The words thrummed inside his skull like a bell struck across eternity.
Alatar staggered back, his breath catching as the realization clawed its way through his mind. This was no mortal tongue, no simple construct of grammar and sound. This was the first language—the cadence of creation itself. The language of the Primordials, whoever they had been… beings that must have stood above gods, above time, above the very laws that mortals still fumbled within.
And his third eye—this cursed, loathed, feared thing—had unlocked it.
He had spent so long resisting it, shunning the power that felt alien even within his own flesh. He had been terrified of what it might do to him, of what doors it might open. And now… he saw it for what it was. Without it, his soul would have been crushed by the sheer weight of these carvings. Without it, he would already be dust scattered on the frozen wind.
The eye he had rejected was not a curse. It was survival. It was revelation.
What more can you do? he thought, his trembling hand rising unconsciously to the brow where the third eye still pulsed, faint and unblinking. What truths are you hiding from me still? What doors are you meant to open?
His gaze returned to the titanic doors, no longer blinding, no longer crushing. Now they lay before him with perfect clarity. The runes glowed faintly in his mind's eye as their meaning bloomed like fire across the darkness.
At last, the words resolved.
They declared the name of this place.
"THE SANCTUM OF THE MALAKORS."
The title rang with solemn weight. And at once, Alatar understood the carvings of the four-armed giants that covered the temple walls. They were no mere statues—they were the architects, the rulers, the very species to whom this fortress of stone and silence belonged. The Malakors. A race carved into eternity, whose echoes had not yet faded from this desolate place.
But beneath that declaration, etched smaller as though whispered into stone itself, another line revealed itself in the Axiom-script.
"BARACHAS'S SPIRE."
The name struck him with peculiar weight. Was this their leader? Their god? The one who commanded the Malakors, whose legacy still clung to the marrow of this frozen monument? Or was it something else—something beyond a mere ruler's title?
Alatar lingered, the words burning themselves into his memory. He knew instinctively this was no knowledge to discard, no idle curiosity. The name of the Malakors. The Spire of Barachas. These were fragments of a truth far older than he had yet touched.
And he could not help but grin faintly, a mixture of unease and anticipation curling across his face. For the first time, he was not only devouring knowledge—he was standing at the threshold of a legacy that had once spoken in the language of gods.
Alatar stared at the words carved into the stone, his mind still reeling from the revelation they bore. He should have left them be—studied them, committed them to memory, let the knowledge simmer. But knowledge had never been passive for him; it gnawed, it demanded. And almost without realizing it, his mouth moved.
He shaped the syllables.
He spoke the Etymon-script.
The effect was immediate, catastrophic.
A spear of fire lanced through his throat, sudden and absolute. His chest heaved, his body seized. At first, he thought he had been struck from without—by some ward, some hidden defense—but no. This was no curse flung from the stone. This came from inside.
It was as though his own voice had turned traitor.
His throat burned as if molten metal had been poured down it, searing his flesh from within. The agony multiplied with every sound he tried to force, flames roaring down his windpipe, a conflagration that no mortal body could contain.
He collapsed to the floor, his palms slamming against the cold stone tiles, his body arching like a bow. His fingers clawed at his throat until blood welled beneath his nails, but nothing relieved the blaze consuming him.
The temple around him seemed to awaken in response. The inscriptions carved into the arching walls shuddered with pale light, trembling in sympathy with his cries. The words he had dared to speak bled illumination, each rune bleeding like an open wound, dripping light that pooled across the floor like quicksilver.
The stone groaned.
The very air quivered, as if strained by the vibration of a language that reality itself despised.
Alatar rolled onto his side, coughing. No sound came. His voice was gone. His breath was a ragged hiss, torn by fire. Tears welled in his eyes only to vanish instantly, scorched away before they could fall. His vision blurred, then sharpened with an unnatural clarity—each glowing inscription branding itself into his mind.
It was too much. He felt the skin of his throat split, not outwardly, but inwardly, the rawness like the tearing of delicate parchment. The pain descended into his lungs, each inhale a bellows that pumped fire deeper into his body. His chest felt as though it were collapsing, ribs splintering under the weight of an unseen force.
He writhed, flailing, slamming his fists against the stone floor until his knuckles split. Blood spattered across the tiles, hissing as it struck the glowing script.
The silence pressed in, oppressive, smothering. Not the silence of peace, but of negation—the primordial silence before the first star, a silence so complete it rang in his ears, vibrating in his bones.
And still the agony did not relent.
Unlike when the third eye had opened—when unconsciousness had mercifully swept him away—this torment offered no escape. He was fully awake, mind intact, forced to drink in every fiber of suffering. His body twisted, muscles spasming beyond his control, veins bulging as if they might burst.
He clawed at the ground, dragging himself a few feet before his strength failed and he collapsed, trembling. He could not think, he could not reason. There was only pain, absolute and sovereign.
And then—amid the chaos of light and fire and silence—words entered his mind. Cold, monumental, resounding with a gravity that felt older than stars. They were not whispered; they were branded into him, etched into his marrow.
"The AXIOM OF THE PRIMORDIALS is not forbidden but inert to mortal will; to attempt its articulation is to invite the primordial silence that existed before the first star—a silence that will reclaim you. So let it be writ in the light of dying quasars: the tongue that wields this Fundamental Syntax, THE ETYMON-SCRIPT, shall be severed from its soul, for a mortal vessel cannot hold the meaning of THE FIRST SYNTAX."
The words reverberated through the temple. The light dimmed. The trembling ceased. The silence thickened, filling every crack, every crevice.
And Alatar lay broken upon the stone, chest heaving, throat raw, his body smoking faintly from within as though some inner fire had scoured him hollow.
It was then, in the ragged haze of his agony, that understanding struck him like a hammer:
His folly.
His recklessness.
His arrogance.
In his haste, he had forgotten the earlier warnings, the danger that lurked in every fragment of this script. He had thrown caution to the wind, daring to place mortal breath upon immortal syntax—and this was the price.
Not mere pain. Not mere punishment.
But negative entropy.
Cosmic decay from the inside out.
The silence lingered, watching. Waiting.
And Alatar, trembling, broken, knew this was only the beginning