Chapter 83

Resolution

“With me, I bring the Blaze – kneel before the Infernal!”

Fragments

Noah suddenly jolted out of his sleep, heaving himself up into a seated position, breathing rapidly and heavily, his entire body soaked in sweat. For a moment, he felt hazy, almost in a daze, unsure as to where he was. Quickly scouting his surroundings, he realized he was back in his tent, well away from the sea of bones and the imposing creature.

He took several deep breaths in succession, yet still failed to completely calm down. Even with nearly four decades of experience, and even with having seen all the things he did, it was difficult to recover from that experience. It was several times worse than when he had met that wailing woman; by the end, he even felt a trace of sorrow and sympathy – now, however, he even felt the few tendrils of fear and trepidation creep into his steeled and cold heart.

There was no way for him to reconcile all that he had seen and experienced in such a short period of time. After all, all of it had completely upturned his vision of the world, of the reality itself. It wasn’t a dream, per se. That creature existed, somewhere, far, far away. And that boy… he also lived sometime long, long ago. Did everything really change that much?

He had never seen any of the people with Light fighting full-force – the closest he got was with Sylene, but even that was brief and looked more to be a show of strength rather than anything more palpable. Furthermore, he correlated his own prowess to that of a boy he’d seen, realizing he really looked like a timid mouse in comparison. All this while, he’d always assumed that the Dark was as it name implied – something to use to hide and vie from the distance and the shadows. He realized today, however, that there also existed Shadow, just like Light and Dark, and even Fire.

“… Aspects.” He mumbled lowly, recalling the creature’s parting words. He was Enshrouded… not Enshadowed. That, at the very least, he understood – he linked it to the concept of the ‘Illuminated’ as those with Light were called.

In essence, he was a novice; just like the Illuminated, he’d merely touched upon the threshold and nothing more. Enshrouded, he confirmed, was merely Dark’s equivalent to Light’s Illuminated. And, he suspected, Enshadowed was Shadow’s, as Kindled was Fire’s.

What confused him, however, was that the Lumina natives didn't look to be aware of this, and genuinely only thought of those creatures as beats of fire, completely accidentally naming them Kindled. Or, which he thought was more possible, at some point in the past, they were aware, correctly naming the creatures – but, over time and the murky waters of history and the heritage, the knowledge was… lost.

Some things still left him confused, namely in why the Kindled looked far more powerful than the Illuminated. Both, in an abstract hierarchy, were at the very bottom, yet one appeared to be far more powerful than the other, to the point that even those from the upper hierarchy of Light fell short of matching the Kindled.

There was more to it, Noah knew; but, had no means of finding out. Once again, he felt frustrated; the few answers that he was given merely turned into more questions. Rather, he genuinely wished he wasn't even given those answers and berated himself for asking in the first place. From the sounds of it, he had accidentally dipped his feet into the waters that were as wide and as deep as all the oceans combined… and he did so with insultingly little knowledge of this world.

Our Age… Age of the Aspects… Fake Gods… he repeated the terms inside his mind, but it was fruitless. He may as well be screaming sheep, as he had no clue what those signaled precisely. Could the Wheel be considered a Fake God? Noah mused inwardly. According to Olivia, Light was not given by the Wheel, per se, but rather enunciated enough to actually be usable. People either had Light or didn't, that's what she said. But Noah knew that was ridiculous; just as his Dark came from somewhere, Light also had to come from someplace.

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Sighing, he stretched his hand and flung open a flagon of wine, dunking his throat in the sweet taste. Only after a few mouthfuls did he finally stop, letting the buzzing sensation numb his mind somewhat. For him, connecting the dots was not the problem; he had trained his mind all his life to do precisely that, to take the most obscure clues and tie them with the others, completing the puzzle. The problem now was, however, that he was so far off from seeing the dots, they may as well not even exist. Chances were that even the current popular hierarchy of Light was so wrong he may as well burn it out of his mind.

One thing, however, he was capable of ascertaining, and it was the one that had caused him the greatest headache – one way or another, he was not a part of the ‘Fake God Cult’. According to the creature, he was just like that boy from the past, a Chosen. Even thinking it up caused Noah to cringe and take a few more mouthfuls of wine. All of this sounded awfully lot like a story a young boy made up to escape the harsh realities of life – all his enemies were fakes, unworthy, and only he was the true Chosen.

Once again, he felt like gagging, forcing down a few more gulps of wine. He did some quick mental gymnastic and found a pacifying solution – he wasn’t the Chosen, just someone that the Aspect endowed. So he was endowed. No, wait, that’s even fuckin’ worse. Doesn’t that make me sound like a horse? Oi, wait…

Another few mouthfuls of wine later, and he found himself barely capable of thought. Did he have any desire whatsoever to thrust himself into what looked to be a conflict akin to those mythologies back from Earth? God no… his wants were exceedingly simple, so simple that he thought he was even underselling himself – establish a small base of power, and try to figure out what the hell went wrong on their way here, hopefully locating others in the process and, most likely, living out the rest of the few years that he had left in peace and luxury.

His desire to suddenly tangle himself in the tongs of some ancient conflict was as bountiful as his desire to swim down a river of dung. Yet, looking back at it all, he realized that all of it was due to his decisions, going all the way back to how he decided to enter Elucido. Had he chosen another method, he would have never caught an eye of Olivia and would have never been forced into those muddied waters of the Royal Court.

All of it stemmed from a single choice, he realized, sighing. Life… truly was unpredictable. He wasn’t surprised, though; he’d already familiarized himself with the power of a single choice many times before in his life. No matter how winding and how long the road, it was entirely possible that the destination would be determined by a solitary choice made, with thousands of others laying on the wayside, rotting.

His single choice had practically thrust him into this path, but it didn't determine this point. He could have taken many different routes, and who knows where he would have wound up; today is the result of many, many choices he'd made, but all of it did begin with one. His bare expectations no longer held waters; he'd promised too many things to too many people, and though he hardly cared for the pride of breaking a promise, he needed them, especially Olivia. Without her, it would effectively be impossible for him to build a base large enough within a reasonable number of years in order to investigate what had happened. In that case, his best choice would have been to go to Port Wevvas and try and sneak onto one of the ships coming from Beyond the Seas.

Even then, however, that was just a blind gamble. This way, at least, he maintained some resemblance of control, even if many things spiraled out of it. He had to persevere, no matter what. In the end, he had no other choice than to tangle himself into those muddy waters; it didn't matter, however. It would be like a temporary, side quest. He was already in his mid-forties, and even if he didn't die from a stray blade or arrow or a dagger in his back, old age was catching up to him quickly. What could he possibly do with the remaining two-three decades of life? No, not even that many. Within a decade, his body will start decaying far too much, and all he would have left with would be his wit and hope someone had an appreciation for it. By then, it would simply be better to withdraw someplace remote and live out his life in peace.

He stared at the empty flagon for a long while before sighing and putting it away. Regardless of what was to come, he knew that he wouldn’t have a peaceful life. In the end, Jovyer had won, even if he never realized it. Noah had no choice but to maintain the Kingdom now, as he desperately needed its resources and its people. He was hardly a heroic youth willing to stand up against the whole army by himself without a trace of fear; he was an old man, too withered and waned to have such aspirations. The day he took that black sphere, and the day he'd thought he had dismissed the greatest variable of this world, was also the day his fate was permanently cemented. It was bitter, but, at least, now he had a relatively clear path to look forward to. It wasn't like him to give up, regardless of the circumstances. He'd fight it out until the bitter end and see what happens, as he always has, and as he always will.