His digits curled tightly around the Blue Ring.
It was chillier than the peak chillier than the emptiness of space separating stars. It was the cold of zero—not a degree of heat but the total stop of molecular movement. The quiet, inside the chamber thickened, turning into a real weight in his hand. At that moment he understood all the Ring bestowed and all it required.
He perceived the world not concluding in flame or frost. Through a mild unstoppable dimming. The clamor of conflicts would dwindle to whispers to breaths, then vanish. The spark of magic would flicker away like the coal in a hearth. The crying in the hall would diminish, the last echo suspended in an atmosphere that no transmitted noise, until even that trace of resonance faded. Love, hatred, happiness, sorrow—all would arrive at the mute balance. An impeccable motionless depiction of a cosmos that had stopped unfolding as a tale.
It was not evil. It was peace. A peace so total it was indistinguishable from death.
He perceived himself inside it. Not the sunken-eyed elder, from the water. Another presence. A calm center. A keeper of silence. His mind decelerating, expanding across millennia until one heartbeat could last a millennium. He would observe empires emerge and collapse in mime their victories and sorrows transformed into graceful purposeless scenes. He would turn into the custodian of a completed gallery.
The rock, in his hand seemed like a searing ember. A turbulent trembling fragment of a cosmos that demanded to exist.
The choice was not between right and wrong. It was between two different kinds of truth. The truth of an ending. And the truth of continuation, with all its attendant pain and glory.
He spread his hand open. Resting on his palm was the Blue Ring, a band of suspended potential.
He didn't wear it.
He spun around. Exited the dull room.
Soon as he stepped over the threshold the world surged back not in noise but as a possibility, for noise. The oppressive burden of the decision lifted, giving way to the frightening liberty of the choice yet to be made. He felt lighter nearly exhilarated with fear.
He did not collect his armor or his swords. He abandoned them there a monument of forsaken self, at the threshold of quiet. He was Alexander Magnus. He had reached the edge of everything. Had withdrawn from the verge. He was simply and solely a man holding a river stone in his hand.
He moved down from the summit ridge, the withdrawing from him like an ebbing tide. Initially he sensed the wind, a force pressing against his skin. Then a deep perceptible moan came from the moving glaciers far beneath. Upon arriving at the Weeping Gallery he detected the eerie chime of the stone bells again. The noise no longer seemed beautiful, to him. Instead it was tormenting. It was existence shouting its valuable tale into the emptiness.
He moved swiftly by the reverberations of remorse now seeming like companions their sorrow serving as proof of being.
He stood on the scree incline, beneath the gallery when the mountain shifted.
It wasn't an avalanche. Instead the earth ahead of him—a stretch of the trail about a hundred feet wide—just gave way. It occurred with a trembling rumble that echoed up through his bare feet. One instant a path existed the next a rupture, in reality appeared—a crevasse, its steep walls cloaked in a swirling iridescent fog that concealed its depth. The mountain had refused his choice.. Destiny had delivered one last tangible challenge.
The sole path ahead was a slender rocky arch stretching across the chasm—a natural span polished over countless ages by wind and now slippery with a thin layer of thawed water and ice. At its midpoint it measured under two feet, in width.
He remained at the brink the stone of the river-polished pebble his sole support. Retreating meant returning to the chamber to the Ring. This was the route, down the mountain.
Murmurs emerged from the fog- abysses. They were neither the cavern murmurs of the Hölloch nor the mental harmonies of the Echoes. These were distinct. They were the sounds of the paths left behind.
"Slip on the Ring " murmured a tone embodying the rational serenity of the Angel. Cease the conflict. Achieve your destiny. It is pure. It is just.
Accept it yet refrain from deploying it uttered another the calculated murmur of Giovani Azaria. A negotiation asset of worth. A sovereign's fortune, in silence. You could possess the gap that lies between all conflicts.
Hand it over to me Brianna murmured in Calliope's tone dense, with a vow that seemed like velvet wrapped in smoke. Together we shall grasp the conclusion of everything. You and I will determine when the melody has run its course.
Remain, pleaded the voice of the gallery knight with sorrow that had surpassed the bounds of time.. Stand guard. It is a responsibility. The difficult peace is the one maintained for the sake of others.
The voices spiraled upward each a call, each a route leading back to the Ring, to a clear identity. The Messenger. The Trader. The Consort. The Guardian. Each offered an escape from the ambiguity of the slim bridge, of the path left unselected.
He gazed at the bridge. It was merely stone. It held no significance no fate. It simply provided a means to cross.
He put the smooth river rock in his mouth gripping it with his teeth. A physical fragment of the land beneath. A motive to traverse.
He walked onto the bridge.
The slipperiness was instant. His bare feet, chilled and numb fought to find grip. He extended his arms broadly to steady himself his heart pounding against his chest, a essential rhythm, in the sparse atmosphere. He avoided glancing down into the murmuring fog. Instead he focused his gaze on the edge on the extension of the stony trail.
He moved ahead cautiously inch by inch. The wind, now blowing fiercely tore at his linen garments attempting to pull him away from the rock. The murmurs swelled into a chorus promising assurance, strength promising a conclusion, to the terror trembling through his body.
You are an idiot! the Angel's voice thundered. Success was, within your grasp!
Giovani sighed deeply truly lamenting such a missed chance.
Return to calm Alexander, Brianna sang softly. The sound of your anxiety is utterly… unbecoming.
He continued walking. The rock held between his teeth was his concentration. The flavor of minerals the recollection of running water. Muotathal. The girl. Walter. The scent of smoke.
The middle of the bridge was the dangerous spot. It sagged a bit with the ice there. His foot slipped. For a moment he staggered, arms flailing, a muffled scream caught by the stone gripped in his mouth. He dropped to his knees the shock rattling his bones his hands grazing the rock as he grasped frantically at the slender crossing.
He was kneeling, breathless, caught between one edge of the ravine and the opposite, caught between the fate he had turned away, from and the uncertain future he was inching toward. The murmurs quieted, as though pausing in anticipation.
Gradually with effort he hauled himself upright. His hands were raw staining the rock, with crimson. The blood was hot. It was genuine. It belonged to him.
He started to move more at a slower pace his injured hands stretched out to steady himself. Every step was an effort, against the emptiness.
At last his front foot landed on the firm, rock, across the way. He faltered onto the trail dropping to his hands and knees the river stone slipping from his mouth and rattling on the earth. He retched, a convulsive surge of sheer adrenaline and release.
The abyss was now, behind him. The murmurs had vanished. The mountain had become merely a mountain more.
He grabbed the river stone brushed it off on his shirt and gripped it firmly. He was battered, bleeding, cold and completely devoid of any goal.
For the time since the heavenly glow had claimed him he experienced freedom.
He had crossed.