“You need to be more careful,” a deep, soothing voice said as strong hands straightened him.

“Where am I?” Tibs looked around, disoriented by more than the total lack of anything to see. His hunger was gone, too. “Am I dead?”

Had he failed so utterly?

“No, you are alive, for the moment. How long that lasts? Well, I have never had a say in that matter. Did you think that treating your body so poorly would endear you to me?”

Why would he… “I’m fine.”

“Now and here, that is true.”

Here, only there was nothing, only the voice. He wished there was light for him to see who… “You’re Darkness.” He focused on the speaker, trying to make him out.

“I am.” The voice moved as if they were now crouched before Tibs, putting them at eye level, if there had been light to see by. “Tell me, child of human, are you one of those who believe that I hold dominion over the life and death of your kind? I do not. If you are here for me to undo the damage you have caused your body, I am afraid that you will be disappointed.”

“That isn’t why I’m here.” Why couldn’t he see them? With the others, there was always some form for him to see, if he focused hard enough. And why did they sound familiar?

“I am pleased to hear this. So many come to me only to meet disappointment. Tell me, Child of human, what do you seek to hide?”

“I’m not hiding anything.” Tibs worried. If he couldn’t make out Darkness’s form, how was he going to see the shadow of the element within them?”

The chuckle spread around him. “Oh, you do. It is in the nature of your kind to hide so much. It is why I enjoy you. Few of the living are as fond of their secrets as the humans.”

Khumdar. That was who Darkness sounded like. Water had sounded like Mama. The others hadn’t sounded like anyone he recognized. Corruption said they took the words from his mind. Did some of them also take a sense of people he knew?

“A secret?” Tibs forced himself to relax. Maybe he was trying too hard. “Is that the price I need to pay?”

“No. You are not seeking that type of connection with me.” The following silence felt profound without someone to look at as he waited. “Consider it a courtesy from one… friend to another.”

Tibs frowned at the choice of words. Only corruption had said they were friends. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“There is no need to lie,” Darkness said, a chuckle spreading. “Are you not keeping what you can do a secret from those around you? From the Guild?”

“But you know about that, so it can’t count, can it?”

He sighed. Even without focusing, he couldn’t make out Darkness’s form from anything around him, or that of the shadow.

“You are correct,” they answered. “But if you keep one from them, there must be others, some even I would not know about.”

“But you’re taking the words from my mind, can’t you take any secrets there that you want? Or you can just ask me. I’ll answer you honestly.”

“That… is not how I am. I do not take or interrogate. It is why my… disciples are precious. They are not bound by the rules governing me. I accept secrets told to me. I open my arms and welcome them, and those seeking to say them in darkness.

Arms.

Tibs still felt Darkness’s hands on his arms. “Then I don’t know how to tell what’s a secret; other than the one you already know.” He looked at where the hand was on his arm and tried to make it out.

“How about this, then? Is there something you have never volunteered and that no one has asked you about?”

Tibs looked up in surprise as he swallowed the answer to the question. He’d never thought of that one thing as a secret, only something he didn’t speak about. Would he answer anyone asking about it, other than Darkness?

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He waited for the triumphant sense to come from the darkness. For the silence to take on a sense of glee. Khumdar spoke of a sense of power in finding someone’s secret. Even bards sang of using those secrets to get the better of others. It was a surprise to realize, despite what Darkness said, that they weren’t hungry for secrets to be spilled. They were patient.

The words fought him. “I—” He closed his eyes so tightly he saw motes of lights. He realized that if he didn’t answer someone asking about that, it wouldn’t be because he wanted to keep it secret. It would be so he didn’t have to feel the shame caused by admitting this.

“I don’t remember Mama.”

He remembered lying next to her. The comfort her voice brought him. He remembered her cold body next to him.

But he didn’t remember her.

“Thank you.”

There was a gentleness in the answer, gratitude. This wasn’t someone seeking secrets to use against their owners. Darkness cherished the secrets told to them.

Khumdar had said that his desire to use the secrets came from him, not his element.

He opened his eyes, and the motes took seconds to vanish. Then all was Darkness again. “That’s not enough, is it?”

“What you seek, Child of Humans,” Darkness said, sounding sad, “is not something I can give. But it is within your reach, should you but find it.”

“Why are each of you different?”

“Because we are.”

“But we’re different because—I mean, people are different because we’re born to different mothers. Were you born?”

“We… came to be. So long ago, I doubt any of us remember the exact moment, or how it came to be. We are older than any of the living, be it humans or otherwise. We are so old, even the wisest of the living would be unable to comprehend it. We were old when the first of your kind thought we could be contacted, let alone one of you accomplished it. And we were different then from what we are now. Some who have sought me and claim themselves wise tell me that I came to be when they thought of me, that I am the result of their will, their desire. They are wrong. We are independent of your realm.”

“But there’s your essence in my world.”

“That is not something I, or the others, willed. I could not remove it, should I wish to punish the living. If there is a method to parts of me being within your world, that is beyond me as well. So, I do not know why my brethren differ from me, or I from them. It simply is.”

Tibs groaned as what Darkness said triggered memories and realization. “Why do I keep doing this to myself?” he muttered. Then looked up at the being before him.

“Doing what?”

Now that he’d stopped looking for something dark, made of shadows, he could make out Darkness in the faint light within his form.

“I keep thinking you’re all the same, even when I’ve been told differently.” He was a tall and imposing man. Nothing like he imagined a keeper of secrets would look like. Old, bent over with a crooked nose and missing teeth. “Khumdar told me it wasn’t a shadow he saw within you, but something brighter.” But then again, that image was of someone who took delight in using those secrets to advance themselves.

That wasn’t who Darkness was.

“Understanding does not always come quickly. Often, it is a secret you do not realize you have been given until much later. But the realization can be that much sweeter for the time it took.

Tibs took the mildly glowing shape, and it melded within him, making a space between fire and earth. His reserve grew to accommodate it. His surroundings didn’t change, and that disappointed him. He’d hoped to have a better look at Darkness before they sent him away.

“Before you leave, Child of human, I shall bestow upon you a secret Light has sought to keep for longer than the living have existed.”

“Don’t you want to hold on to your secrets?”

He thought Darkness smiled. “I believe that you will hold on to this one in my stead.”

“Alright.”

“Light’s time isn’t like mine. Seek them out when my echoes are at their weakest. When that time comes, look at Light directly and they will embrace you.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Then wait for that sweet realization, Child of humans. Wait, as we wait for you.”

* * * * *

Tibs curled in as his stomach tied itself into a knot. How had he forgotten his hunger?

“Tibs,” Carina said softly as she kneeled next to him. “How do you feel?”

“Hungry,” he groaned. “Did I go anywhere?”

“I don’t know, we can’t see anything still.”

Tibs frowned as he looked at her. The darkness wasn’t complete. There was enough of Claria’s light to make out forms. Even if she wasn’t used to working in the dark, she should see… Tibs looked up and didn’t see Claria or Torus.

She offered him a vial. “It isn’t food, but it should help with the hunger.”

He pushed her hand away, Darkness’s riddle coming back to him. If he solved it, he’d know how to have his audience with Light, and he had to be ready.

“Tibs, you have to drink it. Mez used his share of the loot to pay for it.”

Tibs hesitated in pushing her hand away again. He hadn’t been angry at the archer for not being here. He knew his friend had duties to his girl. But knowing he had done this made Tibs realize he had resented him slightly for it.

He drank it. It would be easier to work out the puzzle without the pain, and once he had the answer, he could go through this again to have his audience with Light. The pain diminished but didn’t completely go away.

“I’m still hungry,” he complained.

“Healing potions don’t replace food,” Jackal said. “That’s good to know.”

Tibs struggled to his feet and looked at his friends. Khumdar was the only one looking directly at him, the only one able to see, even in this darkness. “You were right,” he told the cleric. “Darkness isn’t interested in using all those secrets.”

“Then this worked,” Khumdar replied.