The ultimate crest was a razor- line of broken granite the landscape dropping off into iridescent mist on each flank. The quiet was absolute much so that his heartbeat roared loudly in his ears, a wild primal defiance, against the emptiness. He proceeded over it with the precision of someone crossing scaffolding every step a purposeful choice.
Then the aroma reached him.
It sliced through the odorless atmosphere of the summit like a tangible edge: frigid metal, not the cozy aroma of a furnace but the old ozone-flavored stench of a blade preserved in icy heights, for a millennium. Beneath it lay the arid, mineral scent of fossilized wood. It was the fragrance of something that had halted time in its vicinity.
The spoor of the relic.
The way forward was no longer naturally shaped. The stone bore marks, like injuries. Huge shiny channels seemed to have been fused into the granite as though exposed to a heat extreme it had vaporized the rock. In, between the surface appeared pockmarked and blended into bubbly patterns.. Within this geological damage was the sign of a more personal kind of destruction.
Protection. Not dispersed,. Fused. A vambrace, crafted in a style so ancient it seemed unknown was seamlessly joined to the stone as if it had been cast there. A short distance away a broken breastplate, cleaved by one strike lay merged flat against the rock its oxidation the sole hue, in the colorless landscape. Ahead the crushed remnants of a great helm, wrinkled like aged paper constituted part of the walkway itself a concave metallic skull he needed to step across.
This was not a cemetery. It was an instant of strife. A fight had occurred here at the entrance of the Ring and the mountain or the Ring's might had immobilized it a caution scene. The quiet here seemed distinct. It wasn't inactive. It was hostile. It was the stillness that descended at the peak of brutality a hush so complete it had halted swords mid-swing and sealed fighters to the ground.
Alexander navigated the battlefield with a respect tinged with fear. His golden armor, now dulled seemed like a poor replica, beside these timeless shattered remains. Who were these figures? Warriors of the Angel aiming to secure the Ring for the light? Abyssal rulers, attempting to seize or annihilate it?. Had they battled one another each side desperate to dominate the final end?
He lowered his hand his gauntlet suspended above the melded breastplate. He refrained from making contact. He sensed the lingering jolt, the reverberation of the last muted cry ensnared in the fabric of stone and steel. The Penitent's Blade resting on his back remained motionless. No strands of deceit resided here to sever. Solely the stark hardened reality of obliteration.
The trail concluded at a curved portal sculpted—or maybe fused—into the solid stone of the peak's summit. The curve was sleek, bare and, from inside the aroma of iron and fossilized wood flowed out in a tangible surge. The gloom inside was not the absorbing blackness of the Hölloch. It was a level grey emptiness. A void.
This was it. The sanctum. The heart of the silence.
He faced the archway burdened by the sum of all he had witnessed heard and experienced: the girl's fear Walter's dismay Duncan's grim cautions, the merchant's proposals the Queen's reasoning the sobbing crowd, the empty visage in the water. The Angel's command was a nearly lost murmur, from a past era.
He reflected on the fighters, behind him. They arrived driven by intent, fury and determination. The quietness had absorbed everything merging them into the mountain itself.
At that moment he realized he could not proceed as they did. Not shielded by conviction be it heavenly or infernal. The quiet would merge with that conviction turning it into his prison.
With fingers stiff and awkward he started to undo his armor's buckles. The intricate golden plates, the greaves, the vambraces, the pauldrons. Piece after piece he dropped them onto the battered stone with heavy thumps that the quiet immediately absorbed. Then followed the robes, marked and ripped. At last he was clad in a plain sweat-moistened linen undershirt and trousers his feet bare, against the icy rock. He sensed himself laid defenseless astonishingly mortal. The rarefied air scorched his lungs. The chill gnawed at his skin with sharpening agony.
He removed the Penitent's Blade from his side. He gazed at it for a moment—the fragment of frozen darkness the bearer of truth. He carefully placed it on top of the heap of his armor. Then he repeated the action, with his sword. The instruments of the Messenger. The emblems of the mission. He left them there by the entrance.
He retained a single item. From a pouch hanging from his abandoned belt he withdrew a smooth water-smoothed stone he had gathered from the Muota Rivers bed several days earlier. It rested comfortably in his palm, cool and tangible.
Without weapons. Without armor. Alexander Magnus, no longer a Messenger but simply a man walked through the archway into the grey emptiness.
The temperature remained steady. The light stayed constant. It felt as though the ideas of warmth and illumination had been quietly put aside. He found himself in a round chamber, its walls, floor and ceiling constructed from the identical smooth plain grey material. Positioned in the middle of the space on a pedestal made of the same material rested the Blue Ring of Stillness.
It was modest. A plain ring made of what appeared to be blued steel without decoration its texture without shine. It emitted no light. It projected no energy. It conveyed emptiness. It was the calm, in the storm the core of stillness. The point where all forces neutralized.
He moved closer his bare feet silent, on the ground. As he neared he sensed nothing. No allure, no fear, no strain. Everything had been removed during the ascent. At this point only the Ring. The decision.
He realized now. The Ring itself did nothing. It was an entity. A potential. An ultimate full stop. Putting it on was not, about acquiring power. About embracing an ending.
He gazed at the rock in his palm. A fragment of the bustling, chaotic realm beneath. A realm of streams and towns terror and affection, enchantment and sorrow. A realm deserving protection. A realm worthy of rescue, from this.
He extended his hand his fingers poised above the blue metal.
He was uncertain whether he would retrieve it. He was uncertain whether he would wear it. What he was certain of was that he had reached the paths conclusion not as a fighter but as an observer.. The observer needed to observe. He needed to become deeply familiar with the silence to grasp it with his hand before determining whether to release it into the world or to retreat and bring the wondrous sound of life back, down the mountain with him.
His fingertips grazed the Ring.
The globe did not come to an end. The quietness remained the same.
It simply waited for his decision.