SOURCES OF MAGIC Chapter 5: Minds and Magic
I awoke in the dark, stone walled room. My whole body ached, though it was dull compared to the excruciating pain I had felt some while ago - how much time had passed I was unsure, for I had no way to tell anything of the outside world.
Most of all, however, was my bubbling confusion. I had been all but sure Death had claimed me for herself, but if this was the afterlife then it was a cruel joke. Maybe it was punishment for the pain I had caused those I loved.
But as time passed, I was more and more convinced I was in the real world after all, even if my mind could not conjure any reasonable explanation for it. Perhaps I had simply passed out, my mind unable to comprehend the damage my body was sustaining. However, that failed to explain how I had escaped relatively unscathed from the ordeal, and moreover I knew how it was to faint before, and this was different.
Regardless of the reason, I was ecstatic to be alive, and in my happiness and stupidity I tried to get up abruptly, every inch of my skin screaming their protests in flashes of burning pain, and I fell to the ground, my body now screeching. Determined to move on, I tried again more slowly.
Slowly, taking one step at a time, I stumbled towards the next and final room, a room that would test my mind. I was confident, maybe even overly so, for I was trusting of my mental strength, knowing it could take the beating my body collapsed against. The moment I walked in, however, my intuition told me I was about to be proved horrendously wrong.
…
Grabbing the two soul jars, Valorn set them on either side of him and, in a rehearsed motion, slowly inched them open. The caged souls inside jumped out joyously on their newfound freedom, drifting towards their home, The Other. They left behind all things earthen, as a man does, leaving behind all his worldly problems as he enters his true home, and slipped into the unknown. Under the burdens they forsook was the energy with which they thrashed and protested within their tiny jars.
He harnessed that energy to his will, slowly collecting it in an orb which danced around his fingertips. He funneled it into a scrying portal in front of him, and, touching the swirling purple edges with his fingertips, he commanded it to give him a view of Pjotr. At first, he encountered the resistance of thousands of wards, each pressing against his desire, but the man was a talented mage, and proved thus to them, spinning and unravelling each thread of protection with an ease unmatched by any other till only the unhindered view of his brother remained.
He watched as his brother stirred from his death sleep, his body charred and ravaged. Everything was sped up, for time there was slowed down. Each of his winces of pain drove a needle through his heart, each failed attempt to stand up slowly killing him inside. What Pjotr had said was in anxiety and annoyance, what Valorn had done he felt was unforgivable - he had abandoned his brother when he needed him most.
The cold grip of fear ran up him, sending shivers down his spine. He had the chance to make it all up, to make him live. Yet his deft hands trembled uncontrollably, as he feared what he had to do for it.
Regardless the rationale, he feared to put his hand in Fate, for she was a harsh mistress who disliked foreign fingers on her handiwork, and he was a courageless coward who didn't dare to defy such dangerous dictators.
…
The world slowly began to distort around me, and as it whirred and blurred, it sought another, more clearer world, and found it within my mind. Tied to the world by earthly chains in the form of my body, I followed it there, into the world inside my mind.
Having been inhabited by the room outside, I felt myself in the familiar pitch black darkness, my small rational mind drifting through the endless ocean of invisible subconscious thoughts.
Pjotr, they echoed, there voices part of my own, yet foreign and distant. I felt then as part of my own stream of thoughts, yet they were emphasised, emboldened and loudened, brought to the foreplay by a unidentifiable force. They carried that subtle undertone of mockery, one that I initially ignored.
“Yes?,” I replied to the nothingness, my voice getting lost in their infinite reaches.
Do you really think you can finish this? They asked, jeering and belittling.
“I've survived hurricanes and poisons, fire and air, I've even lived having my soul torn out!” I declared, triumphant, “I think I can manage this.”
You've survived nothing, Pjotr, the whispers jeered, a seamless smile forming on their formless faces, For you couldn't do any of it by yourself.
“Well, I did it mostly myself. Their assistance, whoever gave it, was only slightly complimentary.”
The other victims, too, did it mostly themselves. You don't see them masquerading around, do you?
“Every choice I've made led to me being here, and it'll lead to me getting past this,” I stated, my voice hiding my wavering willpower.
You mean accepting to be taken care of by Val? By accepting the assistance and guidance of your talented friends? By not shooing away every good thing that just waltzed into your life with your personality?
Your useless, Pjotr. Useless. You're a failure. You're going to disappoint everyone.
“Oh no I'm not. I'm going to clear this test,” I countered, but my voice was weakening. That voice… there was truth in its words. I couldn't do this alone. Slowly but surely the walls of my determination crumbled away, unveiling truths buried in their conscious.
Very well. Accept the truth - you're pathetic. Accept it like every other thing that's pampered you throughout your life. Or are you going to push it away, like you did them?
I felt sick. The words churned in my mind, and with it my stomach and head. Nausea overtook me like my self-doubt, and I felt my extremities weaken.
When I thought of a test of the mind - I - I hadn't expected this. I hadn't expected a thousand truths to be blindly and bluntly shown before me.
I was weak. I was pathetic. I was a failure. I was pampered. I was everything this voice deemed me to be and worse. It was as if the river of revelation had but now fully broke down the walls of ignorance, arrogance and courage, and I stood on their shattered shards, their ruination sating the river with its honesties.
All I had to do was to fall in the waters of acceptance, yet by pure force of will I stood on dry land, no matter the cost - yet it was but a matter of time before they wore away, and I sunk into the waters beneath.
…
Valorn watched in horror as the lights of confidence slowly drained out of Pjotr's eyes, until there was but a spark of its life giving lustre in his deep brown eyes. Thrown into suspended animation by the ancient elven runes, whatever that was happening in his mind was sure to be far from pretty.
But both Valorn's hands and courage paled, for changing fate came at a perilous price, one that could very well be fatal. It was a mysterious and unpredictable magic, yet it was the only one he could muster to help his brother. Or more realistically, the only one he thought he could muster.
Perhaps he could succeed without my help, Valorn thought, but that supposition was even more unsure than his own decision.
He struggled, for he already had so much to live for, so many opportunities, so much of a life he was frightened to risk lest he was to never get it back. He would have sought some solace if it was assured that his brother would live - but the art of Fates was vague and vexing, and promised nothing.
Besides, there were dangerous consequences to changing Fate, for it was not something set in stone - it was an endless fabric, continuously sewn and stitched. One foreign thread and its effects would change the whole cloth.
He closed his eyes, releasing his brain from the worrisome sight they were absorbing. What he needed was peace, but peace would only settle where her seeds were already sown, not in the turbulent winds of his usually breezy mind.
Having deprived himself of one sense, however, his others rose up in compensation, and his ears caught the scent of the smooth melody that sailed through the air, a melody that was sung by innocent, bright eyed love, carrying their hope and naïvete, passing then on to him.
Hidden in the night,
Past monsters and frights,
Behind the blight,
Lie the bathing lights,
Within your nightmares,
Inside all the scares,
Lay vivid dreams, stripped bare,
In the unknown lies something beautiful and raaare,
Having topped his crescendo, he hastened his pace. It was as if he had laid the start as a bait, and now that Valorn's mind had embraced it, sought to tame the savage storm with his onslaught of melodies
But you won't reach it unless you try,
Won't know it, till you pry,
Won't reach the sky lest you aim high,
Won't live till the-day-you diiieeee,
Having now having my thoughts wholly enamoured by his voice, commanding their flow with a single word, he impeded their torrent with but one line, sang in a soothing whisper, one line that spoke the million words I needed to hear,
But you'll only reach it… if you tryyyy.
His half-harp strummed on in caution if Val's mind were to run again, but it was now blank and breathless, and peace made her home, casting away any weeds of cowardice from her fields.
He let his hands melt into the the icy liquids of the portal, connecting himself to the grand tapestry that was being woven. He let his soul flow through his fingertips, and with it came a thousand hopes, dreams and desires, each one eager to be part of Fate's yarns. Yet any addition he made to Her art was alien, and it would not go unnoticed if it was but the most simplest and subtlest of my wishes. So ge stripped back the avalanche of his musings, and through my fingertips forced my most basic of them, and pushed it with every ounce of his magic and willpower, hoping it shall find a place in which to settle. Yet a man's soul is finite, and he found his conscious slipping away, letting his thread free in the grand knit, hoping it shall find a home.
Having done so, he lost all thoughts and feelings, fading away into the blackness, leaving the fibre to Fate's own fingers.
Whether they were to lodge themselves in the ever-growing fabric was to yet to be seen, but anxiously anticipated, but there was one thing known for sure: if there was any place this thread found a home, it would do so at the heart, dictating every future beat, whether for better or worse.
…
The voice echoed in my head, bouncing back and forth throughout my mind, each reminding me of my flaws.
I was on the brink of my hope, at the very edge of my plight. I found myself hopping between the sinking stones of my determination. I summoned back what I could, but as the water rose higher and higher, it was increasingly more difficult to evade it, to avoid accepting it.
You are useless.
I grit my teeth in stubborn silence, holding on by the edges of my nails. I was at the brink of defeat, and it was upto Time now to push me over either edge.
You are pathetic.
You are dependent.
I felt myself slipping, and with me everything, slipping away.
You are a burden.
The voices echoed, without stopping.
You aren't chosen.
You aren't a hero.
You aren't worthy.
What you are, is a failure.
Accept it, and all will end.
...
Submitted January 29, 2019 at 07:07PM by cuzimclearlybetter http://bit.ly/2GdElRw
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