Wheels
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Don’t Fear (the Darkness)
When the world was young, there was no word for magic.
Those came later.
But there it was, without a name, and it was something unexplained, something that gave emotion and thought the power to move mountains and bring down stars. There was plenty of it then. And those who could think and harness it did move mountains and stars. They were plenty then, too.
Much was lost in time in between, but never the name: gods.
But then the world cooled and hardened, and the mountains and stars did not listen nor budge to even the greatest thought.
“Listen to us!” the gods demanded, but the world shook its head, “So, it is such.”
Away they went, and they took it with them. So left the colours and songs. And without them, everything slowed down to grey and quiet, and even the mountains grew lonely, so they asked for those who could harness it again. Just… not as well as those silly gods. And soon the world grew around them once more, and the little folk gave them names and clambered everywhere, but it was all right.
They were fond of the little replicas, even if their capacity for it was an insult to those before.
One such mountain the little folk named the Carrhan, and it was indeed fond of them, as far as mountains went. Around its footfalls sprouted a forest. It was green and brown, greener still beyond the touch of light, and only there the crickets fluttered and the leaves leapt.
At the heart of it all lied a clearing.
It was occupied by a sleeping body – humanoid, but with skin made of bark and the flowing hair of leaves. It thrashed to the side. Then, it whimpered, and light reflected off a ring: a curled root of a tree long gone.
Another gasp. The ring disappeared into its hand.
The dryad was cold, and the forest winds colder. A smaller dryad appeared before him, kneeled, then placed a hand on the forehead of the dreamer.
The mountain watched.
“Wake, dear Lepius. It’s only a nightmare.”
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Lepius
It was definitely not just a nightmare.
Lepius didn’t know where he was. Everything was a swirl of memories and places, those he had been to, moments he had experienced, and some he did not recognize at all, yet he was not falling through the swirl, but standing up. Stable. He breathed in slow, and prayed everything would remain so.
But the swirl was already shrinking.
Behind him snarled a darkness. It surrounded him and narrowed his path, mercilessly directing him to a single spot in that swirl, a spot so lush with mana his hair stood on end and bile rose to his throat. It was calling him, calling for entertainment.
Calling for an audience.
Around him he could imagine the things beyond his imagination that lived in this dark nowhere, gazing down at him with those hungry eyes and sharp teeth.
Again, the darkness crept onwards. The spot was beaming with light, and how warm it was.
A bitter taste in his mouth steered him forward, more so than the beating of his heart when he glanced back to the dark. Somewhere within him there was a voice speaking. It said, “Yes, yes, keep walking, my boy,” and he stepped in time with it, but there was also his gut, which was wrenching him backwards, to the dark, even if he did not know what laid inside.
It was better than the light.
His feet touched the glowing edge. Now it was just him, this light, and the tide of darkness only held back by the mana, so dense and firm it was almost solid before his touch. It was a pulsing, warm being. He did not know which mana this represented, duty, or honour, or home, or whichever emotion or thought all magic took form of.
Then the answer came to him as the light warped, spilling out rot.
No. He fell to his knees. The mana of healing. Not… not my mana, please do not let it be.
And now there was a cruel, mocking laugh from the darkness outside, amplified by the voice of thousands, as if the void itself found amusement in his despair. He channelled his last gasps into a shout to drive them back: “No! It isn’t true!”
But nothing came out. He had no voice here, not here in front and behind the emptiness so overflowing with monsters.
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He stared into the darkness. All the emotions and mana spilling from him brooked no pause in their laughing, and they only seemed to grin and inch closer. Closer to his rotting light. Closer to the meagre warmth it could give off, and as the abyss ate up the inches between them, his heart pumped blood in every rhythm to the mouth he couldn’t speak from.
No… it is not true… this isn’t my mana…
The voice giggling in his head said, “But you know it’s true. You killed that man, tore him to little pieces of flesh and you loved it, you did.”
Then it laughed, and the abyss returned it hundredfold.
“You still name yourself a healer, you murderer?” it asked, and the darkness gasped as if they were watching the climax of a play, “You killer, you monster, you defiler-”
“Ah, don’t break him yet. I have yet to play.”
A sentence spoken aloud?
It must be, and what a voice it was that delivered it, enchanted like spellcraft given speech, neither male nor female. It put the little one in his head to shame. And once the words were spoken, the darkness calmed, and to his wide eyes it was like a rainstorm, quelled into the blue sky as far as the eye could see.
He was shivering now.
“My toys are ever so fragile. But they are so fun to play with, even when broken. It’s been so long… you must forgive me if I have broken a few already.”
Silence. Only after a breath did he manage to look up.
There were a pair of eyes in the dark.
Had he seen them before? A part of his mind screamed and asked him how he could ever forget if he had, those gleaming, delighted eyes resembling the sun – too bright to look at, yet holding in some primordial darkness he did not want to imagine.
They crinkled at the corners as their eyes met.
“Oh, you’ve broken already? Shame. I thought the mana I added might’ve… fixed you.”
The mana it added? Does that mean… he swallowed down a whimper and forced his mind to say it – the words too thick in his mouth.
You put this voice in my head? Who are you?
And the eyes twinkled even brighter if they could. “Why, yes. Did you enjoy it?”
It did not answer his second question.
Enjoy it? Enjoy it? It was returning to him now, his broken memories, and there it was: the gold-plated human, lying face down and hidden by armour, yet not hidden well enough to hide what he knew was inside, the bubbling flesh and acid. Now the bile came again, but then he could not open his mouth, and so it filled the place between his brain and neck, drowning him.
“Toys don’t make messes, hmm?”
Please… please, and somewhere far away he was crying, make it end, make it stop, please…
“Hmm, how about…”
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Where was he?
What was he doing here?
For a moment he could not remember. Then, he smiled, because where else would it be but the stage of his life’s play? Beyond the hill he was standing on was his village, and what a sight it was: bubbling creeks that divided groves where dryads lived, wildflowers blooming even in the shade of the west hill, and there, as always, was his home. How beautiful.
An oak grove.
His mana pricked him, telling something was deathly wrong, about the darkness and the eyes.
What eyes? The only eyes here are the ones that belong to those I love.
He set off at a stroll.
It took him no time to reach his grove, and everyone was there: Mother, Father, his sister Andura, and the grove’s tender, Rosemary. His heart swelled, and tears pricked at his eyes. Mother was covering up her giggles at one of Father’s carvings while he pouted, Andura was blabbing on and on about her date to a teasing Rosemary, and he knew he’d fit right in the frame with them, arm slung around his sister.
Strange, there wasn’t a chair set for him. There always was.
He opened the door and stepped in, and with a chill the room silenced. All those eyes turned to look his way, but not at him.
His mother said, “The door opened by itself. How peculiar.”
What? And then he touched his mouth, and found nothing there, and his mana screamed at him, louder than it had before – “What are you doing here?”
He ignored it, deaf with the questions. Mother! Father! Why can’t you hear me?
Father’s voice was the same teasing tone he had always known, yet he said, “Oh, my sweet eldest child… Andura, could you go close it?”
Andura… is my younger sister.
His mind was racing, and his body trembled with the unspoken conclusion: that his life was a lie, that nothing about him was true and he was some floating apparition with no identity and no sense of self and-
His mana punched him.
“You are Lepius, you fool! Wake up!”
It all returned to him. He fell onto his knees with the knowledge of it all, of the darkness, the giggling voices and the shining eyes.
It called out from above.
“Oh, that was fast! Hmm, how about… this time, your family dying in front of you? That might be fun!”
His world dissolved.
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He found himself on the hill overlooking all he knew. Once more, he smiled as he took in the sight. What a lovely sight his village was, and there, as always, was his home. How beautiful.
An oak grove.
He made his way towards it.
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a second, and a million years later
Again and again, he reappeared upon that hill. Then again.
There it was, untouched as he knew it, until the laughing, delighted darkness above him defiled, destroyed… perverted all he lived for. Then, without fail, it would toss him back on the hill. And he would have to watch it all and break through the cage again with his tears, only to find there was a larger one around him, and then another, and on and on…
He might have been trapped forever.
But his mana was always with him, and it shined brighter. With every blow dealt to him, with every sight of his family torn to sap and bark, it gripped him harder, its voice harsher.
“Look around you. Does this feel real?”
The more times he broke, the more his mana told him, and the pieces were coming together, slowly but surely. It must’ve been a thousand thousand iterations. It must’ve been millions of years watching his family torn apart or killed or burned, but with every cycle the illusions grew paler, and sometimes he could see through the transparency of all the crafted bark, through to the darkness grinning beyond.
And finally, he stood still as the hill reappeared.
All of it was with him now, the memories, the life he led and was sure of, and the deafening presence of his mana - the mana of healing - responding to the dryad it came from.
And he laughed at those eyes.
He knew now that there was no taint in his mana, that the sickly little voice in him was just a foreigner he’d dispel, that the darkness beyond was something too weak to torment him in the real sunlight, and only here did they hold power. He glowed bright, brighter than the sun. The radiance swelled beyond what the darkness could keep caged, and as he focused, a needle of warm light began piercing through the veil between reality and dreams.
The voice from the dark sighed, “Well, it was getting boring anyways. I’ll come to visit you sometime else, my toy.”
He could finally put his words to order now, and let the mana around him, warm and illumining, do the rest.
“One day I will tear you from me and heal the world of you, you wretched thing!”
Before reality came crashing down, he heard laughter.
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The mountain continued watching.
Above the sleeping figure, the sky was bright and blue. Swirling around the trees were the leaves of summer, carried along by the wind.
There was a great rumbling voice, and it was as if the earth underneath had started speaking, for the trees and rocks leant back to avoid it, the clouds overhead scattered, and the leaves fled to where the wind could not reach them.
The dreamer’s eyes flew open.