To create a true event is the creation of an absolutely multilayered incident, each aspect defined, understood, and structured with the corresponding symbol. Without it, the hall breaks. Without it, the desired reality cannot exist.
Such simplicity, and look at the chaos that spewed it.
Merrin considered, tossed a stone into the air, watching, casting. A moment, and it hung, suspended in midair as though cradled by an invisible arm. "It worked."
Enavro passed a glance, said, "What did you do?"
"As you said, it's a language, done as it is spoken. There was no outside means, no loophole, so I did that. I latched the symbol of air to the stone—"
"Making it weightless…" she muttered. "A straightforward method for a simple casting, however, such simplicity would do little for that." Fingers directed on the murk below. "To create a true mechanism, hence a function for a symbol, countless more, hundreds more symbols must work in concord."
"Just like how motion is made up of hundreds of hundreds."
No response was needed, as Merrin enjoyed the glee from the epiphany… He knew what to do now. At least the path to take—the exact symbols to achieve the desired still eluded cogitation. Eyes closed, breath slowing into a quiet flow… Let me consider. Let me ponder the exact methods.
There was a mantra to that mental current—consider, ponder, think. Often, one could only see the caster as more of a hyperintelligent creature than a potential existence of omnipotence. Yes—omnipotence, the right word.
He allowed noetic weakness to wash down. Trembling fingers, a sign of its effects. The darkness remained ever-pressing. Outside the puddle of shadow beneath, the peripheral lightlessness brought an eerie-induced shudder. Mind-steered tricks. To visualize things in the endless blackness was as old as humanity itself. The Ashmen were taught to vanquish such expressions. To bear them was to bear a confused mind. What is there? What could be there? Questions designed to prevent the persistence of powers. Physical or unseen powers.
It was odd how many Ashmen disciplines blended with the core traits of the veilCounsel. A symbolic thing, no doubt. Perhaps done so for a reason. As Catelyn had said, the Ashmen were most suitable for the dark order.
A few minutes of rest before I start—Merrin thought, then accepted the bare hours left at his disposal. Who knew what happened above? Was the Caster now amongst them, searching him out? Anything could be anything. A sacred means of thought. To accept the absolute truth of possibilities would open one's mind against consternations (surprises).
He breathed.
This weapon, in many ways, was but another hope for exceptionalism—to prove greatness in the eyes and minds of the Night Clan. The singular faith. No pogrom should arise at the end of this path… None at all.
Almighty help me, he thought, then directed his plea to the crow—an Aspect of the Almighty known for wealth. That dark bird. But I'm not asking for money. He thought, I want prosperity for me and my people. Freedom from this pain, this horror. No more death. Dipping his fingers in spittle, the works were drawn over the earth, in Ashmen glyphs.
Hope was the sole burning force.
A few minutes to rest—such time should not be wasted. Merrin stood and said, "I'm going somewhere."
"Where?" Not paying a glance.
"To dance," he said. "It's been long since ash in reality bathed my skin."
"What an odd thing to do." Enavro delineated a menacing figure, clawed, wide-eyed, and snouted like a hound. A man-beast. Horrific from the sharp eyes, curled lines depicted to represent thick fur. Like a fur-lion. Smaller. Was that it?
Always learn to observe the world from a different angle—regardless of the accepted beliefs, choices, and thoughts. Think outside the enclosed bubble—to truly master this, is to gain an almost prescient mental quality—Code of the deadEyes.
Merrin walked a hallway, ruined now, giant pillars, slanted, holding nothing but the skyless heavens. Dark all around. Frightening to most lowlanders, not him. Never him. The Ashmen had their history, not as detailed as the clans, or so he heard, but the Ashmen had it nonetheless. The contiguous event would be the war against the Theocracy—the last battle that marked the end of the Third Age.
Ironic, somewhat.
The shamans told of this, of a time when the Ashmen stood in opposition with the Almighty—the faith of the song. Why? He would wonder. What was the point of fighting against the truth? But they did—the Ashmen of old. Hundreds of years ago. They lost. An eventuality. How did one resist the might of the Almighty? Of the caster.
He marshaled wind, the gust battered against a stray stone, tossing the collection into the air, tumbling meters away—such awesome power.
Were my ancestors stupid? His steps echoed through the caliginous space, queer. Perhaps they were. What man saw the full power of the storms against him and stood firm? That could only be a trait of lunacy or sheer ignorance.
Both, improbable attributes in the Ashmen.
He observed the dot centered on his palm—a stygian hue. It emerged before the 'Great Betrayal', he had chosen to call the moment the flesh met steel through Moeash. That man had done it.
"Zahar Aiven," he muttered. "A debt is owed." Procession produced nothing. "Do I owe the debt or do they?" Many attempts had been made for the cleansing of the mark—all observably unsuccessful. Whatever this was, it piqued a certain ideation: Pay the debt, and the mark goes.
A symbolic thing?
Fist clenched. Knowledge begets power.
Merrin fell into a dance, turning, violent in the way the bones tensed, muscles screaming, the mind offering that familiar suggestion of restriction. Non-heeded. There was only the motion of it all—the pondering of potentialities, and restructuring of gathered data. Discernment had already been gained for the needs, yet the structure and complete table of it eluded. What else did he miss in the understanding of symbolic grafting?
What mistake would cost the success of the venture?
"I'll find it," he said, closed his eyes, and heard the shuffling of feet, dust kicked up in elegant motions. Violent, yes, but elegant nonetheless. Then, the sound faded away.
Mentation. Where did the desired knowledge hide? What collection of chaos would eventually spew out the wanted notion? Deep in the churning sea of non-entities gathered from casting? Arbitrary data? He could pull up the tide of information like a webwork, observing then, each individual linkage with another. What was what? What connected? What were the questions?
Make no mistake, questions were as important as their answers.
He thought, bent knees, jumped, spun midair, and landed with a gentle thud. Continuing. Something was found—an idea from which a question could emerge.
Symbols were in themselves more symbols—a wheel that effectively never ended. Darkness was shadow; shadow was caliginous; caliginous was tenebrous, murky, gloomy, unlit, dim—more words. More symbols spiraling into an endless path. Each was an essentiality for the workings of the whole—without one, the rest loses meaning and function.
Symbols embody more than their believed meanings…. "Ah, what a word: Embody." To contain, to hold a pool of near-infinite descriptions that required their existence to function.
He clapped his shoulder, palms, and knees. The dance remains.
That was a shard of the unknown whole. For a symbol to exist, it must first be contained. Almost like the collection of lesser definitions brought a higher meaning. Was that the secret of symbols and their ranked divisions? Did the totality of lowerMinds bring the existence of middleMinds?
Was that a clue to the creation of the weapon?
Then there was the other—the moment of action. They existed, he knew that. Instants when events came to pass—spontaneously or gradually, it did happen. A prompt for its existence…
A deep breath chilled his heart.
For symbols to exist, a whole must bear them, prompted thus by a need, a want, a desire, or an event. What else was there? Visualizing the existing data created a scenario of infinitely repeating and triggered events—a limit must hence exist.
To walk was both the prompt and the containment—what consisted of holding it back? A limit… He paused, eyes springing open. That was it.
Symbols can only exist with a containment, a prompt, a restriction, and a means to reestablish it… a wheel. Manifesting through an action or an event acted both as the cause and containment—the restriction was the stopping of that event, yet echoed the chance of restarting it.
That was the rule…
"This is the rule that can create the weapon!"
Sometimes, neither choice is the one to be preserved—the Church of Preservation.
Merrin sat cross-legged, Enavro a silent partner, observing the invisible things being done now. Through the grayness, within its ever-shifting states, a great forging was being conducted. Prying the grayness for means for the creation of the weapon. The containment existed already as the stoneknife, although hesitancy persisted, resultant from the origin of the blade.
The Talemir, once a caster now corrupted by a symbol. A risk. Did that venality pose a threat to the forging? No mistakes were allowed. Time wastage. His fingers drew lines in the grayness, a path of transient light trailing. No usage, purely inattentive. But it helped, somehow.
Enavro said, "What do you aim to create from that?"
Still in the grayness. "I noticed the veilCounsel did not have powers suitable for violence." He chuckled. 'Violence—what a word.' "Outside the wind, there is nothing else to help, but this—this is useful."
"veilCounsel?" she muttered. "What an interesting word."