Navigating the fold felt like walking and more like stylishly tumbling. Hues carried aromas. Ideas possessed qualities. Time oozed slowly like molasses. Jumped wildly in sudden spurts. Sierra maintained their bearings with a soldier's concentration on the very next move. Morgan quietly recited formulas relying on reason, as his tether.
Cassiathon merely maintained the concentration the tone echoing inside him a chill constant rhythm, amid the disorder.
They stepped not into a structure. Into an idea made tangible.
The Silent Monastery resided within a sphere of causality. It was crafted from solidified sound. Mineralized light. Arches opened into chambers that were recollections of locations. Staircases wound into drawings of tomorrows. At the heart of a plaza of halted melodies stood one tree with leaves trembling like silver tears.
And at the base of the tree sat the Weaver.
She appeared ancient her shape as though observed through countless veils of gossamer. Strands of gold, silver, shadow and blood streamed from her fingertips spiraling outward into the monastery and dissolving into the creases of unreality.. The strands were twisted, knotted, broken and rejoined in terrifying desperate patterns. She was murmuring, her voice a symphony of overlapping whispers.
"...the ray of the sun-king fractures no it curves back a contradiction must link it to the tides drag… the demon queens desire is a scarlet thorn it penetrates the human fabric must dull it no deflect it… the offspring of conclusion is a silver abyss, a sever, a dreadful sever it tears apart the design…"
Her gaze lifted as they neared. Her eyes were immense each a whirling cosmos of strands and unraveling tips. They fixed on Cassiathon. She let out a scream. A cry not born of fear but of sorrowful understanding.
YOU! The monstrous fusion! The compulsory union of STOP. Go! You aren't a thread! You are a knot! A knot that constricts around the throat of destiny itself!
She sprang up hurriedly her knotted threads tightening sharply. "I have to sever you! I have to release you! It's going to hurt! It will tear worlds!"
"Hold on!" Cassiathon yelled, raising his hands. "I don't wish to be freed. I aim to grasp the knot. So I can bear it without suffocating."
The Weaver halted, her galaxy-eyes spiraling. "Carry it? You cannot bear a paradox. It devours."
"Check him out!" Morgan shouted through the noise. "Hes holding it at this moment! He's a living paradox. He desires your vision, not your blades!"
The Weaver moved nearer her shape shimmering. The fibers surrounding Cassiathon. Pulled taut. He perceived her focus not on his flesh. On the entwined fibers of his essence: the dark unchanging line of Death, the lively disorderly violet of the Abyss the gentle radiant thread of Tanias affection, the defiant persistent flicker of his mortal parents sacrifice the fresh cool blue strand Celeste contributed.
"You… you're attempting to interlace with them " she murmured, both amazed and terrified. "You aren't tearing them apart. You are grasping the shuttle. You are a loom."
She extended a shaking string-bound hand. "Allow me to look. Allow me to observe the design you're creating amid your uncertainty."
Cassiathon defying every urge lowered his defenses. He allowed the Weavers insight to reach the clashing forces, inside him.
She caught her breath pulling back then moved once more. "Chaos… and order… refusing to merge. Existing adjacent, to each other. You harness the quiet of death to outline the chaos. You employ the chaos to validate the stillness. It is not balance. It is… a exquisite tension. A living equilibrium." She lifted her gaze, tears of shimmering silver rolling down her cheeks. "You are not an error. You are a law.. The cosmos doesn't understand how to engage with you."
"Is it maintainable?" Cassiathon inquired, his very essence exposed.
The Weavers expression twisted with sorrow. "Temporarily.. The strain demands effort. A price. You will require anchors. Bases of steadiness, in the world to secure the illusion you hold. The mother, the sea-child, the fallen star… they serve as anchors now. You must guard them. Because if one breaks the strain collapses and the knot will either break apart… or constrict endlessly into a single dreadful thread."
That was the response he required. It was more dreadful than he had anticipated. His security now relied on others. On their existence.
He whispered, "Thank you."
The Weaver sank down worn out. "Leave. Your being unravels the fabric of this realm. And inform the siren… the melody hasn't vanished. It has merely shifted tone."
As they turned to leave, she called out one last time, her voice small. "The Queen… she sees the knot only as a snare to be used. The Reaper sees it as a flaw to be managed. But the Primordial of Night… she sees it as a seed. Beware the gardener who loves strange flowers."