The silence, that mental awareness of repercussions came upon him. What happens now? What would the Great Rider do as a consequence?
Was I too hasty?
And he felt at that moment the deeper human aftermath emotion: Regret. Oh, what has he done to this man? And what price must he pay for that reason?
Destroyer! The inner self screamed, and Merrin sensed the absolute truth within them. He was entropy!
Auwale scowled—first time, said, "You think I am like them."
"Children often imitate their parents. Absorb from them and in the end become nothing but extensions of their will."
The observing brightones stirred, lines of light flashing across their forms. Dangerous, he thought. This will affect them too.
Auwale smiled instead. "Then let me tell you who I am. I am The Great Shaedoran, picked during the 100-year journey. I am the Great Rider. The Hunter. The mighty combatant. The one who battled the Maya of Andel, the Lord of the White City, that is me."
Merrin lingered and said, "Auwale isn't necessarily Auwale!"
There was a pause in the air—a flowing of energies halted in the echoes of the word. Auwale isn't necessarily Auwale. Oh, the implications of those words. He knew it. Sensed it down in the deepest paths of his awareness. This would trigger a change within the mighty Shaedoran. Advantageous or not, a change was inevitable.
Auwale sprang up, eyes wide, dots of white circling his lengthy form. Like a god clad in silver whiteness, he stood, hair swaying, armor gleaming in that silverish tint. He was there—and Merrin sensed the one before him had taken up a different form. No longer Auwale the calm Shaedoran—the patient hunter, but another…The Great Rider!
Will he ride to cull me?
A frightening thought. Almost catatonic. But he quelled the rising sensations—the desire to bow and plead the deep forgiveness. Not now. Auwale had that almost prescient quality of mentation. He would sense the truth in begging. So this is something I must not do for my own sake, but for them. For her.
Merrin said, "Who are you really?"
Abrupt!
The walls trembled, fissures snaking through the mountainous pillars. The brightones went rapid when confronted with the truth of their existence—and they were weak. What happens then when a God goes mad?
Calamity!
Danger!
Horror!
For some reason, a prior conversation with Enavro resurfaced in his immediate awareness. "Why do you want them out there?" She asked, "If Orvane is released into your world, your kind will be forced down." An unnerving conversation. What then was the consequence of Auwale's release? What danger would that pose? Could he at this junction have released death upon the people of Eastos?
The lowlander men!
The mind cowered in fear. Thoughts rolling in and out with a single carried desire: Beg. Beg. Beg. Stop this. Disengage. All of him protested the thing done now. He knew it, felt it, nearly submitted to its tides. Such strength was required to hold the objective in the current awareness. But he did. No one would, so he did.
Auwale fumed in that deadly silent quality—narrow eyes, tense shoulders with that inkling of budding sudden movement. How quickly it would come. A moment, and Merrin meets his death.
But this had to be done! "I ask you…Tell me, Auwale. You said it yourself. Who are you?"
"I am the Shaedoran?" A question! And Merrin knew at that moment, the crumbling state of the Great Rider. Call it madness, discord, whatever, this man, this being had been infected by its entropy.
By me!
"But that cannot be so." His caster cogitation churned in frenetic heights—thoughts stitching into unforeseen data. "You are one of the lords of the Shaedoran." He had to be. Collectively, this fact has remained the same in the totality of human existence: The Strongest ruled. Although strength often had a varying meaning.
"I am the Shaedoran!" Meant to affirm—Merrin sensed it, said, "Are you? Are you truly the Shaedoran?"
"YES!" Auwale roared.
"Then answer me this…." He paused, heaved a calming breath. There was no such internal serenity, just the chaos of contrasting wants. "Tell me, Auwale…Why do you still remain here?"
"What?" There was chaos in his eyes, and Merrin felt it in the bright, shimmering lights. Abruptly, the awareness of a certain concept spewed into his mind. The soul was the reflection of one's innerself—this chaos he felt now, the madness that now permitted his internal self wasn't his. Just like how the force had the calming sensation of tranquility, so did it now bear the quality of madness.
It was all about the soul.
Whatever was the internal self, that was thus reflected on the soul!
He continued. "Tell me, Auwale, why does the Great Rider, the Mighty shaedoran, remain here? Where are your people? What happened to them? Why are they not with you? And why are you with these ones?" Merrin turned to the now-twitching Brightones. "Why are you with these shapes of predetermined actions? They do not exist, but are simply like drawings on a wall, their sole actions dependent on the painter…Tell me, Auwale, why?"
Tell me
Auwale gasped, fell back on the throne, a shudder rocking through the space. "You can't say that. You do not know anything."
"Tell me where Kharnel is, and I'll leave. And I leave you with your people. With your madness." Merrn said, "Tell me and I, the beacon of your chaos will be seen no more."
"BUT YOU HAVE DONE YOUR DAMAGE, HAVEN'T YOU?" Auwale roared, and Merrin felt then a flowing of paralyzing sensations. There was no pain. No desire for the let out of wails. Just confusion. Utter halting wonderment. Who am I? What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?
This, of course, he noted as the consequence of the external soul—Auwale powers active within his body. And of the question, there was but one response. "Then let me go. Let the chaos go so that you may rebuild. If I stay, you will suffer. Questions will rain like a storm. Endless. And with a simple question blared through the wind, your entire city comes crumbling down….So Auwale…Let me go. Let me go before more anarchy comes upon your people." Merrin allowed the feeling of pity to lace in his voice. Let him see I am not truly a monster, but a man that does what has to be done.
"So that's your gift?" Auwale spat, pointed at the squirming Brightones. Indeed, they were different; lines of transient light torn through their once solid forms. Trembling, eyes wide with internal chaos. Complete and utter havoc.
"It can be restored." More of a hope than a possibility.
"Restored?" Auwale sank into the throne, said, "Restored. What a joke. I allowed you into my home. To view my ways and your brought chaos. You brought ruin."
I did what I had to do!
"Let me go, then, Auwale." Merrin said, "Tell me the location of the Stone City so that I can save Enavro and release the seal of this place."
There was a pause.
Auwale tilted, said, "I think I remember now—no, I remember what He remembered. Your smell. Your scent is like one of my kind. Shaedorans. You reek of Oravien!"
What? A brief shudder. One of the Shaedoran was an El'shadie?
Questions within questions.
But not now.
Auwale continued, almost in a half-dazed quality. "I am the Great Rider. I am the hunter. But I am also an Auwale…not the true one…I think he died. I think they all died. During my hunt. I think I wondered in the beginning why I hadn't been recalled to his side. I think at some point, I was no longer just the Great Rider, but this." Fingers trailing across the silver armor. "Yes. Auwale died. I am what remained…And now…I think I will also die."
"WHAT?" Merrin trembled. This was not meant to happen. None was to die.
Auwale scowled. "What did you think would happen when you revealed this?" He said, "My ignorance was my bliss..Now I understand what that stone lady of yours said….I think I have been here longer than mere hundreds of years. Thousands perhaps. I think I'm older than this castle. I think I was here when it fell. I think the whiteMother and her children met me, and I hunted them in the beginning. But I stopped, yes, at some point, I did…" He looked at the cracking roof. "And I imitated!"
Merrin's awareness spun at the words. I imitated. Often, the meanings of symbols are given to them by the observer. By humans. Auwale was a living symbol, one aware enough to give himself a different meaning. Auwale was the one who changed Auwale!
"I changed myself." Auwale said, "Perhaps it took time. But every hunt. Every doubt. Every question. I think I began to wonder. To think. To question. Why had Auwale not called me to his side? That was the way of it—my long hunts provided stories and memories once I was absorbed back into his wholeness. But not this time. I guess….I have always been mad!"
"I am Sorry."
"Says my executioner."