The Ödetal was never a valley. It was a void. An immense bowl-like situated deep in the rainshadow of the tallest mountains its base a uniform stretch of broken shale, gravel and wind-worn stone. No trees. No grass. Just a handful of grey-green lichens attached to the north sides of rocks. The quiet here was absolute and timeless the quiet of somewhere the world had neglected to create noise, for. When the wind blew it produced a eerie whistle as it swept over the rock a noise that appeared to highlight the void instead of interrupting it.
Alexander stepped into its core. No trail lay ahead merely the slow draw, toward the core of the void. The sky appeared as a uniform white draining every shadow and dimension from the terrain. It was the empty canvas. The ideal quiet.
He kept walking until his legs quivered then he halted. He stood at the middle of the desolate land the dull world extending endlessly in every direction to the far-off jagged edge of mountains. This was the limit. The edge of the map. The conclusion of the journey.
He rested on a level rock the chill penetrating his garments. He brought out the river stone from its bag feeling its known polished heft. He placed the reed next to him on the stone. He was out of food except, for a crumbs of Josef's travel bread. He had no water though his thirst seemed away irrelevant.
He had arrived here intending to pose a question. Yet now confronted with the emptiness the question vanished from his mouth. What could one inquire of the void? It would offer no reply. It merely existed.
Exhaustion, profound than any he had previously experienced engulfed him. It was the weariness of a voyage counted not by distance. By broken beliefs. The heavenly glow. The bottomless shadow. The crying reality. The yelling reverberations. The noiseless chime. The ashen calm. The honorable caution. The ruler's bet. The commander's loss. The recluse's bloom. The spinner's pause. The unanswered inquiry, in a cabin.
It overwhelmed him. The burden of every realm he had influenced every conclusion he had seen bore down on him poised to shatter him against the gravel. He was no champion. He was a container, spilling light, shadow and remembrance, onto the barren earth.
He reclined on the rock, the sky, above him a blank white expanse. He shut his eyes.
Sleep claimed him not as a break. As a descent.
He had a vision.
He stood amid a meadow of lilies their petals resembling velvety shadows beneath a sky streaked with bruised twilight. The atmosphere was calm and, without fragrance. Ahead of him was the faceless knight, Clement Duncan, a figure of flawless sorrowful alertness.
Within the dream he felt no fear. He proceeded onward. The knight remained still.
He extended his hands gripping the textured metal of the helmet. With a breath that was partly exertion, realization he raised it.
There was no storm of revelation. No monstrous visage.
Beneath the helm was his own face.
Alexander Magnus.. Not as before. This visage rested peacefully. The creases of anxiety, terror and urgent determination had vanished. The eyes were shut, as if in a dreamless slumber. It was the face reflected in the black pool on the Weisshorn but cleansed of its terror. This was not the countenance of a man caught in mute forever; it was the countenance of a man whose battle had, at last mercifully ended.
It was the calm found in yielding. The calm of the knight, within the tale of the Hölloch. The calm bestowed by the Ring. The calm provided by the Severance.
It was unbearably beautiful.
Within the dream he realized. This was the option. Not to resist the silence or the quiet. To embrace it. To set aside the burden of decision of observation of serving as the 'and' in a clause requiring a full stop. To merge with the profound enduring silence of the mountain or the motionless reason of the light. To rest in the meadow of lilies, where no breeze stirred and no noise ever returned.
He desired it. Oh heavens in the depths of his dreaming soul he desired it. The exhaustion assured a conclusion. The calm invited.
His calm visage, beneath the helmet started to grin, a welcoming curve of the mouth.
Approach it appeared to murmur. It has ended. You've accomplished plenty. Now you may relax.
He extended a quivering dream-hand to brush the cheek of his own slumbering face—
He suddenly woke up a strangled scream escaping his throat.
The white sky was the same. The cold stone was the same. The vast, barren emptiness was the same.
He trembled, not due, to cold. From the profound soul-stirring grip of the dream. The lure had been genuine. It was truly him. The ultimate betrayal was not that the foe extended peace, but that the peace resided within him the time ready to be embraced.
He rose, gripping the river stone with force that its edges cut into his palm. The discomfort served as an anchor. His gaze fell on the reed resting motionless on the rock.
He had arrived to pose a query to the void. The void responded through a vision. It revealed to him the concealed weapon of both the Angel and the Abyss: humanity's yearning for relief from pain. For peace.
That was the struggle. Not with light or dark. With the aspect of himself that saw their proposals, as beautiful.
He gazed upon the Ödetal, this emblem of emptiness. This was the fate awaiting the world regardless of how it ended. A serene vacant tranquility.
He rose his legs trembling. He grabbed the reed. He gazed at it this device, for producing sound. He recalled the weaver's words. One note can shift the tune's tone.
He stood solitary at the conclusion of all things. No one was there to listen.
He brought the reed up, to his mouth.
He lacked ability. His breathing was uneven. The initial try produced a airy squeal immediately swallowed by the expansive quiet.
He made another attempt. Of a melody he focused on a noise. The chime of the weeping gallery. The clash of his sword striking the shadow-blade. The girl's crying. The snap of Josef's axe hitting wood. The flow of the Silberfluss. The breath of the dream-knight.
He exhaled.
A noise arose. Faint, delicate trembling.. It was a noise. An authentic resonant sound, amid the silence of the desolate. It wasn't a tune. It was defiance. A persistent harsh human tone.
It lingered momentarily vanished, consumed by vast apathy.
He was gasping for breath tears born of strain or exasperation burning his wind-battered cheeks. It amounted to nothing. Even less, than nothing.
He had accomplished it. He had opted for the noise. Against the backdrop of the flawless silence, on earth following the most alluring vision of tranquility he had produced a sound.
He dropped the reed. He did not triumph. He was not rescued. He was merely a man, in a desert grasping a blade of grass.
He was a man who had decided once again to embrace life. To be imperfect. To be a disturbance, in the clarity.
He faced away from the core of the Ödetal. Started the lengthy trek outward heading toward the mountain edges toward the world that remained, at least for the moment painfully chaotically loudly vibrant. The vision of the helmet's countenance would trail him, an apparition.. He had gazed upon its tranquil expression and he had turned aside.
He walked, and with each step, the weight of the choice—the eternal, exhausting choice to continue—settled onto his shoulders, not as a burden to crush him, but as the definition of what he was. He was the man who walked away from the peace. He was the 'and.' And he would keep walking, and breathing, and occasionally, making a terrible, beautiful, useless noise, until he could walk and breathe no more.