Author's note: Well, this has been in the making for some time. I won't say much, save that the theme "hunt" has been worked into this for FE Contest – Canas' hunt for the unknown, and possibly other things you might spot along the way. Beware of gratuitous dark magic meta and vague cross-series nods.
Special thanks to Kyusil, Xirysa, and Rosage for listening to me whine at length about this.
Silence and Motion
Third day, Month of the Pegasus, year 981
To my esteemed colleague, Pent, Count of Reglay,
It is usually the custom between us to exchange anecdotes in our correspondence, talk of family matters and the like. However, I feel given the nature of my inquiry, such matters would be inappropriate. I hope you will forgive my neglect of these things, and the focus upon more intellectual pursuits.
It is not often I come to you seeking advice of this nature. Perhaps you will feel that the matter would be better addressed toward someone such as my own mother – whose work, as I recall, you are familiar enough with that I need not explain her views – or perhaps another scholar within my own specialty. If that is your sentiment, I swear I shall not fault you.
However, it is my belief that (if you will excuse the terminology, for I do not at all consider you a novice in your own field, merely something of a foreigner to the practice of elder magic) an outsider such as yourself may be more able to offer impartial insight on this matter. I do hope you will not mind my presumptuousness, and I promise I will repay the favor however I am able.
"You have a niece, you know."
The easy rhythm of breathing – in, pause, out, pause. 1, 2, 3, 4, again, again, at four different paces. One voice spoke again.
"Well, not by blood, really – it's on Rosalind's side, by her sister – but I think it ought to count. So you have your new niece – well not new, exactly she has been related to you, er, us, all along after all, and of course, Hugh, who I think might look like. . . "
Rosalind said Hugh had his father's eyes. Canas knew better.
". . .probably like a bit of all of you."
Another pause, another almost-silence, before Canas sighed and turned to the tray of food at his side. He gave the steaming bowl of over-boiled, under-spiced stew a light stir, then lifted a spoonful and pressed it to his eldest brother's lips. A light pressure and Cade's mouth opened with the same mechanical disinterest Canas had come to expect. He had been gone the longest, and yet Canas thought he remembered him best – the quirk at his lips when he was intrigued by a puzzle, the light squint of his eyes as he bent over a new tome to study.
"Too hot?" he asked, as if he expected an answer. He almost did. Almost, until Cade swallowed in silence, staring at his brother's eyes – no, not at them, really, but through.
With a hard swallow, Canas repeated the process with each of his brothers, noting to himself the differences between them. He told himself, as he always did, that for them it wasn't the same every morning and night, not just the gentle prod of broth to teeth, the hushed whispers of familiar names. Every day they at least saw something different in that place they stared into endlessly – or so it seemed, for their eyes were never quite blank despite the ever-present quiet around them.
A trail of lukewarm liquid dribbled out of Bryn's mouth. Canas looked on, lower lip trapped between his teeth in a failed attempt to avoid cringing. "Here, there you go," he said, more to himself than anyone else, and wiped the mess away with the same care he'd use for his own son.
"Yes, I believe I was right. Hugh takes after all of you." Canas followed Bryn's gaze, imagining for a moment that he, too, could see beyond the door, beyond the walls, beyond Ilia's endless gray and into the places he had only read about. "I think you would be proud."
I am unsure where to begin. I thought, perhaps, with the definitions of the terminology I will make use of, but that is quite elementary, and as a scholar more well-rounded than myself, surely you would be able to explain any of those terms to me better than I could to you. No, I find that the most pertinent information, of which you may not be intimately familiar, is the work of the sage Aina. More specifically, I refer to her interpretation of the three core tenets of the ancient arts.
One, no mage may create life where none remains or exists to begin with for his own gain – this is the domain of necromancers and other sorcerers of ill repute, which of course neither you nor I wish to become. Two, it is essential to always respect the forces greater than ourselves, and not presume to command them at will. And three, perhaps more than all the rest, one must maintain curiosity while remaining ever grateful for that which he does know, lest he be consumed by greed and leave his morals behind.
I have seen things which, to my knowledge, no scholar before me has returned to speak of. However, I fear that detailing my exploits may incite others to attempt to reproduce the results. Fascinating as they are, I have little doubt that in my eagerness, I have come far too close to breaking that third, most important guideline. No, allow me to amend that: I am certain I have gone too far.
A hint of mischief in Orel's slackened mouth, a sternness in the gray-brown of Cade's eyes, the slightest arch upwards in worry of Bryn's brow. Canas could see them each as he murmured their names and finished tending to them as he did every morning without fail. Their mother's home was too small to house them, and he was never quite sure she'd want them, anyway.
"They stopped just short of it," she'd say with a scowl, and shake her head as if they could see just how disappointed she was. "Just a step away from having it all – ha!"
Just a step away.
Three gazes in the same direction. Canas followed them again, but his imaginings spread further than the walls around them.
He looked back and realized all at once how right he was, how Hugh's bright, curious gaze mirrored his uncles', how the subtle curve he swore he saw on their lips at times matched his son's smile.
A step.
He lingered for a moment, writing out the calculations and incantations he would need in his mind, before silently taking his leave.
In detailing my experiments to you, I hope to gain some insight. Are these things worth sharing, despite what I have risked? I fear the danger of inciting others to walk further down the path I traveled, and yet, to withhold knowledge of what I have seen would run parallel to my values as a scholar.
I trust you are a man of far greater will than I.
The rituals I utilized are uncommon. I can enclose in my future letters some examples of the sort of practices I used, for I fear you would probably not be able to find them in the library of a conventional scholar. I retrieved one myself from the notes of learned men before me, an ancient tome with half the pages ripped out. It spoke partially of things I once thought impossible – the resurrection of the dead, transport between dimensions, the kind of thing no serious scholar would believe.
(I have read that the tome was damaged sometime before the Scouring – perhaps by dragons themselves? However, I find myself wondering if perhaps it was by the author's own hand. Never have I seen such dread captured in writing. It was likely foolish of me and the rest to attempt to recover what was lost. Some things, you see, are better left unseen.)
A pair of small hands, clenching and pulling at leg, reaching up in search of attention, acknowledgment.
"Not right now, Hugh."
"But Papa."
Canas paused only for an instant to bend down, not to lift Hugh into his arms as he usually might, but to gently pry his clenched fingers away from the fabric. "Ask your mama. Go on."
The call of the unknown – the materials he kept in his study, the books passed down from generation to generation, the handwritten diaries of each of his brothers – was far stronger than the brief hurt in Hugh's eyes before he ran off.
Perhaps later, Canas thought, though he was uncertain when later might come.
He ignored the brief clenching in his gut and slipped into the study. Just a taste, he thought. He'd toyed with it before, the intangible place he reached into every time he cast a spell. Every scholar had to know that call, he thought. He couldn't be alone.
The sensation of old leather and parchment on his fingertips, his hands running across the line of books. A soft tingle as he brushed up against a web and sent a fat black spider scurrying back behind the shelves. Hesitation, the lightest pause to breathe, before he reached in again and pulled out a thick, leather bound journal tied shut tight with a round of coarse twine.
He undid the knots with slow, meticulous patience, watching the worn, browned pages fall open before him. The handwriting was familiar, not unlike his own – small, tight, with little ornamentation. A scholar's words. He traced his finger along the records of runes and procedures, similar to the ones he knew so well from safer tomes – Flux, Nosferatu, Luna – but far more complex.
A long, low creak as he pulled out the rickety wooden chair, the same one he'd clambered up onto when he was small and his mother would call him in for lessons. He still remembered how she had argued when he'd asked to take it with him, the scowl on her face, the upward curl of her lip.
He ran over the words, once, twice, savoring each syllable as he mouthed it first. It wouldn't do to falter. There were no sacrifices necessary, no horrors to bring forth. The work relied only on him, his mind, his voice, his will. He could not falter.
The floor was cleared quickly, prepared before he was even certain he wanted it to be, and he was down on his knees, chalk in one hand, tome pinned beneath the other, as if it might fly out from his grip like some sort of moth should he let it go.
Silence, stillness. There's no better time.
Canas held his breath and focused on the dull emptiness in his lungs and then on the space beyond that, the presence that rang in his ears when he knew there was nothing to hear and flashed in the view of his closed eyes when there was nothing to see. He channeled the sensation down into the tips of his fingers as he reached out and traced the runes on the floor in the exact order directed.
No better time. No better time.
And he barely noticed the shadows growing beneath his palm as he murmured the words – careful enunciation, careful pauses, careful– until they were in his mouth, his eyes, his ears, and he could see nothing else but them and, eventually, the place from which they must have come.
I did succeed in my attempt. My foremost goal- which I would rather discuss with you in private, should we have the chance to meet again- was not a success, but I believe I have gained insight of the most fascinating and dangerous nature. Indeed, I fear that what I saw could be catastrophic if entrusted to the wrong hands. Of course you recall the madness of that fiend Nergal, and I, for one, hope to never walk that path.
But I fear that I may be straying towards it, for since my return, it is indeed all I wish to think about. I sit and try to capture that place, the power and knowledge that were at my fingertips, and it fills me with a sensation I cannot quite describe to you.
Somewhere deep within, I fear that I would be willing, even eager, to sacrifice things which should not even be considered to see more without losing myself. For just a moment I found myself willing to walk on, to part with my family, my friends (forgive me, including yourself), even my body and senses, if only to capture just a glimpse more.
In the illustrations Canas had studied since his youth, that place just beyond the barrier he had crossed tended to be drawn the same sort of way each time. A long corridor with a light at the end, a lone scholar guided nearly always by an androgynous figure with a cloak and a staff, rows upon rows of doors that didn't seem to go anywhere in particular. His mother would scold him when he asked questions: The doors are symbolic, you dimwitted child, and That's Bramimond; man or woman, what does it matter to you?
He'd almost hoped, childish as it was, he'd find the answers to those silly questions if he pushed just a bit further, into the realm he was told no one was really meant to go, but there was nothing to be found. Not a single door to be seen, no guiding hands or familiar voices, nothing like the bits of Bramimond he recalled from the war. Only him and, for lack of a better word, the darkness, trailing on in front of him.
Canas strained for a moment, half expecting to see something like what those illustrations had shown – the dark checker-tiled floors, the high marble columns, the stretches of space that looked something like windows. But if they were there at all, they were beyond his reach.
He could at least still see his hand – tinted an unnatural shade of gray, without the familiar ink stains sprawled across it – stretched out in front of him, but not much more than that. It wasn't a visionless dark around him - rather, it was a strange intangible sort of shadow, an entity he couldn't imagine how to measure. One could not estimate the density of nothingness, really, or calculate the quintessence present in a place that seemed to swallow all life whole. The only thing he could make out was a trail beneath his feet and above his head of rich layered color, like indigo dye seeping deep into bleached cloth.
Hesitant, Canas stepped forward and began to follow the trail, looking ahead in the forward-backward-nowhere-at-all direction in which it seemed to want to lead him and hoping he wouldn't go astray.
I have read of powers rumored to consume the very soul of a mage in return for strength, and until this point I had not believed such a thing was at all rooted in truth. Now I must wonder if perhaps I was wrong, for I cannot say if what I faced was a relative of the power channeled by the hero Bramimond, or something else entirely. It is even possible that they are the same – two sides of some many-faced coin? Only further research could tell me, and as I have stated, I fear it would not be wise.
This is not the most academic way to speak of these things, but I fear that for many of the ideas I am expressing, our language simply lacks words. Perhaps older mages would have ways of expressing them – I am reminded of a series of runes that tome with the torn out pages employed often, something which I cannot parse into a word we have ourselves, but which seems like a combination of "dread" and "beauty". It is an intoxicating thing, and I have no doubt that this scholar and myself speak of the same notion, even if our intents where vastly different.
What do you seek?
The words came unbidden, and not from his own mind, though the voice was familiar in a way he could not explain. It rang not in his ears, but within his mind itself, with a strange tinny quality as if he were hearing it through the pipes of the organs he'd seen in the finest Etrurian cathedrals. It was not a sound he thought he could ever find in his own world – it felt ancient, older than the mountains of Ilia and the waters around the Dread Isle, older than the words used for magic itself.
"My brothers. I . . . I want to see what they see. Sir. Madame. Er. Excuse me."
But whatever "spoke" to Canas had no clear gender at all – it was the same everything and nothing he'd seen in Bramimond's eyes in that brief flash from beneath the hood, and somehow it was the same in words as it had been in color, as if somehow that murky, dusky glow had been converted into sound.
It did not laugh at him as he expected it might, but he swore he heard a low rumble, as if in approval. There wwere no words from it this time, only a vague sense that he was being drawn deeper into it, almost against his will. Almost, but not quite, for he obeyed the urge in his legs to walk on without any protest.
You may be aware of the account of a scholar in far times past – their name, I fear, is lost to history, but he is commonly believed to have been a man. He wrote of leaving behind a group known for indescribable breaches of the utmost laws governing the practice of magic- even, if history is to be believed, human decency– and yet also known for their immense power. He lived the rest of his life in solitude, writing of his experiences.
Did he mean it as caution, I wonder? Or as proof? Proof that such things are possible, that indeed, there is something of a reward to be reached beyond what we are meant to experience? I cannot claim that despite the horrors the writer claimed to have seen, the benefits of it are part of what pushed me to go as far as I did.
Here. The knowledge you desire.
Still, there was no sign of anyone but Canas in the depths of the darkness around him, no figure by his side, no sound at all. He couldn't hear his own breath any longer, or feel the steady thrum of his pulse in his chest and his limbs. There was only a vague chill about him, rising up to where he thought his lips had been before and dancing around his ears, a feeling of cold he could almost hear around him.
Look up.
And he did.
He looked up and above him, high above, rose the deepest sky he had ever seen, spotted with something like stars, but somehow far closer, as if he might reach up and hold them in his hands. He was suddenly so, so small beneath them, lost under the rich indigo-blue-violet-black, stretching out far past what he could ever dream of seeing. He recalled the words of scholars before him– an endless darkness, going beyond everything I had ever known, whispering about the future and the past in a language I wasn't sure I understood but which held beauty to me nonetheless, touching something within me I cannot describe–and found that though he had admired those words so ardently before, they did not even come close to summarizing what he saw.
It was the white of the snows of Ilia, the deep gray-black of the clouds around the Dread Isle, the song of a bard's flute and the shriek of a dying dragon, the moment of his birth and, he thought, the moment of his death, cold and dark and tight against his nose and mouth, and just as he thought he'd forgotten how to breathe entirely he heard voices again, different ones –
Finally, seeing beyond this gate – it's all I ever could have wanted – Yes, just a little further– Just one step more, and then I'll –
This is the path to greatness. I'm sure of it.
If Canas had any sense of eyesat that moment, he might have closed his, but in that space he had no body at all anymore. The space beyond was him and he was the space beyond, and all it would take was a sight release to see everything he could ever want to see –
And who then will tell your son of it?
His son. His wife. His niece. His friends. They did not lie past those brilliant stars. He could feel his fingers again, his lungs – tight, aching, as if filled with ice water – his eyes, his hair, his mouth. He was not a star in that distant sky, but a man walking a path no man should walk. A path which could only lead to obliteration. Canas forced his lips to close and his gaze to break from the colors above him, to turn back the way he had come.
Is this not your desire?
Slowly, he remembered how to speak in return. "It was. I was wrong."
Your brothers are beyond there."They. . . are gone. I will not go the same way."
He expected an answer, a challenge, but none came. Once again, it was only Canas and silence. and despite the ache in his heart to turn once more and run toward the heart of the shadow, he walked on, back toward the light he barely spied in the distance.
I do not believe that I did any other person harm in my initial experiment. No, you must understand that while I was tempted to make choices I am certain I would regret, I did not make them. I turned back, away from knowledge of the sort I could only imagine before.
I wonder what might have happened had I not.
There is part of me that thinks I should revise this letter and begin anew, but the process of magic is among the most interesting parts, I recall you saying yourself. And as outlined in the primer of anima you lent me during our travels together, I do not believe the human mind is capable of discerning what if truly essential in our own works.
Perhaps this writing is my hand's way of showing you the excitement of what I have seen. I don't believe there are terms for it, not formal ones, and even now as I write to you, even after what I have done as a result of it, I cannot help but think that I should like to go back and observe it more closely. I believe that is what most frightens me about it.
When Canas opened his eyes, he felt half as if he had to remember how to see again. His fingers were numb, his lips were cool, his eyelashes felt heavy, as if frosted over. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days? The waning sunlight filtering through the dust-lined window told him it had at least been longer than he had intended.
And was that a success?
Success. He wasn't certain what it meant anymore. He'd seen, almost, what he'd gone to see, and he could still vaguely envision it. His memories would never capture the vividness of that strange night sky, the surge of something more than power that had danced right before him, but nothing would. He knew that much. It was beyond him, beyond anyone, save for those lost to it.
He stood and approached his desk, pace sluggish, clumsy, as if he were wading through waist-high snow. Yet still, it seemed as if the sunset he saw outside had never been quite so bright, as if the air had never felt so clear, as if the draft through the crack beneath the window had never been so sharp and the smell of the firewood burning so warm. Even his bad eye seemed to see colors a shade brighter, as if some sort of veil had been lifted from around him. Yes, he was certain, this was real. He would have to draw up something to prove it, perhaps, and yet. . . perhaps not. After all, the place beyond was tempting, intoxicating. If the allure of it could pull him in so sweetly, then who else might it charm? He tried to think of other scholars, young, impressionable, in love with the hunt for knowledge just as he was, but all he could truly think of was his son.
Fingers on smooth paper, tracing the illustrations of the long corridors and high pillars, the face of Bramimond beneath the hood, beckoning the imagined traveler deeper into the realm of the forbidden. It all seemed suddenly so quaint. Nothing that could be written could even touch what he had seen.
And as he understood that, he felt as if he finally understood everything.
If I commit the entirety of what I recall to paper, it would have the benefit of offering a glimpse at all this to those who wish to know of it. As I said before, the destruction of information is unforgivable.
Yet, if I did, I fear it may inspire further exploration into things which, in honesty, I should not have explored myself. I imagine some young, eager fool like myself reaching too far. If that were to happen, surely I would be at fault. Perhaps in this case, it is better that it remain lost, like those torn out pages. Considering it, I would sooner set fire to my study than allow my son or my niece to even attempt this.
Is that the perspective needed for this breed of magic? The perspective of a father? Or am I being a fool?
Four sets of breaths in uneven time, in, out, in, out. One coming faster than the relaxed pace of the first three. Canas watched, clutching a black-bound tome. He could no longer quite imagine the light in his brothers' eyes, the quirks at their mouths, the vague interest he thought he had seen in them before. No, there was nothing, only three shells laying there, chained to a world they would never see again. "I'm sorry."It was an apology for everything he could think of in that moment. I'm sorry I don't remember you all well enough. I'm sorry I couldn't stop you. I'm sorry I couldn't pull you back. I'm sorry I didn't join you. But it was not an apology for the opening of the tome, the touch of his hand to his eldest brother's forehead, a gentle murmur of the arcane and a burst of the power Canas had just seen firsthand.
It was soundless. Easy. And then, three sets of breaths left.
Another touch, another murmur, another swirl of inkish black around the bed, and there were two. Canas and Cade, alone in the fading sun.
Canas couldn't fool himself. There was no recognition in Cade's dim eyes, no hint of the smile he'd thought he'd seen before. He was no more of his body than Canas had been of his own in that place, and if anything, it had to be cruel to keep him tethered from the fullest reaches of it. The knowledge he'd chased for all his days was nothing less than death itself, and claiming anything back from that was a feat no novice could manage. For a moment Canas paused, and again, the magic called to him – you could still see him again, you know, and he always was your favorite – but he silenced it himself, firm, inflexible, with the sound of his own voice.
"I am certain I will meet you again," he said, forcing a smile for his brother's blind eyes, and as expected, Cade did not reply.
I know this is likely not enough information and entirely too much emotion. It is certainly more than I expected to say, yet without the substance I had hoped to impart. I fear it is the best I can manage, and this cannot wait. If you choose to ignore this letter, I will assume that you are rightfully horrified. I should be, myself. However, your reply would be most appreciated. We are friends, and I feel that if anyone might understand the dilemma I find myself facing, it would be you.
Best regards to you and yours,
Canas
It was well past dark when Canas returned to his study and swept the chalk from the floor before lighting a candle and, in shaking hands, readying a pen and a sheet of his best parchment. Third day, Month of the Pegasus, year 981To my esteemed colleague, Pent, Count of ReAnd it was there that he stopped for the moment, as the tears hitting the page had already ruined the letters he'd laid down.