The path led him westward tracing alongside the river yet the image of the sunburst flag seared behind his gaze. He was more than a man carrying a stone now; he had become a rebel in a realm gearing up for a sacred conflict. Whenever possible he traveled under the cover of darkness keeping to woodland trails and field borders his abilities, as both predator and prey merging indistinguishably. The plain cloak transformed into a disguise of invisibility.
He caught murmurs. At a tavern where he dared to have a warm dish two drovers bickered over mugs.
"—witnessed them personally close to the Furka. Men clad in white and gold a column gliding like phantoms. No beasts of burden. Only. That… expression, in their eyes."
"Radiant Host " his friend growled. "Recruiters. My cousin's son bolted with them. Claimed they vowed his blade would 'slice the darkness away, from the world.' Moron."
"Foolish or not they are assembling. Something approaches. The priests, in Visp preach it every Sunday nowadays. 'The Time of the Chisel ' they name it. Claiming the world must be sculpted pure."
Alexander bowed his head, the soup tasting like ashes on his tongue. The Time of the Chisel. An ideal dreadful expression, for the Angel's wished-for.
Days after, beneath the looming massive stronghold of Mont Fort he encountered the second variety of murmur.
It was a tavern, dim-ceilinged. Filled with smoke visited by shepherds and lone merchants. In one corner a man, with a weathered, face and the demeanor of a former soldier spoke softly to an attentive group of three.
"—not demons " the man declared, drumming a finger against the table. "That's the Host's myth. My brother worked as a miner in the Lötschental. He told me they uncovered a vein and discovered… inscriptions. Etched in stone predating all known history. Not a language. An emotion. An emotion of… remorse.. A caution, about 'the balancers.'"
One of the audience sneered. "Nonsense. Rock has no feelings."
"This is true " the soldier affirmed. ". The men who lingered close to it? They fell silent. Not tranquil. Hollow. As if they'd glimpsed beyond the ridge. Discovered no reward, in the ascent. A few of them simply wandered into the highlands. Were never seen again."
Alexander experienced an unrelated to the tavern's cold air. The 'balancers.' It seemed like a human interpretation of the Abyss's doctrine. Not malevolent,. A counterbalance. A power of embracing imperfection of mournful rectification. He recalled Duncan's gaze. I endure the tragedy because I have seen the tomb from, within.
He was fading into the void separating the stories, the divide where reality resided. The Angel's devotees perceived purifying light. The frightened masses perceived monsters. Some, such, as this veteran perceived the stranger and more sorrowful truth.
He departed prior, to sunrise the soldier's words resonating in his mind. He required a comprehension. He sought to witness not the enlistment, nor the dread, but the origin of the strain. The fragile spot.
His steps, led by a sense sharpened in the elevated regions moved northward leaving behind the inhabited valley returning to the raw essence of the earth. He climbed into the Val d'Hérens, a valley of severe beauty, where the peaks were not grand but scowling and the villages were constructed from stone as if to apologize for their presence.
The place he aimed for wasn't marked on any map he was familiar, with. It was a location the veteran had muttered about—a "weeping cliff" where the regional priests used to conduct "quietings" to the Radiant Host's teachings becoming dominant.
He noticed it while a storm was building over the Dent Blanche. A wall of black slate always moist, from a secret spring its surface marked not by glaciers but by numerous slender vertical grooves—resembling trails of endless weeping. At the bottom there was a dark entrance, partly hidden by ferns and broken stones. It released a breath of air carrying the scent of rock and subtly ozone and chilly iron.
This was no Hölloch. It was smaller, sadder. A wound, not a throat.
He walked in.
The passage was brief sloping downward swiftly. The noise of the wind, beyond disappeared substituted by a muffled quiet. It was not the eager quiet of the Weisshorn but an exhausted quiet. The quiet following the scream.
The passage led into the Heart Chamber.
It was a round chamber, roughly thirty feet in diameter. The surfaces were sleek and dark marked by veins of quartz emitting a gentle internal glow just sufficient, for visibility. There was no water trickling. No reverberation. The atmosphere was completely motionless and dense weighing on his eardrums.
At the heart atop a dais of flowstone that appeared to have formed from countless tears, over thousands of years it rested.
It was not the Blue Ring. It was a sword.
Unlike any sword he had encountered before. It was the Penitent's Blade's gloomier absolute counterpart. While the Blade was created from shadow this appeared to be hardened midnight itself. It swallowed the light from the surroundings revealing no glint, no sign of a blade. It was a void, molded into the form of an armament. A two-handed longsword, plain, in its construct.
This was not a relic of the Trinity. This was something else. Something older. A counterpart.
He understood instinctively: this was an artifact of the "balancers." A dark equivalent, to the Angel's relics. While the Penitent's Blade severed the strands of deceit this… this would sever the strands of deed. Of will itself.
He came forward not driven by longing. By a grim realization. This was the counterpart, to the Ring's. Not tranquility,. Motionlessness. Not cessation of sound. Cessation of movement. Of decision.
He remained in front of the altar. He refrained from grasping the sword. He merely observed it.
The chamber saw him return. In the silence his own recollections formed the sole noise. The girl in Muotathal: Don't provoke it. Walter's dismay. The weeping knight's exhale. Duncan's spirit, in the helm. Brianna's alluring reasoning. The tolling of funeral bells. The farmer's stew. The sunburst flag.
Every one represented a strand of deeds, outcomes, anguish and grace. That blade resting on the altar was the instrument destined to cut through them from their origin. To forge a realm of craving so nothing would be, at risk of being taken away. A realm of motionless grief.
It represented the pinnacle of the Abyss's ideology. Not malevolent. Simply… finished.
He perceived a footfall at his back. Turning around was unnecessary.
"It's beautiful in its manner don't you think?" Dorothy Charmaine's voice drifted softly like silk in the stillness. The Queen's advisor positioned herself by the chamber's doorway her crimson horns appearing to absorb the light her forked tongue flicking over her lips. "The Severance. It doesn't end life. It… dissolves ambition. It's what my Queen would have employed if the Angel had succeeded in establishing his silent realm. A reset. A reversion, to zero."
Alexander maintained his gaze on the sword. "What's the purpose of showing me this?"
"To finish your training fallen one " she murmured, moving closer. "You have witnessed the light's intended conclusion. You have heard the Ring's quietude. Now behold the dark's response. The conflict isn't of good versus evil. It is a clash between two types of endings. The Angel's ending is a suspended breath. Our ending… is a sigh, without cease. Both are conclusions. You clutch your stone for the middle.. The middle is diminishing."
She halted near him staring at the Severance with a look to awe. "The Host assembles. The drums of illumination resound. We shall respond. The valley will be soaked with blood and expended magic.. As the clamor hits its climax one faction will strive for their conclusion. This " she indicated with a black-nailed finger at the sword "or the Ring's equivalent, among the light's weapons will be the instrument employed. To conclude the tale. For all."
Her eyes, narrow with pupils fixed on him. "You decided to quit the board.. The board is advancing toward you. Your stone will be crushed to powder, amid the grinding stones of decision."
At last Alexander turned to her. "What do you expect from me?"
A gradual unsettling grin stretched over her lips. "What we've always desired. To observe what emerges in the space between two conflicting absolutes. You are a weed, Alexander Magnus. We wonder if you will be crushed or if you will manage to break through the stones of fate." She leaned in her tone a murmur. "The Heart Chamber reveals the path's conclusion. The real question is… will you step back out into the tempest?"
She spun around. Departed, her figure fading into the darkness of the passageway.
Alexander stood solitary more gripping the blade forged from hardened midnight. The burden of the two looming conclusions—the Silence and the Severance—oppressed him more dreadful, than any beast.
He arrived in search of insight. He encountered the precipice dividing two realms.
He refrained from grasping the sword. He faced away from it from the altar, from the lingering stillness of the room.
He stepped outside not bearing a solution but carrying the terrifying magnitude of the problem. The tempest, above the Dent Blanche had erupted. Icy rain pounded the crying cliff as he came forth.
He remained in the rain the droplets cleansing the grime of the hidden depths from his body. He gazed at his hands bare except, for the recollection of a river stone's form.
The middle was shrinking. But he was still in it. And he was not done.