[The Twining] 16. The Statue (Patreon)

The shadowy danger still lurked outside of the statue, but the opportunity Isen sensed was undiminished. He mulled over the words of the mural: You are a light in the darkness. Dramatic but earnest in an almost accusatory way. You are a light in the darkness? Almost as though challenging the viewer to prove it.

Isen didn’t feel like any kind of light to anyone. If this painting was looking for a literal source of light in the darkness, then Ros’s eyes were obvious candidates. They always glowed. But unless this place was created just for a monster like Ros, the answer didn’t make sense.

There was an obvious, literal source of light all around him: the towering statue. And it was positioned across the room from the mural. Maybe the mural and the statue were made for each other? Maybe the mural was… speaking to the statue.

Before the statue had awoken, shining like a lantern, the room had been dark and seemingly safe. Once the mural was revealed, its painted figure had shifted positions, and the statue had emitted a piercing tone. That had been followed by harsh violet light. He’d ducked down on instinct, so he hadn’t seen what caused it. All he knew was the sense of crisis it had evoked.

Isen had noticed the universal words immediately after, along with the looming shadows. He couldn’t be sure when the ominous shadows had appeared—he’d been a bit distracted—but he guessed it was either after the statue initially lit up, or after the violet light.

He liked the idea that the statue and mural were connected, perhaps even in conversation with each other. Maybe the sound he’d heard from the statue was a meditative hum, originating from the statue’s lips. He imagined a wordless conversation between the two pieces. The conqueror, fixed on a distant sight, its attentions seized by the statue’s entreating hum. An exchange of gazes, two bright lights colliding and finding equilibrium. And finally, a haughty challenge to the statue from the arrogant conqueror: “You are a light in the darkness?”

In the bizarre exchange, it was the statue’s turn to respond, but it remained unmoved, unanswering.

Am… I supposed to do something? Isen wondered, absently biting his lip. For now, he didn’t feel any pressing need to act. He cycled, refining the abundant energy. It was so abundant, so dense, that he barely had to work. The energy practically refined itself. He felt the ghost of a second ring materializing, a thin, wispy circle.

He lost track of time. Soon, the second circle was as solid as the first, with a third starting to take form. It wasn’t too much of an accomplishment—to reach the next stage, Isen would need to form enough rings that they all merged together and formed a shell, the hardened exterior of his core. Isen thought that completing a full ring might normally take a few months of work, so the rapid progress was intoxicating.

He ignored his thirst and the slow hunger that gnawed at his stomach. Ros could get by without food or water, but Isen wasn’t quite there yet. At the bottom of the hollow ring stage, he could go several days without water—more than a normal human—but he’d succumb to thirst eventually.

Isen didn’t think he’d been in the statue’s head for more than a few hours, but his thirst was undeniable. He realized with a jolt that it must be the hot, dry air to blame. It was worse in the statue’s head than on the outside. He’d compartmentalized the discomfort from the environment since it wasn’t strong enough to actually hurt him, but maybe that had been a mistake.

Dehydration wasn’t a laughing matter. Worry pulled Isen from his cycling.

Something needed to change.

The shadows are the problem, he thought. They’re the reason I’m stuck up here.

And what was the best way to dispel shadows? Light.

You are a light in the darkness… But the current light was dim, a domain for shadows rather than a force that chased them away. Isen turned with narrowed eyes, squinting at the beams of light that crisscrossed within the statue’s head, somehow amplified and as they bounded from wall to wall.

Isen didn’t see a way to make the light brighter than it was. He didn’t understand the principles at work. He also doubted a monster like Ros would know. He had the sense that messing with the lights would be more likely to invite doom than anything else.

You are a light in the darkness, he repeated to himself. He’d thought the words were intended for the statue, but maybe that was only part of the truth. Maybe they were intended for him as well. In his analysis from earlier, he’d forgotten an important part of the series of events. It had been his arrival in the head of the statue that had set everything off.

He spoke the words out loud, softly: “You are a light in the darkness.” The words felt silly. He didn’t know who he was saying them to, or why. He was just parroting them back at the source.

He was part of a conversation. Maybe he needed to think of a proper response.

“I… am not a light in the darkness,” he murmured. Nothing happened. He snorted. “I’m lost. Alone.” He sighed and crossed his arms, not sure why he was bothering to continue. “Confused.” His eyes focused on the mural’s conqueror. “But also… inspired. I wonder who you are and who made you. How you came to be.”

He groaned. So, honesty wasn’t the secret solution.

“I’m not a light in the darkness—I’m just trying to escape it. But that’s not why I came here. I came so I wouldn’t regret not seeing something incredible while I’m still in this place with a strong guardian like Ros.”

His words were met with only silence.

Spirits falling, he resumed his cycling. Maybe new inspiration would come to him if he gave himself a few more minutes to think.

Inspiration didn’t come.

Isen’s throat was a coppery slick. Even his nose was bleeding. His eyes felt as though covered in sand. His skin felt papery. Ignoring the lashing heat was impossible. The head was a sweltering furnace and he was baking alive. How he’d ignored the dry air for so long, he had no idea. But the danger that had felt far off now surrounded him.

There were no good choices. Leave and face the shadows or stay and burn?

He stood on shaking legs, his body weak beyond what should be possible in so short a time. His core now had three rings, all close to one another, nearly overlapping, but he felt the weakest he’d been since he’d become a cultivator.

He knew that something needed to change.

“You… are a light… in the darkness,” he wheezed, his lips blistered and purple. He staggered below the confluence of light, where the crisscrossing beams merged a final time before shooting through the eyeholes. He couldn’t reach the lights, they were too high. Everything in this treacherous place was too big for a young human.

But he kept going, his eyes following the bouncing lights to their respective sources. They started from six openings in the statue’s head. Four were placed high, out of reach, but two were positioned lower, near the back of the platform where he’d entered the statue. He could reach both light sources with his arms outstretched.

A thick smog of danger suffused the space. There were no safe choices. He was out of ideas and out of time.

He covered the lights with his palms—

—and he burned.

Isen screamed hoarsely and fell forward, tumbling down the back of the statue. He grasped for a handhold, catching himself on the ornate details of the shoulder pauldrons. He hung, his body on fire, and wondered if he was really going to die. The pain didn’t even register.

His grip slipped and he plummeted. He hit what must be an outstretched sleeve, his ribs cracking, and continued falling onto the broad swell of the statue’s hip. His arm snapped along with his collar bone. Then he dropped the final distance to the floor and fell on his other side, cracking his other set of ribs.

He wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but his chest protested too much, and he couldn’t breathe with all the fire, anyway. But gods, was it funny. He was on fire. The shadows he’d feared couldn’t approach. He had become a light in the darkness.

Suddenly, something large and cold enveloped him. The floor disappeared and the cool touch of stone wrapped around him, quelling the fire. Isen couldn’t see with his mundane sight, but enough of the mist had filled the chamber by now that he could vaguely sense his surroundings. The statue had moved. It held him in its hand— No. Not its hand. It had nestled him within a book. The left hand stroked the book’s cover, each movement dulling the heat and siphoning away the dryness.

He sought its face. An aquiline nose, thin, sharp brows, and delicate lips made up the statue’s façade. And above the statue’s two eyes, glowing with energy, sat a tongue of flame that danced on its forehead.

It was magnificent, but the scene only lasted a moment before becoming hazy. He resisted the pull of unconsciousness. This place was dangerous. He was dying. If he succumbed now, he might never wake up.

But he didn’t have a choice. His body failed him and the world fell away.