While the veil itself could resist him and cocoon him, it could not shut out his voice. His loudest shouts would not penetrate the veil of the void, but whispers ever so soft could.
—Gizelle Floren Elkek of Toopek
Canúden woke as the Object set next morning.
“Leave it to a boy to fall asleep during one of the most important events in history,” Gizelle said with a gentle laugh.
Coolness of autumn dew touched his cheeks and, shivering, he blinked a few times before he realized the old woman’s comment indicated the brightness and everything else hadn’t been a dream. “What was that about?” he said as he sat up.
The west sparkled with gold and pink, as with a sunset, but the sky overhead blazed with white rather than indigo, and the east hung with silver and gold as the sun crept above the unseen horizon. As the Object sank in the west, the forest’s glow faded, and the vibrant voices of birds turned subtle and sleepy.
Gizelle sat next to him in the grass with her arms around her bony knees. Her wrinkled dress stood as a contrast to her softened features and neatly bound hair. “I don’t know much now after so many years. I’ve likely forgotten more than I remember ever knowing. I’ve lived a rough life and done things I regret.” She buried her face into her arms. “I was fooled into starting down that path long ago.”
“What does this have to do with the sky thing?” he said after a considerable pause.
She pierced him with her hypnotic blue eyes. “If you had asked me three hundred years ago what this sign meant, I could have quoted a dozen prophesies that explain it.”
“Wait. Three hundred years? How could I have asked you anything three hundred years ago? I mean, how could anyone have asked you anything?”
“I forget how things get forgotten when mages are so rare these days in Galia,” she muttered.
“Huh?”
Her head tilted slightly and she proceeded with an explanation. “Just as my eyes were darkened by the thing in the sky, so are my memories. I was young and foolish in school when I was a girl, horribly naïve, and I wish I could go back. I was badly influenced by someone I shouldn’t have trusted, though she was from my village. Now that the sign has happened, who knows what she will do. I fear she may have accomplished many of her goals. She's already done away with most of the mages around here.”
He hesitated, then spoke gently. He reached for her, but drew his fingers back. “It’s nice to hear a little of where you came from, and I hope to learn more soon, but I really want to know about the thing in the sky. Anything you can tell me is more than I know now. Other than the vision I had, but that didn’t make a lot of sense. And little babies don’t talk, so what was that all about?”
“My apologies, Canúden.” She rested a knobby hand on his shoulder, her skin the shade of the morning sky. “Here I was babbling my excuses. You’re one of the few people who hasn’t turned me away, and I shall be forever grateful.”
He recoiled. She had done awful things. To be fair, though, he didn’t really know why, or what signified awful.
She turned to him again. Maybe she had even been pretty once. Exotic, certainly. “I want you to know, I never killed out of malice. I never tortured, I never took a life that wasn’t given to me, at least by the person supposedly responsible for it. I am aged now because I could not live like that, taking life to extend my own. And I have lived with regret for over three hundred years.”
“But how can you live that long?”
“Living an extended life is a matter of taking and using wari from life around you.” The statement was a bit curt, and Canúden kept his mouth shut so she could continue with what she was trying to say. “Even after that awful period of being mostly on my own and being influenced,” she grimaced, “I still dabbled in dark things. I can control minds…” Canúden’s eyes widened. “Dear boy, I swear I haven’t done that in over a hundred years, but I can’t help but feel emotion and intent from people.” With all that emotion from people, no wonder she lived as a hermit. “I can sense you are horrified. Please,” she gripped his wrist, “I can’t lose your friendship.”
Tears trembled on her eyelids, and her tone showed him her sincerity. He wasn’t the Escort, so he was not one to judge a person’s past. “Of course, Gizelle,” he said with a gulp. He took her hand and she smiled gratefully. “It’s all a bit… I don’t know… much. You’ve never done anything bad that I’ve ever seen, and I really want to know what you have to say. I'll get into so much trouble for being here, but it will totally be worth it.”
“Oh, dear boy.” Her grip tightened even as her features relaxed. “You and I share that desire to know. Never let this desire influence you to do anything dishonorable. My life is lived, yours is just begun.”
Gizelle absently picked at the grass around her. “I lived many years of resentment, and now it is your opportunity to live with hope because hope and love was born last night.”
“What do I need to hope for?” he said.
She shook her head and smiled kindly. “When you have lived, you will not say such a thing. Ask your mother what she hopes for, though she is still a young woman. Ask those many who have suffered oppression and abuse what they hope for. The sick and dying hope to be healed. The oppressed hope to live free. The ignorant hope to learn, if they have any sense at all. To answer your question, the sign tells me a conflict is coming.”
As the sun rose, eddies of dew vapor rolled over the path outside Gizelle’s gate. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, as though trying to collect memories from the faintly-sparkling air. A breeze filled with the scent of wildflowers picked up the plucked grass, and the grass danced away with the vapor. “After humans emerged from Creation and acquired the sense to wonder, the Creators banished the Dark One to the Void. But Tavaris still found ways to influence.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “He wants to destroy anomalies where the Creators want to create variety. He wants to force where the Creators want to lead. He wants perfect peace where the Creators want freedom.
"But his means are subtle. What he calls order and peace is what we would call slavery.” She shook her head then looked at him again. “I digress. He is a powerful force because with his way, people don’t have to think for themselves.”
“How could peace be a bad thing?” Canúden said.
“As long as people have the right to choose, there will be some contention in the world. His version of peace would lead the world into ignorance and nothingness.” She looked wistfully to the eastern sky. “What I remember from the prophesies in my homeland, when Hallel’s star appeared, that would mean Hallel was born. It also means that not too many years hence, Tavaris will seek a way to come to the earth as well and take Hallel’s place. Hallel will have a kingdom, and he will be a mage of greatest power. Not an individual we would want replaced with the Dark One.”
Canúden tried to process all this information. “What in the world is a kingdom?”
“A king is like a kel, only a king is a sole ruler, while a kel is the head of a council of kels and sirans. And kingdoms are not generally ruled by women, as a keldom is often as not ruled by a siran. A king’s daughter would not be his heir unless in the rare case when she has absolutely no brothers or male relatives.”
“Hmm,” he said. “ ‘Seek to come to earth’? What is that supposed to mean?”
“The Dark One can’t be born as a mortal because he was banished from the Otherworld where all life originates. It was written by a great time mage, Zoer something or other, that he would seek another way to get here. My former schoolmate, I fear, is attempting to be his key. But Hallel’s purpose will be to prevent the Dark One from succeeding in enslaving us. From taking away our sentience.”
Canúden's throat was getting dry. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged and gripped a handful of grass. “I feel it, but I’m not sure how to explain it. Humans, apart from all of creation, possess the ability to wonder. ‘Sentience’ is an inadequate word. We are capable of looking to the stars and wondering how they got there. This ability is more than our self-awareness, or our ability to love, or to plan. Many animals are quite intelligent and possess these abilities to some extent.
"But animals have no sense to build sanctuaries. They do not pray. They do not gaze up at the stars and wonder or feel any desire to explore them. When animals fight, it is over territory, or food, or mating opportunities. They can’t fight over ideologies.”
Canúden’s mind spun. “But no one talks about the Creators, and nobody has ever heard of Hallel.”
“And I suppose in your exhaustive traveling experience, you know all about the cultures and religions of the world?” She chuckled. “I’d say at ten years old, you’re lucky if you even know much about Galian religions and history.”
“I’m a good student!” he said defensively.
“Undoubtedly, Canúden, and you know how to ask questions. That quality alone shows how brilliant you are. But no boy your age can or should know the world. Most cultures build sanctuaries of some kind, even if not every person feels a need to visit them. During the most difficult times, people tend to call out to their local deities. The names are irrelevant. We pray to whomever we identify with, or don’t pray. People believe as they choose, and largely they live free.”
Canúden rubbed his nose and shifted his shoulders.
“The whole world had the opportunity to hear about Hallel from that sign,” continued Gizelle. “The honorable experienced visions. Those who really wanted to know learned what they needed to know. Now it is up to people to choose the side of light and freedom when the conflict arises. But I fear that most will forget this night, it will cease relevance, and they will continue on with their lives. When the choice comes to be made, they will wallow in confusion.”
“But who would choose slavery?” said Canúden. “The Dark one doesn’t have a chance of succeeding.”
She sighed. “If only it were that simple. Only those who think for themselves live free. And I can tell you, it is difficult to think for yourself when times are easy, and even more so when times are difficult. Imagine a world with no war or conflict. To those who have suffered, that sounds like paradise. But remember, Canúden, there is no paradise without thought.”
She shifted her legs and sat straighter. “The Ancestors enlightened me last night. I can live and die now without fearing for my soul. I need not fear the Escort will take me somewhere unpleasant when I die.”
She stood, and took Canúden’s hand to pull him up also. “I need you to do something for me. I need you to burn all my implements.”
“Why do you need to burn your things? Couldn’t you sell them or something?”
“I could sell them and buy a palace for myself.”
“They’re worth that much?” said Canúden.
Her face turned serious. “But do we really want to spread the Dark One’s implements to the wind?”
“No, I guess not. I mean, it seems like you went through a really rough time, and we wouldn’t want anyone else to go through that. Who wants a silly palace and a title anyway? Those are for people like His Sufficiency, Kel Pompous. That’s what my ma calls him, anyway.”
“She may not like me, but she sounds like a woman of sense.”
“Why can’t you just burn everything?”
Gizelle grimaced. “The implements still have a hold on me and I don’t think I could strike the flint to them. So much of my soul and energy are tied up with them. It would feel like burning my own flesh, and I don’t feel strong enough yet for that.” Ma would scold him for starting a bonfire with this old woman. He raised one eyebrow. As if she could sense his thought, she said, “No, I’m not telling you to do anything really dangerous. No ma wants her son to play with fire, though all boys do anyway. I’ll be right there with you, and we’ll make sure to dig a nice pit. Come inside and help me gather everything before I lose my nerve. I’ll make you breakfast.”
“Ma’ll be wondering where I am.”
“You’re not really going to leave before breakfast!”
“I’m sure Ma is worried about me.” He took a step towards the gate. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I would have an honorable boy for my student,” she muttered. Her fingers trembled. “Please be back soon. I need your help. I need be rid of all this.”
He did something he’d never done before: He gave Gizelle a hug. “You’re the best old person I’ve known since my grandpa died. I’ll come back to help soon.”
He sprinted out the gate and down the path towards home.
Tavaris had fallen silent for hours, and Minara placed the Ball of Shadows in its pewter stand on her desk, a massive circular thing which stood at the center of her tower room. She then sat at her window, watching the sky. Disturbing in its brightness, the Object led her blood to quivering, in fear or anticipation she was unsure. She almost envied every other of Tavaris’s followers, for they would not have been able to see the light. She saw it because she already knew about it from the prophesies she’d spent a lifetime to understand.
That foolish woman, Gizelle, thought herself free from Minara’s grasp, yet Gizelle’s change soured in Minara’s mind. The old hag's mind was as open to her as though they were bonded. More so, as they were both proficient mind mages.
Dread as toxic as a plague filled Gizelle’s mind as soon as the boy ran off to his mother. She had reason to fear, for Minara was not someone to toss aside. Minara smiled. That Gizelle would rely on a mere boy, that the boy was the only one she had managed to draw to her, showed her total impotence. It was fortunate for the boy that he had left. Now would be a time of weakness for the old blue woman, friendless and vulnerable; perfect time for Minara to appear and show her what happened to those who turned away from Tavaris’s perfection.
She pulled a vial of Key of Laredo out of her pocket; the blue glass sparkled in the dawning sunlight as she tugged open the lid. A pinch would be enough; she cast the powder at her feet and a ring of sapphire sparks engulfed her.
Images courtesy of:
Dreams Time
JJPeabody via DeviantArt
WallpapersXL
Don't miss any of the chapters!
Prologue: River Flowing
Chapter 1.1: Blindness
Chapter 1.2: Eyes Opened
Chapter 1.3: Hallel's Star
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