There was a story that Kanrel remembered from his childhood, one that Jan had read to him many times. It wasn’t really a happy story, now that Kanrel thought about it, and it was one that he barely understood at such a young age:

A shadow danced upon the walls of a cave; before it an audience chained; their gazes placed on the shadow, their eyes following its dance, the many forms that it took, the many words of truth it would bless them with.

But the shadow… felt more curious about the world outside; it too had heard of the things that it showed the many eyes before it.

It had heard of the wind, and it had heard its whispers. It knew of light, a kind other than that of the brazier placed high above the audience. And it had even seen a bird, not the same ones shown past the brazier but a real one, for every now and then, an innocent bird strayed into their refuge.

It flew to them and reminded them of something long forgotten.

“I have learned to see myself as part of the wall upon which I am a projection of the truth others wish to show my audience; I am as if a puppet attached to strings and forced to dance to a tune I find abhorrent.”

“Here, though it is warm, I am without safety. Here, I am supine and will never dance the dance I so yearn to dance. I lack what I yearn for, even when the cave provides what I need.”

“I do not dream of better, nor of anything else. No one has ever left this cave…”

So one day, the shadow left the cave, even though it was cold and dark outside. It would no longer dance on the walls of the cave before chained eyes. The warmth was fading, and its touch was so cold. There was no light from the flames, nor the shelter of the walls. Only a vast world, free yet frightening. But outside, it saw so many things; in the vastness of that world, it could be anything.

So the shadow crept along the path of the sun. Sometimes it was a bird, and sometimes a deer. Once it fell from a tree as an apple, but it also stood proud as a tree, tall and majestic.

Not on the cave’s walls, but on the free earth. It now had a brazier above it, something that illuminated everything beneath.

And perhaps, as night fell, there would be no brilliance to the light. But now, the shadow too could find peace from its constant motion.

It could lie on the ground, grass as its mattress, and study the skies and the thousands of stars.

Never could it find anything so beautiful and real on the walls of the cave.

Even if it could never touch those stars, at least those stars truly existed, somewhere out there.

This should all be shared. This beautiful world with the rest of them. All the shadows of the cave and even its chained eyes. If only they could see this all, their world too would be vibrant and full, as it was when the shadow danced on the cave walls…

So the shadow returned to the cave’s safety and its stale air. Still, the fire burned with its flames through the long days and surely even the nights.

The shadow showed everything it had learned outside. It showed the freedom of the bird, the life of the apple, and the majesty of the tree. None of these, however, moved the watching eyes.

It even showed the stars and the moon, but nothing helped. The eyes remained fixed in place, unmoving.

Why did no one revel in the beauty it had seen? Sadly, it knew the answer.

It was only a shadow, and a shadow in a cave could never fly like a bird. Never fall like an apple or stand tall like a tree.

Nor could it ever be a star lighting up the night... It could never truly show or share anything. Its displays were but copies. They were not alive. They were just like this cave and the audience with their chained eyes. Constricted and motionless, subject to the truth fed to them.

Even when Kanrel couldn’t quite understand it, it was still something that made him wonder. Why was the audience chained? Why wouldn’t they leave the cave? Why were they in a cave in the first place?

It also made him want to be the Shadow and explore the world outside the cave, even though he himself had never been to a cave at that point in his life. He wanted to fly like a bird, he wanted to fall down like an apple, and he wanted to run like a deer and even stand mightily like a tree. He wanted to lie on the grassy floor of a field and stare at the heavens as the night fell and witness the beauty and wonder of the stars and the moon. The same wonder the Shadow had felt in the story.

He had, back then, wondered why the Shadow decided to return to the cave. And why, after dancing again before the chained audience, did it not leave the cave again and return to the nature that surely awaited it outside?

Years had passed since such thoughts, and now he could understand the story, more so than before. He could even answer some of the questions that he had. He now knew that the Shadow returned to the cave to share the truth that it now believed. It wanted to share the freedom that it had felt with those who, in its eyes, had never been free. They knew not of the sun, nor of the stars past it.

But… such an existence could be so comfortable. For what does a man do with the truth if the truth does not feed him or provide him with shelter? The knowledge of higher things, of more complex matters, places the one who pursues them on a path of never knowing enough, always needing to know more. So why bother, if, in the end, you’ll find yourself hungering for more and more, a deep-seated desire to quench a hunger that will never be sated? And to remain in the dark on matters of the above and the beauty of the sun, at least, places a ceiling above you, and there might as well be nothing above, for that which you can’t see or perceive might as well not exist, and if there is cold, if there truly are storms and rains, if the seasons truly exist, and if the sky is an endless canvas colored with blue and white, with all the colors that you’ve never heard of or seen before, then at least this ceiling, this cave, keeps you safe from that which might make you afraid, from that which might hurt.

Besides, isn’t it better to be hurt by something that is familiar rather than by something you’ve never known before? If it were only so when it came to people as well.

If weeks and months go quickly by, then so do years as well. It was the year after the day that Kanrel had estimated to be the day when Kanrel first came in contact with Y’Kraun at the bottom of the chamber, below the abyss, and beside the bones of once-living creatures, perhaps men, perhaps Atheian. Behind him was the engraving of an angel, one that held a sword in its hands, with wings spread and eyes cast down toward the small figures below… And the words engraved below that Angel: “An Ending for Those Below…”

It had been a year since, and he had come a long way, but there was an even longer journey ahead. By now, he had figured out just how many and how powerful codes he could use at the same time. There was a limit after all. A ceiling that now loomed above, an imposing reality that made one wonder if this was enough. Would one have to, one way or another, break through that ceiling and reach higher altitudes, in an attempt to reach a higher summit atop the next mountain? It was just that the next mountain was covered with mist and uncertainty, perhaps even more so than the shadows that veiled the lands to the east.

What he could do now was much greater than what he could do years ago. What he could do now was unimaginable back then. A wall of fire and technically so much more. It was just that his body wouldn’t tolerate too many of them, or too large, or too potent, and no matter how much he tried, his tolerance toward the disgusting feeling wouldn’t get any lesser. When it came to having multiple codes active at the same time, he wasn’t sure if it was his inability to process enough information to create more or if it was the aforementioned lack of tolerance for the feeling that was sure to follow any attempts.

He wasn’t satisfied. There were so many more steps that he thought he would be able to take. But those steps had become far too steep. And failure, which was always the most likely option, had become the only option. He wouldn’t get more powerful even if he tried the same thing a thousand times and a thousand times more. Only his process would get more efficient, and he would get more used to this new but already familiar way of coding. Even if he were unable to get stronger in that sense, he would at least get more skillful at it. Even still, he saw that final step, which felt so far away now; it was past the mist that veiled the mountain, it was past the unseen ceiling that had appeared between him and the mountain… But alas, there were things that one could achieve and many more things that one could not achieve; this was in the latter category. And he needed to accept this fact, even if letting go of it felt like he had wasted his time.

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In the past months since he had woken up to the sound of movement at the entrance of his cave, Kanrel had shared this information with his friends, just in case, as well as kept his eye out, even more so than before, for anything that was out of the ordinary. But all this effort made him only feel crazier, paranoid even, since there were no other sounds after, no signs of anyone else being around his cave other than him, Y’Kraun, and Gar. He only had this feeling, this anxious feeling that ran up and down his spine, causing shivers to go through him. It was as if someone kept watching him.

He even began paying more attention to the Lantern-Bearers at the edge of the Veil; they went by once a month, attending to and replacing the crystals that had begun to flicker, lest the shadows run past them to conquer more land. But the Lantern-Bearers just walked by, not giving one look toward the stalagmite forest or the hill where Kanrel’s cave was. They just did their job and moved on. They had no reason to enter the forest or to see what might lie behind the next hill.

But this extra time spent observing their movements from so far away made him wonder about the lanterns themselves. He had a few extras, so one day he began to study them and the crystals that were attached to them. This was his first chance to really study a magical device… of course, he had had the pleasure of using many, even as Kanrel. A certain bed at a certain hospital came to his mind. Back, he hadn’t spent much time truly understanding how such a device might work, and perhaps he should have.

The lantern looked like any lantern would, but instead of a candle or a flame produced by oil, there was a blue crystal filled with engravings, which most definitely had a purpose other than the aesthetic side of things. There were many types of lanterns that were used to light cities and to keep the shadows at bay near the veil, and this was just one of the simpler versions; its purpose was to be one that could be easily transported; thus, a hook-like shape was what served as its handle, as chains kept the crystal attached to the handle. The handle itself was made from a dark substance called R’aui T’u, or “black clay,” that when molded and burned with hot enough fire, would keep its shape and get this glossy, smooth surface. Kanrel figured that it was a type of glass that better held its integrity, as even when it was struck, it did not shatter. It was like obsidian, but it wasn’t created the same way, nor was it from the same type of matter. The handle also had engravings, but these ones looked to be mainly for the grip and for aesthetic reasons.

Kanrel followed the engravings on the crystal with his fingers, feeling them, remembering the day at the Spire when he had closed his eyes and gone multiple floors down, his hand pressed against the wall, feeling the history of the Atheians… feeling the dread of his own existence, as well as having the wish to remove the very tips of his fingers. Now, he didn’t feel like that.

He activated the crystal, and a bright blue light burst out from it; it was a constant radiance that would push away the shadows of the Veil. A wonderful invention, but it had its downsides. One was able to activate it only if they had a vision of it. If only magic were all-powerful and not so limited. If one could use it without seeing, then the Atheians would be safe; by then, they might’ve already explored the caves to the east; perhaps, by now, they would’ve found the stairs down which they had come here; be they in ruins or less so.

Kanrel didn’t quite understand how these crystals worked. Nor had he before wondered about them too much. But what he knew was that they appeared in these very caves in a state where they remained lit, all this without the need of magic to activate it, unless they were somehow fueled by the very earth around them to which they were connected. And when they were removed from the rock around them, their light would dwindle until they became dormant, and only with magic could they be activated again. It just had to be some form of magic, a flame or even ice pointed at it, and then it would be lit again, and it would remain active until magic was used at it again. It was quite interesting how the very same thing could activate and deactivate it. One would think that you’d have to keep your magic pointed at it actively, and when that code or magic was released, only then would it deactivate, but no.

In its dormant state, the crystals had “fuel” stored in them, and with this fuel, they could remain lit for up to three months. This depended on the size of the crystal, at least usually. There were cases where smaller crystals with larger reserves were found. And it was supposed that depended on how “rich” the area was where they were found. With hundreds of years of development, the lanterns were created, and the crystals were made into magical devices that could last much longer than the estimated month that they usually lasted. There were also models of lanterns that could output their fuel quicker; thus, they were brighter but lasted for less than ten days when kept activated.

The engravings seemed like random lines and shapes, but when he compared two different lanterns with the same purpose, they had the same exact engravings, and different models had different engravings. He wondered if he just carved into a random crystal the same lines, would it work in a similar way as any lantern?

But this wasn’t the thing that he wanted to test for now. Karell had something else in his mind. He wanted to know if the fuel in a given crystal could be dispersed instantly, which then would confirm if the crystals had magic within or not.

The Athenians, even though their understanding of magic was highly developed, weren’t nearly as adept at it as the Sharan during the Empire of the Sharan, and even less so than in the times of N’Sharan.

The most important thing that Kanrel had learned as Ignar was not just how powerful they were, that even the weakest of Sharan far surpassed the most powerful priest, but instead the concept of nullifying magic.

Which was conceptually interesting to him. The fact that someone would think of it seemed so simple, yet abstract, in a way. It wasn’t much different from changing the attribute of stone to make it light instead of heavy or soft instead of hard. Instead, one would make the thing they saw into nothing.

For this to work, one had to be aware of the magic they wished to nullify. Of course, nullifying a fireball was much different than nullifying the “fuel” within the crystal that was on the table before him. Technically, he was aware that there might be magic within it. He just didn’t know if there truly was any. So, it wasn’t certain that nullifying magic would even work.

He tried anyway.

Technically, no one really knew what magic was. No one knew if it had its own shape; they only knew the shapes that magic could create. And most were aware of its attributes and limitations. He could nullify a fireball flung at him because he knew what shape the magic had now taken, as well as what its attributes were.

Within the crystal, if there was magic, he didn’t know what its shape was. He didn’t truly know what its attributes were. Yet, on the dormant crystal, he tried a makeshift code, one that entailed all the things that he knew that magic could do, from the shapes and forms that it could take to its attributes, as well as what he wanted to happen to said magic… simply everything he knew, and the code that he deceived became the longest that he had so far devised.

He looked at it, then began visualizing what he wanted to do, and at last released his code onto the dormant crystal. Instantly he felt sick; the world spun around him for a moment, and his vision became blurred, but he didn’t vomit. It was a strange reaction. One he hadn’t ever had since he had begun learning magic.

Kanrel sat there for a few minutes and waited for the sickening feeling to go past, as well as the spinning to stop. And soon enough he regained his vision in full; the feeling of disgust mostly went away, leaving behind only what was usual for a priest and apparently usual to the lands of shadows below. He then tried activating the crystal, wondering if he had succeeded.

The crystal lit up, displaying its blue radiance. Kanrel let out a long sigh. He had failed. He stared at the light and its blue glory. It surely was a beautiful sight and a beautiful color. It wasn’t as lovely as the sun and its warm light, but at least it gave guidance to those who had no sun to guide them. It was magical, but less so than the very existence of the sun.

He tapped the surface of the table; soon he furrowed his brows. Could this be magic? The very light he now saw… Could this be the physical state of magic? Well, it might not be, but at least it was something that could be perceived with your eyes. He stopped tapping the table and began writing another code. Making entirely new code, something that would mean the very thing that he now saw. The blue light, which might as well be the holiest form of light, although not as sweet or gentle as the grace of the sun.

He chose a letter for it, a simple M; this letter now might as well entail all the things that magic could do: what were its attributes, what was its “physical” form, but the light wasn’t really physical, was it? It was something else, but this was all that he had to work with. And when he was done, he simply released this new code, and as he did so, the world went black; all thought was gone.

A creature sat on its throne, looking down at him; it smiled, its teeth sharp edges, like small knives in the mouth of that beast. The world around was a haze; it bubbled, and it smoldered; it twisted, and it elongated; there was no sound, just a constant, sharp, and very loud beep. The creature mouthed something, its smile widening afterward. Then it dismissively waved its hand, and the wavering suddenly stopped, the sound dissipated, and darkness consumed all. Abyss… It was the abyss…

Kanrel opened his eyes; the world kept spinning, and his head hurt. A sharp pain pulsated in his temples as if someone were constantly hitting his brain or the sides of his head. He felt this immense disgust as if he had just been defiled by something. As if someone had entered his mind and ravaged it. He sat there for a moment, then used a quick code to create water, which he drank as if he had been suffering from thirst for days.

After a while, he regained his composure. He didn’t quite understand what had happened. But he remembered the dream that he had had. Kalma on his throne… Was it a memory? Something etched into his mind from his time as Ignar… It was no wonder that Ignar had been enchanted by the god-like Sharan. And it was no wonder. Kalma had an aura one could not deny. His existence demanded respect.

Kanrel made some quick notes about his experiment, concluding that it, too, had been a failure. But he stopped writing suddenly and looked at the crystal on which he had used the code. It lay there, dormant, devoid of all light. It had been lit before, had it not been?

Kanrel tried to activate the crystal, but no light would form. Empty. It was empty. Devoid of all light. Devoid of magic. Kanrel just stared at it, stunned. Unable to believe what he had just now achieved.

He had become the first human, nay, possibly the first creature, to make such a breakthrough. The blue light that was “produced” by these crystals was, in fact, magic. Finally, there was something that could be seen as magic. One could see magic. It was the greatest breakthrough anyone had possibly ever made. Yet… He felt nothing. He was just surprised. And nothing else. Now, he wished to know if he could produce it with a code. Kanrel was all ready to move on to the next thing.

He continued writing, crossing over the section where he had concluded the experiment to be a failure. He finally had further direction where he wanted to take his research.