How was he to achieve it? "Do I just push the darkness into the knife or something? Is that logical?"
Symbols were, in the end, events. Fixed or not, they were events in the end. How, then, did he control this event? How did one turn an act into a weapon? Caster cogitation provided a question: what type of act was it?
Objectively, a specific incident can be both harmful and not—thus, a weapon in a certain context. However, that thought path only delved into the ponderings of human nature and scheming. What he sought was something else... an answer unknown and unrecognizable.
Should he confront Ivory again? She was the sole source of caster information; there was Catelyn, of course, but the latter existed beyond the boundaries of the seal, above. Though for some reason, he felt a fragility in that line of thought. Why was he still connected to Ivory? A question meant for the bird, lost in the prior conversation.
Did that hide some secret? Was there a way to talk to others, too? Eyes closed as his mind drowned in the churning of chaotic thoughts—questions spinning into notions and ideations, each as meaningless as the other. An answer was what he sought—the need for a weapon still existed, but this took precedence in the entropic awareness.
Often, yes, the bird had remarked on the connection between him and Ivory, an oddity. She did, in truth, enter the greyworld without his aid, though the Ardent—a technique now refactored into the body possession of the ardents. Those dark attendants existed as links between him and the greyworld. Anyone could tap into it.
Ivory had.
Did that initial attempt leave something of a pathway? Symbols are events, which, when superimposed with his ponderings, echoed some measure of logic. The El'shadie owned the greyworld, thus bore linkage with the Ardents. What happens if one shares that same link through the Ardents? Ivory had done this, unknowingly, as observed, but done nonetheless.
Connections.
The concept of push and pull. A force against the Ardent, trailing its channel and ending in the wholeness of the greyworld. Merrin shuddered. That meant anyone with true access to the Ardent could enter that world... Why hadn't Yoid considered this?
Unless...
Both hands rested on the earth, head snapping up to the sky. When Ivory cast the creature, he too, was connected to it. Not directly, as mastered now, but a more subtle version. Words passed through it, he thought. Was that enough? Was that the requirement? Not just an Ardent, but him too. His linkage to the Ardent, active at the same time as the opposing connection.
Like a hall divided into segments. He was a requirement for entry into the greyworld. Now he understood the need for self-approval... Yoid couldn't do it; Ivory had achieved it by a slip. This indeed posed a significant fault. At any given moment of connection with the Ardents, a caster can marshal that link into the greyworld.
Unless he resisted?
Ivory was certainly a blunder. A sigh escaped.
Back to the original question. He couldn't enter the dreams of others, outside the seal, unless he established some connection between them and the greyworld through the Ardents. Such ceremonies. Almost intentional to maintain the safety of that power, that awesome might.
Though some measure of a conclusion did echo from the ponderings, Ivory would be visited once again. Eyes lowered, hands sticking out from the searing earth. What was pain now?
About that weapon... He whistled, a self-imposed distraction to combat the growing fatigue. Not procrastination—another. Diversions did have use to an enlightened mind, and the caster did, indeed, own such awareness.
Enavro fitted back into cogitation—always there, like a bug insistent on existing. Do anything, he sighed. Realizing the hardness, the silence proved greater than the noise—a rather ironic thing for a veilCounsel.
Back to the problem.
Merrin sensed a cue within the pooled logics, something from which to graft the necessary rules and laws by which future casting could be made possible. There was something missed, always. Enavro had hinted at it.
"Primitive, no wonder your body was crude. Other symbols could have been used, mixed, and blended into a better outcome. But I suspect this was your—" The thought fell off.
That was it!
Logic needed to exist for casting to truly manifest—at least some measure of it. Enough force often bypassed the need for rationality, but that was the one thing he lacked: sufficient force. For a true event to occur, not one, as said by the bird, but multiple symbols must act in tandem for its existence. The simple act of movement could hoard hundreds of symbols: breathing, air motions, wind resistance, footprints, color... time. Both low and middleMind symbols. Hence, how rational was the darkness forged into a weapon—not just that, but conditioned to exist and bear effects in specific moments. That was beyond merely pushing and pulling.
I see, said the internal epiphany. I need to create a webwork of symbols to manifest the coherent mechanism, or it shatters. A displeasing outcome.
The darkness that eats. Merrin observed the fluid motions of the darkness, ever watching—even now, the scrutiny, he suspected, was a mutuality between El'shadie and Noctivore.
He said, "You must be very strong."
Enavro lowered, fiddling with an earth stone, sharp enough to be adapted into a piercestone. A small apprehension existing in the mind. She replied, "I am."
"Is that why, despite being in there?" He pointed into the darkness. "You did not break down."
Enavro regarded him. "I'm a bit harder than stone."
"Because you are a second generation."
"As you said." Clear-toned. "You have a thing of asking the observables. My physicality is greater—the fact I don't wear one of those," Said, hinting at the froststone. "That alone proves it."
"I missed that," Merrin thought, adding, "You said you wanted to see what I do."
"Yes."
"Help me, then."
She paused. "My madness is taking a lot out of me today." She tossed a stone into the sea of night, watching it sink in the murk. "Normally, the constructs would propose ideations: do this, do that. 'Return to the whiteMother, plead forgiveness.' I suppose you do that, too, although in a more subtle pattern, perhaps."
"I'm not doing anything like that."
"Remains to be seen," she rebutted. "It is fun, though, this version of the hallucinations... What do you want?"
"You can read the stele?"
"Again with the observables."
Merrin considered her. "I need knowledge from them—about this place. I need to know anything to break whatever seal is placed on it."
"And why is the need for a stele essential?" The stone visage offered little in the way of discernible expression.
Merrin head-cocked. "Do you have the answers?"
"To the questions a human can ask? Yes."
A smile broke out. "What is this place?"
"The Castle of Este."
He startled. "A castle?" The doubt was evident. "This is a castle?"
"Yes," she replied. "The Orvalen had their vanities—this was such, though Este's did serve a purpose outside the sheer enormity of it all. She was a scientist."
That word echoed nothing in his internal recollections. What was a scientist?
"At that time, during the Second Age, you humans had scattered throughout Eastos, seeking your freedom and all that. What a catalyst that was. Simple Este, in hopes of dealing with the threat of the Fallen, devised the creation of another species: us."
More words he did not draw ideation from. When did humans scatter? When were creatures like this ever mentioned? Was it forgotten? The dragons were once creatures, the walls told of it, before all were slain by Lynor, but not this. His mind chose to accept this as unproven fiction. True or not, the teller with the curse of her madness proved an unreliable source. Then again, logic often spewed from chaos.
She continued. "The highlords had accepted this, but feared the repetition of other failed experiments, so they built locums in case of this. Este had done her work in the Spears of Heaven; that white tower of hers, now destroyed. There, she made the Aelmiren—creatures of light trapped in stone skins, strong, fast, unable to cast, born with sciolism. They did not know their own existence; their awareness was non-given. The perfect weapon for that endless war. From the siege against the crab king, to the war against the left hand of Mordrask, Nectar, the Aelmiren did their works. But as always..."
Forlorn took the space. Was that her emotion, or her mother's?
"The endpoint of all creators is the love of their creations, the desire to see themselves within it. A craving that often harmed the creator, and now was no exception," she said. "Este made her reflection—the whiteMother, Orvane. An Aelmiren carved into the likeness of her creator, a clone of Este in stone. Sentience was awarded to her—a thing that soon revealed itself as a bane. Este gave Orvane her memories, a thing that was soon discovered by the Orvalen. Thus, she was hunted. Este lost her life in the resistance, a mother protecting her child. Orvane, in uncontolled grief, sought rebellion for the wrong done to her creator... she failed, and all of the Aelmiren were rounded up and forced into the great castle, sealed."