The Brass Tower
GÍLA SENGHU
"What lies in this place?" he heard the Bear Maiden ask. Next to them descended a great pit of abyssal darkness, stretching further down than they had climbed despite being in the center of the same staircase. Dark wind howled throughout the ascent like a pack of wolves chasing the incorporeal night—chilling flesh and stiffening joints. The walls were bare save for the tattered flags of civilizations gone to ages no longer in memory.
Svend spat down the abyss, cursing it. "Horrendous things, Gíla," he said darkly. "Things that make our fight on Khirn as pointless as a gnat trying to take down a Tahririan steed."
"Describe them." Gíla demanded this rather than asked.
Svend stopped on what was either the six-hundredth landing or the eight-hundredth landing. He had lost count somewhere earlier. Gíla stopped next to him. Dead Sodon clutched in her arms. Svend wondered why Gíla cared so much about a dead man before looking back down the abyss. He cleared his throat. The sound echoed shortly in their vicinity and then boomed incredibly some thousand feet below. "Scale-bound beasts with the faces of sharks and the claws of insects. Their blood is not blood. It is colonies of spiders with arms for legs. Human arms. The books you see on the wall are sometimes just that. But other times, they are mimics. Shapeshifters that can take the appearance of anything they wish. I have almost fallen to a few of them. One once had my head in its mouth, but I was lucky. It was old. Toothless. I escaped only barely. Of course, that's just on some levels of this Tower and only on levels that contain these staircases and great ascendences. Other levels contain bull-like beasts with tumorous flesh. Others have things that resemble dragons with chitinous scales and parts bleeding pints of oily ichor a second. Once, I was forced to contend with a horde of halfling-like creations with their arms amputated and replaced with maces and swords. Their eyes were cut open, their mouths were stitched shut, and their ears were burned to deaf nubs." He turned to face Gíla. "This place is as close to the Khirnians' idea of Hell than anything else."
Gíla was quiet for a long moment. Or was it a short moment that Svend stretched into something it wasn't? He was never sure how time passed, now more than ever, with someone else alongside him in this hell.
"How are we to escape such horrors?" Gíla inquired with a smallish voice.
Svend quirked a brow. He had become used to a certain sense of confidence in the Bear Maiden. To see her drop herself to this was unusual but not unexpected. Svend recalled his own shock in morale after the Siege of Acocaea went awry in moments. The denizens of the Brass Tower did little to alleviate that issue. Finally, he said: "Kill them. Run when necessary. Continue looking for anything that can help us escape the Tower as a whole. Perhaps we can find ourselves back in Acocaea."
"Would we be back in our time, though?" Gíla peered over the edge of the staircase. The abyss greeted her and brought a frown to her already somber expression. "Time flows strangely here, according to that Silof person. Who is to say it will not be the same for our world?"
"No one says that. We have no idea. We could end up in the past. The present. The future. But it is a chance we must take lest we remain here for the rest of our days. Do you want to?"
Gíla sighed. "Not particularly."
"Then we climb."
They had left the Tower interior to traverse a treacherous balcony of rusted iron and the dessicated remains of previous prisoners. Bags, armor, weapons, supplies. All scattered in haphazard fashion. Svend did not recognize any of them.
They were some impossible miles above the ground, which stretched infinite into the horizon as a decayed, grey wasteland. Svend continued in lead, stepping with careful purpose. His sword was drawn. He was collected. Calm. Pulling from all knowledge of the past few months and all training from his life. Gíla followed closely. Sodon had been left behind at the entrance to the balcony. His flesh had rotted away in the weeks they traveled together. He became bloated and green and weeping sickly fluids. There was nothing to be done for him.
"Maybe we'll find him again," Svend suggested, voice calm and quiet. "Another version of him that was created when he was brought here. One that is years older or weeks younger."
Gíla said nothing to him as they continued, walking for hours until the sky that bore no sun began to turn dark. Such was the scale of the balcony, which began to shift into a spiral that ascended doorless and windowless levels, that they had to make camp and rest in makeshift shelters made from the leftovers of dead prisoners. Roughhide tents and small, heatless fires. Gíla was silent the entire time, watching in mute fashion as Svend gathered what he could, what wasn't rotted away, and cooked food over the fire that refused to offer heat. Somehow, it worked, and rations were turned into an acceptable spiceless stew. Gíla ate it begrudgingly, eyes almost never leaving the crackles of flame that danced on the edge of going out.
The next day, they continued, ascending the spiral for hours and hours until they came upon a door set on a grated landing. It was thick, black steel with no handle and bearing red-painted symbols that felt hot to the touch and sparked when Gíla traced her fingers along them. Svend had no answers for what they were and no answers for what lay on the other side as the Bear Maiden used her great strength to push the door inward. It groaned and squeaked, and a wind of dust billowed out against the newcomers. Svend and Gíla entered the room on the other side and bore witness to a great study with books and scrolls and seemingly endless shelvings of tomes and maps and journals. It was lit dimly by torches that should have burned out long ago, and there was light coming from the ceiling that couldn't be seen through the shrouds above them. No one resided inside, save for the half-rotted corpse of a warrior in cracked lamellar armor. A round disk symbol was clasped to the chest, but the imagery was beyond even the Nujant Chhank. He had a pierced wound through the back of his neck, like a dirk.
She gazed at the maps on the nearest table, the one the corpse sat behind in an equally rotted chair, and saw a country that was nowhere near Khirn or Aqella. The discovery of the globe toppled onto the floor beside a tall stack of red-bound tomes confirmed the suspicions that arose from that. She spun it, looking for Khirn or Aqella and found them situated in an ocean that surrounded them like islands. For that is what they were compared to the landmasses elsewhere in this world. Miniscule, unimportant islands in great oceans that spread from coast to coast to coast to coast of continents that could only be seen as mythical. Impossible. Khirn and Aqella, worlds already vast and nearly incomprehensible in their depths of land. Nothing. Dimunitive.
If it weren't for the horrors outside this Tower, Gíla felt as though she would have gone insane from seeing this. For her sake, she allowed her mind to consider it an exaggeration, though she knew it was the truth.
In her heart, she knew.
"Salutarus," Svend suddenly said, holding up a book bound in gold ribbons and clasped shut with a reflective, mirror-like lock. "His words, according to the title on the spine."
"What is it called?" Gíla asked, approaching.
"The Words of Salutarus."
"Does that name mean anything to you?"
"I recall a letter I once saw in an archive in the Orcin capital."
"You've been to Mag-tal-iuk in Lo Khuzun?"
"I have. And was granted access to an archive of one of their sorcerers. They had an expanse of knowledge and lore there, on par with your people's. The letter I read, innocuous at the time, spoke of this Salutarus. An apparent traveler some time ago by the dating on it. He traveled from Aqella to Khirn and back. The letter was written to the man himself by someone you know. Acominatus. However, it was far after the man's time."
Gíla quirked a brow. "A pen-name then?"
"Perhaps. A touch of fiction between correspondents? I know not. But, it sparked a small interest in me before I moved along. The letter was nothing of note, just a check up and questions on daily activities. The standard artifact you'd expect in an archive but not something to write home about." He set the book back down on the stacks and spluttered his lips.
Gíla continued, sifting her attentions from tome to map to scroll, finding several that spoke on the mathematics of mystharin, the ways of war from lands whose names she could not pronounce, and excerpts from survivors of battle where strategy and honorable contest fell to the influence of a blinding flash of light.
Gíla sat on the ground and read them, as much of them as she could, and found that it was all the same through each story. Wars and battles beginning with proper tactics and intentions of keeping things balanced until the better army won. But each time, they became chaotic deluges of crimson oceans. Cities flooded red. Streets and fields choked by viscera. A terrible thing to see firsthand in only a few instances. Yet, to see that it had occured exactly the same several times over, dozens of times over, was a horror greater than realizing the world she had lived in her whole life was little more than dots on a globe. She dropped the last of the excerpts and wept openly, tears staining her black fur in crystal droplets. She plucked a tear from her cheek and saw that it was diamond and she threw it at the ground where it clattered.
"What is this place?" she whimpered to herself, scooting back to rest against the frame of a shelf. "What's happening?"
Svend knelt beside her. "You'll normalize soon," he said, and she took note of his eyes. They were red. And his teeth, when he smiled, were sharper than before. "I've seen it happen to every visitor. You'll undergo some change. But you'll still be you. Just endure it. We'll find our way out."
"But what will we be when we escape? If we escape?"
"I don't know. Alive, at least."
"Will we want to be?"
"I know I do. And you do to. We just discovered some major things in here, eh? You're Nujant Chhank. The call to explore is going to hit you hard. So, let's get to it."
When he helped her stand, she shoved him out of the way. The cloaked figure had appeared from the shadows between the shelves behind them and threw the dagger for his head. Gíla rushed the figure, who attempted to retreat but had not expected the speed of the Bear Maiden. She seized their head in a single paw and threw them into the table with the maps. A grunt, a wheeze, a sound escaped them and they tried to crawl away. Svend stepped on their arm, crushing it beneath his boot. The figure screamed and scrambled, but Gíla tore the cloak from their body and stared down at the monstrosity that had been wearing it. A hairless creature made of stitched muscle and flesh, featureless save for a toothless mouth, slits for a nose, and deep-sunk black eyes that glistened with tears. It shouted at the Bear Maiden in a horrid tongue and swiped its hand at Svend's leg to no avail.
Gíla's eyes flared at its abominable apperance, something wretched and horrible and murderous. She paralyzed it by gripping its spine through its back and twisting. Svend backed away, his face implacable as Gíla then gripped the head of the creature and snapped it around.
"Feel better?" Svend asked with a laugh.
"No," Gíla admitted with a huff. "Let's go."
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They entered a long hallway built with the appearance of a tunnel of brick that leaked an oily substance between the slabs. Dangling candles lit the way, and there were almost no turns in the path except two every now and again. They walked for a long time, so long in fact that they stopped to camp for a night when exhaustion began to set in. Howling sounds echoed in the passage, granting them little peace to sleep. When they continued on, they found corpses of warriors from the Aros Sos and the half-dead body of a canine-like creature. Svend killed it with fury.
Finally, the emerged from the tunnel through an archway of cobalt into what resembled an empty bathhouse. The Bear Maiden's hackles rose on instinct, eyes set on the steaming pool of light-blue water in the center and upon the myriad of benches and smaller, personal tubs for missing guests. A bar was built into the western wall, and a stock of drink filled the shelves behind the counter. Svend hopped over the counter and helped himself to a ruby glass bottle and drank it full, offering a decanter of stronger spirits to the Bear Maiden who drank it hesitantly at the urging of the dark-haired man. It soothed her, stung her tongue and throat, and warmed her belly.
"A moment of respite," Svend commented, grabbing another ruby glass bottle. The scent of the liquid inside was sweet with darker, rustic notes. "Earned, I'd say."
"Yes," Gíla concured, holding her hand out for another decanter which she drank more eagerly and in three gulps. It was amber in color and strong in flavor. "Why were you interested in what I thought of Jira," she suddenly asked, accepting a third decanter.
Svend smiled sharp and small and took a drink. "I was curious. You are Nujant Chhank. You are adept at people. Reading them. Seeing what they truly are. I wanted to know if she had worked on you as well. I know the Khirnians have fallen for her lies, her glamour. Shit, she helped them fall for mine and they just...blissful, willful ignorance. Such is their righteousness that they fail to care that the very things they hate most are amongst them. Overt, like yourself, and hidden...like Jira. Myself."
"What do you mean?" she asked with another drink.
"Ask her if we find her again," he said, finishing the bottle and swaying from behind the counter. Quickly, sluggishly, he removed his armor, the helmet strapped to his hip clattering the loudest as he stripped to his undergarments and sunk into the steaming waters of the central pool. A long, droning sigh came from his throat. "Rest, Bear Maiden. This might be the last time we have such peace."
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She thought for a long moment before acquiescing and stripping off her armor and clothing to rest in one of the personal tubs. It was the greatest relief she had felt in weeks. Her eyes slipped closed and she let herself swim into the comfort of exhausted pause. And as she slowly fell asleep in the tub, her mind was filled with images of a great obsidian sphere covered in red runes set over a bottomless pit. It was a calming image. Familiar. Nostalgic, almost.
When she awoke, days had passed. She emerged from the water in a panic, but was dry. Svend, sitting at the bar, laughed and drank from a small, white mug. "You must have needed sleep," he said. "How was it?"
"I...I feel," she tried to say, tried to voice the purity of that sensation that had loosened her muscles and joints from her years of constant travel and walking. "Good," she settled on.
"Good. Come grab a drink. We'll go find food, hopefully."
Higher they went in the Tower, never reaching the peak. Never descending. Always finding new rooms and new foes to slaughter. They came upon a great smithy, a quarter-of-a-mile in size with almost no wasted space. Every station, every stockpile, every storage, every example of great work was utilized efficently. Metals of all shapes and colors, ores of the same. Weapons and armors of make that defied modern and ancient example. It was a place Svend referred to as the Heartforge, once the domain of a great god of craft and fire. An ancient Orcin god, he said. His corpse was within the core of the forge now, keeping it alight for someone to inherit to and use. Gíla stared at the molds across the floor and on the tables, eyeing first the ones she knew the shape of. Maces, hammers, flails, swords, axes. Armor. Helmets. Shields. Then the odd ones that confused her. Spears with blades on both ends. Bows that bore sharpened grips. Bladed shields. Crossbows with canisters that fed the bolts to be fired. Simple spheres.
"The man was a genius and an eccentric when it came to his work," Svend commented, picking up the mold of a curved dagger. "He wished for nothing but to be remembered for his gifts to his faithful. Now, they create works without him and he is forgotten."
"What killed him?" Gíla asked, staring at the ever-burning embers of the forge.
"Himself. Grief. Loss of faith. The downfall of all gods. When none believe in you anymore save the text on a page in a dusty library, you lose life. Power. Every god that came before has met this fate. Every god that will come after will meet this fate. The singular one that inhabits this Tower will meet that fate one day. If it does not meet a more brutal one before hand." Svend's eyes creased with thought before he took a breath and turned away from the forge, dropping the mold. "If you have the skill, create something for yourself."
Gíla lifted her hammer from her hip and gazed at it and then at the armor still on her body. "I think I am fine."
"If you say so. We may not find this place again. Grab something if not crafted."
"I will be fine."
"Very well. Let us move on then and find that food."
Before they had departed the Heartforge, Gíla retrieved a shield suitable for her size. It was made of a dark crimson metal with golden edges and studs, bearing the halved-field of a black dragon breathing green fire and a black knight kneeling with a green sword. It hummed with energy and felt right in the Bear Maiden's hands.
They continued on, moving through level after level, camping when necessary, before finding themselves back outside on a balcony that did not extend upward. No wrong path seemed to have been taken, no other way was seen, and yet they ran into this dead end. Upon it, much to Gíla's delight however, was a woman clad in perfect, ceremonial silver armor, staring out to the abyss of the decaying land below. A gleaming blade the color of moonlight was sheathed across her back.
"Jira!" Gíla called out, rushing ahead.
The woman in silver armor snapped to attention, spinning around. Her head was helmeted, the full clad of her plate protecting her from the harsh winds that kicked up as the Bear Maiden approached. "Bear Maiden?" she asked as the Nujant Chhank reached her. "How did you-" her visored gaze fell upon the dark-haired man. "Svend."
"Jira," he said, approaching. "Haven't seen you wear that armor for some years now."
"I was wearing it when I woke up today," she said, gazing back to the Bear Maiden. "How fare you, Gíla?"
Gíla smiled. "Well enough. Not well. Doing what I can to stay alive and sane with Svend here."
"Of course," Jira said with an ice to her tone. "How long have you been here?"
"A few days and nights. Not as long as Svend. You?"
"A while," she said, cool and quiet. She moved past the Bear Maiden and stepped up to Svend. "What have you found?"
Svend sniffed the air and looked away. "Nothing of note. The Heartforge. Confirmation of Khirn and Aqella. Gíla."
"Silof?"
"Hasn't shown. Appeared to Gíla. Not us. And the bathhouse as well."
"The bathhouse?"
"Drank."
"Good. Have you found any Aros Sos?"
"None but corpses."
"Same."
"I was with Sodon," Gíla said, joining the two. "He died in my arms. He was stabbed by his own compatriots. They went insane. Said that they encountered this shadow. Drove them mad."
Jira considered Gíla for a long moment before nodding. "Very well. Let us move back home then."
"Home?" Gíla asked. "What do you mean?"
Svend clicked his tongue. "Time moves different. We've been here for a good bit, met people that haven't been here yet by the standards of the world, if that makes sense. Things are wrong."
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"We were searching, I needed you focused but ignorant."
Gíla was incredulous. "Why? Searching for what? I just want answers for once, what is going on here?"
"A long story, Gíla," Jira said lowly. "You're the newest of us in this place. Things have been moving for a while now without you. It's best if we get somewhere safer."
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Gíla could not explain how re-entering the tower presented a new pathway up, but it did. And they climbed for only a short while before they entered a small tavern-like room inhabited by four people. An elderly man in lavish midnight-blue robes and a chest-long white beard. A young man with crutches and braces around his legs. A man of leonine features whose eyes told Gíla that his name was Alden. And a blind man with greying hair whose armor and sword told Gíla that his name was Goscelin Evenios.
Alden was the first to react to their arrival, leaping to his feet and rushing the Bear Maiden with a squeaking laughter, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace that drove the air from her lungs. He was taller now. Older with sharp bones and stubble around his face. His hair was even more golden, long and tied back with a band. His armor was black and chequered white, and the sword on the table where he was sitting was lime-green.
"Gíla!" he roared with mirth that Gíla returned in kind.
The blind man lifted his gaze, lips parted in surprise. "Gíla?"
"It is, Goscelin!" Alden chirped.
The Bear Maiden snorted. "How the hell did you all end up here?"
"The flash of light," Goscelin answered, standing up and approaching the pair with little difficulty. "We all awoke here some time ago. For me, I'd count it as five years."
Gíla's heart nearly sunk to the pit of her stomach when she heard those words. Then, her eyes fell to Alden. "How-"
"Fifteen," the young man said, and Gíla's eyes stung with maddened tears and her voice gurgled with frustration and fear.
"But...but how...but that doesn't..."
"This place exists beyond the mortal comprehension," Jira said, removing her helm to reveal her face. Her features, already unnatural before, had worsened in their alien nature. Her skin was like the palest marble and her eyes were utterly blank of pigmentation that wasn't red. Her hair was cut short and shorn on the side, that was left alone, but it was as white as winter's snow. "And it changes you. For us, the war is already over. We have no idea who has won and who has lost."
Svend slumped into a chair, breathing out hard. "I bore witness, some time ago, to Erik Apa. At least a version of the man. He fought side by side with the Great Blade against a titan of charred rock."
Gíla took a breath to steady herself. "A version of? That is the second time you have said those words. What does that mean?"
"We have all encountered several versions of each other, ourselves, the enemy, allies, what have you," Jira explained. "We've been looking for those that aren't already dead, aren't insane, aren't terrified and run away."
"Then are you the ones I fought with?"
"We don't know."
"A reason we kept things quiet until we had you here. You are the newest, have fresh memories, and we've yet to encounter another one of you. We can only assume you are the real one, the original."
"We hope. Nujant Chhank live seemingly forever. There could be one in this Tower that has been here longer than us."
"A terrifying thought."
"A thought I will not entertain," Gíla declared, now pacing the length of the room. "I will not. This is madness. This is a fever dream. This is not real."
"Oh, I'm 'fraid it is real, big lady," a gruff, drawling voice unfortunately confirmed from behind the bar counter. All eyes turned to see Silof pouring himself a glass of frothy ale. "It's all real, and you're all different. Past, present, future you's all walking around here. Which one are you?"
"Silof," Svend began, "you need to explain to Gíla what you explained to us."
"Explain what?" the man asked through his drink. He set it on the counter and rested on his palms, flat against the surface. "I've already told her what my plan is and what I need her to do. I need her to tell my story of how I killed the thing that runs this place. God. Aedol. The Most Noble. The Highest. The Living Virtue. Whatever you want to call it. I'm killing it. It's just a matter of getting there."
"Why do you want to kill it?" Gíla asked.
"He never tells," Alden whispers, arms crossed over his chest.
"Never telled cause the group wasn't complete," Silof laughed, swinging over the counter to sit on it. "Needed the storyteller. The narrator. Because this isn't some pissant war for territory or faith or what have you. This is the real deal. The epic. The mythology unraveling and weaving anew. The decision for the future. The new act. You see, you were all dealing with your wars for years, always questioning why it was so different from the rest. Violent. But you never fully pressed toward that questioning. You just went along with it. But now, you don't have a choice. You see, we need to get some things done here."
"Like what?" Jira asked, stepping forward. "We've fought and survived in this place for weeks, months, years. We've all changed and mutated and lived off the words you've given us. What must we do now?"
Silof looked at the Silver Knight for a tense moment, his eyes narrow, before he chattered his teeth. "I need to get to the top of the Tower. But to do that, I need a way to get there. Upon a time, I would have been able to waltz in there just fine, but this thing is empowered with eons of parastic symbiosis with the faithful and stolen god-might. Now, there's only one way. In Tahrir. The first bit of land ever created for Khirn."
"You never told us this until now," Goscelin stated.
"Like I said," Silof gazed at the blacksmith, "needed the narrator. Needed the only one of you who can live long enough to retell this to the fullest detail." He looked to Svend. "You'll grow to like her in your older age. Give it a couple of millenium, you'll be the brightest of friends."
"How can we trust you?" Jira asked, leaning on the counter beside him. "You've kept us on a string for so long that we had no choice but to do as you asked, suggested, demanded. Now you tell us the truth of it?"
"Humorous words from the least trustworthy," Silof grinned. "Little agent. Little liar."
Jira's face grew tense, and the red of her eyes flared like a firepit.
Silof pressed. "Stepped over the edge and now your mission will have its answers, and dear old papa will welcome you back. Or will he just kill you after you tell him why the world is so irrevocably fucked?"
"You never answered my question," Gíla interrupted, uncaring of what truth or lies could be found from Jira. "Why do you want to kill the Most Noble?"
Silof craned his head to face Gíla. "Because it's the last key to the door I have been charged with keeping shut. The longer it stays active, the more it meddles with certain people's lives out of fear and prophecy. The more it meddles with those people, the more furious they get. Or, in the case of your noble leaders, the more excited they get."
Jira's face was puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, come on. You've been wondering how this war of yours is so strangely formed. So many numbers so quickly. So violent. Shit's been on a road. A path designed by forces way stronger than you. And your leaders are at the forefront of that road. Each of them, even the ones you thought you tricked, have been leading Khirn down a path that you could not avoid. It's all a gaff. A lie on top of lies. All in service to Him. And that terrifies your Most Noble. Nothing it's doing is stopping the road from being traversed. And the further the furious and the excited get down that road, the stronger the connection is to Him, and the weaker the barrier gets around His prison. Until those certain people's snap the key in half and break down the door. I need to snap the key in half and keep the door shut. Chained. Remove the key, but leave the door unopened. It's for the best."
"What's on the other side of the door? What's Him?" Alden asked, sitting down in one of the many empty chairs.
"The End. The End of the story. Of your story. Of everyone. Everything."
"Why Tahrir? What's in Tahrir?" Svend muttered, rubbing his forehead.
"Sphere, like I said. Obsidian. Covered in runes. I've seen it in dreams. I normally don't dream. I've never dreamt. Not in the epochs I've been alive and running around this place. But I've seen it and it tells me that it is the only way to get to the top of this fucking Tower and kill the son of a bitch. Problem is, I can't form myself in the material verse you all inhabit. It's a neat little restriction I was given. Balancing act. But, through enough scouring, I found something to temporarily remedy that issue. Give me enough time to get through the sphere and get on top of the Tower. I just need to make it."
"The Heartforge," Svend whispered.
Silof snapped his fingers. "Just so."
Gíla laughed, ruefully. "Of course."
"You're lying," Jira finally said, disbelief written across her face. "You're lying. The...the Dioúksis wouldn't...he wouldn't. He is the most ardent opponent to those who would..."
"Jira, what better mask is there than to be the loudest foe?"
"But why? Why sacrifice so many? Countless lives killed off for what?"
"He is built on sacrifice. On the ending of stories. He consumes them. And they need Him strong when He gets out of His prison. Because if He wakes up, if I don't keep the door shut, then this war you've been waging will seem like a bar brawl compared to what's coming."
Gíla attempted to console the Silver Knight, but she pushed away and retreated to the back of the room, followed by Alden who appeared equally distraught. "Who is He? You say The End, but what is his name?" Gíla asked after a moment of silence.
"Blackstone."