Armareth's Tower

David took a step away from the old man and poised for battle. Yet, all he could think about was how fast he could escape. He could have sworn he hadn’t walked for long, but there was no path behind him, only a deep darkness. The old man wasn’t moving either. His smile was undisturbed, even by David’s flaming sword. What was it, David wondered. What was it that made him want to run away? He could sense a smooth flow of essence within the old man, nothing threatening. Yet, he knew, in the well of his soul, that the old man could cut him down with the flick of his wrist.

“Always moving to violence,” the old man said with a grin. He leaned left, bald head bent and eyes pinched close. And then he laughed. “You carry Ignis in your hands! How fitting. You both have the same temperament.” He turned from David and waved for him to follow. David watched him walk a small distance, getting lost in the darkness ahead. Then he jogged to catch up with the man. They were silent for a moment until the man smacked his lips and turned to him.

“Ask,” he said. It sounded like a statement, but there was a command in it, an authority that David bent toward immediately. He couldn’t understand why he felt compelled, but the fear he felt initially was gone, dulled.

“Who are you?” David asked, picking the obvious question. He had a suspicion, but he could be wrong.

“You know who I am, boy,” the man said, smirking. He made a groaning sound with every step he took as if walking was tiring. “You know what I am, just as I know what you carry and what you are. Now tell me something more interesting. I have been curious since I felt her essence disappear. How was Ifyr?”

David frowned. He wasn’t sure what kind of relationship Eternals had with each other, but whatever he said could make this old man, Olam, kill him. He scolded himself for not expecting this. Of course, Olam would come to him. He was the one that killed an Eternal. He was the one, the only one, of the six who had the unfortunate luck to be in another Eternal’s lair after that first experience.

David jumped when he felt the rough fingers on his arm. A jolt of heat raced up his spine, making him shiver and stagger. Olam smiled, shaking his head. There was pity in the man’s eyes. Sympathy? David couldn’t understand.

“You think too much boy,” Olam said. His eyes were like gray clouds, soft and welcoming now. David had thought they would be impossible to open, but now that he was staring into them, the orange of his burning sword not touching their light and color, he realized the old man was nothing like Ifyr. He had been scared for nothing.

“She was corrupted,” David said, pushing the words out. “ She killed most of the people who entered the dungeon indiscriminately. Not to test them. We had to kill her.”

They walked silently for what stretched to seem like half an hour but was probably only a second. “She was young,” Olam said finally. “She was the youngest. Ambitious. Drunk on the manifestation of her transfiguration. We are forces of nature, directly linked to all the worlds. We are powerful and weak, old and young. I don’t know what happened to her, or how she came to become the Eternal you met, but I thank you for saving her.”

“We killed her,” David said, not understanding. He could remember how they’d almost died until World Tilter appeared. “We took her heart out, that must have killed her. Didn't it?”

Olam chuckled. “We are Eternals, boy. We don’t die. We manifest as a part of existence and then we help make things work for humans and gods. We are slaves to everyone while keeping time and death under our heel. There is no death for us, only momentary rest. Ifyr will come when Lord Amareth has fixed her up. Her next iteration should be cool-headed.” Olam grinned when he saw David’s confused look. “You don’t have to worry, child.”

“Is this to be a test?” David asked, matching the old man’s strides. “I don’t imagine I am the only one you have appeared to?”

Olam chortled. “I am immortal, not omnipresent. What good that would have done, right?” he gave David a knowing grin. “Your test will be one of immense danger to me, and to you. Your journey is a terrible one. Froth with loss and pain and a sprinkle of happiness. Fate is a cunning thing. You are given little relief to keep you in the cycle of suffering.” Olam stopped abruptly, catching David’s hand so they were facing each other. David couldn’t understand why his eyes suddenly carried an intensity, but he had to will himself still.

“I can nip it right now, boy. I can stop your journey here, end all the variables, and save you from the agony that awaits you further down this road you have chosen to travel. I can end it for you if you request it.”

“If I let you kill me?” David asked, suddenly feeling the tightness of Olam’s grip. “I don’t think I have an—”

“You fear for your siblings, your family, but they have their own troubles to face. Hard, yes, but yours is a mammoth. A mountain. And you are far from capable. The powers that lurk in the dark, waiting for you…they will crush you. You can’t win,” Olam whispered that last part. He turned away from David, as if suddenly not able to look at him.

Where Olam held David hand it throbbed slightly. He couldn’t believe the strength in the grip. The Eternal’s fingers were wrinkled and gnarly, but there was power in them. David shook his head. He had expected his death and waited for it since they started walking up the tower. This, however, wasn’t it. He could feel it. This dark passage in an unknown cave wasn’t where he was going to die.

“People think dying is bad, especially you humans. You see your loved ones die and you curse and weep. A pity. I have seen people wish for death, they prayed and begged and attempted to trade. They cried and tried to grant their own wish, but all they found was the echo of silence. The absence of a listening ear. They were abandoned, even by death. Trust me, there are far worse things than death, boy.”

“I will face those things you have seen.”

Olam snorted. “Misplaced bravery. You will need more than courage for what is to come. But that is enough of my warnings. I can only cheat so much before the tower’s rules seal me away. Amareth is fair and bad-tempered.”

“Tower rules?” David asked. Olam waved his question. The ground slid from under David and just as he began to fall, he regained balance, pushed back up by an invisible force. In the confusion of that moment, the hallways had switched to a smaller chamber. Above David, a low wooden roof held a dangling light globe. Nothing like Andrea’s. This one held a tongue of yellow flame in the glass, like a cat’s eye.

Olam waved his arm lazily and the floor lifted, stone fitting together, surface smoothing as a small stone table formed in the middle of the room. The floor moved, sliding David forward to the table and an invisible force pushed him down into a black stone chair. It adjusted to fit his height and leg length. Olam sat at the head, his chair high because he was able to lean forward on the table and peer into David’s eyes.

“Are you ready?” Olam asked.

“For what?” David asked, uncertainty nibbling him. He was supposed to find the lamp, but he couldn’t see anything— he looked up again, stunned by his willful blindness. He had somehow convinced himself that the lamp above was an ordinary light, and it’d become that in his mind. Now, as he stared at it, he could see the outline of the flame. It wasn’t fire as he’d thought before. It was essence, sunburst yellow, edged in red. It was beautiful. The orb hung from a thick rope tied to an anchor. He hadn’t even seen that at first.

“Yes, you have seen your prize,” Olam said. “Now, you must suffer for it, as every hero that has ever lived.”

David nodded, and at the Eternal’s gesture, he leaned forward. Olam stretched one crooked finger, nail darkened. He placed the finger on the center of David’s forehead and sighed as if a great burden had lifted off him. David felt the heaviness settle on his shoulders. He was about to speak when he heard the scream, and he echoed it, the sound rushing out his chest and throat.

David, David… My boy, please save me…David, help!

David tried to close his eyes but behind the lids, he could still see his mother, crying out for him. The pain coursing through her was in him too. He felt the drag of every movement and the throb that pulsed as she breathed. Her voice was broken from screaming. Her hair–her beautiful hair–was gone, shaved roughly.

David help m…. Don’t leave me here, save me… You will not leave me here, yes? You will save me… you will save us… you will free us from the…

David turned to see the lifeless form of his father stretching to the pitch dark below. He felt a blistering cold overtake him. There was something wrong with this. He couldn’t piece it together.

This was false, wrong.

“Do you want freedom?” A voice asked, familiar and kind. “You should not be in this hell with them.”

Yes, David thought. His mother was dying though. He was going to flee? She was going to die anyway. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He was powerless. He turned away from the horror and tried to blot the image from his mind, but the pain was an overwhelming reminder. It shook his body, rattled his teeth, made him want to fold into himself and vanish from existence.

“You can save yourself,” the voice said again. “You can become whole again.”

Lies, David thought as he crumpled. Whatever that voice was, it wasn’t there to save him.

“Will you stay, then?” the voice asked. “Will you suffer in defiance?”

No…yes, David whispered. His thoughts were coming out disjointed. He wanted to stand up, wanted to do something, but all he could do was lay there and take the suffering. It consumed him endlessly, but he’d already resigned himself to it.

“Too bad,” Olam said, taking his finger off David’s forehead. David fell back and his chair enlarged to fit his collapsed frame. He was unconscious, his mind overwhelmed by both pain and grief. Olam stared at him with a mix of pity, disgust, and anger. “So weak and yet strong. Destined for great things, but blind to even his strength.”

The old man slid off his chair and walked toward the opening that had just appeared in the wall behind David. He clasped his hand behind his back and walked away into the darkness of a fresh new path. He couldn’t make the bitter taste in his mouth go away, nor the frown on his face. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have to be an Eternal. He would have blessed the heavens to be a Watcher–one who witnesses events and stored away the memory; never again recalling a lick of it.