Ti passed in an awkward drag. There she was, watching, eyes locked. Enavro and the silence. Repose proved the impossible thing. What was she thinking? That was the impossible question. To know…to graft any ideation of the internality of this creature—woman… Ahhhh! Just tell why? Just tell what you are thinking?
His tongue clicked through the air, eyes widening. That was him. Hard eyes stared down, watching. Then he noticed…She bore the sa thoughts. Who was he? What is he?
Ah, the common mistake—rrin recalled a Shaman’s words. Humans see ourselves as the centerpiece of the universe; thus, all things should by right define themselves to us. All things are strange, while we are not. This is the height of arrogance.
He sighed, said, “I am Human.”
“Obviously,” she remarked. “The question is why my mind would carve a human as the next source of madness. Then again, perhaps the madness has upon itself developed lunacy.”
“I am real!” The words ca almost like an assurance to himself… Ah, the undermines had begun their work. He replied, “You know what I am. You know I'm a caster. You know that I’m weak.”
“Observables.”
“But I know nothing about you.” He knew he delved now into that common human arrogance; all things must be understood by .
But what did it matter?
She side-glanced, taking in the wall dotted with blue shards of froststone. He could guess their origin, but chose not to. The pain would drown him. Better he bathed in ignorant bliss.
She said, “I suppose I am an Aelmiren, a different version perhaps.”
Aelmiren! The stele’s words flashed through awareness, releasing a physical gasp. “You…” No words.
“You asked, and I replied.” She looked to him. “It seems you know about us. So the human rebellions must have been ruined.”
No recognition for the spoken words. “I don’t know anything about you, or your kind.” Words he never thought would leave his lips. Your “kind,” How small were the Ashmountains? “What I know is from the stele?”
“You speak the language?”
“Little of the old tongue.”
“I suppose it is old.” She reflected on an unknown. “The Orvalen did strive to preserve their history. Their loremasters saw to that.” Instinctively, perhaps, her fingers trailed the earth, drawing. “That is what I am, Aelmiren. Sole born of the second generation.”
Again, that word, Orvalen. rrin caught little of the second words…though caster ntation had processed it into the backwater of the conscious mind. When needed for procession, it would pool back into the chaos from which logic was spilled—brief collections of data for the formation of thought.
Like magic, gaining answers from nothing.
Omniscient…That seed to define the foreseeable peakness of a caster. A being both omniscient and omnipotent.
Ah, I’m inattentive…Awareness returned to the imdiate reality; Enavro, silent, sketching on the dried soil. She said then, “You're back.”
“I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Yes, you did.” A sureness brimd in her voice. “It's what casters are. In the end, outside the power to shape reality, you are creatures of thought—logic from chaos. Chaos causes discord. Discord is the enemy of the caster.”
“And you know a lot for a non-contained,” rrin said, feeling the inklings of force renewal. His mind working faster. “And I can’t forget you gave force…How?”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“I did say, creatures contained enough with force cannot leave this place.” She added, “I have enough to move it.”
“But you can’t cast?” Her words provided a fragility. Enough force opened the mind to the unseen world. That was the way of it. Why then did she claim non-casterhood but enough force to be one? “Your words don’t make sense.” He once thought the stone creatures, casters.
“No.” Flat-toned. “You simply cannot find the logic in the chaos. Maybe it's a matter of the lack of information. I believed the whiteTower would have provided this knowledge to all humans. Wasn’t freedom the whole reason for your rebellion?”
“whiteTower?”
“One of your clans, I think…The mories are blurry. Aren’t necessarily mine.”
The whiteTower is one of the 8 great clans? Related to knowledge. What is it? So clan that keeps information. The Ashn have the Shamans, do the Lowlanders have the whiteTower?
“So you can give force, but cannot use it.” A bootless repetition, but for conversation. She thrived in the silence; if allowed, quietude would lord this cave. “Does that make you unique or sothing? Is that why you don’t have three eyes?”
“It does. Three eyes are overrated,” she said, fingers adding rifts on the image. “But I don’t think any would envy the consciousness part of it all. Imagine making water aware of its existence. What horrible life do you think it would be condemned to?”
“Not all things are ant to be aware,” an offshoot dogma of the church. “The Almighty made things to be as they were. Changing or interference is…an anomaly.”
“Says the caster.” That was sneered. “Aren’t you an anomaly on legs?”
True…the thing about religion and its often illuminating glare. “And you are not?”
“I am.” The drawn image took a familiar shape—a winged titan. Small on earth, but emanated with that air of true enormity. This was sothing big. “Stone titan?”
“You t it?” Her eyes t his. “There’s only one, no need to fear.”
He did tremble—however, her words… “It's dead.” Tone, oddly apologetic.
This froze the air. “Hmm?”
“It died, a day ago, I think.”
“You killed it?”
“Auwale did.”
She froze.
Oh, the fear he saw in her. Eyes quivering like shaken stone, fingers as though flared in fire. If she were human, he knew, she would scream, sweat. This echoed a fear of the Shaedoran, Auwale. The great rider. The one who hunts.
“Sorry.” Left hand wrestled down the quaking one; even then, the shock spread through her legs, shuddering. “It is not my fear.”
“Whose?”
“My creator.”
“Your mother.”
“My mother,” she repeated. “This I know will enrage her—the death of him. Auwale has left her alone for thousands of years, and now he interferes. She will fear he cos for her.”
“Is she going to fight him?”
“She can’t,” Enavro said. “What would the whiteMother do against a Shaedoran?” She leaned back to her drawings, erasing the sketched one. “But what a madness you are, to produce such thoughts to be real. Is it fantasy or realness?”
Again, rrin assured. “I am real.”
“Remains to be seen,” she said. “I hope for it, though…” Standing, she moved to him, towering, a true statue carved into the likeness of a man, wrapped in crimson, dark rags. That beckoned certain questions? How human was she? Almost, yes. Almost. But was she truly as unique as she claims?
He sensed a lustmongering within.
“What are you doing?” rrin asked, a tad apprehensive.
Her hands cupped both cheeks, hard, warm like earth. “You plan to do sothing stupid, I can tell, and I want to see it.”
“Aren’t you afraid I might take you to your mother?”
“You are my madness. I doubt you can truly harm .”
And force surged through him, restoring ntation to its trueness. There was still the pain of the flesh, burning, the constant spilling of soulForce, bringing about an internal weakness beyond the mind. A knowing of an ever-approaching death. But this was good—the force—a small barrier against the pain.
Thus, he accepted its churning, like a storm brimming again with violent downpour. Elevating. Again, he stood on that peak, lower than before, but still there. That was good.
eting her stone eyes, he said, “Thank you.” How genuine those words felt to him. How hopeful he was that she knew his truth. The sharing seed to connect them; two minds joined for a mont, understanding.
He felt her madness—the uncertainty of reality.
How can I help her?
Symbols act to exude so influence in the reality of the place they have been casted trendously. This phenonon is seen greatly in the genetics of the great clans; despite all not being related, they share similar symbolic saness. Like the paleness of skin, silver of hair, or fairness of flesh—Collected anings of symbols are transcribed by the hivemind.
rrin watched from the deadly slope; below was the hungering sea of shadows, swimming, moving. Like a tide of rcurial liquid. Once provided by the shamans. There it was, darker than the very blackness, deeper, vaster.
My weapon, he thought, deferring the surging of the internal force—the grayness was yet needed. For now, his head turned to the silent attendant; Enavro, the unique Aelmiren, or so she claims. Maybe she was indeed…He wouldn’t know.
Picking a stone, tossed into the darkness, observing then the phenonon as it occurred. Sinking into the darkness like a vile puddle, vanishing. “Noctivore.” He repeated, as though an attempt at personal recollection.
Enavro said nothing for it.
So I’m alone here…He turned to the umbrage, ntation spinning into chaos—the caster's ans of thought. This was to beco sothing, he knew it. A new weapon, perhaps. His finger trailed the tal texture of the knife. This was good…he needed better.
Reviews
All reviews (0)