She hoped not, but who would even guess the obviously capricious nature of those creatures… Formless.
Her fingers rubbed against themselves. And I knelt before one… Hmm. Ivory raised her gaze toward nothing, conflicted. Why don't I hate it?
He will sail through their minds like a ship through water. He will own it. He will build it, and they will adore him for it— El'shadie Prophecies, tenth paragraph.
Merrin watched in silence as the lustrous Ivory blurred away from the castle, gone like a stain blown through the wind. He was getting better at this—at the control, the falsehood, and the lies.
What was the end of it?
He blinked away from the seat, appearing below the staircase leading up to the throne. There. So high up it was, he could see it, turning.
How lofty a thing he had created. How far beyond who he was as a person? The Ashman—yes, that. That was what he once was… And now?
Merrin looked away. "How expertly I lie now."
And yet, despite that knowledge, that true awareness swirling within his thoughts, there came no ideation of sorrow. What was the word… yes: a thing too much becomes too simple. He had become too used to all this.
Whether that existed as a goodness still remained unknown.
Abruptly, something flashed through the hall, small. A mass of winged darkness. He knew what it was; not much existed within this world he could not know. And like a thought, the darkness landed on his shoulders, cawing.
"YOU ARE AN IDIOT!" the bird screamed.
Typical. Merrin waved, a giant gust slamming the creature off his shoulders, tumbling it further through the air. That didn't last long, though, as the small thing zipped across the wall, rounding vast pillars, and piercing high above toward the ceiling. It never reached, of course. And like a comet, it dove down, shattering the air with a snap. Rather loudly, it came to a halt, floating just before his gaze.
Before Merrin, ever the same, with its wings like interlocked metal plates.
"You were watching?"
He was sure the thing rolled its eyes. "There you go again, offering the observable truths."
Ever annoying.
Merrin walked past it. "Not everyone can sense you."
"She could." The bird arched in the air. "Powerful, that one is. Perhaps this is the reason the Ardents brought her to you."
"I thought it was a thing about fate." Merrin, still in that somber sauntering, spared a glance at the corner of the hall, watching as a silver line scribbled itself into the walls and pillars. In them, they formed an image: a rough-haired boy dancing within a circle of watchers, some hooded, some not.
The Ashman within demanded that representation.
The bird finally came to respond. "There is a method to these things; you can ponder them if you can." It cawed. "Even fate is an event."
Merrin scoffed. "Of course it is."
"But I must say…" The creature came upon his shoulders once again. "This is a change from those forests you were making. This one is not fully pictorial. More truth in it."
"I've been watching the symbols in reality."
It offered nothing to that, instead saying: "So, do you intend to break this? Return to your red gardens?"
Merrin stopped. Undoubtedly, he knew the truth within those words. Was he to stop now and return to the humility that was the gardens? Sure, he was clad in black with a head of glowing light, but even then, he sat on no throne. And now he did. What a change.
Is this me assigning myself godhead?
Merrin muttered, "I'm… I'm doing it for them."
"And that's why you're an idiot."
"Yes." He nodded. "I am that. But I… I can't be with them anymore. I can't help them. I shouldn't help them. It never works. It's never easy. But this one…" He realized he stood before the end of the hall, nothing but a black, sleek wall before him. Expected. He continued. "This little thing I can use to make their sleep better. At least they can escape in their dreams."
"A hypocrite El'shadie?" The bird laughed. "That one is new…"
"It's all I can—"
"And yet you deny allowing more into this place… At least to that Ivory."
"It's different." The black wall blinked away, a vast gray world stretching out from it. Endless it was, with skies of sparkling lightning and blackened clouds. The floors, too—at the edge of the sleek, dark grounds of the hall was a land of beads. Black, infinite stone things that stretched out on all sides; more of the grayworld that had not been altered….Yet.
That should be changed.
A thought was all it took, and the work began. The beads trembled and mumbled words collectively in their totality. I AM. I AM. I AM. I AM.
Always those words came from those beads, although most likely with more control, more force exerted here, the lesser resistance the beads offered. After all, the constant shouting of I AM was, in its own way, a symbolic resistance.
He could not have that if he were to create a true paradise for his people.
The grayness melded before him, like a painting wetted suddenly by a douse of water. In its place was a new color, a new texture growing lucid within the chaos. Walls, floors, ceilings, pillars. More of the hall stretched before him. Beauty in manifest—thus was the Dreaming to become.
The bird interrupted. "Do you have any intention to do so regardless?"
Merrin sealed his eyes. "There is a difference between the unconscious dreamer and what she proposes."
"The same thing you had done to her."
He chuckled lightly. "Except I didn't." A glance at the bird. "She came here on her own—the first time, at least. Through the Ardent, somehow she had traced the link and found entry… Something maybe even Yoid couldn't do. Or maybe he required an Ardent as she did."
"Yoid," the bird repeated. "What an ever-odd name… Feels shattered."
More of its riddles? Merrin settled the thought. "Regardless, doing that would expose the grayworld. Not good. What if someone like Orvane were to enter? She could." He looked up. "Take this away from me."
"Would be impossible if you had full and true control over it," the bird shamed. "Maybe if you could get into the black gate."
That… yes, that.
Still looking upward, although all that existed there was the high ceiling, he knew the gate existed somewhere above. The grayworld was strange like that. Despite whatever creations he was to make within it, none would ever reach the gate. Simply, in truth, it was too far beyond.
Perhaps getting stronger was the right means… the words.
He sighed. "I don't have time for that." A step. "Getting stronger requires doing things, interfering with… people. That—that kills them."
"Pathetic!"
Merrin endured the words. That is true.
"And you have a black castle ever present in the center for them to walk into and worship you."
"No," he snapped. "They won't be cognitive enough to enter here."
"But you won't be stopping them either." The bird took off into the hall, venturing deeper and deeper into the darker corridor. Gone in a flash. Of course, he could still somewhat sense the presence, akin to how the Ardents existed somewhere inside. He could know of their being. And this bird was of the same. "It sounds like Catelyn."
Wandering on, Merrin came upon a space within the castle. Yes, castle—one that the hall was within, and the dream castle had been entombed within.
Simply put, he built a structure around the dream castle, and that was the castle of the Dreaming. A rather complicated process, one done in the spur of the moment.
Strange.
And there still existed some uncertainty as to the reason for the creation, but now… now required a different sort of creation.
This room, one created from his thoughts, was a simplicity in design. Nothing as needlessly massive as the hall; no, this one was smaller. Walls of crude, uneven stone. Like that of a cave. Black. And the floors… now those were sprinkled with ash.
He smiled for a moment. True enough, Ash, at least, purely pictorial for now. But it was enough; the mind was adept at recalling the scents of simpler times. And why, one would wonder, did he build this place? Merrin was unsure fully… But there was a thing that had been made. A woman who had been crafted poorly.
Enavro! And by the lords above, he had studied her symbols!
The ground trembled as voices boomed from all sides. I AM. I AM. I AM!
————-
Yeimen bowed and offered the final words of prayer.
"PRAISE BE TO THE SUNBRINGER!" they shouted as one.