How did normal people cope with that sureness? The total awareness that the one before you saw through everything you did. There was terror in that. There was terror in this woman, Sibel—yet another member of the Black Eyes with a hold on his secret.
Was this becoming a trend now? Perhaps soon, Stannis and Gregor would invite him to a private Chatter, only to then reveal another one of his secrets, binding him evermore to their whims. The question for now was, what exactly did this one want?
Shae wanted Lucien of the silent watch, a thief; Hozier remained unknown, maybe a drinking partner, but what about her? The probe swirled within mentation, producing little in the way of answers. After all, in the end, even the caster was not prescient.
He sighed openly. Let her see weakness. "What do you want?"
The woman with oiled skin frowned, her finger drawing a circle on the board. "What do I want?"
"Yes."
"You assume that I want something."
"Ah." Merrin chuckled. "You don't care for that, do you?"
She smiled briefly.
"Seems a motto of you people," Merrin said. "You reveal secrets and then ask for nothing..."
"Except Shae, of course."
"Yes." Merrin chuckled deeper—feeling a sense of imminent danger. A horror that was to come. These people were like wardens: chains in hand, keys, and the weapons to enforce it. It was like a less mystical version of the servility ring. They owned him; they could make anything of him.
And in that same way... in that same manner of power, they owned his people. If one controlled the head, they controlled the body.
That was it. The Ashman had yet again found himself in the tide of events. Who knew where it would end? Who knew the death that would come from these things? Perhaps the total end of the Black Eyes. He hoped not, but he would not wail at their finality. But what about them? His people?
The world was rarely so kind that the Black Eyes would end without bringing damage to his people. It was like an exercise in futility, his actions were. All the hopes, the isolation, the gradual creation of the Dreaming to offer them the simplest solace in that damned place—all of it... all of it was meaningless now.
These people had unraveled it. If not now, then soon. Undoubtedly, a darkCrown did not pretend to be a brightCrown without consequences.
What then should I do?
The question produced no answers, only the constant warning of the future. Disengage, disengage, it said, but he could not. Not now. Most likely, this course of action was fueled by nothing but a possible hope. A hope that maybe, just maybe, all this could be resolved without damage to his people.
No more deaths! He had sworn the moment twenty-one bodies were felled before him. No more deaths, he had echoed when the mine caster had been torn apart by Ron. No more deaths, he had acted when he calmed the heavens for the Nightsailers.
But... it felt as though a wall of it was coming. The death. He bit down on his lips.
It's not fair! he thought. Why can't it just be easy? Just once, just for a moment.
Sibel snapped her finger, calling for one of her girls. "Would you want something, since you're already here?"
Merrin glanced at her—at those slightly gray eyes of hers. Like Moeash, like yet another man who saw something in him. Likely the truth. Like Catelyn, like Yoid... All of these were lies. To hope while knowing the eventual end was torture.
"I'm leaving," he said.
She shifted her gaze towards a fat man sprawled on the floor, tongue sticking out with blue lines over his lips. "I think Hozier might not like your disappearance... neither would Shae."
Merrin stood up.
"You know what they threatened to do to you. To reveal and have you hunted, and of course, to have those ones that oddly worship you hunted too."
Merrin clenched his fist. "That being the extent of your power."
She frowned. "Don't be an idiot," she said. "Don't attempt to play the utter chaos."
"You people brought chaos to my life."
"Hardly," she said. "Even if we weren't the ones who discovered your poorly guarded secret, it would be someone else. Any caster worth his cold could easily deduce your origins. There is nothing special about it. But you are lucky to have found us."
"To have found people who don't care, that's it, right?" he countered.
"Yes." A girl walked towards Sibel, handing her a cup of swirling golden liquid. It smelled like honey. "You see, say something like a true brightCrown found you. Take Tyrion or Pycelle. Did you know he has one of your people with him? Female."
He said nothing.
"You do." She took a sip of the liquid. "Now, I don't care to comment on your ways, but I doubt she enjoys the things she has to do. I hear lying is frowned upon by your people, but believe me, she has to lie for Pycelle. Either that, or she has her head quite nicely on a spike... That's the way of these things."
"So I should thank my captors."
Her eyes narrowed. "Stop it with the childish naivety," she spat. "You are a caster; drowning yourself in meaningless emotions is what I sense is the cause of your problems. Simply do the job that is expected of you. Do it well and safely, and you might just return your people alive."
"As a slave."
"Better than dead." Her eyes scanned the room. "Or worse, they're dead too, with you."
His heart chilled. "You people are leading me towards that path too."
"Oh?"
He caressed his hair. "All of this. Pretending to be a brightCrown—all of it does the same thing in the end. And... It's naivety to think the end isn't already decided."
Then he was out, stepping outside the inn, listening as the wind and lightning greeted him next. And of course, there was the rain. That constant recursive thing that drenched him right outside the inn.
There was cold too. There was mud underneath his feet. There was the way the waters flowed downwards, down the cliff, down towards the rest of the extended camps. There was nothing there for him. He was sure of it. Be it Shae, Stannis, or Sibel, none of them saw the end of this event. There was only death, pain, agony. And he could not see that. He must not see it happen again.
He was sure of one true outcome: if he were to see it, to know without a doubt that his actions had once again taken from those people—his people—then without fail... Merrin Ashman would be no more. He would be unmade in grief, made a hollow of everything but sentience.
"I can't see it," he muttered. "I must not see it!"
Thus
Merrin shot into the air, the wind whistling past his ears as the dark clouds above rushed in before him. The lightning too—the constant pouring of the everstorm, the tossing and turning of the tempest as it slammed into him. Even the winds, the only things that once heeded his marshaled orders, now fought in defiance in the gust. Tossed around he was, spinning in the air as flashes of whiteness sparked in his vision.
He could see it... The swarming darkness, the clouds, the rain, the judgment of heaven.
"TAKE ME!" he screamed. "TAKE ME PLEASE!"
Air smashed into his form, hurling him deeper into the chaos. More thunder, all flashing endlessly around him. None yet to hit home. Yet to find a means of connection to his body.
"Almighty above," he prayed. "Please."
For once, there was none of the fear. The one thing that froze him away from the actions that were needed. That one thing that prevented the cure to all this pain. There was none of that.
Mist to it! Today, the Ashman sought death!
Something tore through the sky, black, crudely round, firing past him in a haze of smoke and faint fire. It pulled him along, caught by his clothes, sending him hurling downwards, away from the sky, away from the darkness and the storms...
Into the vast, endless black seas.
Merrin yelped, colliding with the cold, dark waters. It swallowed him. Then there was darkness. A beating of his heart pounded loudly within the nothing. Alone now, he was, floating quietly in the waters.
There were flashes around him, reflections of the storms above. There were sounds too, not silence—sounds that came from the turmoil of the very waters. In fact, there was little calm. There was chaos.
Merrin gasped, water quickly rushing into his mouth, inky, drowning his throat and stomach in nauseating liquid. There was pain across his head, his eyes stinging as the water wetted his eyelids. An endless source of pain, all of it. More pain than he expected from dying.
What was that? A question was produced as he swung weakly in the depths of the waters. What was that thing that pulled me into the sea?