The transition was absolute. One step. The threshold was not a line, but a plane of finality.
Behind him lay the realm of green—the fog, the whispering pines, the far-off concealed murmur of the river—present solely as a recollection. Its noises didn't diminish; they were cut off. The rugged limestone gorge did not merely let him pass; it closed behind him not with stone but, with spirit.
Cold was not merely a lack of warmth. It was a force. It seeped through the seams of his armor with familiarity like a key fitting, into its locks. It entered his lungs, a sterile breeze bearing the flavor of eons of gradual water and enduring rock. The atmosphere itself felt heavy, moist and motionless enclosing him from every direction.
He remained within the threshold giving his senses time to acclimate. The divine illumination within him was a heat, at his center yet he chose not to summon it. Instead he surrendered to the darkness. It was a velvety gloom that his gaze could not overcome. He perceived the melody of the abyss.
Plink…
A single water droplet, descending from an altitude hitting a concealed basin. The noise was crisp, precise a stop concluding a wordless phrase.
…plink…
Another.From a different direction. A different sentence.
…plink…
He started moving one hand gliding over the slippery shaped wall. The limestone felt like a solidified waterfall under his touch smooth, at times sharply jagged at others. The route sloped downward not sharply. With a dreadful certainty. The atmosphere became denser filled with the aroma of soil and another scent—a metallic sharpness, reminiscent of newly fractured stone or blood staining rock.
The murmurs no longer took the form of speech. Instead they became sensations. The darkness on his skin resembled velvet in certain areas and cold slime in others. It examined him not with hostility but, with dispassionate interest. He was a taste. A familiar taste.
You returned. The idea originated with him. The cavern amplified it. Why? The sword belongs to you. The challenge is completed.
"It wasn't a test " Alexander murmured softly. His tone was fragile swallowed by the eager stillness. "It was a prelude."
An introduction to what?
"To the cost."
A sound then, not a drip. A shift. A grinding sigh of stone on stone, deep below. The mountain settling. Or turning in its sleep.
He completely lost track of time. There existed nothing but the fall, the plink-plink-plink of the water the sensation of the shifting wall. He arrived at a spot where the route split. He had never come across this previously. One way exhaled a warmer earthy breeze. The other was a lifeless gust. He recalled Duncan's motion the lack of doubt. The General had not battled the dark; he had flowed along with its streams.
Alexander shut his eyes—an action, in the total darkness—and allowed his remaining senses to broaden. He sensed the nearly undetectable tug of the chillier air. It seemed… purer. More vacant. He pursued it.
The corridor constricted, compelling him to shift to the side the Penitent's Blade rasping against the wall with a noise to a file, on bone. Then it expanded into a chamber that his body recalled before his mind caught up. The air hung motionless. Carried the flavor of timeless quiet. The black pool. The plinth.
He was back.
He strolled to the pool's rim. His image failed to appear. The surface resembled a slab of glass denying any reflection except its own profoundness. He glanced at the pedestal where the Blade had been placed. He somewhat anticipated it might have vanished or that a different artifact would emerge. It remained stone, polished by the passage of years and trickling water.
"What did you present, to the knight?" he inquired of the void. His words produced no echo. They slipped into the water. Disappeared. "The calm following the struggle. What is the significance of that?"
It signified the conclusion of inquiries the mountain exhaled. This time the voice did not reside in his mind. It was in the vibration of the rock under his feet, in the moisture dripping from the roof. It signifies the breath. The letting go of the tangle of 'why.' He battled for honor. The mountain revealed to him the hollowness of honor. He embraced the hollowness. His battle was over.
"And became part of you."
Everything comes back, to the abyss to the enduring darkness. The illumination is a fleeting flame. We are the place of repose.
Alexander crouched beside the pool not in devotion but from weariness. The chill of the stone crept through his armor into his knees. The discoloration, on his breastplate appeared to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, a muted battered reflection of his divine essence.
"My Angel… my command… it constitutes another triumph. Another 'reason.' Is that what you intend to reveal to me? Its void?"
The room appeared to pause in silence. The dripping stopped.
We reveal nothing the cave responded at last its tone just a faint tremor, in his jaw. We serve as a mirror. A quiet one. When you peer into the pool you observe what you carry to its brink. The knight carried ambition. He beheld its conclusion. You brought a question. What do you perceive?
Alexander gazed into the water. He perceived no image, no figure. He observed the chasm formed by his decision to come back. The rebellion against the path. The daunting solitary liberty it offered. He realized that his compliance had been a confinement and his initial move, beyond it had brought him further into a sort of captivity—one filled with endless responsibility-heavy options.
"I understand…" he started his voice constricted. "I realize that I fear becoming an instrument.. Even more I fear not understanding what I should become."
Out of the space, behind him from where the corridor began emerged a solitary gentle metallic click.
Alexander remained unshaken. This time he sensed the presence—a shift, in the cold motionless atmosphere. He gradually stood up. Pivoted.
General Clement Duncan positioned himself at the brink of the room's dim borrowed shadow. He was not prepared for combat. His arms hung loosely by his sides. The expressionless helmet faced Alexander, the pool and the defeated curve of his shoulders.
"A response compared to many " Duncan's dry mental voice rasped. "The initial cut of the blade is the most profound. It breaks the deceit of intention. What emerges from the injury is yours to form. If you endure the bleeding."
"Is that what transpired with you?" Alexander inquired, the query daring amid the quiet. "Did you discover your goal unfulfilled?"
The black helmet remained still for a moment. "I discovered a reason that compelled me to question 'why' with every breath with every strike of my blade. A reason that exists in the inquiry not in the response. It is… more burdensome."
"The Abyss."
"A term, for it. A straightforward one." Duncan advanced one step. The room didn't seem reduced; it appeared concentrated. "My Queen does not bring peace, Messenger. She brings a trial. An unending burning 'why.' It creates another form of power. One that endures uncertainty without shattering."
Alexander gazed between the knight and the black pool these two voids mirroring one another. One was quiet. Resigned, the other quiet and doubtful. Both denied the Angel's unquestioning conviction.
"I have a mission to fulfill " Alexander stated,. The phrase carried no weight. It was a routine, a form lingering on his tongue.
"Then finish it " Duncan said, without a hint of sarcasm. "Seize the Chalice. Endure the Echoes. Put on the Ring.. Don't do it simply because a light being told you to. Do it to discover who you become when you choose for yourself. That is the truth the darkness honors."
He faced away a silhouette fading, into a shade.
"Hold on " Alexander shouted, his voice reverberating oddly now as though the cavern chose to send it back. "Why reveal this to me? Why deny the mountain's from taking me like it did the knight?"
Duncan halted, a shadow outlined against the dimmer gloom of the passage. The featureless helmet angled, so slightly.
"Due, to the knight's decision silence was born " the General's voice murmured inside his mind now more subdued. "Your decision, to come back and inquire… it produces a noise.. Within the endless vast stillness of forever one genuine sound is a valuable treasure."
Then he disappeared.
Alexander remained solitary within the chamber of the pool the Penitent's Blade chilling his grip. The verdant doorway of the world was shut. The manuscript was consumed by fire. Ahead of him stretched solely the route he had selected winding out from the mountain's maw and, into the howling tempests of the Drunengalm. He had ceased to be a Messenger.
He was a man with a question, walking into an echo chamber of all the world's pain, armed with nothing but a blade that showed him his own doubts, and a newfound, terrifying defiance.