The Hollow

Saythi

Saddened and in shock, it took Nom a moment to notice the seer blindly feeling around for his knife. The man found it, then began swinging and thrusting it wildly from the ground, his eyes open but unseeing. Nom grabbed his charred staff, stood, and weakly swung it at the man's head. It connected to his temple, knocking him out, but the staff splintered into ashen pieces when it struck. Nom bent and grabbed the Mule, dragging it behind him as he walked, billowing smoke from his tattered and smouldering winter cloak, over to the next seer. The woman was in a fetal position, whimpering and cradling her blackened hands. Nom touched the woman's throat with the swordpoint, then lowered it. He stared for several minutes at her, then proceeded slowly across the promontory to find the third seer. On the way he saw one of the seers from earlier, laying dead with his limbs twisted and destroyed. Nom spotted another sitting against a tree, bled out from a missing arm.

The noise of the wind increased as he walked to the precipice, where he found the last seer sitting quietly on the edge, looking out across the ravaged rocky landscape. The man's hood was back, hair half burnt, goggles smashed.

"I can't see you, you know," the man said quietly, staring ahead.

"I know; the other guy's eyes were burnt out too," Nom replied.

The man turned to Nom and said, "You don't understand. I can see you standing there in the sunlight, six feet away, but you don't exist; you are neither dark nor light. With any luck, he can't see you either."

"Who is he?" Nom asked.

The man turned back to the horizon. "The Mage. He knows you're standing here, because I do, because of this." He pulled the collar of his shirt down over his chest, exposing a horrifically scarred brand, one of the glyphs.

Nom winced at what must have, at one time, been unbearable pain.

The seer continued, "He's aware by now that I've revealed his existence to you. There are penalties for that, so between you and him I only have moments left."

"I don't wish you ill. I'm angry, but won't hurt you."

"No, I suppose not; you don't exist. But he does, and now you know." Then the seer leaned forward and plummeted off the edge, falling too far down for Nom to even hear the impact.

He walked back to the other seers, and examined each for more glyphs. One's chest was branded and scarred much the same. A couple of them had tattooed glyphs, including the now expired woman with the charred hands, and the blinded one had both a brand and tattoos. That one's eyes were back open, no longer sightless, just dead. They all had similar goggles: intricately engraved, fancy straps, glyphs carved around the edges. Nom pulled his knife out and scratched across all the glyphs on the goggles. He looked at the nearest body, moved his knife to the glyph on the man's chest, then stopped and sighed. He thought for a moment about setting a pyre, but shook his head, having neither the time nor fuel for it. So he dragged the bodies one by one and rolled them off the cliff.

He shrugged out of his now mangy winter cloak and dropped it in a smoldering heap, threw the Mule next to it, then sat on the edge of the cliff where the seer had plunged. He looked at the same ravaged landscape the seer had, utterly alone in a way he had not been for a decade. What brought him to this point, sitting here? He constantly reacted and battled to find stability, fought to keep it. Elocant had been that stability for a long time, until those three youths came along and dragged him into their quest. But as much as he wanted to, he couldn't blame them.

He looked up beyond the slopes of the mountain, to the pine forest below—he supposed there had always been and always will be pine forests there—but no sign of Slipshod, no sign of Luxenta. The landscape shifted beyond that. The sun dipping below a summer forest to the west, then winter plains with herds of beasts to the northeast. He wondered whether the animals were actually buffalo, horses, antelopes, or some ghastly abomination, or altogether unreal.

The world he saw was falling apart, so he fled towards something else. Each new world he reached fell apart. No matter where he went, it fell apart, and he was always there. He couldn't flee from himself. He, the ghastly abomination, altogether unreal. He didn't exist.

He looked down below him and saw the dead seer, a tiny speck on the rocky mountain, a grain of sand. Yet in the end the man took a stand. With his last breath he gave Nom, his enemy, a gift. Nom was the only person outside that circle who knew about the Mage. And he was the only person who knew how to find a darkseer. Ahden, Dev, and Omega were trying so hard to fix this world, and all they had were clues. Nom actually knew, and all he did was run.

He closed his eyes. He squeezed the edge of the cliff, leaned forward and felt the grainy gravel, dirt, and snow shifting under his fingers. A cold wind blew on his scalp, through his beard, burrowed through the holes in his old cloak, whistled across his ears. The sound changed to a howling, and his eyes snapped open.

He turned and climbed off the edge, scrambled on his knees to grab his sword, and stood, gazing into the now silent darkness of the small woods and vast snowfield beyond. He heard the howl again, unmistakably a dog. He walked toward the burnt black edge of the copse, and saw nothing until he reached the last line of trees. Out in the clean snow, a dog sat about fifty feet away, eyes squinting in the wind. It looked at him and wagged its tail. It was a brown short-haired pariah dog, tail curled up and tufted white toward the end. It was obviously suited to the desert, and alone in this climate it should be dead. With a heavy heart, Nom realized it already was, and dropped his sword point to the ground. Nom kneeled and the dog barked once, then ran to him. It stopped six feet away and sat again, looking very happy. Nom sadly smiled too, recognizing the revenant of his long-deceased Saythi.

"Hey girl, nice to see you again," Nom hoarsely whispered and held out his hands. The dog barked and panted but wouldn't come closer. They looked at one another for a short time, then Nom stood and went back into the trees. The dog followed like a detached shadow, always six feet away.

Nom ignored it as he went about collecting firewood. He also grabbed his winter cloak and threw it in a small clearing. He carved some tinder and kindling with his knife, and arranged them on the still smouldering garment. He soon had a fire going, and perhaps imagined he saw an occasional black flame flickering inside. With some exhaustion he set up shield rocks to absorb and reflect the heat, then laid down to sleep. The dog sat across from the fire and Nom watched it until he drifted off, not really caring what may come in the night.

Nom woke, cold, but presumably alive. The dog was curled up on the other side of the embers until Nom sat up. Then it woke and stretched, and left to range around the woods. Nom mostly ignored it as he prepared for travel, sneaking glances once in a while. He wasn't concerned about it, just melancholy. Revenants focused on the worst fear of their reflection's life, and for dogs that was usually loneliness. The greatest sorrow it would inflict would be separation, which is why Nom was trying not to interact. He knew it would only come near enough to not be touched, would leave when he valued its company the most.

He didn't consider where to go until he was ready to step out of his small forest. He looked up at the mountaintops and thought about whose company he valued the most, and who valued his. He didn't know where they were now, but he knew where they were ultimately headed. With the mountain path gone, he only knew one way to reach Rabidi.

"Sorry Saythi," he said to the dog, "I have to go." She barked, sat down, and watched Nom walk toward the rising sun.