First chapter is short. Nobody has ever reviewed any of my stuff I put online, so I'm testing the waters for interest before I invest any more sweat, blood, or tears into fanfictions. Here ya go :)
Oh, yeah. It ain't mine.
It was dark. Everything, everywhere, all dark. There was a feeling of hollowness, of emptiness, as if he suddenly existed completely out of time and place. He was standing....was he standing?....in a void, blackness surrounding him completely. It felt as though he had somehow physically stepped into the emptiness he held in his mind before he seized saidin. Different, though. He could see it. Instead of floating just beyond the edge of his vision like the sun over his shoulder, as it always had before, saidin hung in front of him, a pinprick of light in a field of darkness. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Impulsively he clutched at saidin, a reflex that had always made him feel safe. Only the motion was different, now -- instead of a stretching of something intangible, it was as though his whole self lunged toward the sickly, twisted light. And instead of being filled with fire and ice, he felt nothing. Again he lunged. Again. Still, it seemed as though he were not moving at all. He howled wordlessly, drawing rasping breath between clutched teeth. Where was he, he began to wonder. Who was he? Light, what was he?
Like the sun easing above the tree line, memories slowly sifted back to him. Lews Therin Telamon, he recalled, was his name. The last thing he could remember was light, so much light, and saidin filling him with joy that turned to rending, searing pain. He tried to reach beyond that, to before the light and fire. He remembered....he remembered blood. A beautiful woman, sprawled on the cold stone floor, golden hair falling in graceful wisps across glazed and staring eyes, shielding from his view a face he knew was covered in blood. He reached with all his might...things lunging at him from the shadows, evil, ghoulish things, saying in hissing voices that he had to stop, that they loved him, that they were his family, but baring needle-sharp teeth even as they spoke, slashing at him with foot-long claws. He had defended himself, destroyed each and every one with raging weapons of the Power, then hunted them to the last huddling abomination in a corner. And then with a shock he remembered walking back through his manor-house, his home, and finding that he had been to late, that all of his beloved friends, his family, lay dead in pools of blood, strewn on the floor like so much rubbish.
"Ilyena! Ilyena, my love!" he howled into the void. At last he had remembered, bridging the two pieces together, the moment of horrible realization. The taint...the madness...walking through his palace and slaying each of his beloved one by one, down to the last little boy in the nursery. Down to his Ilyena. Drawing on the Power until he rose a mountain, a memorial to his madness, to his crime, and to their tragic fate. And dying in the process.
So then he must be...dead? Was this where dead men went? Or just dead madmen? Was this the hell he had bought for himself? Where was the resting, the long sleep the living so often spoke of? He had spilled his blood, buried himself in a mountain to cast off the mountain, the mountain called duty. ...death, lighter than a feather.... where was the light sleep of death?
Oh, yeah. It ain't mine.
It was dark. Everything, everywhere, all dark. There was a feeling of hollowness, of emptiness, as if he suddenly existed completely out of time and place. He was standing....was he standing?....in a void, blackness surrounding him completely. It felt as though he had somehow physically stepped into the emptiness he held in his mind before he seized saidin. Different, though. He could see it. Instead of floating just beyond the edge of his vision like the sun over his shoulder, as it always had before, saidin hung in front of him, a pinprick of light in a field of darkness. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Impulsively he clutched at saidin, a reflex that had always made him feel safe. Only the motion was different, now -- instead of a stretching of something intangible, it was as though his whole self lunged toward the sickly, twisted light. And instead of being filled with fire and ice, he felt nothing. Again he lunged. Again. Still, it seemed as though he were not moving at all. He howled wordlessly, drawing rasping breath between clutched teeth. Where was he, he began to wonder. Who was he? Light, what was he?
Like the sun easing above the tree line, memories slowly sifted back to him. Lews Therin Telamon, he recalled, was his name. The last thing he could remember was light, so much light, and saidin filling him with joy that turned to rending, searing pain. He tried to reach beyond that, to before the light and fire. He remembered....he remembered blood. A beautiful woman, sprawled on the cold stone floor, golden hair falling in graceful wisps across glazed and staring eyes, shielding from his view a face he knew was covered in blood. He reached with all his might...things lunging at him from the shadows, evil, ghoulish things, saying in hissing voices that he had to stop, that they loved him, that they were his family, but baring needle-sharp teeth even as they spoke, slashing at him with foot-long claws. He had defended himself, destroyed each and every one with raging weapons of the Power, then hunted them to the last huddling abomination in a corner. And then with a shock he remembered walking back through his manor-house, his home, and finding that he had been to late, that all of his beloved friends, his family, lay dead in pools of blood, strewn on the floor like so much rubbish.
"Ilyena! Ilyena, my love!" he howled into the void. At last he had remembered, bridging the two pieces together, the moment of horrible realization. The taint...the madness...walking through his palace and slaying each of his beloved one by one, down to the last little boy in the nursery. Down to his Ilyena. Drawing on the Power until he rose a mountain, a memorial to his madness, to his crime, and to their tragic fate. And dying in the process.
So then he must be...dead? Was this where dead men went? Or just dead madmen? Was this the hell he had bought for himself? Where was the resting, the long sleep the living so often spoke of? He had spilled his blood, buried himself in a mountain to cast off the mountain, the mountain called duty. ...death, lighter than a feather.... where was the light sleep of death?