At the coming of morning light, the company rises and prepares to depart. The night was dry and thus more pleasant than the preceding nights with their drenching precipitation; even the wind blew in no more than a gentle breeze throughout the nocturnal hours. And though it picks up now, as if stirred into movement by the arrival of the sun, whistling in the trees and flapping against the cloth of the tent as they try to roll it up again, the companions are simply grateful that the quiet of the night has allowed all of them an adequate rest to dispel the exhaustion of the previous days. And no one had a single nightmare. Cirien and Eldarien both slept between three and four hours, taking turns such that someone was awake for the entirety of the night. But that amount is more than adequate for both of them, though for different reasons.
“I find it puzzling that the nightmares stopped suddenly for all of us,” says Cirien, “puzzling but not unwelcome. I simply do not know what it means or whether it portends good, or ill, or neither.”
“At least one answer may await us soon, today or tomorrow,” Eldarien responds. “We shall soon know the cause of the river’s dryness, not that such an answer is particularly relevant to our journey.”
“I hope that it is not relevant at all,” Rorlain says. “Whether a particular river is dry or not, and why, should have no bearing on our path across the mountains to the west. If it does have bearing, I don’t see how it could be anything but ill.”
“Neither can I,” adds Cirien, “but we do not see all factors. Let us wait and see.”
“Or rather let us move and see,” emphasizes Elmariyë with a smile. “We shall all get cold and stiff if we stand around in this temperature much longer without moving our bodies.”
“Wisely spoken, little one,” says Cirien. “Many a man stands around freezing when he could be walking. Let us not be of their kind.”
And so they depart, following still the dry riverbed as it winds its way through the valley between the mountains, now a deep ravine of loose rock worn by the flowing of water over many years. And considering its size and the stone polished almost to a gloss, this river must indeed have flowed swift and free for a long time. Massive trees clothe the knees of the mountains to their right and their left, but the center of the valley has no more than a scattering of trees standing alone and solitary or perhaps grouped in small groves, evergreens and aspens and alders swaying in the strong morning wind. But despite the small number of trees directly ahead of them, they cannot see to the other side of the valley, for the land rises gradually ahead of them with the narrow ravine through which the riverbed cutting through its center. Because of this, only as they come to the far end of the ravine, or to the apex of the hill, if they decide instead to climb the rise of land rather than going through its heart, will they begin to see what lies on the other side of the valley.
By the early afternoon, they come to the point where precisely this decision must be made: to follow the narrow and rocky path between the walls of the ravine, which would mean more or less walking in the riverbed itself, or to climb the rough mounds of earth that rise up perhaps two-hundred feet on either side. They deliberate for a few minutes together, and, after inspecting their surroundings, they decide to climb the hill. The ascent is rough and steep but far from vertical, and they are able to make it to the top without needing to rely on their hands, though it takes the better part of two hours. And now they find themselves on a broad shelf of land that looks almost as if it had cascaded down from high on the sides of the mountains, as if an avalanche had filled up the entire middle section of the valley and, over many years, had been covered in soil and sprouted plants and trees. There seems to be no other natural explanation than this. It does not, however, explain the river that had flowed right through the heart of the mound, as if cut with a sword wielded by some creature a thousand times larger than a human being.
“Do you think that the river itself was unnatural, rather than its damming?” asks Eldarien, his question directed to all alike. “It does not appear as if it flowed by any natural process through the heart of this…well, I am not quite sure what to call it. It appears to be a hill, and yet its shape feels somehow unnatural as well.”
It is Rorlain who first answers, “What does it appear to be to your eyes? What seems to be its purpose?”
“What do you mean? You think it has a purpose?” Eldarien asks.
“If it is not born of nature, then it is born of artifice. And the artificer must have had a purpose in doing what it did.”
“You are right, though I suppose even the artificer of nature always works with a reason, even if that reason is the simple beauty of what exists and its form. But this follows not the form of the rest of nature; it is different: less beautiful, less harmonious, more, as it were, utilitarian.”
“I suspect the same,” Cirien says. “It seems to me that this structure, even if it poses as a natural feature of the landscape, is rather a tool in service of a master. And whatever the master may be, it is frightening to think that he has power even over the earth itself, or at least enough power to harness its shape for his purposes.”
“And we still plan to move forward?” asks Tilliana. “Here is another sign that we walk into danger, into the realm of a force of immense power—power greater even than our imagining.”
“It is only a circumstantial sign,” replies Cirien, “as this looks to have been fashioned centuries, perhaps millennia, in the past. But you are right in this: the unnatural nature of the river combined with its present dryness raises questions. However, I loathe the thought of traveling back to the mouth of the mountain pass and heading north from there. It is a great loss of time that, if it is possible, I wish to spare us.”
“And it would be unfortunate to turn around if there was in fact no cause for concern,” adds Eldarien. “However, we are already at the highest point in the valley. If we only continue a mile or so further, perhaps we shall be able to see the other side laid out before us. I feel that answers may await us there.”
“I don’t know whether that makes me feel more consoled or less,” says Tilliana. “But if we see something—whatever that might be—that could be a danger to us, I offer my vote that we turn around.”
“That may likely be wise,” says Cirien. “But I agree that we should at least take a look from our vantage point, if it indeed proves as near as Eldarien hopes. Yet I give you my word, Tilliana,” he adds, looking at her, “that if we see anything that might endanger us, we shall turn around without hesitation.”
Tilliana nods, and as the company begins to move again, Elmariyë places her hand upon her shoulder. “Worry not,” she says softly. “Both Eldarien and Cirien will do nothing to endanger us.”
“It is not their benevolence that I doubt,” replies Tilliana. “It is their weakness—weakness of mind to see dangers ahead of us soon enough to avoid them, and weakness of body to resist them when they come.”
“Why are you so afraid?” Elmariyë asks her. They are now walking side by side a short distance behind the rest of the company. “I…I feel,” she continues, but hesitates.
“What is it?” Tilliana asks.
“It is hard to say, and I tend not to speak of these things,” replies Elmariyë.
“What things?”
“What I feel in the deep spaces of my heart. I trust Eldarien’s judgment here because I feel the same as he. I feel a force of great evil, that is true. But I also feel another, greater presence inviting us to move forward into the unknown. It is…it is important that we move forward precisely here. I do not know the reason, for I do not know what we shall find. But there is something that awaits us. This much, I am certain, both Eldarien and I now know. And Cirien, I imagine, has discerned it as well.”
“Oh, Elmariyë, it is just so hard to lean on the seeing of others when I myself do not see!” Tilliana exclaims, though in a soft voice.
“It is not meant to be easy, nor is it meant to be the end,” replies Elmariyë tenderly. “Even obedience is not meant to end in mere trust in the wisdom and direction of another. Rather, trust is meant to give way to vision, to open the eyes to see what before they could not see. And I trust that this shall soon be so in your case. Your eyes are already alert and sensitive, and it shall only take a small amount of time until they adjust to the new atmosphere—like pupils dilating in the darkness to see what before was hidden in shadows.”
“Do I really want to see what is hidden in shadows?” asks Tilliana.
“You must answer that question for yourself,” says Elmariyë, “just as you must choose your own path and stand within your own conviction, even if the aid and guidance of others is invaluable in helping you to discover and to remain firm within that place.”
“Yes…” Tilliana sighs. “And the answer is obvious. I desperately desire to see. We were made to see, weren’t we? Of course…not the darkness but the light…the light that shines in the darkness and beyond it. That is the reality for which my heart thirsts. And I will go anywhere in order to attain it, even through the blackest night. I only wish it were not necessary to do so.”
To Tilliana’s surprise, in response to these words, Elmariyë does not speak, but instead her face lights up with enthusiasm and her eyes glisten both with passion and with tears, and then she draws Tilliana into a full embrace.
“W-what is it?” Tilliana asks, after a moment.
“Your words, they just…” replies Elmariyë, whispering with her mouth beside Tilliana’s ear. “Your words moved me deeply. For the reality of which you spoke…that too is my sole desire. For myself…but also for others. I seek it for myself for it draws me as a current that carries me with impetuous force; and I seek it for others because I know that in it alone can they too find peace, security, and rest.”
Then Elmariyë steps back and looks deeply into Tilliana’s eyes. She smiles softly, and her eyes are indeed aflame. “Wherever we walk and whatever lies before us,” she says, “forget not the light that you seek, and then the darkness cannot overcome you.”
“Will you…will you pray for me and help me? For I am afraid to walk alone,” asks Tilliana.
“With all my heart,” Elmariyë replies. And with that, they turn and continue on their way, joining the others who, noticing their pause, have stopped thirty or so yards ahead to wait for them.
† † †
They walk for a little over two miles until they come to the place at which the mound begins to descend before them, sloping down until it rejoins with the floor of the valley far below. And as they come to this place, what they encounter raises as many questions as it answers. In the distance, at the far end of the valley in the fold of the mountains, stands an ancient castle fortress, made of stone as black as the darkest night and as dull as ash, not reflecting the light of the sun that shines full upon it but rather absorbing or devouring it. Even from this distance, they can see that spikes rise from its parapets and its spires like claws reaching up to the sky, not in obeisance but in rebellion.
“It is an ill place,” says Eldarien, “that much is clear for all to see.”
“Then we have found our answer,” adds Cirien, looking deeply at the castle for a moment and then turning to his companions. “We shall follow your request, Tilliana. Let us linger here no longer, despite the many unanswered questions that remain with us. I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it. An evil presence lives within the walls of that castle, or at least it did in years long past. And either way, the shadow of its presence remains. I feel the weight of it upon my heart already.”
“As do we all,” says Rorlain, gritting his teeth. “Let us make haste away.”
After this, they turn back, and, without a single glance over their shoulders toward the castle, they trace their steps to the opposite slope that they had ascended shortly before. By the time that they have climbed down to the level of the valley once again, the day is beginning to decline toward evening. Yet they decide to continue on for at least a little longer, in order to put some distance between themselves and the mysterious castle. As the land begins to sink into darkness, they stop and find a small grove of trees not far from the path in the shelter of which to spend the night.
“Cirien,” begins Rorlain, “did you not say that the river once took its origin from a lake high in the mountains?”
“I did say that.”
“Where is it now?”
“My apologies,” says Cirien, “but I did not mean to imply that I myself have ever been this way. I spoke from hearsay about the lake. It may well have been nothing but an unfounded rumor.”
“Then how did you know about the shortcut through the mountains?” asks Elmariyë. “I just assumed that it has been taken by others. Yet I get the feeling now that no man has come this way in many years.”
“I know not how to explain it,” sighs Cirien. “For the castle looked to have been ancient. It puzzles me, therefore, that I have never heard of it, and that all the accounts I have heard of the mountain pass seem to be directly contradicted by what our eyes have seen today.”
“Could it be some kind of…trickery? First there are nightmares and now there is…oh, I don’t even know what to call it,” Tilliana says.
“If anything has been trickery,” replies Cirien, “I would think it was the lake rather than the castle. Maybe its owner has long concealed it from mortal eyes.”
“I do not care to know,” says Tilliana. “My wish now is to get as far away as possible. For something strange is occurring, and a great evil seemed to emanate from the walls of the castle, sweeping across the valley like a bitter wind and blowing upon my face as I looked out upon it.”
“We all felt it,” Eldarien says, “and we shall leave at first light. I regret the loss of time that this path has cost us, but I also do not regret our discovery. For perhaps we have indeed found a stronghold of the enemy that would have lain hidden for many years had we not discovered it this day.”
“You tend to see the positive in every situation,” says Tilliana. “Where I see only fear, even absurdity, you find a hidden meaning.”
Eldarien looks at her for a moment, softly shaking his head, and then he replies quietly, “I don’t know that I agree with you, but I walked for many years in what appeared to be absurdity, face to face with the horror of war and death, and found that even there meaning can be found. It seems to me that nothing in this world is absurd, even if its meaning surpasses our understanding. We are just so small and our sight so dim that the threads of meaning often escape our notice, and we do not realize the tapestry of beauty in which we are being woven.” Then his voice falls silent, and he smiles awkwardly, as if the expression comes to him unnaturally. “I do not know why I say such things. I was not even aware of it myself until I put it into words.”
“I think I am beginning to understand,” says Elmariyë, a glint in her eyes as she looks at Eldarien.
“Well, I hope that I can find some meaning in all of this… and in all that has…” Tilliana begins, but her voice falls silent before the thought is finished.
“Some meaning in all that you have suffered and all that you have lost,” Eldarien finishes for her. “Yes, I am aware that my words sound insensitive, and I plead only that I did not know what I said before I said it. Forgive me.”
“I-I…” Tilliana stutters. “I mean… You do not need to ask for forgiveness. None of your words were ill spoken. They are just hard to hear.”
Eldarien opens his mouth to reply but then simply nods in silence.
“Why do we not all try now to get some rest?” asks Cirien. “I shall keep the first watch.”
† † †
You do not understand, petty little creatures, the voice says, echoing in Tilliana’s mind. You claim to cling to meaning and purpose, but all things are absurd and empty, naught but a hollow vessel waiting to be filled. And there is only one thing that fills it: power.
She sits up with a start, breathing heavily, and looks around. It is deep in the night, a sky bursting with countless stars above her head, and in its light she looks around, seeing that all of her companions are fast asleep.
I have the power to give back to you what you have lost, the voice continues, speaking directly into her mind. Is that not what you wish?
I am not going to speak with you…creature, she replies in the same mind-speech. Leave me alone.
You need not speak. Only listen. In the world there is no meaning but that which you put into it. Is not everything but a facade that conceals emptiness? At one moment, something appears beautiful and precious to you, only in the next moment to appear vain and empty. At one moment you are satisfied, only in another moment to be dissatisfied. Do you value your family? Then you put meaning into it. Do you value victory in war? Then that becomes meaningful for you. But your weak mind thinks that it is “discovering” meaning rather than inventing it. Oh no, but such a thought is due only to your weakness. Become strong, and then you shall see: you shall gaze into the abyss of absurdity that lies just below the surface of every thing…the pretty little surface of this petty little world. But worry not, I can show you how to stand strong against the vortex of emptiness and to bring forth from within you that meaning that you seek. But it shall be yours and yours alone, such that none can take it from you. Only then shall you find constancy and stability in that which is born of your own will. For what you yourself have created, none can take away. Why rely on the fading things that today are here and tomorrow are gone? Why rely on receiving, whether the light of the sun or the seed of man? No. Everything you need already lies within you…and nowhere else.
While the voice speaks, Tilliana rises to her feet and places her hands over her ears, pacing back and forth and shaking her head, as if to dispel the words or at least to keep herself from hearing them. But throughout this monologue, the voice only echoes more loudly and clearly within her. And only through what happens next does she realize that she is still dreaming. Until this moment, the nightmare has been so real, so vivid, that she did not realize that she slept. But now she knows, and she feels that anguishing split where part of her is aware of her dreaming and is trying to wake up, and yet the other part of her is sunk in unconsciousness and simply follows the trajectory of the dream without thought or resistance.
Come to me, the voice says firmly. The command is strong and unbending, and in response she finds herself saying, Yes, master.
And then she begins to walk away from the camp and toward the narrow cleft between the hills…toward the castle.
No… No, Tilliana! What are you doing? Turn around. Go the other way!
But she cannot stop her body. It is no longer obeying her but another force entirely.
Wake up! Wake up! He is toying with you! Only if you wake up can you resist him. He has power over you only because you sleep!
Yet what follows is not wakefulness but further dreaming. Her surroundings shift, and she finds herself no longer walking in the narrow space between towering walls of stone. Rather, she is in a broad meadow glistening in the sun, wildflowers dancing in the breeze all around her. And as she looks she sees, in the distance, the figures of her family walking toward her: Alsenor, Annar, and Beïta. They move together, their hands interlaced with one another, approaching her with steady step and unerring intent. But she cannot simply stand and wait for them. She takes off at a sprint, quickly crossing the distance between herself and her family.
Alsenor smiles at her gently while he releases the hands of their children. Both of them, laughing and crying, come running toward her. She opens wide her arms to receive them. And then, carrying them both as if they were again but infants, she rushes into the welcoming arms of Alsenor…only to pass through him as if through a ghost or shadow. She turns back again, and he is gone. In that moment, her children too dissolve within her arms, and she finds herself alone, looking around frantically. And as she does so, the clear sky turns to dense and threatening clouds, and lightning strikes near her, causing an instantaneous clap of thunder that shakes the very foundations of the earth. Terrified, she runs. It does not matter in which direction. She must simply get away, away from this terrible place, from these shadows of loss that promise presence and give only absence. She must escape. And as she runs, her head strikes against a hard surface, a surface unseen, and she falls to the ground.
At the impact of the blow, she is jarred into wakefulness, and the visage of the dream blows away in an instant. She awakens lying on her back looking up at a narrow strip of sky between two columns of rock. And then the throbbing pain in her head overtakes her, and she slips into another kind of unconsciousness than sleep.
† † †
Eldarien is jarred into wakefulness, realizing immediately that he has fallen asleep while it is his turn to keep watch. He looks around anxiously but sees nothing. The night is dark and still, with no more than a whisper of wind in the trees and a partial moon shining in the sky whose light is shaded by a fabric of clouds that moves slowly across the firmament. He rubs his eyes and runs his hands through his hair, frustrated with himself for falling asleep on watch. He reaches out in his memory for some cause for his sudden awakening—an awakening permeated by anxiety, even fear—but he finds nothing. Perhaps it was no more than the subconscious awareness that he was meant to be awake, keeping guard over the camp, which stirred him awake again. Preoccupied with these thoughts, it is a good ten or fifteen minutes before he looks back over his sleeping companions and realizes that Tilliana is gone.
He hurriedly awakes the others, saying to them, “Forgive me, but I fell asleep while keeping watch, and now I see that Tilliana is not here. Did she say anything to you?”
But they all respond in the negative.
“That is…unsettling,” sighs Rorlain, rising to his feet and shaking off the sleep that clings to him.
“This makes some sense of my dream,” Cirien says hesitantly. “Or at least I think it does.”
“What do you mean?” Eldarien asks.
“It was more a nightmare, really.”
“So they are back?”
“Most certainly,” Cirien begins. “You see, I dreamed this time of a shadow in the darkness hunting us like a wolf hunts its prey. As the wolf steals away a sheep from the herd in the dark of night, so I dreamed of the shadow—or rather whatever creature concealed itself in shadow—stealing away the members of our company one by one, until only I was left.”
“I fear that this was more real that just a nightmare,” says Rorlain, pulling his bow and quiver over his shoulder and then slipping the handle of his axe into his belt. “I suppose we should hurry if we are to have any chance of saving her.”
“I agree. I see no other reason for her disappearance but this,” Eldarien agrees, grabbing his weapons as well. “But how was she taken without any of us noticing? That perhaps unsettles me most of all.”
Then Elmariyë, who has stood in silence at the edge of the grove since awakening, turns back and says, “I sense her in the direction of the castle. I know not how far or near. But I agree. Let us grab what we need and go.”
And so they proceed through the night, with only a single torch and the pale light of the moon to light their way through the darkness. And as they pass into the narrow gorge, following the dry riverbed, the light from the sky is all but blotted out, and they must pick their way among rocks in the orange light of the flame that dances against the floor and the walls and casts their shadows behind them like massive shapes morphing and changing with every movement. Rorlain walks in the lead, the torch in his hand, followed directly by Eldarien, for they both have experience hunting (or being hunted) in the night, and their senses are keen. Cirien and Elmariyë are a few feet behind, their hands interlocked both for balance and for security, in order to prevent one or the other disappearing without notice, whether through an accident in the darkness or through the malice of the shadow that hunts them.
In such a manner they continue, slowly both through the rough narrowness of the path that more or less forces them to walk in the riverbed itself and through their care in searching the ground they pass for signs of Tilliana or the creature that has taken her. “I feel both fear and grief,” says Elmariyë, “her fear and grief. I do believe that she came this way.”
“She is probably already in the castle, or wherever else that shadow-creature dwells,” says Rorlain, “if Cirien’s dream was in any measure true.”
“Yet I would be happy to find that it was wrong,” Eldarien says, “even if I can currently think of no alternative.”
And so they come to the far end of the gorge and find the land and sky opening out before them, the mountains’ black shapes against a dark sky, their forms visible only by their subtly darker hue and their lack of stars against the millions upon millions of stars that burn in the firmament above them. Little more is visible than this, and they continue forward only with trust and desire, seeing clearly no more than a few yards ahead of them, illumined by the torch in Rorlain’s hand. As they pass another grove of trees, Eldarien for a moment sprints away into the darkness, only to return just as quickly, carrying a fallen branch, which he prepares and then holds to Rorlain’s torch until it too catches fire.
Despite the lack of information given to them by the sense of sight, their other senses are alert, and they feel keenly that they walk through the center of the valley with wide stretches of land rising to either side of them, before they jut upwards, perhaps a half mile away in either direction, to the high mountain peaks that enfold them. Eventually another shape begins to loom ahead of them, a black blacker even than the darkness of the mountains, a black unimaginable in its blackness, not just an absence of light or color but like a gaping hole in the darkness, causing the feeling that if one were to touch it, one would fall straight through into nothingness. It must be the mysterious stone of the castle, to which their steps carry them ever nearer.
“It is as we feared,” mutters Eldarien under his breath, when they are close enough to the castle to make out its silhouette in the night and to feel its shadow cast upon them—or rather, to feel its magnetism eating up all the darkness around them, a vortex that feeds upon shadow in order to intensify, ingratiate, and satisfy its own darkness. “She is inside. I feel her heart calling.”
“But that means that she yet lives, does it not?” asks Rorlain. “And there is still a chance to save her?”
“Indeed,” Eldarien agrees, raising his torch in the air to cast its light upon the stone wall ahead of them. But the stone ignores the touch of the light, as if they exist in two separate realms with no communication between them. This only intensifies the feeling of staring into nothingness. “I fear that getting her out of such a place shall prove…ah, it matters not. I shall do what I can.” He then turns to look at the faces of his companions and is almost startled by the vividness of their presence—in comparison with the profound “absence” of the black stone—faces looking back at him in the flickering light of the torches, anxiety lining their faces. “We need not all go into this terrible place, however. For there is no telling what dangers await.”
“The shadows may drag us all in soon enough,” says Rorlain. “But you are right, though I wish it were not so. For I do not want us to be separated.” Then he shakes his head. “Though I suppose we already are.”
“Perhaps I should go in,” Elmariyë offers, her voice firm despite her fear. “For I feel her probably most keenly, and the dreams have not effected me.”
“That is true, and yet if there are any threats of a martial nature, you have little skill to defend yourself,” answers Eldarien quietly. “I think I shall be able to walk by feeling nearly as much as you, and I have…” he raises a hand absentmindedly and places it upon the hilt of the lightbringer, “I have this.”
“But I do not wish for you to go alone,” says Elmariyë.
“It would not be wise for both of us to go,” Eldarien replies.
“I will go with you, Eldarien,” Rorlain offers.
Eldarien nods at the same moment that Cirien says, “And I shall remain here with Elmariyë at my side. Or rather we shall find some spot to hide at a safe distance…as safe as we can be in proximity to such a place.”
“Good,” says Eldarien, looking first to Cirien and then to Elmariyë, his eyes almost saying an involuntary goodbye. “If we do not come out by…”
“Hush,” Cirien says, with a wave of his hand. “We shall do what we discern to be best. Trust in our judgment.”
“I…I do,” replies Eldarien. “But here, take this torch, so that at least you do not walk in the dark.”
Cirien silently takes it and nods his head, and then he and Elmariyë draw away again to the east, until nothing is visible of them but a tiny point of light bobbing in the darkness.
“Well then,” Rorlain says, waving his own torch in the air and looking around. “Do you suppose there is a door somewhere?”
“I do not know how there could not be,” replies Eldarien, “though it shall be difficult to find in the darkness.”
“How long until sunrise?” Rorlain asks, looking up at the sky and trying to gauge the time through the location of the moon. After a moment, he adds, “Too long.”
“Knowing that Tilliana is missing and probably in grave danger,” says Eldarien, “I am not willing to wait even a single moment when anything is in my power to do.”
“Of course,” nods Rorlain, “then let us try to find an entrance.” With this, he steps up to the wall and begins to scan its surface with his eyes, holding the torch close to the stone. But to both men, the wall appears completely uniform, a featureless, abysmal black. After a few moments, Rorlain begins to walk along the edge of the wall, following its trajectory, and Eldarien silently follows him, looking and thinking. For a good ten minutes, they circle the castle fortress until they find themselves on the opposite side, northeast of the structure, with a swiftly rising mass of mountain behind them and the sheer wall of the castle before them. But still they see nothing.
As they make their way back around the castle again to the place they first stood, Eldarien throws about in his mind looking for an answer, frustration and anger growing within him to the point of bursting—emotions, he knows, born of profound fear. He is afraid that they shall be too late to save Tilliana, and the thought hurts him so deeply that he wants to cry out audibly, to let the pain loose rather than concealing it silently within. Even as they walk, he buries his face in his hands and tries to draw in a breath, gritting his teeth. And then suddenly a thought comes to him.
“Could you put out the torch?” he says suddenly.
“What did you say?”
“Could you extinguish the torch?”
“Why?” asks Rorlain. “It is dark out here. We will see next to nothing if I do so.”
“We are already seeing next to nothing,” says Eldarien, “but I have a thought. A thought that just maybe…”
“Very well,” Rorlain agrees, and he stamps out the flames of the torch under his foot. As soon as the last bit of the fire sputters out into smoke, all goes dark around them, and the only thing at all visible to their eyes are the stars and the moon far above them. And indeed, the firmament feels immeasurably farther than it ought to be, as if they are looking up at it from an entirely different level of the world, thousands and thousands of miles lower than they actually stand, out of the depths of a narrow pit. But they know that this is not a matter of physical location, some trick of space, but rather a spiritual reality and a trick of the spirit. But when they turn from looking at their surroundings and at the sky above them and direct their gaze again to the castle, they see that the black wall has changed in appearance. The change is so slight that it goes almost unnoticed. But now the surface, which before showed nothing but blackness, looks almost like a pool of black water, soft and viscous. Rorlain unconsciously reaches out to touch it.
“Wait!” cries Eldarien, staying Rorlain’s hand. “Let us do so together.” And he then lays one hand upon Rorlain’s shoulder. Together they place their palms upon the black stone that now appears almost to move before them, a wall of liquid stone like melted obsidian. And once their hands touch the wall, they find it giving way before them. Or rather, they find it pulling them in. It takes only a moment, and they, as it were, fall into the surface of the black water—they fall horizontally into the darkness, only immediately to emerge, still standing, on the other side. They now find themselves in a wide courtyard of pure black stone, floor and wall, and indistinguishable shapes can be made out before them, perhaps buildings of some kind, though it is too dark to see. Now that the torch light has been extinguished, the stone looks different, and yet its viscous, ever moving appearance has passed; the best way to describe its appearance now is perhaps to say that it looks like opaque glass.
“What in the world is…?” Rorlain begins to ask, but his voice fails in his throat as the stone changes again before their very gaze and now becomes reflective like a mirror. The two men feel as if they are standing in a courtyard of mirrors, all reflecting both the sky and one another—as well as the two men standing in their midst. But the reflections are not like ordinary reflections—a placid lake reflecting the nocturnal sky, magnifying its beauty, or a mirror imaging a human face as it appears in life—but rather twisted, distorted images that change both shape and hue.
“What trickery is this?” Rorlain sighs, and he unconsciously takes a step back away from the nearest wall, bumping into Eldarien.
“It goes from rejecting light,” Eldarien observes, “to twisting light.”
Suddenly there is a burst of flame ahead of them and above them, at the center of the courtyard, as a tower-beacon of some kind is lit and begins burning brightly, its light reflecting in distorted visage in the myriad faces of the walls and floors and buildings of glassy stone.
“It looks like someone knows we are here,” Rorlain says with a mirthless laugh, “and welcomes our arrival.”
“Of course he awaits us,” Eldarien responds, “for he has long foreseen our arrival. Why else did he take only one of us and not all of us together?”
“I do not know why,” replies Rorlain. “It would seem easier to take us all—to imprison and destroy us all at once, unless this creature, whatever it may be, prefers a game of cat and mouse. But I admit that I know nothing of its purpose.”
“I think it is exactly as you said,” Eldarien breathes, his voice a hoarse whisper. “The being that dwells here prefers a game, and we have just stepped into the trap. I too could be wrong, but I get the sense that it is his greatest pleasure—though joy he knows not, nor true rejoicing—to trap the living in the prison of their own fears, in the corridors of their own minds. And this fortress of his serves such an end…though if it also has other ends, I know not.”
“How do you…know this?” asks Rorlain.
“I feel it…his intent,” answers Eldarien. “His presence surrounds us, oppressive and unwelcome, like eyes watching in the darkness preparing to strike.”
“We should—”
“We cannot get out,” Eldarien interrupts suddenly, his voice intense. “Not right now, anyway. All possibility of escape has been taken from us. The walls are impassible.” But then he turns and looks deeply at Rorlain, pain and compassion in his eyes. “But do not despair. There may yet be hope. I only wish that you were not here with me.”
“I would not be anywhere else, Eldarien,” Rorlain says, even as he reaches out one of his hands and tests the stone of the nearest wall. It indeed refuses to give way and remains solid. “Whatever shall be shall be.”
“You are right,” Eldarien agrees. “I am sorry for what I said. I am grateful that you are here, though I wish that the danger would threaten me alone. I do not wish to drag you into danger once again.”
“If that were the case, then even if I was physically present, I would not truly be here, would I? Not as deeply with you as I am now.”
Eldarien turns and looks into Rorlain’s eyes for a long moment, his expression inscrutable. Then he says simply, “That is exactly right.”
And so they turn toward the center of the courtyard illumined by the beacon and can now make out what appears to be a door at the base of the tower: a silhouette of greater darkness ridged with a silvery strand of metal. As they draw near to it, they can discern upon its face a design which they have never seen before, in the same sinuous silver as the metal that frames the door, the appearance of which in the blackness has a haunting effect. When all else has gone dark, even the smallest hints of light stand out like early stars in an empty sky caught between the light of dusk and the firmament of full night—though now it is like looking up in the blackest midnight to see, not a firmament dancing with stars, but emptiness, a void where before was parchment filled with text and sky filled with constellations.
The design upon the door is of a creature that can only be a dragon, its serpentine form emerging from what appears to be a crack in the earth at the bottom of the door, and its veinous, membrane-like wings stretched across the entire width of the door, from lintel to lintel. At the bottom of the image, around its feet and tail just bursting from the earth, are walls with jagged claws, looking almost like a bear trap, and yet the dragon is not bound by them. Rather, the figure of the dragon strains so evidently upward that the walls appear not as a trap but as a doorway, a place of passage from hidden depths under the earth to the sky above, in which is the design of a many-pointed sun surrounded by seven stars.
“Is it…?” Rorlain begins to ask, but his words fail to form into speech.
Eldarien replies to his unvoiced question nonetheless, “Devourer of the Light and Bane of the Blessed…that is what the ancient serpents have been called. And the place of their birth or passage seems clearly to be this very castle.”
“Let us only hope we do not encounter one,” Rorlain says.
“Indeed.”
“But what I don’t understand,” he continues, “is this: I expected to feel differently here in the castle than I do. I mean…it is bizarre and unusual, and I feel a sense of being trapped, of suffocation, but it is only a fraction of what I expected to feel.”
“I agree,” says Eldarien. “I fear that he is only toying with us, withholding himself until it is his pleasure to snap the trap shut.”
“But why, if you feel as I, do you speak so firmly?” asks Rorlain.
“After my prolonged encounter with the creature of darkness, Maggot, it is as though my heart remembers the scars and the kind of power that inflicted them. I can recognize a similar presence here, hovering just beyond my consciousness, like movement in the corner of my eye that, when I turn to look at it, recedes from view.”
“Well, that does not bring me any solace.”
“Me, neither, particularly since we must pass into this darkness for the sake of our friend and companion.”
Rorlain does not question Eldarien’s resolve, for he shares it. After all, if Eldarien had not been willing to walk into darkness in the slim hope of rescuing him, he himself would no longer enjoy the breath of life. If the same gift can be extended to Tilliana, then he does not hesitate to do so. “Is there a way…to open the door?” he asks after a while.
Eldarien breathes deeply, as if in thought, before answering, “Steel yourself, for I know not what comes.” He then steps forward until he is only a foot or two from the door and says, “We are here for our companion, and we request entrance.”
Suddenly a sinister laughter echoes throughout the courtyard, though its point of origin is unclear—or rather it originates all around them, as if from the very walls of the castle. But as soon as the laughter rises, it also dies away. It is followed by a voice pressing upon the fringes of their minds, a voice which they both hear in equal measure, even though it is more felt than heard.
“You address the Lord of Mæres with such audacity! You could rather address me with respect befitting my power, at least until you bow before me in perfect obeisance.”
“None bow before you but in fear,” Eldarien retorts in an audible voice.
“That is not true, petty little man. Many bow before me in awe of my majesty and my might. Though you speak truly that my greatest delight is to instill fear in the living and terror in their rest.”
“Why do you call yourself the Lord of Mæres?” Rorlain asks, a combination of anger, resentment, and curiosity blending within him—though it is not the curiosity by which one wishes to learn about the world bathed in daylight and beauty, but rather that by which one wishes to solve a troubling problem or to protect oneself against an evil. It is simply the desire to know, to grasp for some sense of safety and strength by giving a name to one’s opponent, who otherwise remains entirely intangible and, in this intangibility, all the more threatening.
“I thought that the answer to such a question would be obvious,” the voice replies in its mind-speech. “I am the weaver of dreams and the afflicter of sleep, though even in waking I enjoy making my presence known. Fear is my domain, and terror is my game. Though not in many long years have any of the living come to my castle nor entered within its courts.”
“Are you going to let us in or not?” Eldarien asks firmly. “That is your intention, is it not?”
At first, the voice does not speak. Instead a crease appears in the door’s center and it parts, swinging inward to reveal a dark corridor sloping immediately downward before them. Then the voice says simply, “Let the games begin.”
Rorlain takes a deep breath, a wave of fear washing over him, and says, “So we go into the belly of the earth once again. I suppose there is no other way, is there?”
“I wish there were,” Eldarien replies. “I know not if we shall return, but remember: fear is his weapon against us, the kind of fear that torments the mind and drives it to madness or despair.”
“The ‘Lord of Mæres’,” Rorlain breathes. “Nightmares cannot harm us unless we yield to their bidding. But are all of our ill dreams really the fruit of his action?”
“You know the answer as well as I,” answers Eldarien, turning for a moment again to his friend.
“You are right,” says Rorlain. “Most of the time it is no more than our own fears and the wounds of our hearts stirring the mind as it sleeps. But this…I fear this. For it shall be something else entirely.”
“That is true… But take solace in the fact that we shall also be awake. And for no reason, for no reason whatsoever may we give in to sleep. For then his dominion over us shall spread much further.” With these words, Eldarien nods, and Rorlain ignites his torch once again. Then the two together step through the threshold and into the darkness that awaits, laughter echoing in the courtyard behind them until it is shut out by the door that automatically seals itself closed once they are inside. The slope of the floor is steep beneath their feet, and they find it difficult to maintain their balance as they descend. This is also joined with a sense of profound disorientation, for the walls of the corridor are again of the dull black stone which absorbs rather than reflects light, and so the torch held by Rorlain illumines the air immediately surrounding them but no more than this. Otherwise they walk in complete blackness.
After only a few minutes walking in the darkness, fear begins to grow on the horizons of their consciousness, a fear far beyond the natural threat of the situation in which they find themselves (which is itself already considerable). It is like malevolent eyes laid upon them from the darkness, watching them and instilling in them a feeling of dread and terror that makes it difficult to even take another step. But the gaze, or rather the threat that feels like an evil gaze, is not a personal force, though perhaps in it there are remnants of personhood long shattered and broken. It feels somehow anonymous, and yet for being anonymous, it feels even more dangerous. For a person can be moved to pity, to compassion, or at least to reason. But when the person is effaced and only a faceless force of evil and lust for power remains, no such resistance is possible. There is then no dialogue or even any argument: it is a sheer clash of wills, one will bound to a frail and yet richly beautiful heart and flesh, a living person with consciousness and desire and fear, with aspiration and hope; the other, a will belonging to a consciousness which for so many centuries has been bent upon one purpose alone—the destruction of all that is good—that it can hardly be related to as an individual any longer. It is now barely more than a faceless and nameless force of vengefulness and hate, concealing, for those with the capacity to see, a deep-seated envy, from whence springs its desire to mock, terrorize, and debase the very creatures whose freedom is felt as a placid mirror turned toward it, reflecting back to it the depth of its own misery and the absoluteness of its slavery.
All of this and more washes over Eldarien and Rorlain now, as they force their legs to carry them ever deeper into the tunnels that lie beneath the castle. The torch is unsteady in Rorlain’s hand, for his whole body is now shaking with fear, and he finds it difficult to breathe. “D-do you feel her any more?” he asks, with great effort.
“Tilliana…” Eldarien replies in the darkness, though it sounds like an echo from a great distance rather than a voice from directly at Rorlain’s side. “I…”
Rorlain waits, but for what seems to be a long time—though time is almost indistinguishable in this place—no answer comes. “Eldarien?”
“Y-yes,” he replies at last. “I feel her, but it is ever so faint.” Then silence again falls between them for a long period. When Eldarien speaks again, he says, “She is still further below us. We are walking in the right direction.”
Suddenly, in an instant, the light of the torch goes out. Or rather, a wave of darkness washes over them, like a gust of chill wind welling up from the depths, and it is so intense that they cannot tell whether the torch has been extinguished or whether they simply can discern its light no longer. And with the coming of this darkness, comes panic. Unconsciously, Rorlain drops the torch and buries his head in his hands, cowering as if to defend himself against a blow. Eldarien takes a step back and lays his hands upon his sword, drawing it forth from its scabbard. But nothing comes.
For a long moment, all is still, and neither of them moves.
Then Eldarien says softly, “Let us continue.”
There is no response.
“Rorlain,” he asks, “are you alright?”
Still there is no answer. Eldarien steps forward and, holding the lightbringer in one hand, with the other he feels his way through the darkness. The corridor is narrow enough that it is not difficult to feel his way from one wall to the other with a single wave of his hand. And because of this, it does not take long for him to realize that Rorlain is no longer with him. With this realization, the last cushion between himself and the terror that has been encroaching upon him—the awareness of companionship—is torn away, and fear comes rushing in upon him. He stumbles to the side and leans against the wall, feeling light-headed and faint. For a few long moments, he can think nothing and give no voice to his heart, but instead simply remains still and silent under the crashing waves of fear and anxiety. But then he reaches deep within himself, and, holding the lightbringer with both hands and raising it in the air, he cries out, “In the light of Hiliana, begone, terrors of the night!”
He feels little or nothing with this act of faith, but in his heart he finds the capacity to resist the darkness and to press on. He moves, unsteady on his feet but confident in his purpose, and continues along the passageway and its descent. And he walks for what seems to be hours, stretching on before and after him in interminable darkness, his hands sweating against the hilt of the sword and his feet pounding against the stone floor with muffled footfalls. Now he senses neither Tilliana nor Rorlain, nor even, in a way, his own self. All that he is aware of is a sense of profound alienation, as if the further he descends into the depths of the earth under the castle, the further he departs from all that is beautiful, good, or true in the world, and from everything lovable or precious. Instead all that remains is the awareness of loss and a feeling of deep isolation. But even this isolation is not like the loneliness he has felt so often in the past—the loneliness of the heart crying out for communion in the visceral awareness of its own capacities and desires, aware, in other words, that it is like half of a coin crying out for the other half, or an addressee in a dialogue of love who has forgotten the one who first spoke and is therefore unable to speak in response but wishes to do so.
No, now all he feels is a pressing sense of numbness descending upon him, weighing on his mind, heart, and body until he fears that any moment he shall simply cease walking altogether and sit down on the cold stone to sleep forevermore. His eyes begin to close even as he walks, and he finds himself spiritually slipping into an abyss of nothingness and absurdity, when suddenly, as he takes another step forward, a gust of warm air blows strong against his face. This stirs him into alertness for long enough to realize that he has just stepped out of the narrow descending corridor and onto a level floor. And by the movement of the air and the intangible sense of space, he can tell, even in the pitch-black darkness, that he is in a large room. He stands still and listens for a long moment, but he can discern little more about the room than that, neither how far across it may be nor how high its ceiling. But he fears to move forward for the simple reason that he can see nothing and could easily step into a pit or some kind of trap. And on top of this, burying everything like an immeasurable weight, is the suffocating terror and sense of horrible loss that have not lessened in any way.
Reaching deep into himself and drawing forth what little flickering spark of courage there is within him, he begins to walk forward, reaching out with his hand to avoid hurting himself on whatever he might collide with in the darkness, and reaching out with his heart for a thread of communication that can lead him toward his goal, whether that be Tilliana, Rorlain, or Hiliana herself. But he feels nothing. Even the very sense of his own motivations, the driving force behind his intentions, slips away from him, and for a few moments, he feels almost led to question his very being and identity. He feels like a shadow lost among shadows, like a particle of darkness in an eternity of darkness, like a speck of dust hidden in a room into which no light filters or shall ever filter and therefore shall evermore go unseen and unknown. Overcome by the torrent of these thoughts, thoughts of loss and thoughts of absurdity, which infiltrate his soul and crush him, he falls to his knees and the lightbringer slips from his grasp, clattering against the stone floor and sending echoes through the spacious room.
And suddenly he slips from consciousness, or rather, his consciousness is carried to another place, another state, and he finds himself standing in the center of a lake of glassy water under a starless sky, the only illumination a pillar of flame directly before him. He looks down, surprised that he does not sink into the water, only to realize that he stands upon a small column of rock hardly wider than himself, jutting from the water. The waves, hardly moving upon the still surface of the lake, nonetheless ripple forth from the rock with the subtlest of shapes. He also sees that he is bare and exposed, with nothing covering his body or his heart as he stands in the utter darkness illumined only by a column of fire that feels in no way consoling or welcoming but rather threatening. When he raises his gaze again and looks upon the pillar, it slowly begins to move toward him, and he discerns in it a figure—or rather he realizes by the gestures of its movement that it is a figure, much like that of a man only much greater in size. It glides across the surface of the lake with steps that look more like floating than walking, and as it passes, the water itself turns to flame, flame shot through with crackling sparks of electricity. Both flame and spark then spread forth from the figure and its trail until they have covered the entire surface of the lake, turning it all to fire and lightning, roaring around him like an inferno. He feels the heat upon his skin, feels its burning—the incredible pain of flesh recoiling from the heat of the fire and the stinging strike of bolts of shocking electrum—until the flesh cannot feel any further and itself yields to the flame.
He recoils within himself now, seeking some refuge in the hidden place of his heart when there is no possibility of escape outside of him, but only agony and death. But inside he realizes that there is nothing but an abyss…like staring into a bottomless pit of black nothingness, with neither air nor wind nor water nor life. And he feels himself sinking, sinking internally and externally, as his heart fails at the same moment as the narrow platform of rock on which he stands begins to crumble and descend into the lake. He looks up spontaneously, as if groping with his gaze for one last refuge or escape in this nightmare of loss, but he sees only that the flaming figure now stands directly before him. And the figure is silently laughing. This silent laugh, without voice or sound or space, nonetheless penetrates into the hollowness of Eldarien’s heart and echoes within it, filling the spaceless space with unbearable dread. For a moment, it seems that this wretched, mocking laughter—taking pleasure in his pain and despair as if it is the most delightful thing to witness—is the only real thing that there is or has ever been.
And all at once, the platform beneath him gives way, and yet, rather than sinking into the burning water, he finds himself falling, air whistling past his ears and sweeping away the flame and shock from his flesh. The laughter slips out of his soul now, and he hears it far above him, like an echo in a cavern, like a voice across a great distance, turning from laughter into rage. The voice fumes in frustration and defiance, though Eldarien does not know what it is against which the voice rebels. Soon the voice is so far away that he can no longer hear it. All he knows, rather, is his naked body falling through boundless space, falling for what feels to be an immeasurable amount of time. And then arms wrap around him as he falls, unknown and unexpected, and yet sure.
A moment later he awakes and finds himself kneeling against the stone in the dark chamber, his body doused in sweat but unharmed. Raising his eyes, he sees his sword on the floor beside him, glowing with a brilliant and pure light. He reaches forward and takes it in his hand, and as he does so, the light expands, growing brighter and extending its reach until even the furthest corners of the chamber are filled with light. He makes a movement as to stand, but his weakened body at first does not obey. He draws in a deep breath and cries out from the deep places of his heart, which in this moment again find their voice. And then he rises, with a tangible sense of arms lifting him from behind and imbuing him with strength. Then this presence flows into him, as if shattering the chaos that holds him bound and imbuing his body and spirit with the vigor that they had lost under the relentless assault of the darkness. And so he steps forward, drawn by the spark of a presence that he feels at the edge of his consciousness, toward the woman whom he entered this place of darkness to save.