Who knew that was a thing he could do? Amazing. Even now, the mysteries towered over what was discovered. Recollection flowed in with the sweet strength of force. That serene renewal, calming and imperious in nature.
He knew now of the extra trait of the Ardents. Not only were they his eyes, everywhere, but they could also be anywhere. By the simple utterance of his wishes, they were where they were needed. More so, they were a vessel. Not eyes, but a body. It felt strange, an unnerving, tenebrous depth which he could not see through. Within it, he felt wrapped in darkness. Not the sweet one; no, the warning sense.
"Get out. Get out." His body screamed in those moments. Yet, it was the desired eventuality that held him. He had to do something. The rage compelled him. He saw the beatings, the rapes endured by the witnesses. Ah, the horrible things.
Somehow, that desire gave him a body within the Ardent, a brief one, however. A force-devouring maw. In mere minutes, he was near bereft of it. Fortunately, casting was possible in that state. Good. That man, hopefully, would truly protect the witnesses.
For now, Merrin needed to find his people.
That want burned like sure flames, pushing. He resisted the Ashman conditioning for serenity at all times, instead powering it. Operating that emotion as though it were the hard slopes of a mountain: a thing to climb, to navigate, to elevate from.
He heaved a breath and called the bird. In a piercing wind descent, it came, wings expanding, flapping. "You learned something new today," it said. "It raises the question of how long you would endure the opposite now."
Merrin dismissed the usual wordings, regarded the bird, and said, "How do I know where they are?"
"How would you have me answer that?" The bird circled him, taunting. "You have all the means to achieve it. Your physicality has further grown to hold within it a deeper force. Surely, that amounts to a higher intellect. Does it not?"
"So there is a way?" Merrin steadily learned to find the meanings in the bird's jeers.
This seemed to annoy it. It took to the sky, soaring through the gray above darkened clouds and sparking lightning: the believed judgment of the heavens. Downward it went—the bird—piercing through the wind, opening its wings, halting midair, hovering. Above the dark castle—that place that irked him by mere observation.
The bird floated above it, then landed atop one of the spires. It cawed—the rare animalistic sound. "Don't they all dream?" it said.
Merrin sensed the understanding, like fog clearing.
The bird said, "You cannot sustain the Ardent for conversation." A tongue click. "But this…"
"I can have more information from their dreams…" Merrin said, "I can talk to them."
"Repetition of the same words does not offer different meanings."
"But that leaves…"
"Control…Steering," the bird said. "How rare is an El'shadie that does not practice his very power…all for the sake of a belief."
Merrin frowned.
It rasped, "Ha! Fear the Fallen. Be disgusted. But never take their power." That was not a phrase, he knew; it was a slur. The bird's meanings were clear. "What point is fearing a power that you have now? What point is being disgusted by casting? As you can see, that is what the Fallen do too. You and the Fallen…the same."
He shook to his bones, turned away from the castle, staring out into the skyline. A slash of gray and black—above it were the dark storms, below were the beads. Endless, it appeared, at least to his perception.
An age passed. "What if…what if it poisons me?" There were tales. Just as the black sea was said to be marred by the Fallen, what if he, too, fell to that bane? His sister said the Fallen took human forms. What if such things were the source?
This hardened his resolve against it.
The bird laughed—like a man. "That bothers you? The corruption of such a weak thing…" The laugh boomed like the overhead skies, frightening in a strange way.
Merrin whirled, staring then at the castle and the bird atop it. "Almighty above,"
He saw a brief frown on the bird, dismissed it, and said, "Please protect me from the viles." He looked to the ground—a strange sand. Hard, as though stone, yet sleek, too. Marveling. Nonetheless, he wetted his fingers and wrote the words.
Question: Would the Almighty hear him from here? He wondered, closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked to the bird, who quipped, "An acclaimed god who prays."
Startling.
Merrin often forgot the bird could see as he saw. Maybe that makes me its vessel.
A final stare at the dark castle… "For my witness."
He fell into that internal awareness. Sensed the multi-kind identities, sensations, being. In them, he found the prominent link to the castle. A sweet bond that pounded as his heart did.
Dream, Dream, Dream. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
The gray world trembled—the fulmination surging with a mad fervor. Within it, the dark castle rippled as though it were a lake. It vanished. A blink away from reality, and so did Merrin.
The truth holds facts that we can consider as facts, but when the application of the mind is added on, it becomes a changing thing. The truth no longer becomes the fact; it becomes the perceptive belief. —Author unknown.
Ivory fumed within—how hard is it to be alone? Beside her, Saedon followed, timid in the manner of shifting glances and a hunched back. An oddity she never quite understood. He was something of a high heir, if she died, that is.
Would he take that as an opportunity? She wondered, but saw no inkling from him. But looks could be deceiving. One lived with the tool of vigilance, Mother had once said.
She said, "How are you?"
He giggled. "Uhm, I'm good, you?"
What a cliché response. Ivory cringed at this and felt her internal strength battering against the expressive revelations. He was meant to be the lead in the conversation. As one who desired her hand—he would never get it, but yet—methods, impressions. He lacked desperately in them all.
This instilled an internal sigh. "So what have you been doing?" Might as well get this over with.
Saedon trembled—an odd thing. Was he a creature of some interest? "I've been building my boats!" He echoed the words with some measure of excitation.
What was there to be excited about? The black seas were a thing in constant enmity to man. Fallen, monsters, they ruled its depths. Travel by black ships was the sole means of voyage. Since the darkening, this knowledge was known to even the lowest darkCrowns.
She said, "Do you plan to sail one day?" That was the one potentiality. A suicide one, but a possibility.
"Ah, no," He waved. "I just like making boats. The seas are a dangerous place. No, no. I just like making them."
"A worthless hobby," she said and thought, All things must complement one's innate destiny—not some waste.
"Yes, yes." He scratched his hair. "But it's something of my own will."
Does that imply he has no will—no control? Being forced to do against his wishes? Ivory thought and found that notion an implausible one. He was a brightCrown, nephew to the highness. Who would claim dominance?
They turned a corner, passed several handmen and maidens. Each bowed as was the accepted custom. Some internal part reveled in that, her face masked from the felt emotions. Soon, they reached the door—watched as it slid into the wall, opening. She nearly gasped.
Eltium flowed through the lab space like a sea, twirling, swirling. The vast expanse of her lab seemed to tremble, excitement in the air. In the center of this rolling sea, Javid trailed his fingers. A maestro to the dark waters. As always, he wore his eyes dismissively. For a moment, he cupped his hands, and the blackness flowed, sealed into it. A box hardened, rippling.
He added a black spirit into it? Ivory walked, glanced at the sleek tables: tools, view-walls, stick lamps. The mass of wares. She said, "How did you do that?"
He looked to her, then away, and moved to a long table. On it, a carcass of a winged creature was laid: dual-eyed, dark. A corrupted fallen. Supposedly, it had been found dead in the Ash Mountains. The Ashmen had denied its death—chances remained that some wandering blademaster or unofficial Caster had done it.
Via Eiya news, she learned the traits of the creature were closely tied to the dream symbols. Maybe it was felled by a veilCounsel. She shifted, found the castWarer amongst others. Miralin, a dark orb of amorphous state, poppling, floated by his side. That, she noticed, drew the attention of the castWarers. Like bugs to Elitum, they swarmed him.
That must be the thing he derives pride from… She thought, felt the presence of Saedon. "Do you want to join them?" she said.