Merrin moved through the forest of elastic trees, tall giant barks stretching high into the swirling mess of overhead colors—a parodic hue. The trees bore that wide canopy known to most trees in Eastos, fanning outward in a perfect arc. A dark ceiling. Alone, he walked these plains, mountains looming far behind the segments of dark pillars. On the floor, the trees casted a shadow of moving spheres—a thing that served dual purposes in the real world: against the rain and the light.
The shamans once taught this… Since the darkening, one could consider the flora of Eastos a now alien place in comparison to its prior form. A person born between the first and second ages would consider it bizarre, to the point of claiming it a different world. Maybe it was… Subtly, perhaps, but the bird did hint at such things.
"It doesn't matter to me, anyway." He stopped before a patch of land—a ring surrounded by brown, red earth, itself being nothing but a single dark bead above gray earth. Here and there, this was. Places his mind had not delved accurately in their creation. This was the point of the stroll: to refine paradise. Or at least, the future of it.
A mere thought and the bead shimmered with a pallid shade, shattering and blending into a similar tone of brown, red earth. Not a trace of the initial dissimilarity. A breath resounded solemnly through the halls of trees, granting little to the desolate air of it all. How plentiful it all seemed, yet empty.
This all, he knew, was nothing but visual representations of something. A figuration of what could be. Fingers trailed the hard texture of the trees—the right stimuli came from them. Even then, he knew the fragility of their existence. False things created from a singular thought, no substance within. The bird had told of such things: To create truly, he must study the symbols, replicate them thus within the grayworld.
Without that, the internal creations were akin to drawings on a board—a long shot from external realness. And that was the thing he aimed to recreate. His paradise must not just be one of fleeting sensations, but absolute authenticity. When they came, and they will, peace would await them. In their dreams, this would become a sanctuary. The purpose he has chosen.
Merrin reached an edge, a spread of dark beads laid out on both sides. Nothing had been instilled into them.
A step, and the bead crunched beneath him, breaking into whiffs of white light. Melding. The ground was something else. An expansion of browning colors, like a sea of hues moving out with each taken stride. Trees rose behind him, towers of darkness that seemed hungering for the multi-shade above them. More steps. More things. Mountains in the distance, hills, valleys—a world.
A fake one. Still a world.
He stopped then, asked, "Can the Adepts outside the undermines be connected?"
A voice came from above. "Why do you ask me things you can confirm for yourself?"
It took but a moment to validate the implied words of the bird. No trancing—just faint seams to the ones within the mines. No point in seeing what they saw. Merrin sought not to learn this place but to escape it.
"I suppose it's time to meet my savior."
The first awareness was the pain—the all-consuming ache of the totality. A wince escaped him, then a groan, a grit, a low wail. He trembled, fingers curling into themselves for an imagined safety. There was none, only the agony. Naturally, the mind presented the quick alternatives for the situation: Retreat into the grayworld and abandon the pain.
How seductive that was. The jaws screamed at the pressed pain, tightly into the maw of numbness. He screamed, jolting off the rock bed, knees slamming against the earth. A stone collided with his patella, sending a current through the bones. He rolled, half expecting the ground to be hot. None, just the eerie chill that bathed through the cave. Light fitted then into his vision, a screen of blue raying across the earth. Frostblue. He reared, realized the spacious cave, crude walls on both sides dotted full with shards of froststones. Chipped to create an enormous collection.
Every child in Eastos had heard of the 'stars' of old, once occupying the vast skies; this, he imagined, was the closer comparison. An allowed moment soon passed, legs trembling at the attempt at standing. A need for research plagued him. His savior, the woman, was absent.
Chances remained that the lady was one of his people, or a trapped caster. Like he was—so, he moved incrementally, hand resting on the cold walls, odd still to feel the chill in substitute for the heat.
Out, he spewed from the cave, noting a vast collection of mountains, hills—few topped by towering structures, buildings. Increasingly, ideation for the true nature of the undermine presented itself.
This was more of a city—a large one.
Stoneknife remained on his person, tied around his waist, a fortune given the possible outcomes. These undermines taught a hard lesson; without a weapon, one was prey. Panting, he navigated the terrain—a path had presented itself. Footprints. Small, solid, heavy. Memory reimposed the feeling gained during the initial interaction, when he was hefted by her. The woman seemed heavy, somewhat.
No alternative meant the singular pathway. This he followed.
An answer is just as valuable as the question—Code of the DeadEyes
Merrin watched from a corner—a stone wall of a once-standing structure. A building, perhaps, lowlanders were known to own such things. There, he observed the anomaly. A statue draped in a deep red scarf, trailing down from neck to waist. Familiar not for the style, but the color. Indeed, it was female, from the carved stone hair, made to imitate that of a slanted mane, to the shape of the midsection.
That was a woman.
Skin, pallid-hued, eyes, gray, morphed into something of intense sadness, longing—loneliness. Who made it? It stood before a hill—more a bump on the earth, watching out. Without the heightened vision, the possibility brought a chance of misidentification. One could easily claim it tangible. Flesh and blood. Caution still probed for greater clues.
Not like the stone titan, that was evident.
What was it then? The gnawing question. He jerked, instinct surging with the appearance of the newness. Hidden behind the wall, Merrin panted. The statue—it had moved.
What is that? Is it like the stone titan?
Ashman conditioning took hold, breath slowing, heart thudding. Again, the need for identification took hold—head lowered, he peered out. There, she stood, watching the endless darkness. Almost depthless in its tenebrosity.
Words echoed out. "Should I have saved him?" No response. "Maybe it was a mistake. He's battered. Might not even survive the night, but again, Casters are strong, I think. Maybe he will survive. Not that it matters—" Again, the feedback remained elusive.
Who is she talking to?
She stepped forward, gazing downward into the slope of the bump—the darkness within almost swarming. "I don't think I did anything wrong. Mother would have chosen to kill it, but she's not here, and I am not her."
I should leave here.
Merrin picked a stone, rolling it within his hands, eyes narrowed, and out it went, tossed to a side. Against a wall, it clashed, sending a thunderous echo through the quietude. She turned sharply—a mistake. Tumbling down into the slope, a loud scream filling the space.
Dread took Merrin. That was not meant to happen. The expected was a distraction for an escape, not this. Reason left him, legs trudging through the stones, bumps, and charred debris. Pain flared, legs hardening against motions. He fell, head slapping the earth bump, warmth spreading through the skull. Good, that marked the inner workings. He crawled, hand spewing out into the slope.
"Grab on!" Unsure even now of the dread that plagued him. No response, just a violent wailing of contralto chords. Filled with pain. "Mist it!" Merrin inched forward, head looking out into the gradient. A sea of darkness looked back at him. In the center was a woman, screaming, reaching out for salvation. There was none. Just the charge of tiding darkness.
What was that?
How was that possible?
This was a sea of utter blackness, impalpable to his unique eyes. That was the source of the great fear. He gasped. She screamed. And he knew horror was with her. Something unnerving fumed from the darkness; he felt it. Unnatural. The dark was not to exist without some source of light, yet here it was, blacker than the shadows, deeper than the darkness, and rippling like the oceans. It seemed a remaking of the black seas, at least the shamans held similar descriptions.
What was it?
Questions. Questions.
Her scream silenced them all, and instinct took hold again. How regularly this happened to him—the desertion of logic in exchange for whims and luck. But this was his self-nature—no power, he sensed, nothing even the casted ones could change that.
The world rippled into the known grayness—shapes blurring in the distance, veils of oily darkness faintly draped over the world. This, he realized, was a figuration of reality. A darkened world meant a world veiled by darkness. Thus. He examined the below—froze instantly at its absurdity.