Who was that man in the memory?
The beast snarled angrily. Merrin heard bits of it. "Let me...Human. Monster. Let me.."
He looked down at the creature, tilted his head, and smiled.
He remembered.
"How do you like the judgment of the heavens?"
White descended into the room!
__________
Merrin staggered forward, knife clasped tightly in his hands. Oh, the pain. It was all he knew. All he remembered, slowly, yes, but he did. And right now, standing in the desolation of a shattered plain was he, skin charred black, smoke drifting off into the sky. Even the froststone blinked in its shining blues.
There was nothing.
For miles and miles. The great stone city was reduced to a crumbled, burnt expanse of land. Some patches shining with a dim crystalline hue. All of it, however, was screened in a caliginous shade.
He walked on, breath puffing out in tight wheezes, legs dragging across the warm lands. He was moving, a struggle, yes, but he-was-moving. The rage was gone, too. Whatever that lightning was, it had snapped the mind out from the edges of torpor. Now he knew.
Now he could escape.
But first.
Merrin blinked, a scar across his face, opening, blood dripping down, steaming over the blackened lands. The steam erupted; no desire ignited for the Ashman within. Nothing did. There was only the ever-present pain, reminiscent of the fall into the undermines. That and the various scars, self-inflicted or not.
Yet...despite all that, nothing could have prepared him for this moment.
This was agony.
Not even the tears were born from this experience, perhaps a symptom of the conscious syncope. Whatever it was, it walked alongside him, a passenger. The mind recalled bits of the lost memories, not enough, not nearly, but something. That moved him, fueled him with a need to return. To return to something.
Above here, he knew, someone awaited him. Who was that? Who were they?
Merrin heard a groan, behind a boulder, a whimper.
So that's where you are?
He staggered on, blade in hand, stone clicking off with each stumble against them. He rounded the boulder, found then, the sad thing of a creature. A shriverd monster. A bastard with a dark, reddened skin. No fur. Oh, that had long been burnt off. What remained was a pathetic remnant. Even the once mighty claws were like chipped, rusted knives.
The creature panted, blood seeping out from various holes in its form. And yet...it hated. Pope-eyed, teeth gritted. What a spiteful thing.
Merrin knelt, breath escaping his lungs in hard bursts, a warmth spreading in his heart. He reached for the creature's head, and it bared its teeth. A bootless attempt, as it was far too weak to do anything. Perhaps it was the familiarity with the thunder that spared him from death, but not the beast...Ah, it had learned the wrath of the heavens.
The blade was placed, tip-first, on the creature's throat, not pierced, just there...Waiting.
Let it imagine a better world. A world where it was the winner. Where it stood proudly, holding the head of its enemy. But let it know such a world is a mere fantasy of a dying mind. No such world exists...only now. Only here.
"You can...cannot kill me!" The beast whispered, wheezing.
"Yes, I can," Merrin said.
"NO!" The bastard attempted resistance, couldn't as his hands slapped back onto the earth. Weak. Yet it was malignant. "I have lived long since the third age, since the sunBringer stepped out from valeHall in search of meanings. Since the birthing of Aradagon, the ironSide, I have persisted. I cannot die! Even Mordrask couldn't end me."
Merrin found no relevance to the words...more futile history. "It cannot save you!"
The beast grew dark, shadows creeping up from the earth, wrapping it in that dense darkness. So...slow!
Merrin plunged the dagger in...how soft it was, softer than he had ever felt the beast. Ah, even its blood was warm, fountaining across his face, painting him. The shadows retreated, drowning into the depths of the earth...Gone, and in their wake, the beast was no more.
Dead.
Yoid should have warned you of me!
And Merrin stood up, tottering away from the monster...the dead beast.
Now I go home..
Above, he looked up, was a hole. A vast orifice in the stone above. An upside-down crater...except this one was open. The lightning had likely shattered a fissure into the undermines.
My way home!
He panted, heaved a breath, and floated up. Slowly, of course. There was very little force to marshal the winds to complete obedience, and the soul, for some reason, acted in defiance to certain symbols. Perhaps each force had a collection of castable symbols.
He didn't know...and now, hovering high above the undermines, above the vast city of Kharnel, he was free...Free from this place. And that was enough...The winds whispered in his ears, warnings...words about what waited there, most could not be understood as the mind worked slower than desired.
Force still dripped within.
But closer...ah, yes, nearer he could see the dim lights from the high distance. So close. He surged whatever was left of the returning force, the aeriel weaves bending to the whims of the caster. Slow, but steady. He passed through the ring of the crater, saw then the round hole drilled by the thunder...All charred, steaming.
What power that was...But did it matter?
No.
Only they did.
He could hear them...countless voices flowing into his awareness..men, women, old and young, voice sweet and sour. All of it was like the softest tones within his ears. Even the songs of the Ashmen could not compare.
Oh, how he had missed it!
And he saw then the rim of a pit. Just a little more. Just a little more.
His force drained!
NO!
Merrin gritted, hand reaching for a stray chain hanging down from the fringe of the pit. He clasped around it, heard the straining of the rusted metal. No! Panic struck within him, and with a change of fervor, he climbed up, pain flashing into his mind as the tarnished iron bit into his palm.
It didn't matter, he told himself. The pain did not matter.
He found the verge, the strangely sweeter stone that emptied into the darker pit. Tears washed down his face. The chain snapped, and Merrin jumped, rolling over the solid earth...warm.
He trembled.
I'm back?
There was fear to look up. What would he find?
What if? What if there was nothing? What if this were a dream? A spew of a dying mind as the bastard tore his body asunder. Please no. Oh, by the Almighty, no.
Be brave.
He heaved, more of a rasp, and looked up...
There was warmth.
Oh
Running towards him was a cohort of men and women, most scarred and burned as the undermines had done to them. Like it had done to him. But they lived. Oh, praise origin! Merrin smiled, reached for them.
Come. Come. Embrace me!
They surrounded him.
What?
They had swarmed into his surroundings, forming with their bodies a crowd of dense forms. Strangely, he felt invisible in them. Perhaps it was the scarred and charred similarity between them, but oddly, they were akin to a sameness.
What is this?
Merrin turned to one, a shorter fellow, perhaps a near man. He said, "What is th--"
The boy whispered, smiling, but...there was fear. "Please be silent, sunBringer." He said, "This is the only way we know to save you."
"What?"
"They won't know who you are if we all look like you?"
What is he talking about?
Again came that chill of fear...panic.
Please no!
And he saw then, from the gaps in the teeming bodies, a woman, tall, hair a shade of storming blue. Her eyes, now those were the trapped beams of thunder. She stood, dressed in a silver-plated armor, a blue cape flowing back in a phantom wind.
He knew at that moment...she was a caster.
Beside him stood the mine's caster, that pale-skinned one...How timid he seemed in comparison to her. Who was she?
He felt he knew the answer.
On her left...Merrin recognized two: A muscular red-haired man, chained down with massive metals...Ron? And beside him, free, eyes wide, was the man-child. Moeash.
"Annoying." Said the woman, her hand brandishing a strange bow...silver with inlays of bright blue. He felt a charge from watching it...Why? The woman added. "Show me which one of them is him, or else I'll cut through all of them. Trust me, I did not blow a hole into these mines to have my time wasted by pathetic men."
She caused the heaven's judgment? More fear.
Moeash admitted a brief resistance, then nodded and stepped forward. What was he doing?
More fear.
Slowly, he approached the crowds of men..The same crowd that surrounded and shrouded Merrin from this woman. What was Moeash to do?
A man from the horde's front mouthed insults. "You are a liar. Don't you dare come any closer. If you enter, you will die."
"And all of you, including that liar, will be killed..." Moeash said simply. "Don't you have other sunWitnesses to protect, others that need to live some measure of peace within this dangerous world?" And he stepped into the mass, fearless...He was greeted harshly.. Fists pounding into his face as he ventured deeper. Punches, spits, insults...all were hurled towards the man-child.
Yet...he persisted.
It seemed none of them held any true weapons...Not that they should. Or should they?
Merrin was bewildered...and slowly, yet surely, Moeash was closing in, his eyes drifting from face to face. He was searching for him.
Should I hide?