Darkness. Just darkness. It didn't seem like there was a lack of light, just that there was no alternative to the darkness and never had been. Light did not exist here. It was still, no sense of movement as if the darkness was solid. There wasn't any fear of the darkness, nor comfort from it. It wasn't anything to inspire feeling: it was just a certainty of existence. He hung there for a moment or for an eon it was difficult to tell. He had no desire to stay but no reason to move either. And there probably wasn't anywhere to move to even if there was a way to do so. For the first time he felt a lack of thought, feeling and motivation. It didn't bring peace or even concern as they didn't exist here either. There was just a void where once there had been….. something. He didn't know what, but that incited no curiosity either. It wasn't until he heard voices that he realised that there was no sound here either. The voices were having an argument, one furious and one cold, the sound coming from everywhere around him and nowhere.
"I have sympathy for thine sorrow Anakha" said the cold one.
"I do not wish thine sympathy, I wish thine aid." That was the furious one.
"That is not something I will give"
"Will not? Not can not? So you could grant me this boon, safe a life as you have before, but you would refuse."
"I would. There is an order to creation as thoust should know, and I will not disturb it. Our arrival was too late. Thine brother has passed out of this realm and I shalt not recall him."
"Thoust said that mine power came from thine own. Is it within my ownst power to save mine brother?"
"Do not Anakha. Despite how thoust has grown though can not comprehend what thou suggest."
"I take it that's a yes. To hell with the consequences, I'll pay the price."
Somehow he felt the voice turn to him, focus on him.
"Please Berit, be alive, be healed, please brother."
Berit? That was his name! He had a name, he was...
And that was all there was time for in that timeless place as the darkness was replaced with fire.
It surrounded him, fierce and roaring. At first it was a relief to feel the heat, as he hadn't realised how much he had missed the concept of sensation itself until it was returned to him. The it wasn't just heat lapping against him, it was a burning inferno. If he had a mouth in this empty place he would have opened it to scream, but he wasn't sure that he did. Then the fire was under his skin, running through his veins, tearing through his bones where a second ago (or a millennia, it was all the same) he would have sworn he didn't have skin, veins or bone.
He tried to look away from the whit hot tongues of flame that surrounded him, tried to turn and run. These were concepts that he just now remembered and they were futile in a place without direction or distance. He tried to shed clothes that he wasn't wearing in an attempt to ease the agony, but he found he couldn't move his arms for he was being held down. Down. Down had not existed a moment ago but now it did. He clung to that as the flames jumped in intensity crackling and spitting.
There was another sound – a yell. A cry of someone burning up from the inside. Yes, there he was. He almost didn't recognise his own voice warped by pain and fear as it was. What was going on? Who was doing this to him? Why? What could he possibly have done to deserve such punishment?
After another eternity in which Berit burned another voice intruded. He had heard this one recently. He was regaining a concept of time. In fact this was the last voice he heard before he had entered the darkness, having only just remembered that there had been anything before the darkness.
"What did that damn crystal do to him?" Khalad. That was the name that went with that voice.
"I... I don't know." One of the arguing voices, but instead of fierce it was now faltering and unsure. Berit found he could put a name to this one as well: Sparhawk.
"Here, put this under his head before he breaks his skull open." He felt his head lifted and something soft placed underneath it. With each passing second he felt himself coming back together, not missing a piece until it was suddenly returned to him. Fear of how thoroughly he had been torn apart came as he was reassembled but along with the grounding of self the fire within began to die down.
He stopped screaming, instead drawing in ragged hasty breathes as if he had been trying to outrun a troll. He stopped thrashing, relaxing muscles that had been convulsing just moments earlier and felt the pressure on his wrists lessen.
"That's it, deep breaths now" Khalad's voice soothed him away from hyperventilation.
Then Berit opened his eyes to see Khalad leaning over him, exactly as he had been before he had entered the darkness. But now Sparhawk was on his other side with one hand on his chest as if to stop him sitting up.
"Thank all and any Gods that are listening! You did it Sparhawk."
Berit raised his hands to study them – instead of charred and burned skin that he was expecting he felt... normal. Tired maybe. Well completely drained if he was honest, but not like he had been in the middle of an endless inferno.
He couldn't gather his thoughts to speak so instead lay there noting the recent despair that was layered beneath the joy he could see on his friend's faces.
"I... I remember." He expected his voice to be croaky and chocked from smoke, but it was clear if a little faint.
"Take it easy," Khalad said as he trailed off. "That was close, very close. I thought we were too late, but obviously not. But that was a lot closer than I ever want to be again, you hear me." There was anger in Khalad's voice now, something that Berit didn't have the strength to pull him up on right now.
"Sure, got it. Don't get surrounded by fifty heavy infantry and speared in the gut." He muttered instead, a wave of dizzyness hitting him as he tried to sit up.
"What part of take it easy do you not understand? Idiot noblemen." This was definitely not muttered.
"The part where I don't want to be lying in a pool of my own blood." Berit's hand went to his side as he spoke feeling undamaged flesh instead of a large wound.
"Well, I suppose you might need a change of clothes at that, but lets not rush it. First drink this." Khalad said passing him a full flask of water.
As Berit tipped his head back and drank he saw Sparhawk watching him from the corner of his eye.
"I'm sorry Berit... when Bhelliom has healed before... it hasn't usually been like that. Maybe we just cut it a little too fine for it to be that easy." Sparhawk looked concerned and evasive, as well he might.
"How long... how long was I..." dead for. That's what he wanted to say How long was I dead for.
It was Khalad that answered. "You... I thought... but no, your heart must have been still beating although slowly, and then Sparhawk arrived... and then you started yelling and thrashing... that must have been ten or fifteen minutes." Khalad sounded unsure, he was usually too steady to confuse a dead man with a living one, even if it was one of his friends. And certainly not for fifteen minutes. He looked to Sparhawk quizzically.
"Yes, it was close" Sparhawk appeared to be trying to keep up the pretense.
"Is there anywhere we can go to get out of the sun?" Berit asked, keen to have this discussion but just not here.
"Of course." Khalad held out a hand and gently pulled Berit to standing. He put the other hand on his arm to steady him when it looked like he might topple, but then pulled him into a fierce hug.
"I don't know what just happened but I don't care, just don't do it again, you hear me." His voice thick with emotion.
Berit knew exactly what had happened. He had been dead and gone for fifteen minutes, and then he'd been resurrected not by Bhelliom but by Sparhawk himself.
This is where I'm at right now, and I hope you have enjoyed reading so far, no matter how far in the future you are reading this. I do have an idea of where I want the story to go, but I'm not sure if it will work. And if it does, it is likely to be big and take a long time to write. I don't have the time for that sort of thing right now, so if you are wanting to see how the story goes it is probably best to hit follow, and only come back if you get a notification that there's an update. I hope there will be one day - I hope I can get this story to work so it stops creeping round at the back of my mind. Your comments and reviews, as always, received with gratitude and joy!