There is a path before me.
It is narrow and fades from sight like an ill-maintained dirt road, a product of wheels and hooves and feet, not flagstones. It is one that loses itself in tangles of roots and gnolls of grass, kept alive only by the persistence of those who use it, refusing to allow the rain and wind and persistence of nature to swallow it at long last.
There are others upon this road, though most are further ahead than I. An Arcanist who strides along the grass beside the beaten dirt, and yet never touches it herself; perhaps she is outside of this path, or has walked it so many times that she no longer needs it to find her direction. A Wayward son who believes the trodden dirt cannot lead him astray for as long as he can hear its call. One out of time who does not realise he walks it, much less where it might lead him.
And at its end, there is our host.
I do not know much of Vasaar. I do not much trust him. I do not believe that he peddles falsehoods to my face, though I suspect there is much he is not telling us, about his purpose for the world’s-edge gatherings and his reasons for calling us to the dead world. And yet, I find him strangely sincere. Others seem to know of him, or have history with him, for years, and yet they trust him, even amongst those whose trust is hard to earn. Can I trust their judgement, or are they merely conned into his hopes of how they imagine he is? His concern for us seems genuine enough. His attempts to relate to us, to guide us against the coiling mists of uncertainty and addling smoke that the shadows command, appeared sincere.
I recall his eyes behind the omnipresent white mask, meeting my own as he tried to determine how best to root myself to the tangible. I do not know if he sensed my faith in the Tidemother had shaken, though he appeared to suspect such a thing. He urged me, when I told him how I knew that serpents and squid lay at the briny depth, to anchor myself to a loved one, to family, or to something else. He does not show his face, though in spite of this, I sense little deception in his words; unless there are plans within plans at work. The world has always been full of charlatans, eager to find marks. I wonder how long his scheme will be; or if there is a scheme at all, or whether it is cleverly hidden in the apparent absence. Perhaps he has walked this difficult path, stumbled and fell from it, and found its ending, wherever that might be. Truth has ever been a long and lonely path. I wonder he found at its end. What I might find at its end. Perhaps we might find something different. In our most recent meeting, he deemed it wise for us to brush with the malevolence of the beyond; that which I have not felt since the Stormsong Secession years ago.
It took a mere click of his fingers, and I was far away. I drowned on land, in the place where the waters had long since drained away; my flesh and blood on the rotting wood of an abandoned village, and yet my soul and mind submerged in the icy depths of some unknown sea. The waters had ceased to be my friend, and no matter the force I kicked or how desperately I clawed for the surface, I remained alone, crushed in the briny deep. A fish swam to me, unafraid; perhaps it was awaiting until I stopped struggling. And yet, there was a glimmer of thought behind those eyes. It was not the placid eyes of beasts waiting to be caught, but some flicker of intelligence that lurked within. It offered me salvation, while I clawed at my throat for air.
I knew, in some sense, it was a lie; that these creatures seek out those who peer too far into the abyss, and lure them to dark callings. It was a story every child in Kul Tiras knows, that the secrets of the Tidesages are for them alone, who can uniquely resist the call to delve beneath the Tidemother’s domain. One that, much like the witches of my own forest home, was long assumed to be a fairy tale intended to scare children, not something far more real and far more terrifying than one could ever imagine. I could not surface, either in my vision or in my mind. The fish ceased to be, expanding into a writhing mass of nightmares. I heard Vasaar, urging me to break through the spell and find my centre once more, calling out for me to discard this vision for the lie that it was; and yet, I could not. He pleaded with me, his voice muffled to the point of silence, and yet as he dispelled his magic, I remained lost; for it was not the vision of his creation any longer.
I saw them from behind a small dais, crowned by a bleached white stone. A teeming mass of a crowd; hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, gathered underneath a lightless sky, cramming themselves into a valley lined with obsidian pillars that loomed a like giant’s fingers, floating weightlessly above the ground, each carved with the devotional scripture proclaiming the glories of Gods I did not know. The shadows that they cast, so subtle as to be almost imperceptible, were the envy of all; they jostled, competed, and fought for the chance to stand in their shade, the shadows that flickered and danced in the braziers and lanterns that illuminated this sacred ground. I gestured with an arm that was not my own; something rubbery and purple-skinned, which demanded their silence. The crowd fell silent as they saw me, their heads bowed. I did not know why; was it a gesture of reverence? Of fear? Of submission? Perhaps it was all three. My arms moved against my will, lifting the bleached stone; and yet, numb as my arms were, I felt it was bone.
A skull.
My skull.
The wind scraped the fragile bone of my skull, and I spoke; words unnatural in the beak that was my mouth. The crowd - my adoring, reverent fanatics - roared their approval, screeching in hysterical tongues and garbled devotions. Some convulsed. Some collapsed. Beneath their hoods, I saw gnashing mandibles and chitinous faces; writhing masses of tentacles where a face had once been, a mirror of those I felt flex and curl under a command I did not know that I issued. Those closest to me extended their arms, desperate for a touch from the blessed speaker; claws, suckers, tentacles, and skeletal arms alike reached for my grace, in hopes that my rubbery flesh might meet theirs for a moment. Eyes of seven, eight, nine, prayed they would meet my slitted gaze for a moment. They howled the name that makes my tongue bleed when I try to pronounce it again. One that I recognise, on some level, belonged to me, or to the creature whose eyes I watched the ceremony through. Was I a martyr, my old flesh cast aside into a more pleasing form? Ascendant, now beloved as a symbol of rewarded devotion? Perhaps I merely watched the world through the eyes of another.
Or, perhaps, I was neither. I was trapped within the fleshless bone of my face, stripped clean by the desert winds and scoured by the carrion feeders. An insect crawled into the socket in hopes of reprieve from the winds. My mind and my soul, contained within an eyeless skull, cursed to eternally watch as the night sky grew ever dimmer; until I was trapped in an endless twilight, never to see the sun or moon rise, as the stars themselves began to fade away. I was dust in the wind, trapped in the sands of time, cursed to watch the dead world. When my skull had finally been ground to dust, I would not die. I could not die. I could merely watch as the feeble eddies of wind seized my form and blew it in all directions, my sight and mind scattered across the four winds. I wondered what might await me; would I be alone for eternity, forced to watch my sight torn in every direction into the endless nothingness? Perhaps, if there was mercy in this world, I would simply cease to think.
And I was upon the dais once more; watching over the fanatical swarm. I was not behind it, as I had been, but atop it. From empty sockets, I saw what might be once more. A name suited only to be spat and cursed, abjured and loathed. I felt nothing as I was lifted into the air, and my vision was split in twain, my bones defiled. They roared and screamed again. Their hands extended and they implored my defiler for blessing, for a speck of attention. Frothing maws and chittering mandibles alike proclaimed their hatred for the countless fools who thought themselves saviours, who defied the will of the Gods who were ancient before life crawled from the sea. I was one of millions who had, in her foolishness, opposed the inevitability of their order. It was when they cast my remains to the crowd, where my bones were ground to dust, that I realised this valley was grave for those who would oppose this future. The dust of my form intermingled with the great and low alike.
Fit only to be trampled underfoot.
And yet, the world changed again. The sky was bright and clear, a shade of blue I could barely imagine. I saw the glimpse of a hand, not a tentacle or some other appendage; felt the touch of warm skin and soft flesh upon my own scoured skull. And yet, as I rose in the clutch of whomever held me, I saw the same fanatics. Men and women, now; men, elves, dwarves, and others I did not have time to count. My name was, once more, a curse; suited only to be spat and abjured, decried and loathed in displays of loyalty against whomever I had once been. They chanted and sang, as they proclaimed their hatreds; betrayer, heathen, apostate. Scarred hands, their split flesh filled with liquid gold, reached out in hopes that they, and they alone, might abuse my remains. Eyes that swam with light watched as my bones were hurled into the crowd, and watched as I was broken and shattered.
The pawn who thought she was bishop, sacrificed for the rook to make its play, her usefulness expended.
I awoke with a taste of bile and iron in my mouth. The others seemed concerned for me, and while I attempted to assuage their concerns, I know they sensed the deception. My visions lingered for the rest of the night, though I felt myself returning. I do not think they knew that I had been lying to them long after my collapse.
The howling winds across the desert, beneath the lightless sky. The dusty scream that scourged the flesh from my bones as I left for the makeshift training grounds behind. The braying crowds beseeching me for blessing, howling my name, and praying I would recognise them, when I sat in the warmth and comfort of an inn. The same crowd roared and screamed their loathing of me; the other crowd, in blinding light, abjured me, as I pretended to the Arcanist that I did not still hear it. I watched from slitted, inhuman eyes, from eyeless sockets; from the dais, from the dust, from the air as I tumbled through it, even as I saw my recent companions rise, seemingly unperturbed from their own experiences. I was dead, alive, somewhere between the two, or something else altogether.
My visions were of the past, this night. I watched from a spider’s web as an infant screamed in its crib, unable to comprehend what it saw. Priests offered their prayers. Ritual incense was burned and traditional remedies for a sick child were administered by family and strangers alike. The nurses could not prescribe an ailment to be treated, and could merely watch as the newborn was gripped with a sickness that defied explanation or treatment. I watched myself in my own crib as I was hurried away to the darkness; my mother told me, when I was young, that it was a hag’s magic that calmed me, that night. I wonder what she knew, if she shared my affliction in the sight; and knew my reprieve was temporary, as I watched myself sleep soundly for the first time. How little progress I have made in my years alive.
I think of the strength my companions have. I think of their inexperience, their innate sense of vulnerability; and yet they all prevailed, in the end. The Drake, who appears to believe himself to have no choice in his fate, doomed to fall from the path of purity, or follow the road to corruption, prevailed in his test. The Burglar, whom I have yet to speak with, rose first. The Orc, in spite of his green nature and seeming naivety, rose as well. And yet I was paralysed writhing in the dust and filth of a broken world, from a faint brush with power wielded by one who is, at least nominally, a mentor. I wonder what might happen with one who would not attempt to guide me out, nor hold back from the power such a dark force has to offer.
I ponder if he knows that my visions were not only what he intended to show me, if he even meant to show me drowning alone. They have never been so vivid before. They have never been such a complete vision of what might come to pass. They grow ever more distracting; a chorus of voices and lights showing me glimpses of every future that may come to pass, intruding further into my waking mind and slumbering reprieve. At times, they feel more real to me than the quill I hold in my hand, the book on my lap, or my companions as they speak. Flashes of what might be at every moment of indecision. Moments of their myriad, endless fates as they sprawl in front of me, and many of my own.
Am I the dreamer?
Or am I the dream?
