For one moment, you think that you’re the shadow that had left the cave and reached the glory of the sun, but then you realize that you have only gone from one cave to another. Truth still remains elusive; something you cannot quite grasp; something left in the shadows that lie past the presumed truth of the lights.
The others seldom made contact with him. Instead, they would avert any forms of communication. When questioned, they would ignore them. When confronted, they would simply walk away, although they might stare a bit longer than usual, holding on their faces expressions of contempt, even curiosity, and some an apologetic look. Not all wished to ignore a source of apparent curiosity; not all felt outright hatred or mistrust toward the Darshi. But either way, there seemed to be a rule in place: Only Vaur’Kou’n was to communicate with Kanrel. And even he only did it because he was ordered to…
In the cave, there was inherent isolation, but one that held a sense of solitude where one could find comfort or at least one didn’t feel like an outsider. How is it that a man can be lonely when surrounded by others, but not when isolated from them? How can social and emotional isolation feel so much colder than physical isolation? Had he truly changed so much from that young boy that he had been, who cared not for the closeness of friends or acquaintances? Had he grown into a man who now yearned for the touch of others, to hold conversations with people who shared his interests, who were willing to meet him eye-to-eye and relate to him on a human level? Or had he always yearned for such a thing but been unable to realize such a desire back then?
Desires… Something priests should never have, yet it was clear that all priests had them; all men had them. There wasn’t a singular man in existence who didn’t wish for something, be it in pursuit of materialistic desires, emotional or intellectual.
But priests, they were supposed to deny them. Yet these thoughts, these desires in constant repetition, would swirl around in their heads. Reminding them of what they had lost. How they, too, once could relish love and enjoy even the simpler things in life, like a nice cup of tea on a spring day, whilst looking out a window as the first flowers pushed themselves from beneath the snow and the frozen ground that trapped nature and its colors for far too long.
But instead, he was here. Another cave. One where the light had shone, where the desire for true knowledge could be sated. A cave that would, in the end, give only more questions that one would want answers for.
So far, he had garnered a list of things he wanted to learn more about: the Walls and their purpose; the creation and history of magical devices; other expeditions and information of the veil and past the veil, as well as theories about the veil itself; other relevant information, mostly regarding magic and the theory of it as seen from the Atheian perspective; and, lastly, the symbol that he had seen, the chained, red eye.
Initially, he had such a list, but now it only grew in size as Vaur’Kou’n showed around the Sanctuary: the Globes of Darkness, a new thing he wanted to learn more about; what was their purpose? Then, there was a tunnel the captain showed him… Deep below the ground, there was a tunnel, and that tunnel went on and on. Each part of it was well-lit until one reached the end of that tunnel, where there was a sudden wall of darkness. Two Atheians stood there as if to guard that darkness; they held in their hands two crystals, one lit and the other not; they would take turns keeping their crystal lit, and every hour or so, a third Atheian would enter the tunnel and take the place of one of the two that stood there. And that Atheian would stand there on guard for the next two hours until someone came to release and replace them.
It seemed to serve no purpose. Why not just wall that section off? Why risk the possibility of the Veil entering the Sanctuary any further than it possibly already had?
And then, there was the third newer point of interest… Something that he remembered on his fourth day in the Sanctuary: one of the members of the Council of Many Faces seemed to hold some form of curiosity toward Kanrel’s theory of magic… This made him wonder one simple question: Would this particular council member show themselves here? Hidden in plain sight, as just another scholarly Atheian submerged in their studies of the arcane.
On the fifth day of his stay, he was finally allowed to enter the library and read whichever books he wished to read. Thus, he began with the first point of interest on his little list: the Walls.
With a rather bored Vaur’Kou’n along with him, he walked around the cramped library; shelves upon shelves of books, parchment, vellum, scrolls, and tablets filled with engravings, all at his disposal with only two problems in sight. Where would we begin? And, would a year be enough?
Without much guidance, he walked between the shelves, picking up a book, reading a page or two, and then placing it back from where he had taken it from. There was this particular smell in the air. Not one of the old books that he was used to. One of the smells that created the complicated texture that had mixed up together in this cramped space must have been the smell of old leather, caused by the vellum. A light gray substance, like the vellum one could find within the many libraries of the Priesthood; of course, this vellum was most likely made from Atheian skin. But what else could they use as paper before finding whatever they use now to create it? Stone is far too heavy, after all.
Vaur’Kou’n let out a long sigh and pushed past Kanrel, ”I even have to find for you what you’re looking for.” He mumbled as he went by and reached a shelf not too far away; from there he picked up an old book, one made from the aforementioned gray vellum. He carefully opened it and eyed the text before shutting it and giving it to Kanrel.
Kanrel looked at the book and accepted it. ”Walls?” he asked.
”Walls.” Vaur’Kou’n replied and then guided Kanrel deeper into the library, where they could find an opening, an area populated with a table and four chairs. On one of the chairs, an Atheian sat; their eyes were closed, and they seemed to be sleeping. They were clearly an older Atheian, and they somewhat resembled Vaur’Kou’n; but then again, to Kanrel, most of them looked far too similar to tell apart.
Vaur’Kou’n forced Kanrel to sit down and pulled himself a chair as well so that they could read the same book. ”I’ll explain the symbols that you don’t recognize.” He explained, urging Kanrel to begin reading.
Kanrel placed the book on the table and opened it; the pages felt somewhat fragile, so he remained careful as he turned the page and read along the symbols that once had been alien to him:
”It is said that despair can give sight to those who are lost. It may offer whispers that it claims to be the truth.
The Empress heard such whispers as she traversed with the rest of us, from the stairway down which we were forced to where our new sun shone brightly above us. We all heard whispers. We were so hungry.
The whispers, she told me, gave her a vision of something that is to come; of a great destruction that will, again, force us to live differently from how we wish to live. She foresaw an innumerable amount of deaths in our future; she foresaw that only the construction of the Walls could save us, at least most of us.
Her despair gave her a truth no man can deny: we did not deserve this fate, thus we must do everything to avoid the repetition of it. Have we not gone through enough of the undeserved punishments forced upon us by greater beings, who so clearly lack benevolence?
What kind of gods force their divine punishment onto the herd that they have gathered?
It is seen as insanity to build something that makes no sense. It is insanity to try to make others believe that you are sane as you do it. It is insanity to have the rest, the willing and the unwilling, join you in the building of what could only be considered insanity.
The Walls rose high, yet this form of insanity helped us atone for the sins of our past; not those committed above the ground, but those committed within the darkness of these caves. We were once so hungry.
A monument to our crimes; one built to protect us from what we had done. This work has set us free. The pain of construction numbs the mind; thus there are no thoughts, and you begin to forget the unjust crimes that you had done. I can no longer taste them. I want to forget their taste.
What she truly saw, if anything at all, we will never know. But even then, the Empress had made us build this monument of insanity, laced with magic most would not understand… All that is to be known is this: it will save us when we most need to be saved.”
Kanrel paused. He wondered if the destruction that the Empress had foreseen was the arrival of the shadows or if there was something else, something more to come. Something that the Angels had foreseen as well… He continued reading for a while; it was mostly things that he already knew—more things about the construction of the Walls, as well as the Empress and how she became one with the walls; the fear in her eyes, as she became solid stone, one doomed to peer at the east and to await the destruction that she must’ve foreseen. The next section loosely focused on the engravings that cover the Walls:
”I am but a mere individual, and even though I dabble in the arcane and partook in forming the complex engravings that garnish the walls from the bottom to the top, even I know only a little of what the construct does as a whole. And I am certain that there are just a few individuals that do… The Empress being among them, she, after all, was a great patron of the art of magic during the old empire, and some even claim that she was there to form the once-secret society we know now as the Universal Truth, a collection of mages who’ve vowed to give their lives for the good future of all Atheians; it is no wonder then that an egalitarian culture dominates their ranks.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The Empress seemed to believe that all men, perhaps, aren’t created equal but have an equal possibility to do or become something or someone great. One just needs a chance to become who they are, perhaps, destined to become—if one believes in destiny, that is.
The engraving that we used, to the surprise of all of us, is not of an Atheian language, nor is it a Sharan language either; instead, we used a language of those who we thought not to have one. The Kurikulai, a species of somewhat sentient beings that we fought many times, are a rather barbaric bunch, but apparently, their society is much more complex than what most of us knew to be.
It is not easy for an Atheian to accept that we weren’t the first to be here; that there were great civilizations long before our time, with complicated concepts like writing, reading, and even architecture. After all, the very concept of magical devices is borrowed from them, although nowadays we mostly use our own language, which apparently borrows a great deal from the Kurikulai. But it is clear that the written form of the language looks more like the fake writing of a child and nothing more. A seemingly random, but obviously rhythmic formation of symbols that only a trained eye can recognize…
Before the end times of the Old Empire, we had only a little contact with the beasts of the south. And we, wrongly, assumed them to be animals with the intelligence of lions or that of hyenas. They aren’t individualistic, but even more herd-like in their ways than what we, the Atheains, or even the Darshi are.
But even then, there was some push for more expeditions to the south, all of which were blocked by those higher in the hierarchy at the time. Now, with this new information, which might or might not have some validity and truth to it, one begs to ask a question: What did they try to hide from us?”
Kanrel stopped reading again. He looked at Vaur’Kou’n, who seemed immersed in the text.
”What on earth is a ’Kurikulai’?” Kanrel asked.
Vaur’Kou’n didn’t reply at first; instead, he kept reading. After a while, he met Kanrel’s gaze, who had kept staring at him while waiting for an answer, ”If I recall correctly, it is something that your kind has dealt with as well… I think you called them ’Wild-something.’” He replied at last, ”Also, I know that Atheian beauty is something you cannot quite comprehend, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t stare at me so intently… It feels quite awkward to focus on something when someone stares at me so blatantly…” He added.
Kanrel nodded, ”We call them Wildkin… I had no idea they had a language; our perception of them is similar to that presented in the text. In our eyes, they know only to devour; nothing else.”
Vaur’Kou’n scoffed, ”Then, even now, no one really knows anything about them. Makes one wonder if the Sharan have contact with them, or if they too ignore them as nothing else than just animals.”
Kanrel turned to the next page. ”It wouldn’t be that surprising to me. What I’ve learned of the Sharan is this: They are as foolish as us, and the only way in which they differ is how powerful they have become.”
He read further ahead, but the book seemed to have nothing else of importance to offer. One just got a better understanding of the writer, how they saw the world; the regrets that they seemed to have, as well as their opinions about many different things, such as politics and the philosophy of the arcane. To them, it seemed that magic is inherently beautiful. A form of art Atheians try their best to understand, like poetry, through it one can express so much, and not just its more practical and destructive properties. ”Imagine a garden; for future generations, a garden is a place where one can plant flowers of many different colors; to put it as simply as one can, a garden is something that is beautiful to the eye. But I see it as something more than just a thing of beauty. A garden is something that takes a considerable effort to keep alive and in order.
We often see nature as something chaotic, and we Atheians are creatures who hold order in great importance. A garden is a piece of nature; thus chaos, mixed with the Atheian ability to control it. Magic is as such; magic is nature, and the arcane is like a garden, an Atheian art to practice control with nature itself. It too can be a thing of beauty; just one as complicated as is nature itself.”
The later parts of the book delved into such thoughts until it reached a point of yearning. A point of need past which the writer never seemed to get. Often mentioning things like ”thirst” and ”emptiness” as they reached their peak in their abilities. Soon, the arcane became like a garden overrun by nature and neglect. Its flowers were now unable to give the writer the joy they had once felt.
At last, Kanrel closed the book; they had spent hours in the library, sitting and reading at that table, with another Atheian sitting across from them, sleeping.
”You could’ve picked a more interesting book an hour or two ago…” Vaur’Kou’n complained as Kanrel seemed to ponder what he had just read.
Kanrel opened his mouth to answer, but someone else spoke first: ”You still disregard the sentimental side of things?” The voice was of a person who had just awoken from a deep slumber, and perhaps because of this, they cleared their throat and repeated what they had just said.
Vaur’Kou’n scoffed, ”What is the use of such things? Sure, it might offer comfort, but what does anyone do with comfort if it isn’t something tangible?”
The Atheian across from them chuckled, ”So you would prefer a hug—is what you’re trying to say.”
”Yes. That is exactly what I am trying to say.”
”Very sentimental of you.” The Atheian pointed and soon stretched their limbs, after which they finally noticed Kanrel, ”Curious.” They muttered, ”You can read. Do you speak our language as well?”
”Don’t answer. I will just assume that you do. We aren’t supposed to converse either way; I’ll get into trouble if our mutual friend here,” they said and looked at Vaur’Kou’n, ”decides to report me to the others.” They let out a long sigh and stared at Kanrel for a while. ”I’d love to converse with you and go over gardens and such; perhaps you might explain to me why one needs flowers and why they have many colors… but alas, apparently, we aren’t supposed to.”
”I personally see no harm in it; even if you might be a deviant among the pure; even if you might devour us; I’d still like to know what a flower is…” They lamented and got up from their chair, ”Perhaps another time; years from now, in a place that keeps its word and remains equal.” They said, bidding Kanrel farewell.
Kanrel looked as the tall Atheian disappeared behind the shelves that surrounded them; they had seemed old, much older than any Atheian he had met so far.
”Who was he?” Kanrel asked.
Vaur’Kou’n scoffed, ”My grandfather.”
Kanrel looked at him with surprise. ”You never told me you had a family. Also, no wonder he seemed somewhat familiar; even his personality is similar to yours.”
”Of course not. Was I supposed to? Also, why the hell would I ever tell you about my family?”
Kanrel sighed, ”Well if you did, you might actually become as ’interesting’ as you claim yourself to be.”
”Whatever.”
The dreams that he saw became more frequent as the days went by. Repeatedly, he would see similar things. A city in ruin, its streets covered with ash, and an angel who walked there, lamenting the mistakes they had made.
At other times, he would see a globe and a creature at the center of it. Their limbs were chained to the globe around them, their eyes closed, yet within Kanrel could hear their call.
In another dream, he was immersed in the shadows; how they swelled around him; how they whispered and screamed at him. Demanding that he would be the one to remember the injustice that they had gone through. In their voices, there remained blame, not only for those who were the cause of their death but also for the living.
Some dreams would repeat themselves, like the dream he had of being one with the Walls. And each time he woke up from that dream, he would wonder if those who had become one with the Walls of the City of Last Light still lived, even when they had become stone, even when they had become a part of what was claimed to be needed to save the Atheians from a great destruction that is bound to happen.
It became clear, as days went by. There would be no rest for him here. The dreams would get worse. They would become more frequent, and for what reason? Why exactly? It was the Voice he had conversed with who taunted him; he was sure of it. Who else could it be? But who that Voice truly was, he could only guess. All he knew was that they were someone connected to even the fall of Kalma and the fall of N’Sharan; thus, they could only be one of the Nine Magi, and perhaps, they were Ignar Orcun, but which of the Angels was he then?
He also began explaining and teaching Vaur’Kou’n how his ’theory of magic and coding’ worked, but his appointed guide didn’t seem that interested in the whole topic, although he did take detailed notes and tried each and everything that Kanrel taught him. The captain did his duty, even when he seemed terribly bored whilst doing said duty.
In the first two months, he focused on finding things about the Walls and their history, and the language they had used in its engravings. He found a great deal of interesting things, most of which served no purpose to him. The language used remained a mystery, as there seemed to be no book to offer him an explanation on how it worked, what it meant, or anything else related to that; there were only mentions of what language it was, and that those who had done the engravings knew only what their own section was supposed to mean, yet, for a reason or another, even in their personal diaries, they refused to share what their section of the Walls meant…
So, soon enough, he moved to the next thing on his list, one that had now become somewhat related to the Walls and their history: magical devices, how they work, and how they are made. Perhaps, through this, he would finally learn what was the dagger-looking medallion that Yirn had used to become an eldritch monstrosity.
At the end of one such day, he sat down at his meager table, one that was now covered with notebooks he had brought with him, new and old alike, all either full or in the process of becoming full. In times like these, he felt like one of those notebooks. Used and spent. Filled to the brim with new information, most of it certainly useless, but either way, something that probably had some inherent value to it. By now, he wrote not out of necessity or gain but habit. Of course, he could place his thoughts on a piece of paper, and it would help him process said thoughts, be they emotions or just concepts that he struggled with or had to connect to something else so that they might become whole.
It would help to have someone who would bounce these thoughts around with him. Just someone, anyone, who he could trust with everything that happened in his head; not only the complicated emotions but also the just-learned information. But he was stuck here. Alone with his regrets, one of them being the very act of coming here. He certainly needed to come here and to learn all of that he had read so far, but did it all have to be so… so… lonely?
If only he were a true hermit, might he survive this that he supposed to be loneliness? He missed the frequent visits of Y’Kraun and Gar. What was the use of all this new knowledge, all this that now filled his head, if it left him feeling emptier than he had been months before? Was what he received in return worth the cost of it?
Wasn’t knowledge in itself enough of a prize? Hadn’t he always valued it above everything else? What of his duty to knowledge, the very thing that was represented on the Iduldian coat of arms?
He scoffed at his own thoughts, at himself. It was obvious that such musings were of no use; such questions were those he already knew the answers to: he had changed; everything had changed. He hadn’t been that boy for years now. And he had lost the ability to earnestly appreciate such things on an emotional level. All he could do was argue in his mind that he did, in fact, appreciate such things, but never could he ever again feel it to be so. There would always be just that lack of something. A thirst.
He chuckled without a bit of humor. He had become like the author of the book he had read some months back. His garden, too, had become overrun; he no longer could appreciate the flowers that grew in it.