Ivory clenched tightly. Control yourself.
"For an Aspirant, he was a visionary, with a single desire of someday convincing all the Clans, Vassals, and Great to follow some path that effectively birthed the God that was promised: the Kael'theuron. He was a truly devout man, a rather impressive character, don't you think?"
Ivory fumed within.
"And so, I killed him, tossing his body into the hub of the black seas, for the fallen to feast on. What was left was to find a way in. Fortunately, you had a master. The rest, well, I sense you have a deeper understanding of it."
"That was not the question asked." Nail took the reins. Perhaps she sensed the internality of the HighHeir to Valor.
Heid smiled. "I did not call your Fermen, although they did help out. And the whole mystery of invading Valor." His eyes rolled. "You should really patch up the holes in your Clan."
Ivory trembled. "You... The way you said you discovered. The one you used to show me out of the Looming?"
His head tilted. "We went out, and they..." He pointed up. "Got in, waiting. Lingering. Ah, patience is really a worthwhile virtue."
Ah…lords help me!
They couldn't.
Ivory surged, her blade burying itself smoothly into his heart. Abrupt. There was no phasing this time, just her, him, blood spilling quietly over her fingers. And a sharp rasp echoing in the air, Heid. Nobody had stopped her. Not even an attempt was made.
Oh, how predictable she was to them.
She stepped back, more of a tumble, her backside clashing into the solid earth, eyes locked on the head-lowered body of the highborn. Heid, eyes closed, blood seeping out from the corners of his lips. By the heavens, he was pale, sickly pale. And added with the fissured nature of his skin, that gave the impression of some illness contained by the BrightCrown.
A dead one.
A smile curled up on her face.
This is it, isn't it? She trembled. I can blame my frantic actions on some consequence of information learned prior. I could say I knew of the attack, thus ran as I did for that... Ivory cracked her fingers. Yes, yes, that would cleanse all blame from myself. Yes, Heid is dead; the rest will also be dead. There's no problem. Everything will work out fine
She stood, laid on a bed, a man above her, his arms curling through the depths of her body, softly. Oh, the passion.
Ivory reeled, fluid pouring out from the contents of her stomach. She coughed, food, saliva steaming off the earth as the puke fumed into nothing.
Don't think about it!
The memory faded.
She looked at him... at Kabal... Lying there, head bent...
Is he really dead? Was it really that easy?
Something within wrestled against that conclusion.
Why?
A voice rocked the plains, a deep surge of tones.
Nail jerked, that needle-like sword of hers flashing in the air. Above, floating solemnly was that suited man, eyes covered by those round crystal glasses of his. On his hand, slumped was a man, grasped by the throat, long dead.
A SeatGuard, judging by the flowing black cape.
Are they all dead?
Above...
"This is getting tedious." The suited man dropped the corpse, the body slapping hard into the solid earth. "Heid... all of you, the games end now..We need to go."
What?
Heid perked, a wide red-stained smile curling across his face. "You really thought, didn't you?" Dark lines streaked across his face, body, arms, and legs.
What is happening?
A voice came from above. She looked. There, floating next to that man was Heid. WHAT? Confusion. Her eyes drifted down, staring at this version of the sameness, cracking.
What is happening?
"Call it my final present to you." The Heid above said, chuckling. "Hope you enjoy it."
It exploded!
Pray strong, fast, and hard. Pray to your gods, to your symbols and sculptures of living stone. Pray now to them all. Pray against the rise of Delirium strong—Author unknown.
Geni spotted a thing at the edge of... well, whatever this was. In the end, one could never try to describe the fullness of the Cognitive Realm in any singular means. After all, its shape and form were dependent on the mind of the observer.
And Hers for some reason chose a plain of orange flora, dots of lights floating about, and a sky that seemed a mesh of chaotic hues. Although, observably, the above wasn't necessarily the sky, given the Cognitive Realm had no ups or downs.
It was all just one big whole.
A rather annoying thing to navigate through. For most. Not for a SpaceRunner, of course. Not for Geni. She was good at it, the best maybe in all of Eastos.
A smile curled on her face. "Now what exactly are you?" She knew not to think too much within this world. Notably, thoughts had a habit of manifesting within them. Oh, the chaos.
"Are you some cognitive spirit or something?" Her fingers trailed across the surface of the leather-bound book, black, sitting on a bed of orange foliage. Suspicious, but then again, given that her once blue wide-long-sleeved dress had miraculously turned purple. Suspicion is perhaps the norm of this world.
She giggled, feeling inward the existing connection that tethered her to reality. Without that, it was rather easy to get lost in here, and supposedly, being trapped in the cognitive world turned a living mind into a psychic spirit. Whatever those were.
Knowledge the church kept away from her 'sticky' fingers.
She sighed, taking out a book and a pen from her shoulder bag. All the tools for a lady existed in them. Literally, considering an entire separate space was somehow locked within.
"Seriously, the Church knows how to make really good stuff!" She mouthed. "Praise the Almigh—" She paused. "Oh, yes, we aren't supposed to say his name in the Cognitive Realm..." Her head tilted. "I wonder why?"
Her fingers rested on the book, waiting. "So you're real," Geni concluded after a minute. "Good, now, let's see which idiot decided to toss a book into the Cognitive Realm." She opened it.
The first line: "He took the darkness and bound it, and that had made him a saint... Praise the sunBringer"
"Huh?"
Remember this, for the El'shadie prophecies of the Common Era is perhaps the oddest of them all. None, and I repeat none had ever lived with such a number of incarnations—Author unknown.
Moeash rubbed his back against the dark, narrow corridor walls. Cold, as Night had a habit of flowing froststone through the walls. Not that it helped.
There was an annoying itch present in him, his back like tiny bugs nibbling in the depths of his flesh. Perhaps they were; after all, one could rarely guess the cleanliness of the mines. If it existed at all. Not that it mattered. Nothing did. Not now.
"I did the right thing," He whispered to himself, sauntering through the long, silent halls, scarce of human life. No longer was he in the midst of the Nightfell Mines, but here... in the bosom of a Great Clan itself. Where exactly eluded his perception. At least, he was safe here. Good. Seeing as many of the SunWitnesses had blamed him for the 'sin' against their god.
The small minds.
"Can't they see what I saved them from?" He clawed at his shoulders... That annoying itch. "They would. Someday. Just an observation of history reveals these things. False Gods are always the worst of humanity. That and their prophets."
He exhaled, drawing close to the end of the hallway. There, guarded by two women, was a square door. Observably, this Morgan had quite an opinion on the male gender. Why exactly? No one knew, at least, not him. In here, very few men existed close to her.
Perhaps it was a thing in relation to nature?
She was once a member of the VileStorm Clan, supposedly...
Moeash coughed, eyes lowered against any sign of disrespect. That was a thing that must never happen. Not ever. Not here.
I need to appease this woman. Without her, the Witnesses might get picked off for their misguided beliefs. I need to save them all!
Of course, they won't see it now…But they will. Someday.
The door parted, widening into the revelation of a square-shaped room, walls sleek and glossy, like polished crystal. Intriguing, a treat for the eyes. Except, then there was the giant bed centered there. On the edge, Morgan sat, dressed in a bluish-black robe, a rope tied around her waist.
On the bed, sprawled, covered by the blackened sheets, was another. A woman. Hair, blonde as was most members of the Honor Clan, which she was. Teeth gritted with eyes a shade of piercing blue hues.
Catelyn?
Morgan waved. "Do not go lusting now, boy."
Moeash shuddered. "Uhm, yes... yes." Eyes drifted down. "I just wanted to ask about what exactly you plan on doing with the rest of the SunWitnesses."
Morgan scowled, her blue hair cascading slovenly around her shoulders. "Don't call them that. It's distasteful."
"I... I. My apologies, BrightCrown."
Morgan regarded him. "I could always send them to become NightSailers!"
What?
He panicked. "Uh... No. They are not even Casters." Fingers fidgeting. "They would just be useless."
"Some are... most are." She said. "But others, like that beast, Ron was it... He seems to be an Infused, but different. Intriguing for a male. And then there's this one." She tapped Catelyn on the feet. She reeled. "I say some of them have some measure of potential."
"But not the NightSailers."
"I suppose not. In any way..."
His back hitched, a spread of irritation that required the highest surges of self-control.
Is something on my back? Some bug?
Ever since returning from the mines, the itching had persisted.
What was it?
"Are you listening?" Morgan said.
"Yes... Yes." He stammered.
"Then that's what you should do," Morgan added. "Keep them in line. Keep the men away from my sight, and they would live long and strong."
"THANK YOU, BRIGHTCROWN!" Moeash bowed.
Rushing into his room, Moeash slammed the door shut, lamps casting illumination from the bases of the walls. Just enough radiance for the searching. The irritation was unyielding, his back as though it were a forest of burning flames.
Way beyond the scope of mere annoyance. He jumped before the flat mirror, embedded deep into the walls. Some sense of style or whatnot... Rather stupid, really. He gritted, fingers digging into the shirt, ripping it from the top to the center.
What is happening?
He turned, reflection screening over the smooth surface of the mirror. What was this irritation? An infection?
He froze.
There, perking out from his back... were wings?
"AHHHHHHHH!"
He lurched, his knee banging onto the side of the bed, tumbling to the ground. Painful! He jerked back, trembling. What in the Almighty's name was that?
Wings? How?
"The man sees this and wonders if it exists as some curse?" A voice.
Moeash tottered. "Who is there?" The cloth could no longer hide the backside. Did they see?
The voice resounded... "The man is Jeseries, and he has seen the curse of your sin. Prior, death would have visited you for the betrayal, but it would seem, the man no longer has to act. Good." A pause. "But know, the man now watches over your vices, and know your death only a delayed thing"
What was that?
Hoziar sat alone, the sky above churning with that ever-growing storms of Eastos. Before him was a kindling, burning, mist rising off the earth as was the way of these lands. Here, he tweaked the strings of his oud, his head bobbing from side to side.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" A guardsman called out to him. The man dressed in a silver metal plate, carrying a long, sharp-tipped spear. He was of the Guardsmen of the House of Noctis. "Answer me!" He commanded.
"So loud." Hozier smiled, playing a single chord of the oud. "Yes, yes. That's good." He glanced at the man, standing beside the kindling, the orange-red fire flickering his shadows and visage into observation. "Sorry, I'm just a NightSailer playing a tune before the day's run begins."
"But it's time for Curfew!" The guardsman pounded his spear on the earth, a wet sound echoing as the land was almost always dampened. "You need to get back to the camps."
"Ah... I'm sorry." Hozier said, playing a chord. "How about I play one song before going back. Please?"
"What?"
"Think about the horrors within those oceans... the things we must cross in the run. Every day of survival is a thanks to the Almighty, and I simply desire to enjoy the calm breaths before the chaos."
The man chewed his tongue.
That seemed to have convinced him.
Hozier smiled, regarded the oud and played, "Oo... Oh, beware of the shadow man. Beware of the shadow acts. Beware of his darkened hands. Beware of his tricks of might. Oooo. Beware, beware, beware... Oooo, keep care, keep care, keep care... Oooo."
"The children are his lads...." The guardsmen added, sighed. "I don't think that's a good song to play before the start of a run. You already see horrors. There's no need to invite more."
Hozier laughed. "I never said it's an enjoyable desire. Life is made of many things. The pain, the loss, the fear, even the dread. All of it is a part of it. Everything is connected. And I think, it's time I join the fray, don't you think so too?"
"Hmm?"
"Ah, yes." He breathed, strung a string of the oud, and sang, "Beware my little folks, beware your children, oh. Beware the tools they hold, beware it splits water whole. Ooooo. The shadow man will come. And dear, when he comes, bow down strong and awe!"
Lightning cracked through the darkened sky, casting a bright whiteness over the blackened world of Eastos.
There, in a cave, Yeimen awoke, trembling, sweat trickling down his brow. More of a cage, really. In here, him, Davos, and a few men of the sunWitnesses…They waited. For their God, they lingered.
Quickly, he took a piece of wood and dipped it into the black sludge the mines called food. And with it... with the wood fastened on his fingers... he wrote.
"Yes, yes..." He muttered, "This is a good title for a book."
Collected from the scattered diaries, eye witnesses, and theories from the Fourth Age—Author, the chronicler.
End of Volume One: Wheel of Origins.