Merrin froze as his mind worked out the image. A short man—a bit taller than him. Darkened brown hair, a narrow face, slender with an eye of eerily greyness. Yoid?
He fell to his back, and Merrin rushed to him, cradling. "How are you here?"
Yoid coughed, fountaining blood. "Fell into the mines."
That was an obvious outcome.
What have you done, Moeash? Why punish those who have done nothing wrong? He caressed the man's hair and said, genuinely. "Don't worry, you're safe now."
Yoid turned sharply. Suddenness in motion. Eyes wide, he trembled. "No, we are not. There's something in the mines."
Merrin looked up—that sensation had returned. A gaze he sensed with ashman qualities. Who?
Yoid croaked, blood spilling through his mouth. "Are you not hearing me?" He said, "There's something in the mines."
His words drove in that remaining part of the mental created puzzle. He knew now. A presence existed here. Above all senses, the innate one spoke of that with surety. Something was here. A fallen? A human? Merrin looked to Yoid and knew the man too weak to move.
"Catelyn?" He whispered the words.
"Yes," She sensed his wants and spoke too in hushed tones.
"I think we should leave."
"No, run!" Yoid said abruptly.
He saw something.
In the darkness, something moved in the fumes. "Run?"
Yoid trembled. "They are here!"
Just then, Merrin saw in the darkling—eyes. Three sets. Two with one above, staring. White. Cold gazed. This froze his thoughts. More eyes opened in that blackness—always in threes, watching. Somehow, that feeling of predation came upon him. A horrible chill down the bones.
"Catelyn, we need to—"
Yoid shouted, "I said run! Run, Merrin, run!"
He hoisted Yoid on his back, glanced at Catelyn, and saw her fear. "Run!"
They did.
Faster than his feet allowed—louder than the ashman accepted, he dashed. The wind whispered and he viewed Catelyn as a creature of tremendous delay. Against him, her steps dragged as though weighted.
A dangerous effect. The gaze, he felt. Undoubtedly, they were upon them—watching. Preying. Merrin grimaced and shouted, "Hold yourself!" And so lashed the wind, noted it as fabric weaves flowing around his back—him and Catelyn.
Then came the push. A sudden gust that hurled him forward. A boost. He felt now within the black ships, soaring through the skies. He, however, remained bare inches from the ground. A reasonable limit when layered with the need for radiance and casting.
Catelyn moved beside him—face twisted into an awful shape of startlement. She issued through the wind, racing on as though possessed by some power. Casted power. Almighty power.
Faster Faster!
Merrin turned and saw the eyes coming—white eyes with no form to behold. In the darkness, they moved, reaching. Despite the speed, they drew closer. Quicker. Merrin gritted and tunneled force.
A gust of wind, and the world suddenly blurred into a passage of brown, darkness, and red. Breath stiffened—an instinctive thing against the moving speed. Wind-blown speed. He soon felt the faintest testimony of force depletion. Narthuun; old tongue bearing the same meaning. Certainly, outside a few words, the knowledge of the oldest language drew null—yet not many could claim to know as he did.
He saw stone—a rushing boulder. Wind moved, he rolled over the stone, touching feet first on the heated earth, and dashed on. In-depth survival awareness. The charge of it suggested a necessary alertness lest he ended as paint on a stone face. Not good. His witnesses demanded his survival.
What if?
A terrible thought. A recursive thing he tried muting. What if they all died in the fall? What if What? Almighty won't allow it. He knew his thoughts were a plaintive one. Somewhere, a piece accepted that outcome. That aspect, now that was the thing he battled against.
Merrin, a moment saw something akin to thrones, arranged sidely in the hall. Who lived here? He whirled, saw the coming eyes, and knew the terror again. Almighty, what are those things? How are they here?
Observation identified them as non-fallen. Creatures, maybe, but not fallen. This did leave the obvious question of their identity. Yoid was harmed by them—hostility assured. Why? How did he even survive that many?
Not sure, but the split counting rounded a total of 80—number uncertain. That did put Catelyn's words in perspective. How did he survive? Where did the boulder come from?
Whispers—attention-grabbing ones. Turning, he saw Catelyn beside, mouthing. Her words, however, reached in muffled tones. Wind scattered. He signed to her—Ashman ways. Hopefully, her knowledge of his people dipped into that.
Her eyes flickered, fingers moving in recognizable patterns.
"Look"
"Ahead"
"Fall"
It repeated.
"Look"
"Ahead"
"Fall."
Brows knitted. Look ahead fall? That spoke about her little knowledge of the signs, yet it spoke too of some information. He glanced at her; wide eyes, frenetic motions. Repeated, over and over. "Look, ahead, fall."
By curiosity, Merrin peered ahead—using those special eyes of his that saw through the veils of darkness and extended their ocular powers for far sight. Zoomed. He stunned.
At the precipice of the darkness—the far-reaching halls, there was an edge. A broken stone bridge that spewed into nothing. A cliff, likely. Wait, that's too close!
They were out!
Floating, suspended before the downforce dragged down to the darkness beneath. Merrin felt himself a creature of mad imputations. What to do? Who to save? How to survive?
Like a thing drowned in the water depths, he was flooded by knowledge. Useless, pre-known information. Yoid, Catelyn, witnesses, the stone, the earth, the heat, the creatures of three eyes. All fitted into a bouncing form of thought. Not one focused, as was the one of linear cogitation, but one of a meandering process.
He panted—at least he believed so. Yoid remained hoisted behind. Catelyn, beside, frozen in a portrait of terror. Hands wide spread, as though reaching for an imaginary ladder. An image flashed into his mind; Her, plastered on the earth, steaming away before froststone force depletion.
A dreaded outcome.
Even now, he sensed their presence. The three-eyed creatures. What would happen? If they fell, would the creatures feed on their corpses, a delicacy to the beasts? What about his witnesses? That thought demanded spectacular resistance against delirious effects.
What about them? The beasts would come to them? Destroy them.
If they lived
It would end them…I must not feed them to be beasts with my skin in safety!
Force roared out tremendously—such an immense amount, he believed, only once used in the moments of his awakening. That power battled against his very mind, thoughts bouncing, knowledge congealing. His radiance had faded in their emergence, in the greyness, replaced by the rippling of queer light. A limpid form of power.
He enjoyed this power—the feeling of godhood it left within.
Fewer thoughts, action ruling, Merrin gripped the wind weaves and spun them fiercely. This came as an action of the mind, not the physical self. Catelyn had advised on the physical for force conservation. But now demanded the wastage.
In the seen world, the wind churned, spiraling into a wild vortex. Around them, it took the form of brown, red, turning, and spinning. Merrin stared at this, through the brief slits, saw the three eyes, many, staring at them. Cold gazed.
This should…this should…take us…away! The whirlwind, as though imprinted by this desire, moved, and within, Merrin left himself a rag—thrown from side to side. Alive, pained, but the latter mattered little. Catelyn screamed, he knew this, though her voice was drowned by the madness.
She would understand!
Yoid remained hard pressed on his back, and knowing the sureness of force depletion, Merrin closed his eyes, immersed the pain, and allowed for that half-trance that froze the external pain. Now, he observed himself for an internal externality.
And within, he thought.
Often, we seek to know the nature of our universe. We call this a desire for knowledge—an unsurprising belief. But one would learn it takes a special kind of madness to realize this belief as pride and ego. A want to control the entropy of reality. But how long would it take to see fully the smallness and insignificance we pose to it as a whole—author unknown.
The trance broke, and Merrin found himself lying on the searing floor. He gritted, stood, and observed the surroundings. It took a moment for eye adjustment, allowing for the visual awareness to flow in. A nadir, that was the prominent possibility.
Ahead, a tall wall of stone stood, concealing into the higher darkness. Sidely were paths, pillars scattered about, stretching to the same overhead. Ah, the humbling massiveness. Although charmed by the vast, he took up ashman methods, dragging the sleeping bodies. Catelyn and Yoid.
To leave one with purpose goes against the nature with which he was trained. But if they were incapable, now that was a different matter.
Behind were walled catacombs. Appeared so—they were blocked off by stones, metal round doors, and covered the walls like dots. Like the slave mines. This beckoned a passive question: If people lived here, how then did they reach the height? No inkling of a ladder presented itself.
Merrin moved the bodies behind a large pillar. The width was enough to cast a long shadow—if there was light, of course. There, he rested on the wall, breathed, and watched the duo. Catelyn and Yoid, breathing stable enough despite the prior. This was good.