Stormchild: Emeline and the Forest Mage

24 End

"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."

~ Ashttïg Ewïg's words recorded by Iksar Rinkë (Written in Ashttïg Ewïg's Time, The Season of the Lords)

Erdil

    Had silence ever been this loud? Had nothing ever been this...Empty? Färin couldn't recall. Nothing remained in his mind before the white, before the end. This was the end, he was sure. Where had his life gone? What had his life been? Where was the ground? The sky? The darkness? Anything?

    He had no answers, no body, no memory... A floating concept, abstract and indecipherable, of things that used to be, drifted to him in this in-between space. Was it a thought? A feeling? He could not recall what it was... His consciousness lapsed in the in-between space, nothingness echoed into nothing, and time bobbed out of reach. Färin felt nothing, and it was strange to exist without substance.

    Again, the illegible mystery bumped into his consciousness, like a bubble on a sponge. Wet and questing, wanting to be ruptured, wanting to spill its secrets. The bubble was not part of the white. It was wrong, sticking, clawing. It had to go away. He did not want it, but it sucked on him like a leech. It demanded, demanded...something. Färin floated deeper into the nothing, immersing himself in its timeless vacuum, drifting far away.

    The bubble, the illegible thing, it had come back. It was calling to him. Calling, yes. Shouting something. Sound did not belong in the white. Why did this idea, this clingy word keep coming back? Färin gave in, allowing the illegible concept to melt into him like honey into tea.

    Sharp. It was sharp, distinct, scratching. This thing, was it a memory? It cut his consciousness, rent the white, tore him from its silence like a baby from the womb.

    Sheyå.

    That was his first thought. Where was Sheyå. He could smell

    something sour, a pungent reek that burned in his nose. His nose, he

    had a nose again, a body. The white was gone. How about eyes? He commanded them to open. Smudges, he saw smudges, things moving, and... and he heard something. Voices? Muffled words, as though he were stuck in a cloud, in a dream.

#

    'How many times did I tell you, be there when the girl awakes?' Kijs strode through the cottage, boards creaking at each resolute footfall. Sometimes Denirya wished they would break and swallow the old man. She sighed, not rolling her eyes though she yearned to.

    'How long must I bear with you, Apprentice?' Kijs ranted, 'It's been what, forty years?'

    'Fifty,' she said, sinking deeper into her seat.

    'Fifty years!' Kijs proclaimed, flinging his hand in the air. 'Fifty. And what do I have to show for it?'

    The Mage was insufferable when he lost his temper.

    He threw his crumpled hand at her in disgust. 'This.'

    Creak, creak.

    Fathers, end it now, she begged, meaning her life or maybe the old man's life—yes, that would be better.

    'Have you learned anything in your time here, Denir.'

    She opened her mouth to respond, index finger pointing at the cottage's dilapidated excuse of a roof.

    'A –'

    'Don't answer!' Kijs snapped. 'It is obvious you don't recall my lessons on rhetoric and sarcasm.'