Imagine yourself, adrift, upon an endless ocean of thick, black substance. Above you, there is no sky, and all around you, as far as the eye can see, there are just two different textures of darkness. One is oily, and the other is flat, monotone.
You know that you're adrift because there is motion. You can feel it all around you. It presses against your body and pushes you toward a direction, the horizon, that repeats itself indefinitely.
And as you float, you hear a faraway, muffled sound as you approach your destination. It is as if someone is blowing into a cup… the sound grows louder and less muffled as this destination grows closer and closer until the sound grows to the point where it is no longer someone blowing into a small cup; instead, it is the sound of someone blowing into a bowl that reaches and covers your ears. A rumbling of sorts, so great and overwhelming that it denies all other sounds. If someone were to talk next to you, even in your ear, you would not be able to hear them. There is no sound more massive than this.
At first, the floating is slow, it is constant, and it has no variation. It was the slow ticking of time. But as the sounds grow louder, so does the speed as you approach the destination. It quickens until you reach the edge. You arrive at a point where this dark substance gushes down a great ledge into yet another texture of darkness… You cannot fight this moment. You cannot scream or defy it in any way. And with the substance, you go over the ledge. You fall as that which falls with you, batters and covers you at last. You can barely see, and when you can see, other than the oily liquid flowing over your head, you see the third texture of this realm of darkness…
A darkness so blinding. It is so bright, for some reason, that it burns to look at it, for there is no point where one can look at it. You cannot anchor your gaze at something in the distance, for your eyes are forced to waver and frantically search for something that remains still, for this third texture of darkness refuses to do so; and it would refuse to do so even if you weren't falling.
Your vision begins to fog. The edges of everything become blurry at first, then they darken, until you cannot see but this fourth and final form of darkness…
- - - - -
Cold.
Light gushes in. His eyes force themselves open, and a gentle candlelight embraces the somber surroundings of his bed. He saw himself, but younger than he would be now, sitting by his bed, looking down at him from slightly above. This version of himself held a saddened, yet stern expression on their face.
He could feel how his own lips parted and words came out, "Don' worry, you ain't gonna get infected with old age, at least not from me…" A soft whisper. A familiar voice and words that he had forgotten. But he could not forget the way in which he spoke.
It is cold.
In this moment, he saw the world through the eyes of Rant Jankse; through the eyes of an old, dying man. One who might've had even more things to regret than Kanrel did.
He felt how his chest would slowly rise, up and down. It was a great struggle to breathe, as a wave of coughs exploded from within. Death would take him soon.
It is so cold.
"Betty… I… I regret what happened to her…" He could hear himself speaking again, he could feel how his lips moved, and another violent burst of cough followed. "She should've never gone so deep. She should've never gone there." He mumbled, his voice now barely there. His vision had begun to wane, but he still saw this younger version of himself, peering at the old man who lay on the bed; he saw himself leaning closer and whispering a question, "What do you mean?"
Violent coughs parted his lips, and the bed shook. "No one is allowed to enter," the old man whispered. His voice was so thin, almost nonexistent. The world around became soft, then fully blurry, until there was nothing. His breathing stopped. His already weak heart struck its drum softly for the final time. Darkness laid claim to this realm. Death.
It is just cold.
But through the darkness, something allows his mind to exist. This is no true death. Just… a portrait of it. Through the darkness, he could still see, although this body was dead. A grand curtain was pulled from his way, and he could see through Rant's eyes again. He could see himself. How his hands shook as he placed his hand on Rant's neck. How he took out his notebook and, carefully, despite his shaky hands, wrote down something in that notebook. He wrote down the moment of Rant's death. He wrote down the old man's last words. Then he got up, taking support from the walls, and he disappeared out of the room.
And Kanrel was left to witness himself through the eyes of the dead… he was left to wait for the faces of grief that would look at him.
One by one, he saw their faces as they emerged through the door. First came Rant's son, Isbit, who seemed almost unfazed by his father's death. But down from here, he could now see it so much more clearly. Ever so slightly, his brows quivered. Silently, he swallowed his own tears. His eyes must've felt like afire, burning with the desire to shed his grief. Looking at Isbit's face and his expressions, it felt like waking to a morning without the sun. There was no light on his darkened face.
Isbit's children cried; they wailed. They understood what death meant. Perhaps they cried so that Isbit could be brave in this moment. His wife cried. She cried, her face covered by a pained expression. Her tears ran freely down her pale face. Perhaps she cried so that Isbit could hug her in search of solace. His hands were around her, her face against his chest, to him, it might have been the only place where he could find safety. A haven, who would bless him with her tears, blessing him with the bravery to offer his own comfort to others. They could lean on him as much as he could lean on her. Even when it seemed like he wasn't in search of solace, he found it in her anyway.
But he did not cry. Kanrel had seen how he had cried later. Isbit had excused himself, gone for a walk, and wailed out of sight, out of ear. He had wailed, a son who had lost his father.
But what he could now see was his own expression. His own face of grief. A complicated look, one that looked at the others, that observed their grief. That stood on the side, notebook in hand. A stern expression, different from Isbit's, with a different form of sadness veiled within. Above all, confused. With a question in mind: "How does one comfort another? How could he comfort another?"
Back then, he had been too blind to see it. This sight that he could now see from a different perspective, with a different mind, showed him how. Of course, it would not cure heartbreak or grief. But it would give a moment for each during which they all could grieve in a way they saw fit.
Soft goodbyes to the departed. His body, through which he now saw the world, was lifted from its bed with magic and carried outside. Through the fields that the old man had toiled for decades, close to a nearby forest. To a spot that Kanrel had thought back then to be suitable.
Through the eyes of the dead, he could not see himself in this moment. He saw only the forest and its vegetation. It had been a beautiful summer day when Rant had died. This body burst into flames. An inferno that was so intense that it rivaled even the sun in its brightness. Around it, the world seemed so dark. Within it, even more so. There were just the flames that consumed this body… Ash is all it became. It is what we all become.
But it did not hurt. He did not feel the burns. They had wanted him to no longer feel the cold, but it was all that he could feel before his death, and there was no warmth after it.
Then, the fire went out. It had existed just for a moment. The dusk fell back in, the late moments of a summer day. Enveloped by this pile of ash that Rant had become. Still. He could see. But now, he saw in all directions at once. He saw the surroundings around himself, the forest, the field, the house, and the sky above. He saw himself who stood there, biting his teeth, closing his eyes, and allowing the wind to come.
The wind picked up the ashes, and he flew with them. He saw the world from above; he saw everything. The world below with its forests, its fields, and the village that wasn't too far away. He saw himself looking up, up at the ashes that were carried away by the wind. It carried him toward the forest. It carried him above it. It carried him through time. Through moments, through seasons. Through days and nights. He saw how the sun set and rose, over and over again. He saw it happen nearly a thousand times as he flew above the forest, deeper and deeper, toward the mountains that graced his view and awaited him. He saw how it would rain, how it snowed, how there would be moments so beautiful and warm, even moments that were dark and cold. He saw the passage of time until he landed on another summer day. He, again, saw himself but now somewhere else.
The passage of time slowed down. He saw two men returning to the camp near the ruins. They carried a deer tied to a pole on their shoulders.
"Jared! You were supposed to prepare the fire!" Shouted one of the men, but Jared was dead. Kanrel had burned him to a crisp.
He saw himself walking out of the tower. Into the open, toward the two men who approached. Without a word, without a moment during which the two men could even notice him, ice spikes formed and, in quick succession, surged toward them. The sound of ice hitting flesh, piercing through, a loud thump. Franc, one of the men, stood still, utterly confused. He looked down at the spike that ran through his chest. Blood spattered from his mouth, and he fell to the ground.
Petyr, the other man, was left alone. The horror on his face was so clear. He met eyes with the approaching Kanrel, and he could not move. He could not run; he could not speak or protest this moment. Fear. He must have been so afraid.
More ice spikes formed around them as Kanrel approached, then stopped not too far away from Petyr.
But the ashes flew by, they entered the tower, and the last thing he could see of himself and Petyr was how the ice spikes pierced the man from multiple directions… He was left standing in an awkward position. Petyr looked eerily like Jeso at that moment, but instead of rose petals, blood covered the ground beneath.
Enter.
The ashes flew down, down the tower, and they went beneath the ground. At the bottom, there lay a charred body—Jared, who had suffered, perhaps, a worse fate than the two outside had. But surely that had been justified? Hadn't they all been justified? Had these people not killed countless innocent souls? Had they not drugged and then tortured him? Were they not worse than he in every way? Surely, this was justice. Surely, this was a form of justified cruelty. He had to believe so as the ashes flew over the body and into the tunnels that lay beneath the ruins…
Halls, rooms, and corridors. Darkness through which he could see. Everything is built from marble. Engravings that repeated themselves in rooms that weren't supposed to have an identity of their own. Dust, mold, and web-covered floors and ceilings of the corridors. He went in circles, not taking the path that he had taken initially when he had scoured through these ruins. A maze that he hadn't truly solved, yet had still found his way in the middle of…
Back then, everything and all caused him pain. Everything had led to suffering. Everything and all that had happened had brought him here.
The center.
At the doorway to a massive room. The ashes entered through, the floor sloped down, and so did the walls and the ceiling. A globe in the middle of it all. A rope hung from the ceiling with a noose at the end of it. It hung freely without motion. Beneath it, at the center of the bottom of the globe, there was a pit. The ashes went down, descending into the darkness through which he could see.
Enter.
Bodies, bones. Things owned by those who had lost their lives here. Shoes, boots, clothing, books, pens, pouches, coins… Corpses. Skulls. A journal held by the bony hands of a corpse that wore familiar robes. Boran Walden and his journal. The thing that had made him want to go further down, to see for himself… what there might be.
Enter. It had whispered to him. It had asked him to do so. It had begged. Demanded, wished, and desired… A priest ought never feel desire, but this desire to enter was as real as it could be.
The ashes flew on, over Boran's discarded body, toward the stairs, further into the caves. Further down, following the winding, narrow steps that were surrounded by the nothingness…
All the while, a whisper grew louder, "Enter."
Cold but barely. Warm, but not warm enough. Nothing to see except the narrow steps, the ashes flew over and followed. He could hear echoes of steps. He could imagine and almost see himself taking each of them. He could feel and remember the thoughts that had governed his mind as he went down. The call of the void. The fear of another fall. He had doubted that the staircase might ever end and that he would have to make the same decision again. Only saved momentarily by the sight of a platform, suspended in the middle of the darkness, supported only by the cave wall. And on that wall, there was not a door but a framed black surface. One in which he could see his own reflection. It was like looking into a Globe of Darkness, again.
Back when he had climbed down these narrow steps, he had seen himself as a young boy, with a smile he couldn't relate to, holding in his hands Deft, a cat he had adopted. A creature that he had loved, on his face a smile he had not smiled since then…
But now… As he peered into that darkness. That reflection. He saw himself, but someone else. Not him, but someone who is like him. Someone grotesque, someone with a face covered with scales. A face that he had seen before. With eyes defeated. Tired eyes that met his. They waited for something or someone, but he did not know what or who.
That someone reached their hand toward him, toward the ashes that were certain to come into collision with the mirror; it reached out and broke the surface of the mirror, reaching out. Grabbing him, it grabbed him, and it pulled… It pulled him into his reflection as the world around him hammered into his head, a whisper that repeated itself until it became a yell. "Enter… Enter. Enter! ENTER!"
- - - - -
Quiet. Submerged in the oily, dark substance. The deepest part of the sea. Floating in the midst of it. He could not breathe. He could not see. There was nothing to hear. No words to speak. No dreams to dream. No reason to move. There was nothing he could do.
Suffocating. A pressure within and around him. A heavy force that squeezed him into something else, into someone else than himself.
Be not afraid. A faint whisper, a reassurance.
I've only shown you what you need to see. I've only shown what you wanted—nay, desired to see.
The Voice had returned, but just for a moment. It began as a whisper, grew into a noticeable presence, then waned into nothingness, an echo of a memory he might forget in the next moment or two.
For a moment, he was a butterfly with golden wings. It flew from flower to flower. There was no sun, there was no light. There was just darkness.
But the darkness opened itself, and it moved away as the butterfly flew through it. And as it flew from one flower to another, one color at a time surged into existence. There came blue, there came yellow, and red. There was green and there was purple. Until all colors in existence were presented, in a grand assembly of an infinite continuum of hues that none could ever name, for there were just too many.
And as the butterfly reached the final flower in this sea of endless color, the reflection of reality fragmented in a sharp crack, and the butterfly flew out through these cracks, to a corridor of many doors, out of a mirror, in which Kanrel had been a golden butterfly…