Mists

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan

Arikan was vaguely aware the door opened. His head rolled lazily toward the portal, but what his eyes beheld was a blur. A woman's figure filled the frame. Hair flaming red. A clean dress. Another figure stood at her shoulder.

So she came to watch the end. To make sure her captive crossed the dark waters rimming the underworld of death. But her gaze was fixed on the torturer, not him. The cowardly bitch didn’t so much as look him in the eye. Oh how she would have witnessed the demon of dreams staring back at her if she had.

They left together, and Arikan coughed up blood from where it had been dribbling streams from his tongue. He was weaker than he’d been the whole time. Her arrival heralded the end. He was ready.

The chill of Saidar pebbled his body, and then, something happened.

He was standing in the World of Dreams. Whole and himself. He looked down. Clean? he ran his hands over his chest. He wore a fine coat in a style he didn’t recognize. The colors blurred even as he looked at them. His face was smooth. His hair styled. 

Then he looked around. The surroundings glowed dreamily. Soaring buildings stretched high. Everything was beautiful. Then a voice filled his mind. It felt soft, like silk. It sounded beautiful as water flowing from a chalice. 

“Serve me and I will make you the king of dreams,” it said.

And the man that was Arikan blinked. 

Something was offered then. Something wonderful.

He took it, and the next moment, he woke up.

It pulsed a glorious, beautiful, horrible feeling. It filled every muscle with strength. It gave him a new will. It was unbelievable. And with this power, Arikan spun it outward. The straps broke all at once. Falling away to the floor. He sat on the edge of table. Could see the blood dripping his body. The wounds falling open from their forgotten scraps of skin. Yet he barely felt a thing. Nothing except this power within. The sun of his soul darkened as he sat there sucking down the meager light of the room. Every flicker of flame whether from lamp or from torch, bent and writhed towards him, though no physical wind disturbed the air.

His gaze roamed bright from one face to the other. To his satisfaction, they were quite horrified. Lythia pooled on the ground, held by the arms of her warder. The torturer stood near, but Arikan breathed deeply of this fresh air and slid to his feet.

Then his gaze fell to the ter’angreal limp in Lythia’s hands, and he knew, he felt, exactly what it had done.

It released his soul.

This power was truth. It was more real than even reality, and it curled beneath his skin, burrowing deeper and deeper until his bones wanted to flake to ash. Yet on he stared at the object that rendered this possible. His soul was released of compulsion. Yet? Yet upon the offer, the Great Lord's offer, he'd accepted the gift with barely a moment's thought. Even if he had yet to give an answer.  There was no redemption, no creation anew; only erosion. 

A single step forward was a leap of faith that the ground would support the footfalls. It was an ecstasy that dwarfed saidin from all memory, a self-inflicted crushing of the soul, and at the moment, Arikan could barely move but to not thrash the mountain with its weaves. He loved and loathed it, and he seriously considered the bargain. 

Radiating with destructive will, he finally addressed his captors.  His voice was steady and contemplative, held up by this power and yet was benevolent with sincerity. 

"Thank-you for this gift."  He looked straight to Lythia.  The eons of Ages pinning the woman with recognition. 

Then he remembered himself as a flesh and blood creature, not a figment of the Pattern, not a puppet of the Wheel, but a man.  No man is so far gone he cannot return to the Light, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. He almost smiled. Apparently it was true?

What he did know was that he would have his vengeance. 

His gaze fell fiercely upon the discarded ter'angreal, and he shoved the True Power through it. The orchestra of destruction pitched all their ears with shrill screams, and Arikan's supernatural gifts of the dark master churned, pulling those around him. Within the eye of this monster, Arikan suddenly reared it toward Lythia. Within her warder's arms, she stiffened as her soul wrinkled from within. He wanted her to know what he once had known, to feel helpless and hunted, to turn her from all loyalty forged in the Light's friendships. 

He swat aside those that rushed to her defense: the so-called heroes of the Light.  They were no more free of their chains than he had been of his.

"Enjoy your service," he uttered, disdain dripping and retribution cast.

With that, the pattern screamed torment as it was touched by the True Power and so was shredded to ribbons.  The gate snapped upon his heels after he fell through.

***

It was dusk where he arrived.  The green grass rolled an epicenter around where he landed face down, clenching the plants. A gust of wind reached up, bending the stalks around him and swirling across the filth clung to every inch of his skin. He still felt the power within, but the lingering promise ungrasped.

He looked up at the sky. Spoke to the voice that promised to make him a king.

“I already am,” he said with a smile and rejected the deal.

He crumpled when the power was wrenched away. He didn’t even care. All he knew was purification, the wind on his skin, the temperature of the sun, and the soft smell of dirt.

He rolled to his back and stared to the burning colors of the fading sky, tears rolling freely down his face. 

Never.  Never again.  Would he bend a knee to anyone.  Neither man nor deity.  He was finally free.