Chapter 8: Silence

“You really are a hopeless case, aren’t you.” The voice echoed around me.

I looked around, there was nothing but black in all directions. I couldn’t sense anything, but the emptiness seemed to have a depth to it. “Where am I?” I asked the darkness. “Why can’t I feel anything?”

“I mean really, you lost to Madagran! That’s embarrassing.”

I pulled up my hood and grabbed the stick out of my boot, feeding it a little energy to get in to transform. It didn’t change. I tried again, still nothing. “What the…”

“Seriously. A weapon like Soul isn’t going to work in your subconscious. It’s a weapon that changes depending on the energy you give to the soul inside. In here, there is no real transference of energy and only your soul is allowed in here. You should really do some research.” I head a distant laugh from the void “Well, that, and I’m the one in control here.”

I put the weapon back in my boot. “Who are you, and how do you know about my weapon?”

“My weapon!” she said with discus, “Used to, weapons like Soul were treated with more respect. After all, they are living creatures.”

“Who are you?” I asked again, searching for some sigh of life. Suddenly, there was a small light in the distance.

“I guess you could say I am who I am. But you shouldn’t really worry about it, I mean, there’s not anything you can do about me. So just don’t worry about it.”

“What’s that light?” I asked, the light was growing larger by the second.

“Light. What light! What colour is it!” The voice sounded concerned.

“I don’t know.” I tried to focus on it, “White, maybe blue. I can’t really tell. It’s so bright.”

“Cara de. Tah nadè ce ge.” The voice was now hurried.

“I need to go? What do you mean I need to go, go where?” The ground began to shake and cracks of light appeared throughout the void.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not safe here right now. This is going to hurt.”

I’m not sure what happened next, but pain flew through my body, engulfing every bit of my consciousness. The light around me began to fade and I was once again in the dark. For a brief moment the pain subsided and I could feel the world around me. I realized I was back in Gildar’s wagon, and heading northwest.

The agony that had subsided surged back, my eyes shot open and were blinded by the light coming through the window. I cruelled up in suffering, pulling what little magic I dared to use to form a link between myself and Xanvan.

‘Xanvan.’ I thought ‘Xanvan.’

                There was a long pause ‘Reaper?’ came a confused reply.

                ‘The wizard…’ I stammered ‘The dark one. I need her.’ The dark crystal pulsed again, and the connection shattered. A few seconds later Xanvan walked in with the girl. Her pale face looked more childish than it had earlier, and for the first time I took note of her deep blue eyes. Her blond hair was up in a ponytail and she was dressed in an assassin’s garb. I held out my hand and she took it.

“I’m s-s-sorry.” I sputtered, then formed a connection between us. She dropped to the ground as the crystal tried to corrupt her energy as well, I managed to pull it back, but I wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.

‘I need you t… to do a…a spell for me.’ I managed to say through the link.

‘What spell?’ She thought back. In that moment I felt what I had sensed in Magia earlier, the presence of a wolf, but this manifestation wasn’t as strong as the other. I put it out of my head and figured out what spell I needed. ‘ca se de rada nas di set.’ I thought back.

The crystal tried to break from my control and I was forced to disrupt the connection between us. Holding it back caused more of my magic to be destroyed by the ravenous energy. “Do it already!” I said through clamped teeth.

She released my hand and sat down on the floor, quickly concentration on the words I had given her. She placed her hands together and raised her magic energy, she didn’t stop until the magic was rolling off of her body like flames. She placed her hands on her knees with the palms up, then focused her attention on me. “Ca se de rada nas di set.”

                Everything plunged back into the dark.

“Well that was a good idea. I didn’t think you remembered that spell.” The voice charmed from the void. “Although,” It dragged on “Nah, forget it.”

I sat up, “What do you mean ‘although’?” The darkness seemed thicker than before, it almost seemed heavy.

“And having a wizard with dark energy cast it, that was a bold move, seeing as it is a spell for light energy.”

“Why is it so dark here?” I asked, trying the get the voices attention.

“I told you already, this is your subconscious. It’s dark because you’re not expecting to see anything.” She taunted from the distance.

“I’m expecting to see you. Who are you anyway?” I stood up and tried to sense for another presence in the void. But I could only feel my power radiating infinitely in all directions.

“I already told you, I am who I am. I also told you, I’m the one in control here. Even if I’m the only thing in the world that you wish to see, I wouldn’t let it be so.” There was a pause as the voice echoed around me. “Although, I should add on that even if I wanted to manifest physically in your subconscious, I literally couldn’t. So it’s not really up to us.”

“Wait. You’re not an actuality in this realm.”

“While I may seem real to you, almost as if I have a presence, the best I can do in interacting with you is this-” She trailed off. But I slowly felt energy gather in front of me. A few seconds later a dim glowing green light floated a few feet away from me.

I reached out to touch it, and it vanished. “That’s amazing.” 

“What’s really more amazing is that I can talk to you. Normally, by the rules separating us, I can’t interact with you in anyway, not even shared thought much less an independent voice. But, because of a little slip up after the Purge, I can now invade your subconscious.”

Abruptly the noise from the dark vanished, it was completely silent, I couldn’t even hear myself breath. “What just happened?”

“Paradigm shift”

“Paradigm what?”

“A paradigm shift, it means that we just changed realms. From what I can tell, we appear to be in elven territory. You told them to take you to Ethla, didn’t you.” The voice queried.

“How do you know about Ethla?”

She laughed “I know things, I’m a very intelligent person.”

“Wait.” I paused, thinking something over. “Did we just now enter the Elves’ realm?”

“Yeah. We passed over when the energy in here changed.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. It should have taken us at least a week to get to the elven boarder, how did we get here in such a short time?”

“Well, that’s mostly my doing. I’m distorting the time between your consciousness and the real world. So… about every ten or so minutes in here is about week out there.”

“So that means that we’ll reach Ethla in…” I trailed off, doing the math in my head.
                “Four minutes thirty-six seconds and counting, you know, assuming time stays at this constant rate. Anyway, if you have any questions for me I suggest you ask them quickly. I may not be so inclined to answer them later.”

I thought for a moment, wondering if there was any question that only she could answer, then it hit me. “How good are you at keeping track of time?”

“Actually, I think I will slow down our time a bit, get you out of my hair soon.” She said, completely ignoring the question.

“That’s not an answer.” There was a shifting in the darkness, energy began to flow towards a spot far out in the darkness

“Well, even though I normally slow down my own time stream compared to yours, I’m fantastic at measuring time according to you. Why?”

“How long ago was the purge?”

“What!? Why would you want to know that?”

“Well, in my mind, the purge was about four days ago. But, the world seems to have aged by a hundred years since then.”

“A little under a hundred actually.” She said.

“The slip up you mentioned earlier, does it have anything to do with why I can’t remember?”

There was a slight rumble in the distance “Well, that would be Ethla…”

A bright green light burst through the dark and flooded around me. The light was warm and kind, yet distressed and concerned. “What is this?” I asked.

“I just told you, it’s Ethla. Oh, and keep in mind, I will be seeing you again.” As the light grew stronger, I grew tired. Until I finally drifted into a new darkness, one without depth.

Author's Note

Is this chapter too short?
Does it makes sense, or is it really confusing?