Morning light crept its way into the initiation room through cracks in the ceiling, as Mirio gently adjusted Rose’s stance with the back of his fingers.

Rose looked down at his gentle touch and noted how he turned his hand. Her eyes glanced up to his warm smile as he looked upon her with a focused satisfaction. Her mind now blank and no longer following Mirio’s blurred words, she nodded to buy herself time to refocus.

Dust turned to glitter as it shimmered through rays of light. These tiny intruders were also grasping onto the hidden magical wisdom of this place. Yet more than the place, it was the time, a significant convergence of events, and a charismatic stranger appearing from places unknown.

Was the bard like this when the sorceress first met him? Did he stir in her heart the same feeling of endless possibilities?

Rose gently guided Mirio’s hand down and to her side and turned to him to ask a question that came to her from places in her mind she only knew when she sung from her heart.

“Are you him?”

Mirio’s eyes pounced upon hers as though ready to battle some great beast, and yet all that stood to meet him was her soft and comfortable stance. The kind of composure that held the light and the shadow in striking contrast, where color mixed in its hues to create a warmth and closeness that only the most tender of songs could sing of.

Mirio’s eyebrows creased with an intensity as though something within him was about to crumble as he whispered his answer with a resonant force, “No”.

“Do you know who I mean?” Rose continued.

“Whoever you speak of, it occurs to me that he is a symbol of fate. Of the coming of things that hold deep personal meaning, and an affect on the world that cannot be ever reversed. I am not that… Nor would I ever desire to be. I am just… Me”

“Oh, yes, of course you are just you. Sorry for being weird, it is just, our meeting is almost like destiny. I can imagine no one in the world right now is facing the same significant truths as we are, and there is… Just, an intimacy to that”

Rose turned down her gaze. Of course Mirio wasn’t the stranger, while there were glimmers of charisma to him, he was also stone cold at times too, as though he carried a burden he never wanted but was thrust upon him all the same. Perhaps in some distant way his character was similar to the bard, through travel, mystery, and secret knowledge, but he was likely a different man. Likely, being the word she would use because there was no way she could know for sure what lie deep within his heart.

Monsters can lurk within any man, and Mirio was not without demons, what would happen if those demons were to defeat him, just who would he become then?

The truth was too terrible to tempt by the thought of it, Rose buried her questions by taking in a deep breath and focusing in on the magical initiation right carved into the wall.

Mirio looked on with some concern but let it pass as he matched Rose’s focus on the task at hand.

This was to be her first spell ever, and it was using a technique from the age of the cataclysm itself. He had to be ready, if the spell went wrong, or invoked some strange occurrence, he would be the only thing standing between Rose and the might of knowledge held in this place.

Rose whispered under her breath Mirio’s instructions that helped translate the sequences and timings of the initiation right.

She was to start by looking down and shaking her hands loose to make herself enter a trance that could detect the mana flow in her body. As she felt it she was to then look up to draw the energy from the tips of her toes and up through her arms to a central point just below her heart. When she struggled she was to look down and to the side and redirect her approach, and if she needed to block out a pain or negative thought she was to look up and to the side to help keep her mind clear, and then when she was ready she was to think of the first aspect of the spell on her left, and the second aspect on her right, and finally lock them forward.

Each of the nine boxes had a role, and magic flowed in sequence like a song, requiring each timing to be met with the correct execution. The center was the frying pan, the left and right the ingredients, up and down a way to bring it to a boil, and the diagonals the way to deal with what might happen during the casting. It was clear enough from how Mirio had explained it, that she would need to improvise just as she did when she sang for the town during the solstice celebrations back at home.

Could she do it…

Bah, there was no time to doubt, her time was now, and she would persist as long as it took to see it done.

Words of her grandfather lingered in the back of her mind, “What makes halflings strong?”

“We move together with one heart, and we persist!”

Mirio observed the shift in her, the bubbly girl sank away as strength rose from depths unknown to meet the challenge. He could not help but see glimpses of how he was when reciting his own code reflected in her composure. Something about how the nature of magic trembled told him all he needed to know. He pooled mana in his hand, and allowed it to seep into the ether and reveal its colorful essence, like fog seeping across the surface of water.

“Hah!” she said as she shot her gaze ahead.

The spell didn’t emerge.

Screw it.

Again!

After all… She did feel something, some kind of pulse, and a blurry substance that moved along her arms before vanishing.

“Good try” Mirio said with an approving nod, “You affected the ether, it bent for a moment”

“Could you take a step back, I wanna give it a real shot this time”

“Of course, do your best,” he replied with a step back.

Rose huffed and puffed, taking special care of her breathing as she felt whirls of mana trickle through her body. The sensation was similar to when she had dreams of flying, almost like everything was lifting, and growing heavier at the same time. Her body trembled as the energy surged in a whirling mass up from her toes. It spun and whirled and filled with abstract feelings that lingered in her mind, she watched as parts of the mana surge tangled in with her thoughts.

Thoughts of the village kids making fun of her for being a halfling. A thing made cruel by the fact that she was proud of who she was, yet they could not hear it. A lonely feeling, thrown at her like mud to spite her.

She thrust her chin up and to the side to block out the mix of her thoughts from the mana, thoughts of children in her past fluttered away, as the steel of her stance rebuffed its advance.

She focused again on the movement of her mana, it had slowed, so she would need to refocus her trance. She gazed down to steady the vibrations of her mind, and then tipped her chin up to draw power from her toes up towards the center of her chest just below her heart.

“Good, good” Mirio whispered softly behind her as he placed his hand onto her back to support the flow of the energy. At first, him getting closer was a frustration because she needed space to focus, but she understood he was not trying to take over, only give her the courage to reach further forward before stopping.

The mana flow within her chest bloomed like a flower kissed by sunlight.

Emotion surged through her like the pain and anguish of lost love and as she turned her head and carved out a sigil with her hand, the air around her corralled into a perfect harmony that took over all thought. Driven now only by the next step, submerged within the flow of mana she turned to the right. The mark of the second glyph danced in wordless rhythms and into directions of space and time the mind could not follow, she knew it wasn’t possible or right to linger too long in this uncertain place before the birth of the magic spell.

Winding both her hands through all outer circles she brought forth the force of eight into the power of one.

The room glistened with intricate plays of golden and indigo light, as a small ball of her mana compelled the ether to take form.

She cautiously opened her eyes, to see it hover in the air before her, yet not only could she see it, she also felt it… Like an inspired thought.

It was as though it was made manifest, and it was close enough to reach for if she wished. Yet, she knew she didn’t have to, because this light was an extension of who she was. She had transformed the world by changing some part of herself.

In a rush she finally understood things that had long eluded her weaved into ancient tales of the cataclysm. All the thoughts rushed like a flood into places where they became like rivers, and eventually they took her to a place further than her mind could ever reach before, a place where all magic stopped.

She hung there for a moment over a great precipice, a cliff that fell away into a terrifying void that called out to her like the fangs of a beast. Sharp and vicious, it snapped at her very soul, clawing and scraping and slicing its way towards her.

Mirio’s words came through like a ferocious and mumbled growl, as he spoke words of a language she had not heard before.

“Eshahra Nabeh Toreh Cle Ohran!”

The force of his words struck like a dagger through the dark, and at the moment her terror and well of emotions was at its peak, she felt his hand gripped onto hers. It was as if the world around her had become a storming sea, and his hand had plunged into the darkness to guide her.

Overwhelmed by hopelessness she clung to his grip. Not questioning the strength of his grasp as he drew her from the dark water and pulled her back to where she stood. Amidst the dappled morning light, the glittering dust, and the golden light of her first spell, she stood forehead to forehead with Mirio kneeling before her.

With wide eyes she clawed at Mirio’s forearm, “I saw a cliff, where all the rivers of magic run, and an endless darkness that came at me with its claws!”

“Yeah, that isn’t normally how it goes, are you alright?”

“It was like, I suddenly understood the stories I’ve been told since I was young, and they led me to that place. A place I never want to go…”

“You are shaken, here, eat something it will help settle your nerves”

She nodded and chewed on the cookie Mirio handed to her from her backpack. It was cold, but the taste was of home.

With a breath, she let the strain drift away.

“How can you practice magic, when there are places like what I just saw, places that don’t let go once you see them and their piercing gaze stares right back?”

“I’ve always been in that place. My first memory was before I was born. I couldn’t see with my eyes, and I guess I saw with magic instead. I saw places no one ought to see, and I guess I never got away from it… It lingers in me even now”

“You saw that place where magic falls into the end of everything”

“Well, no, rather less dramatic than that I heard a voice calling for me to be strong, and beyond it all I could sense something, though I didn’t exactly know what it was… I eventually called it the void, a place beyond the horizon, yet no less real because of it. I was determined to become strong in much the same way you were determined to see the world and understand why things are the way they are. Because in a way, strength was the only way I knew to find out who I really was… Or am”

“The edge of the void was… Cold. But not the kind of cold that makes you shiver. It was the kind that is lonely and sad”

“Yeah, it is kind of bullshit isn’t it. Arrogantly dismissing the realm of mortals, and thinking it is all consuming. Nonsense really, but it thinks, well if it were to have thoughts, that it is right. But I don’t think it is, not really.”

“What do you mean? And is that how you got me out? I heard you speak some kind of language? What was that?”

“Ah… Well, that is difficult. I would explain it but to be honest I don’t know how. But yes it was how I got you out. That place is filled with veils of what seem to be truth at first glance, but ultimately when you are resolved enough in yourself, turn out to change in your presence”

“You can change that place?”

“You must”

“How!? It just seems impossible!”

“By remembering who you really are, by not letting it take away what matters to you, by believing there is more to everything in this world than it demands. To fight it with all you have, even if you are almost broken, and to never let the veils of its distorted truth cover your eyes in its bitter and ultimately pointless embrace”

“How did you figure this out…”

“I was cursed. The curse wasn’t ordinary, its rivers ran deep. To survive I found the place you just saw, and I learned to weave a cycle of magic that flowed without end to fight it. Weaving together magic circles in a constant flow, and forging them into a part of who I am, I came back to the world with a command over the curse. And a dagger”

WHOOSH

Shadows collected into streams and pooled into menacing form. The ritualistic dagger intended to kill the pure heart of Ezee at the hand of a Lich to further empower Akur’s reach into the world. Mirio shuddered to think about what would have been had he not been there. And for a split second wondered if Ezee was alright now? But of course he was, he was Ezee after all, and the last he saw, he had found a girl…

Nostalgia welled behind Mirio’s eyes and released a warm smile.

“Huh? How do you remain so warm in all this talk of curses and all consuming voids”

“Because as much as it looks like the end of the world, the truth is… It just might be the beginning of something else”

“What?”

“Finding out what really matters”

Rose chewed on another bite of her cookie with fierce determination before struck by a happy thought, “Of course!”

She sprung into action and pulled out her notes.

“Aha! Here it is!” she said as pulling down her goggles to squint at her tiny yet excessively bubbly handwriting.

“A test of three virtues. The first of the mind, the second of the heart, and the third of character. Logos, Ethos, and Pathos”

“And they are connected to the three pools of mana, the arcane, the divine, and thought speeds the sorcerer’s wield. Ah, and of course, arcanists think of magic as part of a clockwork universe because it aids in logic, divine magic calls upon the ability to trust in realities you cannot yet see but nevertheless exist, and sorcery seeks to adapt to the wild waters of how mana flows in order to guide its storming nature. Each lineage of magic, follows a path, and all of their origins were here before they divided”

“Initially, magic was taught with all three virtues, but maybe people excelled at only one at a time”

“And so they took what they understood and built on it. Makes you wonder what types of magic were forgotten”

“Exactly! Like that of the bard!”

“The bard? I’ve heard about him, wasn’t he really skilled. I know a sorcerer who really looks up to him”

“They say there wasn’t a thing he couldn’t do, and it is probably true, but he and the lady sorceress built this place, before he betrayed her and scorched the earth with her fury”

“Scorched the earth?”

“She became a dragon”

“A dragon…”

“Of the black river”

Mirio stepped back. It should have been obvious why the gate had opened here of all places. This was the spot Akur and Ladon had first met millenia ago.

“I think we should leave” he said coldly, “No, we have to get out of here now”

“But there is so much more to learn, we’ve only just scratched the surface”

Mirio grabbed her bag and stormed up the stairs, he gazed back at Rose with a look that her gut told her to follow.

Rushing out of the Arcanum, snow spattered in Mirio’s face as Rose hurriedly pulled down her goggles and flipped up her hood.

“Come, I’ll lead us down” she yelled out over the wind.

Mirio held up his hand with a motion of a spell that covered his bloodied rags and skin with a warm sheen of energy.

…

Akur had been watching. Observing every detail, every step of discovery, and yet had not moved to action. Was it part of a plot to have Ladon’s chains be tied to that place? Why was he not afraid of leaving records of what he once taught on those walls? Had he not buried the misty meadows under fog just to disguise where Ladon’s dragon form was chained. Why would he just leave information exposed?

Mirio knew the answer as if by instinct, because by giving people answers they could not find on their own, they would expand the gap between themselves and what only he knew how to discover. If he could force the world to know something, they might avoid ever discovering it for themselves, and like a thousand tiny streams following the channels carved out by a mountain, he could steer discovery away from that which could rise to threaten his power.

He diverted the flow of people’s attention not to create an oasis, but instead to create a desert. An impassable territory that would starve travelers before they could arrive where he once did.

The Arcanum itself held a curse, but not of sinister magic, instead of false promises. Knowledge that would lead to self conceit, and in turn hide all that could have been.

Thoughts rushed in the back of Mirio’s mind as he tread in Rose’s every second footprint. He looked at her with concern as she led the way. Had he done something selfish in telling her to leave without an explanation of why? Yet, was it better to tell her the horrible truth, when he knew her fear of such things.

“It’s getting near enough to dark, should we make camp?”

“You have a light spell now don’t you” Mirio replied warmly.

“Right, how did it go?” Rose mumbled as she pulled off the spell, “Aha! There!”

Rose gave Mirio a proud smirk and then continued down the mountain trail.

He would not tell her, for the path to discovery is what allows character to develop, and through character came strength to find possibilities no other could find. This was the antithesis of Akur’s plan, and the safest of all bets, or the better of the options all considered.

Rose would continue to be Rose, and her path would wind as it had always wanted to, free of his own burden. Free of the knowledge of what the bard had truly become and what he was doing to the world.

Ladon’s threats lingered in the back of his mind, “And if I was no longer to protect them!”

He knew the answer, and it was no less than oblivion of the soul, as the character that could pose a threat to Akur would be stripped away, directed to a false oasis, that would leave who they truly could be to die alone in the desert.

And as he thought his thoughts, he wondered if Ladon protected them even now. Even despite him leaving her to the abyss as Akur had also done once long ago. If it were true, how tortured was her battle in silence.

It was best then on all fronts to not linger, even if it seemed paranoid, decisive action was important where knowledge was concerned. It was in this way truths beyond his grasp could be respected and better understood.