The ground became water!
Its scent, sour, spiced like an animal. The smell of sweat. Moments, the water cascaded down the dark depths, stones tumbling into the falling river, even the stele dipped into the ocean, descending into the black nothing, unknown at least.
Instinct took over, breath held in swiftness. Watching, through the queer waters, all around. Catelyn gurgled, stones spearing past her in the rolling tides. Bubbles puffed.
Yoid existed, wide eyes, beating the water. "You fool!" Words muffled by the liquid.
Almighty protect us. This was all Merrin could do. That, and the needed internal stability. Though calmness existed in his motions, the within self screamed at the conditions. No breath, carried by a falling tide.
Anything could happen.
That uncertainty sparked the frenetic self.
Yoid entered his perception. He moved closer, swimming. A physical impossibility. How?
"Now you suffer!" The words registered in absolute clarity.
Casted means.
Mist it! Merrin chilled, knew the frenetic self in the bounds of escape. I need to save Catelyn. I need to do it now!
Yoid was coming, quickly, he was cutting through the plunging tides, coming. Escape Escape. Escape. The internal intuition needed for casting was an unbalanced thing, tipped by the madness of the internal self.
I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die!
Merrin gritted, brief water pervading his mouth; weird tasting.
Yoid raised his arm. "Come here."
A brief push seized Merrin.
Then, a spear of white light struck past the water, spiking Yoid and dragging him in a burst of suddenness. In a moment, he was gone, taken by the flash of abrupt light.
The statues?
An unnecessary thought, one quickly dismissed for the now requisite, to calm the inward self. Likely, this was a cast from Yoid. He had quelled his emotions, the rage, the fear, now it came surging back. Like a storm, unyielding, the previous fear, the maestrom of sensations came pouring.
He could not process what to do!
He could not think nor cast!
Almighty…
A sequence of pounding filled his awareness. Something white flashed through the descending waters, and Catelyn was gone. What? A brief thought as a brilliance gleamed before him, dragging.
Merrin was tossed out of the falling waters, saw it then like a transparent pillar falling into the further darkness. Vast walls, all around. Mountainous. He sensed his body carted. Beside him, Catelyn lay, asleep atop a cold thing of sparkling white light.
He tried for broader observation but found a sudden weakness assailing his senses. This was an impossible might to it, he noted, yet a sound fitted into the dulling mind.
A sharp, sudden, forced snorting and galloping.
Darkness.
Some find the unknowable aspect of God as a lazy concept, designed simply to not explain the flaws and loopholes of the divine. I wonder then what truly it means to be a conceptually perfect god—author unknown.
The first was the lazy drift of white dots, blurred.
Consciousness returned like water dripping into an empty basin—slow, cold, each drop echoing louder than it should. A pulse throbbed in his neck, in his eyes. He breathed, and the air tasted of dust and something older… like metal buried too long in the earth. Heated.
Light pressed through the lids of his eyes. Then pain. Then shapes.
He opened them.
Above him, the world stood on four pillars.
It was massive—towering, breathing, alive. A face leaned toward him, alien in its geometry. Long skull, wide eyes that blinked with a certain judgment. Steam coiled from two caverned nostrils, and the scent that came with it was wild: dry grass, thick hide, sweat layered in warmth.
It huffed again. The sound was low, steady—like distant thunder originating from the sure storms. And its eyes—Almighty, the eyes—were clear. They held no malice, only a glass-like hue. It was radiant. Form like light hardened into a powerful shape.
He stared upward, unblinking, and it occurred to him:
He did not know what this creature was.
Not its name, nor its kind, nor why it watched him now, but in that moment, there was a fear within him. A terror, another monster, had found him. Like always. Recursive.
The creature puffed steam, a stray white serv hovering down, placing itself between him and the creature. Protection? The beast turned, head first, sauntering on four straight legs. It left him? Is it safe?
Merrin maintained the non-movement; the fear of it assured it. A cough disturbed. He turned to his side and found the young Catelyn panting. Dress, revealing, large cuts on shoulders and legs. She lived.
Moreover, her lips were back. A miracle, he chose to believe.
The alternative was frightening, one he knew absolutely. Yet another power now existed in these mines.
What was it?
He blinked away the final ocular fatigue, heaved and stood, attempted to. A sting pierced into his side, bones slumping. He fell, head aching from the brief trauma.
That brought the awareness of physical weakness. There was always that chance. From the constant heat, the heavens' judgement, the many more collisions, reality enforced a natural frailty to his physicality. Problem was for how long. Merrin preferred the sudden healing, but knew its impossibility.
There was no cleanseWitch nearby. He chuckled at the quip, groaned. The throbbing chest, the dry, sore throat. Damages. Any ashman would have left him in such circumstances, he would have also…Would have.
Question: Who then saved him?
Not once did he entertain the notion that the beast was his savior. That could not have healed Catelyn. Of course, the latter could be an effect of Yoid's death, hopefully so. If he died, that is…
Merrin maintained the silence; Catelyn had done so. A different air about her, less loud, noticeable by the half-hushed breaths she took. He could inform her of the extraness. Whatever had brought them here knew of it. Hence, no point in hiding. However, he found a future value in her learning now. So he allowed.
She would glance at him, eyes speaking of urgency. Can't we run? she would ask. They couldn't, Merrin knew. Not now. Slowly, the mind worked out the possibilities of the current situation. From the beast, to the white light, to the saving.
He sensed a weak familiarity. Origin unknown.
Eyes closed, allowing the internal turmoil to fade into the soft flows of the other force. I need to know what happens now? He awaited the interlude to the silence—in the meantime, he repeated the breathing, capsuling the physical sensations into a piece of drifting awareness. Disregarded. This renewed an awe of the caster's prowess; as a creature of the mind, its abilities outside the unseen world were composed of the mind-might. Such control over one's faculties.
How less human it made them..
How worthy of reverence they became.
A breath calmed him, like water, its flow drowned the distractions, allowing the condensation of the essential thought. The hopeful wish: Had Yoid died. The light bore a difference from the ones wrought by the stone statues. That distinction marked a varying originator. Whose? He trembled at the unknown.
These mines were a concealed terror.
It reminded of the secret fallen. A creature that had no purpose being in the mines. Another. Yet another threat had been left undiscovered by the clan casters.
Useless..He thought. What is the point of having such power if they can't do anything with it?
The almighty should take it all from them!
He clenched, emotions bubbling from the internal depths. Rage. This was subdued by the breath, admitting the calm. What happens now? He considered, listened, then for the soft/hard paddings of feet. Nothing. This triggered alarm.
Where is it?
How long does it want to take?
By now, a beast, a monster, should have appeared. Fangs and all. None did. He grumbled, fixated on the pain, shuffling more of it into a proto memory. The emotion would remain attached to it, but now was the time to forget. He breathed, stood.
World tumbled, swirling. Head pounding with a beat. Confusion. He staggered, rested on boulderstone, panting. The pain reminded—edging closer, attempting breakage from the self-created forgetfulness.
It should not.
He needed strength, not the antithesis.
The gasps echoed—a noise source.
Catelyn moved, rested her palm on his head, said, "You're burning."
"A fever," he replied
"Yes." She puffed on his face. "Must be the constant casting."
She didn't say this as an effect…He gave a look.
She nodded. "I didn't know you had such an amount of force. Nothing should. Like a muscle, it can weaken, hurt with over usage."
"Cure?"
"The same as any muscle is trained."
Merrin wrenched from the boulder, lead lowering against vertigo. "So it will eventually stop?"
"The amount that hurts now won't hurt in the future." She said, "But that means a force beyond the amount used now will apply similar strain to the body."
He gave a nod, slouched sideways, and walked. Catelyn fronted him. "Where are you going?" She said.
"You can see?" He asked. How could she?
"I can't." She said, "But you reek. Very few things smell that bad."
Whatever. "That's a good sense to develop." He detached before her sight line, entering deeper into nowhere.