(THOB) Chapter 76: No Answers To Give (Patreon)

A true silence is one thing men rarely ever experience. However, there are times in their lives when they come across it. A silence void of life. A silence that calls forth a terror within some, and a peace within fewer. This is a silence Vayla blesses her children with every so often. It is true and, sometimes, deafening.

Ezril stood, waiting. The Sunders on his back weighed little less than a new born, and his bow hung from his back, ready whenever he needed it. But his quiver was nowhere to be found, perhaps emptied and lost in the madness of whatever had brought him to this moment… this silence.

Ezril knew silence. He knew it all too well. In his years it had comforted him and had haunted him in all its forms. But the silence he stood in, in this moment, bore down on him, threatening at a part of his life he never knew he possessed. Perhaps this part was the soul the church liked to teach of. The soul that belonged to Truth, as the body belonged to Vayla.

Leaving men as owners of nothing, he thought, solemn. Not even our being.

He scowled at his thoughts, having heard them loud and clear, as though he had whispered into his own ear.

It was night, and it was dark. The black sky was void of moon, or stars, or clouds. He had never experienced such silence before. A silence void of life, and yet, so full. A silence that choked on its own accommodation. Yes. He knew the feeling all too well. He had witnessed it in others countless times in his life. It was the feel of death, and the silence was wrought with it.

A wanderlust came with his surroundings. The pitch black of the night, Sundering the moon, gave him no sight, and yet, he needed it not.

Ezril stepped forward; a cautious foot after the other.

The darkness called to him, asking a question whose answer he possessed. It was an answer he found he couldn’t withhold. He stepped deeper into the dark forest, watched by the trees that flanked him on all sides. He could neither see nor perceive them. But he knew they were there… watching. He was as certain of them as he was of the Sunders on his back.

War is a terrible thing, and no man ever wins a war.

Ezril turned in alarm. The thoughts were his, and he had indeed thought them. But why he had thought them was beyond him, and what it meant seemed elusive.

The flutter of wings and the sound of rustling leaves turned him on his feet again.

He frowned.

There was no wind. Not even the innocent whisper of a night breeze. Dare he believe, he couldn’t feel the presence of even the air.

A snap cut through the air and he ducked into a roll, rising with Sunders drawn. He gripped them in whitening knuckles. The darkness had demanded answers of him and he had given it. Now he would have his answers from it.

But rather than act, he froze.

His frown morphed into a scowl at the sight of his assailant.

HOW?! his thoughts raged in his ear.

Turning away from the gaze of yellow eyes, he stepped through the forest, covering as many strides as possible in each step, leaving no thought to conservation. Ten steps, and over three hundred strides covered, he turned in anger. He lowered his form, knees bent to an aggressive stance. He was done running. Today he would fight.

The bear stalked forward, yellow eyes watching. Studying. Perhaps waiting for an opportunity.

Ezril gripped his Sunders tighter and charged the beast. Ten feet from it his Sunders left his hands, evaporating into dark smoke, and cascading into nothingness. The bear growled and Ezril buckled before he ran into an outstretched paw. He crashed into the ground and rolled passed its reach. He rose on its other side and found it gone from his presence.

I have no time for this!

He turned around and made to continue his journey, then stopped at the sight he met.

No, he argued. By, Vayla, no.

There, she stood, in his way, simply observing with eyes she had watched him with only but once. And like when she had used it before, he felt nothing.

He focused his attention on her slightly sobered. Then he spoke. “I see you did not survive… Loren.”

Loren offered no answer. She simply observed him with eyes that accused him of a monstrosity he knew all too well. She was not the first. It was a visage most men observed him with before they breathed their last.

Some spoke, but Loren didn’t. She simply watched. Yet, he heard her words as sharp as the black sands of the black mountain.

“You should not be standing.”

He scoffed. “… And yet…” He spread out his arms. “Here I am.”

She moved towards him, seeming to glide across the ground with a fluid grace. Ezril stood unmoved. She stopped short of him. Now her gaze looked passed him into the darkness beyond.

He observed her, perplexed. She seemed confused, as if she was unaware of her own passing. He fought the urge to turn around and view what held her so. After all, he had an idea of what it was.

“You need not fear them,” he assured her. “They are not here for you.”

Loren cocked her head to the side questioningly.

Ezril smiled softly. “You are all here for me.”

When she took a step back he frowned in annoyance. For some reason he sought to protect her even in this darkness. For some reason he had no plans of allowing Alric scare her. Thus, he would have words with the bleeding smile.

He turned and, again, he froze. There was no smile behind him.

He stood opposed by a stone throne elevated by the crumbled stones beneath and around it. Its broken back rest told a tale of one that had once upon a time extended high enough to pierce the skies.

“It is not time yet,” he said. He hated the plea in his voice where he’d hoped to find conviction. “This is not my return.”

Ezril…

He spun on his feet. The words echoed through the darkness so it seemed as if countless hollow voices echoed from countless hollow trees. It was a voice he didn’t recognize, although it seemed eerily familiar. It had been female.

Ezril…

His brows furrowed. His gaze focused on the hilts on both sides of the throne. He knew with a certainty that they, too, like everything else in this madness, observed him. He had made them a promise a long time ago. But it was not the time.

There was a wrongness to the darkness as he pulled his gaze from the hilts. Something was wrong. It was like putting on a top and knowing it wasn’t his. Not too long ago he had sought to protect one of his watchers from the other. It was an occurrence that had never happened in all his years of such encounters. He wracked his mind in search of an answer and failed to find one.

You gave it away, a voice whispered in his head. You gave it to it, all of it. You have no more answers to give.

He ignored the voice, turned his back on the throne and regarded Loren with a smile. She would be here a while, watching him as the others did. Waiting.

Fear,he realized, looking at her.

He didn’t fear this darkness. Though it had been a while since the throne had intruded on it, and its silence had never been soiled in the death he felt now, it was still the same. But today, he didn’t fear it. He didn’t fear Loren. He hadn’t feared the bear. His hand moved to pat the head of the maid who had cared for his chambers for months, but he restrained it.

She’s already dead, the voice told him. You can offer her no comfort save the death you have already given her.

Perhaps, he found himself replying it.

Ezril turned back to the throne, feeling the darkness swallow her, finding her a place in his nightmare. He knew the next time he would see her he would fear her.

Please come back to us… please wake up…we can leave… find a place where the seminary won’t find us… where the church has no power… where the guild has no hold… just wake up Ezril… please.

Ezril knew the power in the words. He turned. They were familiar. It felt as if he was merely reminiscing, replaying an experience from a time past. Perhaps it was why the words rang hollow. Perhaps it was the reason they proved nothing but noise. Still, he heard the sob in the words, He knew the voice.

In truth, he thought the words would’ve trouble the darkness, shaken it in some way, but they didn’t. They were as hollow as they were rich. Here, they were nothing, and meant nothing, and would be nothing. Here, all was empty. All except the shattered throne.

With a sigh, he faced the throne.

“This is different,” he began, as if talking to a person. “This is not my torment. This is my dream, and you have no power here. The time will come when you will. But it is not today.” He stepped closer. “And when that day comes, I will be at your mercy but, until then, this is not where I should be.”

He waited a while patiently. The edges of the throne transfigured to wisps of smoke dissipating from his presence. It was slow. In truth, it could be called ceremonious. But the throne seemed more than determined to stay, fighting against whatever affected it.

“This is not your time,” Ezril growled, and when he spoke again his voice was a roar. “YOU WILL UNHAND ME, TAMBATHA!” His voice reverberated through the darkness, seeming to shake it at its foundation. “THIS IS NOT YOUR TIME!”

The throne scattered, like a troubled cloud, gone as though it had never been.

Then Ezril felt a smile behind him and he rounded on it with equal annoyance, coming face to face with Alric’s bleeding smile.

“Not now, brother!” he warned, dismissive, his mind searching for what he did not know. “There is elsewhere I must be.”

The smile grew lost in the darkness, leaving him alone. Truly alone. Neither Sunders nor bow were strapped to his back, and he wore neither cloak nor cassock nor clothing of any form.

A shiver trailed up his spine and he knew it not to be fear. Something he had said had left a wrongness in his mouth. He closed his eyes, holding his thought, refusing to ponder on what it could be. His mind was to serve a different purpose. He would not distract it now. Whatever it was could wait.

Failing at reining in his thoughts, he frowned as the word came to him, his mind still searching… Amn… Amni… for the love of all things—

Shade howled and the piercing sound forced Ezril’s eyes open. His thoughts were duly and properly broken. He narrowed his gaze, squinting at the rush of light flooding his vision, and knew he was elsewhere.