The silent gate | The Witcher: Blood Origin/Eredin x Brían one-shot| ✓

the silent gate

The portal that opened wasn’t like anything Brían had ever seen before. Higher than a man, it shone with darkness like the sun shines with light. It was swirling around, raising the dust and sand, sucking in moisture from the sea air. He expected sound, but the only thing he heard were waves and seagulls flying above the monolith and the nearby human fishermen’s settlement. The gate was silent.

Never before in his long life had he felt smaller, and for a split second he thought he could understand the mags’ obsession with its magic. It was power purer and greater than anything in their world, magnificent enough to make empires kneel, people, both elves and humans, insignificant like spring flowers of the apple tree compared to its forever. Yet, for a merchant, even a rich one as he managed to become through the years, it held no value. He couldn’t sell it, he couldn’t buy it.

Brían shook his head and grabbed the medallion tighter. The ruby in the golden frame flickered with magic as the swirl of the portal quickened. He didn’t have much time if he wanted to go.

Stepping through the gate felt like nothing at first, then a cold breeze embracing the whole body, finally a pulling forward in the gut and a painful twisting of one’s being before it all stopped, and he was standing in the world like no other.

The black sand underneath his feet, dunes as far as the horizon and the sky… as if the stormy sea switched its place. Everything seemed red and purple since there was no sun. Light came from above, dull and twisted, from within the storm, like all seemed to come from in there.

It was hard to stay standing after only a few seconds, even with all the preparations he had made. The Chaos radiating from the portal was ten times as powerful on that side. Brían thanked goodness he brought his armor and the ring made by the sage from the other world. The old human, as nasty and harsh as he was, had done a good if costly job, but even his protection couldn’t last forever. The Chaos liked to poison people’s minds.

Brían looked around once more, although his surroundings didn’t change. He knew it was unlikely he would find what he was looking for, it was decades after all, but he had hoped that somehow the old gods would be merciful and let them have this one last thing.

As he was looking around, he noticed something not quite like the rest of the blank landscape. At first, it appeared as yet another dune among many identical, its silhouette flickering with constantly moving shadows. Only when he carefully came closer, he noticed the slow rise and fall of the sand and something lighter sticking from below.

Please, let it be him, he thought as he gently brushed off the thick layer of harsh sand from the bone, because where he hoped to find flesh was an old, monstrous skull of something far from elvish with the black, empty sockets instead of eyes.

Brían gasped in shock. He jumped back and drew his sword, then froze, anticipating the attack, which didn’t come. Instead, the skull shaken lightly and something quiet and broken, a sound like a whimper, came from the being in the dune.
“No more,” begged the raspy voice, incomprehensible if Brían wasn’t listening so attentively. “No more. Please. No more.”

The being was shaking lightly and whimpering when Brían kneeled beside it to brush more sand off. He scooped a handful after handful, slowly revealing soft flesh.

Finally free from under the dune, the man was thin but surprisingly not skeletal, his skin the unhealthy white shade seemed bruised in the red-purple light, body wrapped in rags that could have been clothing once, face still covered with the hideous skull.

For a moment, Brían didn’t know for sure. How could it be? After all those years of fruitless searching through every archive, through every forgotten manuscript and inscription in the dwarven mine or sanctuary…

But when he saw the scar, he was sure.

With gentle hands, Brían took off Eredin’s skull helmet. The dull blue eyes that met him were so different, yet unmistakable. He sobbed in relief. His arms surrounded Eredin, and he just held him close, ignoring the world, the weird sky, the time running out. Eredin sagged in his embrace, his begging stopped and quieten, then wordless sobbing took it place.

Brían held him for as long as he could, but finally they needed to move. The ring started to get dangerously hot, and their time was getting short.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” he murmured as he picked Eredin up and stood. “Please, hold tight,” he added, even though he wasn’t sure Eredin could understand anything in that state.

The ruby medallion shone when Brían incanted and the gate opened, as silent as the death itself. This time he went through without hesitation.