It shook. The world trembled, then calmness. A sweet outco that breathed a certain clear knowledge. A new ruler had erged. The fallen released a sound, which rrin, for no clear reason, saw as a cry. Indeed, it had lost everything. Good. That filled him with much-needed glee. He moved past the creature and saw it as the worthless thing it was.
"You don't matter, " he said.."Only they do." rrin moved towards the castle, passing the garden of sleeping n and won. His sun witnesses. And so unknowns. The mine slaves. rrin stared at them, tears pooling. Knowledge ca. Painful sureness.
Many of them were already dead. Killed by the heat or by n. Hence, even if they were to be released from the dream, only death awaited them. Their essence fading away. Nothing changed. People still died to him.
No, it's different now. He moved to what he considered the center. Rounded by the dormant n. There, he shifted his attention to a body. An old man, face wrinkled. Realization. This was the man who had desired for himself paradise.
I promised that to him….rrin thought and looked to the rolling sky—to the dark clouds of swirling blackness. "I give you this gift."
The old face opened. Many eyes were unclosed. Aware. Within this world, the sleepers awoke to a brilliant sight. The heavens. The Sky was enaled. Colors of radiant shades scattered through the welkin. Blue with red. Orange within purple. Clouds of swirling gold.
A painted heaven.
The old man wailed with a smile. "Paradise!" he said, hands raised. "I see paradise." A white orb far above, raying down on him. Warm. Bright. Radiant. The sun! He knew these things. He turned and saw the sunBringer rotted. A figure clad in sleek black robes, his eyes burning with a fiery whiteness. And around him, behind his head, was a corona of brilliant white. God in man.
"I made you a promise." He said, voice like the sweetest wine. "I have painted the skies for you. I have given you paradise."
The man trembled in the manner seen by the eyes. He knelt—an action that caught the attention of the others. They saw as he did, and did the sa. "sunBringer!" Even the non-witnesses confessed the sa.
They bowed, a garden of figures lowered before one of strange hues. rrin, clad in the envisioned dark robe. Sleek. A schema obtained from the Ardent visions of clan valor. He looked like them—strange. And recently, he had been seen as a mber of a clan. A figure prophesied by the church. He wondered briefly at the relevance of that.
A yelp ca…A wave of expressions that flowed through the n. They looked towards a point, startled. rrin traced that and saw the fallen pinned by the Ardents. The people scread at that. Understandably. To them, these were monsters.
rrin spoke in louder tones. "All things belong to god, and all things belong to ."
They turned to him. Mad reverence burned in those eyes.
"This is the creature that had brought the plague to you," he said, "And now I tell you as I said before, its end shall co by my hands. And those that had accepted are freed." Those words were chosen carefully from Caster introspection. They were a preservation thing. So here would die, he knew. When the effects of the dream faded in fullness, the already dead would beco nothing. Nothing changed that. So for the continual faith of the living, he needed this. Now, sohow, so would grow the awareness that peril awaited them.
"SUNBRINGER!" They roared—the tone a pleading one. rrin chilled his heart and looked to the fallen and said, "This is the darkness that has plagued you all. Now I take it away from you."
He snapped, and the giant bird, prompted by the internal sanction, ca down on the fallen. A single munch, and the once formidable thing faded into the internality of the bird. rrin startled at this but showed no such reaction. The issued command was to kill it, but the bird chose to devour it.
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Was eating a fallen a good thing? He wondered
A voice ca.
"You took the darkness and bound it, " the old man. "And that makes you a saint. Praise you. Praise you. Praise the sunBringer!"
The words chid in unison. Echoing. A frenetic energy that shaped itself into him. rrin lowered his eyes and knew his transformation complete. veilCounsel, El'shadie, slave, sunBringer, miner….Killer…All in one.
He offered a smile and said, "I now free you from this!"
"We accept!" They answered as one.
Recorded from the diary of a sun witness…An old man. Found in an unsupervised travel of the mindScape. Discovered by unknown. But analyzed and stored by the hive mind.
rrin opened his eyes. The prima sight ca and he observed the dark walls of the pits. Within. He knew that. He had been thrown in. How long has he been here? He wondered, and winced at the earth's heat.
His clothes, half burned, left charred marks on blackened skin. More pain within pain. This mattered little, as he looked to his fingers, spotting the dark drawn ring around it. The bond. The mark between him and that world. The dream castle, as he had chosen to call it.
It was his. And the fallen. That creature had paid the adequate price with its life. rrin recalled the large bird as it grabbed the pitiful creature and swallowed it whole. Who knew it could do that? Eating the fallen seed a sin, yet the bird had done it. An attribute, perhaps.
His witnesses had been saved. Many but not all. In the end, he saw their bodies break into shards of brilliant light. They smiled, thinking themselves awakened from the dream. A lie. One that he had told them. A thing that ca easier than anticipated.
Lying was easy now…Slowly, he knew, the ash was leaving him.
He saddened at this, but chose a suitable distraction. Moeash. The man-child was not found within the castle, nor was Ron. Neither were affected by the plague. A strangeness, but when fitted into the many speculations and possibilities, the event of their safety ca sound. Many lived in the mines, not all fell to the plague.
He scanned and saw the man-child, asleep, bloodied, but not in danger. rrin moved to him and noted the wrappings of cloth around wounds. A thing of the cleanseWitch. So the caster listened? That was a surprise.
Halo!
rrin wrote the praise in the sand and observed the pits and knew them as the issued punishnt. Laws upon laws. Oaths upon oaths, rrin had broken them all. Moreover, he had killed an Excubitor. Now that one, who knew the outco of that incident? He danced through several ponderings—quick. Swifter than before.
His mind was a thing of accelerated state. Questions bounced around, pooling in several stews of pattern. In this super pattern, he imposed logic, found answers, and devised plans. Was this how all casters felt? At least those of the mind.
He began the needed wandering. The mind desired that. And now, rrin had no will to offer up the resistance. The land, as expected, was shattered ground. Highstones of various extents speckled the earth. Small pits, shadowed by the no light, were regular. A trait he soon grew annoyed by. But yet, the wandering beckoned.
Fresh in his mind was the feeling imposed by the words. The Honorific words. Power. A bizarre identity. The familiarity also presented itself. Ashn by virtue of birth, were attuned to the dark, but this, the affection was different. A deeper knowing. The shadows felt like kin, the dark was sweeter than the light. More splendid. Even now, the perched lamps annoyed him. They offered little light, yes, but that in itself triggered a response.
What was happening? Is this the veilCounsel. The effect of the bond with the symbols…rrin looked up, listening to the distant chims, bangs, and whispers of the above. In it, he knew cohorts gathered there. None watched, a thing perhaps exacted by the Caster.
The dread mory flashed. The mont the caster ford a sword of darkness. What terrible instant. rrin sighed and dumped the recursion. How easy that was. The things of the mind. He recognized other differences within his being—the new powers.
Force beca a tunnel thing—one he could pour the required amount and prevent wastage. This offered the freedom from half mind after casting. The vision, too, experienced a similar tamorphosis. He could, by nature of force infusent, increase what he saw, or what he chose not to. In this manner, symbols beyond a certain force amount would be unseen.
Of course, this comprehension ca as a deep awareness from the strange identity born from the words. That identity brought knowledge.
He had embraced the unembraced… whatever did that an?
He stopped—wall reached. How long had he been walking? He wondered. But dismissed the sa.
He turned, staring out into the vast pit. Many ruined tools lay there. Chains. axes. What are we doing here? The thought recalled, and now he heaved a calming breath, allowing his mind to delve into the gathered pool of notions and potentialities. From them, he drew logic.
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