred remained silent, for he knew Value was right. He was delaying; how could he not? How could he rush towards that dreadful duty of annihilating all of Radum? His intentions back then had been nothing but noble, his values true and righteous. The same concepts that were plastered all over the gloating dragon's scales had led him to his misery, made him the beast of burden he is now.
"Poor, poor Etylred. Your righteousness, your duty, your loyalty, and your pride have led you here before me." Four golden scales detached from the dragon and floated in front of Etylred, showing his own reflection on them. Value's rank seven true concepts willed on them: righteousness, duty, loyalty, and pride.
"My gift to you, dear Etylred, precious—"
They floated into Etylred's open hands, and then all but duty turned to sand. Metallic laughter rumbled through Etylred's body.
"—Of all values created, glittering on my scales, these were yours. Thou shalt is the origin of your will, and you are truly withering away."
Ah, immortal extinction. My fate is sealed, my realm will fall.
Realization came to Etylred. He was not shocked, upset, nor angry. He felt nothing.
Then the sands settled again, and the dragon called Value went away. The two men were left alone, overlooking the vast desert around them.
"YOU! You are the Silence!" screamed Kaleb in anger. "Why?! Just why?! My sons, my wife…"
Etylred remained silent for a while. Tears flowed from Kaleb's eyes.
"I spared them then."
"I spit on your mercy. What fate have you left them with? None, none at all. Death would have been mercy, is mercy to them."
Etylred exhaled a deep breath.
"I shall do the deed."
"No, you can't! I will not allow you to murder them all." Kaleb opposed Etylred directly, struggling with himself but ultimately resolute.
The man is trapped, similarly as I am. His love for his family tears him apart, wanting to set them free but unable to let them go.
Etylred simply watched the man drawing his scimitar. Vitality surged in vain as he charged at Etylred. Suicide.
But he did not grant him that last solace, yet. Let him and his family meet again; perhaps he chooses differently then.
Even weakened as Etylred was now, he still had some shreds of will left. A mortal could not resist him at all. And so, with a flash of dark gray, Kaleb fell, losing his weapon. He cursed loudly as he tumbled down the dune.
Etylred followed him and stared blankly into the man's hate-filled grimace.
"Don't throw your life away just yet."
Again enraged, Kaleb struggled to stand up and face his nemesis again.
"You will kill them all! What's left for me to live for then? My meager cultivation and using it to rot away in this godforsaken desert? Now with the knowledge of this… this thing watching all and everything here?" He shouted, begged in sheer desperation.
"Do you not wish to see them again, your family?"
Hesitation flashed across Kaleb's face. Then, in a tone of self-mockery, he lamented.
"Seeing them for what? To see how my talented sons turned into ambitionless, spineless versions of themselves? How even my wife and former friends only speak but never think of me? How my wife shields my own children from my words and presence?"
"Perhaps there is still a way to give back what I have taken from them. Perhaps there is still hope, so hold out for a while longer." He lied.
His tears had dried, and only sand remained where they had streaked before.
"So be it then. I will accompany you to Radum. Do not be mistaken, my hate still overcomes me, and know this: even immortals can die in their sleep."
True sleep, I wonder when I last tasted it.
The desert remained strangely quiet as the men again set off. Days passed with barely a word spoken between the two.
Occasionally, he would drunkenly lash out at Etylred, only to settle back into a depressed silence.
One day, when the two were only a few days away from Radum, the quiet desert turned violent again. A storm, this time natural, rose from the west. It brought the desert's vitality-draining nature with it, and so Kaleb struggled to operate his spatial artifact, struggled to set up shelter from the encroaching sandstorm. So Etylred chose to assist him. A simple shelter of thick glass rose from the desert's sand as Etylred commanded mortal concepts of fire and earth he had learned long ago.
"Can you really help them?" Kaleb finally asked the question that weighed so heavily on himself.
Etylred contemplated. Perhaps this charade of hope was nothing but continued torture for the man; perhaps he should tell him the truth, that he himself held no such hopes. He almost laughed at that thought. The truth? That hope was a tool as effective as a sharp blade? Or perhaps continue the lie, to maybe grant the man some semblance of dignity and a final conclusion to the horrors he had been subjected to.
"I don't know," he finally said, and in that moment it seemed Kaleb knew Etylred's intentions and his lie. He only stared through the glass into the obscured desert. Perhaps he has accepted his fate now, not in peace, but because he is subjugated by his circumstances and… me.
"So you don't know." Kaleb's bloodshot eyes still gazed at the storm outside, his voice monotone, void of hope and anger. "That's the same as a no then, is it not?"
Etylred had no words to offer the man. And in the silence that settled again seemed to lie something more sinister than the storm raging beyond the glass: resignation. He had been right.
The storm still raged on when the sun began to set, and Kaleb managed to take out blankets and his trusted flask of booze.
He began drinking, stopping multiple times as if to say something, only to remain still. Then he did something unexpected. With a sigh, he offered Etylred the flask he had previously gripped so tightly as if to crush it.
"Here."
Momentarily stunned, Etylred accepted, taking large gulps of the strong liquor inside. It was harsh, burned like fire, and sparked a faint sense of uncertainty that, in the moment, felt liberating.
When their journey resumed the next day, the two had grown closer ever so slightly, not naturally so, but forced by circumstance.
And then, one stormy day at dusk, they crossed a dune's crest. Flashes of lightning revealed the imposing mountain range before them—and Radum.
Heavy fog obscured the city; both men were again gripped by dread of what was to come. Confrontation, fear of recognition.
Etylred felt something else too, something cold and boundless seeping out from the city still far ahead. It was as if the beyond itself was nestled in between the walls and streets of old Radum.
The two men made rest one last time before their inevitable arrival. Their glassy shelter seemed entirely opaque in that moment, and the booze that burned in their stomachs did nothing to ease the cold between them.
"I am afraid, Etylred," Kaleb said, his voice barely audible above the constant rumbling of thunder. "The days to come will be my last, will they not?"
Swirling the booze in his flask, Etylred contemplated. Truths and lies mixed in the swirling liquid, but separate they did not.
"Perhaps our last days already lie far behind us," he finally answered, unsure whether it was wisdom or defeat that spoke from within him.
"Dead man walking, aye?" Kaleb said, not a hint of humor in his voice.
The next day arrived ruthlessly, without delay. The pale sun cast ragged shadows of the mountain range onto the fissured earth, which had swallowed the flowing sands behind them.
Kaleb and Etylred walked the final stretch towards their goal. Even the sparse, dry vegetation seemed to cling desperately to the earth, as if not to be drawn too close to the city gates before them.
The mountain's shadows now enveloped Kaleb and Etylred. The pitiful warmth the morning sun had spent vanished, and a cold, faint fog flowed out from the gap where Radum lay. Like an estranged friend, whose attitude was unknowable, it greeted them.
While Etylred walked right next to Kaleb, he felt entirely alone when he accepted Radum's sinister invitation and entered through the grand gate.