*****
I blink, but those first things I see are only wisps of smoke in a valley deep within my mind. The first site I could distinguish was the sky. Not my sky, that I had spent every night an day of my life under, but another sky. I believed myself to be laying. As I lay, seas of distant golden flares and clouds of night danced among stars that I would not begin to orientate. That sky, was the source of my small understanding.
When I stood, I felt fabric upon my body again, and weight of sword belted across my waist. I had not to draw it forth from its sheath to feel its power nor confirm its sharpness. The armour fit perfectly, all straps and links appropriately notched and secured. I turned my head, seeking the great tree, but it was not along the horizon. I felt as though I had awoken in a much different place than I had fell senseless in.
The Turner cranks the wheel, but do I feel it?
Much inside me was changed now, I knew this beyond doubt. It was though I had been improved in every way imaginable. My mind was sharper, my already advanced balance bettered, my vision keener. All that once burdened me or slowed me in life had been removed from my life and body. Anything that did not work to the advantage of my new goal was now gone from me. There was no justifying grief for parting with it.
Gifts for my quest, yet I knew nothing of my purpose or how to exact it. I had to be days away from any remote village or kingdom, and remnants in my mind still could not behold the idea that this place, this haven, was somewhere alongside the world I had lived my life in.
How long would I wander this expanse of land in search of an escape through or over the walls of mountains? Skills rendered useless should the only enemy I find in this haven be myself. Somehow I knew the tree, nor any other power residing in this place would not let me suffer an oblique demise such as that. And nor did it.
My mind blinked, and then I heard it. Grotesque words uttered in drabbled tongue; mechanical and twisted, as if the speakers mouth itself were rusted. Never before had I heard such a sound, and yet it compelled me downward. Staring at the grassy ground that seemed not to support my frame, I denied the barrier and extended forth my right hand. Moving my wrist slightly upwards just once caused commotion in myself as much as it did to the world around me.
The earth below me split apart, tunnelling down into the dark corners of the world. Like a great mine the hole opened. Spiralling down along it edge began a great staircase of cold grey stone that’s end disappeared into the black. When the chaos ceased, my feet stood upon the first stair of possibly thousands of its siblings.
A hole to an unknown part of the world, and I bore my eyes into that descending darkness without fear or complaint. My quest was down, and so down I must go, for should all things fade, the tree must never wilt, nor the haven fall.
I lifted my foot and placed it on the second step.
A soon as I felt the impact of that step upon the stone, I nearly fell for eternity. For the great rigid voice from before echoed again in my mind, this time full of malice and knotted wisdom. Air wrestled up from the black of the hole, from somewhere very unlike anything I had ever known. A strong sense in me told me to move away, that I was diverting from my path, and yet I was already committed as my feet made their own path down the winding staircase into the great abyss of the world.
Cautious I had moved at first, yet now my steps quickened with unknown resolve. Blinded by the moment, I now looked back for the sky above, already filling with sorrow for leaving it. The entrance of the hole was now a mere dot above me, as the stairs had sped me along my path. I noticed then that it was not of natural light that guided my consciousness, but rather my armour. The lines of gold along the black plates produced a faint glow, and thus my eyes were bathed in light that was gifted by the great tree.
It did not happen all at once, but I could not ignore the feeling of being moved to a place of great mystery. The locations within the mind that no one dare explore when they alone can sense what dark power lies behind the veil of secrecy and pain. No. That door remains always locked in the farthest reaches of the mind. And it was now, to that place which I embarked, yet involuntarily.
Suddenly, I was no longer on the stairs of the hole, but on flat ground once more. It was then, that I looked up, and saw it.
Its hands seemed to be part of the Wheel of time itself; the two were one, the Wheel, and its titan Turner. I title the creature “it”, because in all my visions and travels, I had never seen such a form that should be deemed with a name of man. Both the Wheel and its Turner were older than time itself, ancient constructs inspiring the question of who was first: the Wheel or the Turner? Was it the Turner who sought to build the Wheel from nameless materials, or was the Turner created to turn the Wheel? To address the latter, who would then have created the Turner? Surely man’s construct of a force similar to that of gods would be the maker of all, yet against the monstrous site that was the Wheel and Turner I now gazed upon, there could be no higher power. Of this, I was certain. Even the tree paled in comparison. If such an entity existed that could be fit to our expectations of a “god”, then why the need for a Turner at all? No. There was nothing above this which I now stared upon unblinkingly.
Amongst the ancient stone, wooden structures of roots that delved too greedily into the earth, the air was not really air at all. Here, in this dream that was reality, there was only time, and yet time did not touch this room. Time stems downward from the room, and the room only. A dying man once told me that a river cannot flow uphill, and thus when too much of our blood has flowed from our veins, we too, must accept fate. Time was blood.
Cloaked in extremely faded dark brown robes in which roots and clay found sanctuary, the Turner’s face was covered as I had seen it before in my vision. Should there lay a face beyond that veil of black, it would bear unrecognizable traits in relation to man. The thought of whether its hands ever left the Wheel stirred in my mind, as the Turner seemed oblivious to my presence. Should its hands leave the Wheel and the turning cease, would time pause? And should it pause, would we its victims even notice? Such thoughts could drive a person mad I quickly realized, and shook them from my mind by gripping the hilt of my sword.
I was unsure whether the Turner was even an enemy, and should it prove such, could my weapon even begin to harm it? A sudden flare image of the great tree shattered my composure, and the Turner seemed to feel it as well.
Its hands remaining on the Wheel, the Turner’s head snapped in my direction of the room, and my eyes bored deep into the blackness of its cloaked face. The terrible words of the Turner’s language shook the walls of the vast room, and it was all I could do to place my hands over me ears to repulse the powerful words. Dropping my sword, its clang against the stone floor was drowned out by the words of the Turner.
When it finally stood quiet, I removed my hands from my ears and tried to grasp my senses. I was bewildered and awestruck, but I knew in my heart that I, nor anyone, could not stand to bare another string or words from the Turner. Sheer volume and grit from perhaps a never before used voice would be my demise.
The Turner stood perfectly still, head still facing me, and hands always turning the enormous Wheel of time. Ignorant to the meaning of its words, I could compose no semblance of a reply, and chose only to gather my sword from the floor. As my hand grasp the hilt, I could feel the air around me being sucked towards the Turner as it prepared another earth-shaking barrage of language.
Deep within me I felt the utter need to stop it before the Turner crushed my very bones with its words. Gripping my sword until my knuckles turned white, I clenched my teeth and ran headlong at the feet of the titan. It began to bellow forth speech, and the force nearly lifted me from my feet, yet I pushed myself forward, knowing no path but this one.
The volume increased, and I thought my head would simply cease my futile resistance and accept death, but I pressed on. The Turner, perhaps threatened, lifted one of its massive legs from the ground, where it paused suspended in the air for a brief moment before it began to race toward the floor. While completing this unfathomable stomp, the Turner’s left hand slipped ever so slightly from the Wheel’s grips, and the turning pace slowed and clicked with delay by only a heartbeat.
If ever I had thought previous events had shaped my life in an alternate path than that chosen originally for me, I was now certain my eyes would never see again what they should have seen. They would never see what was perhaps indented.
The Turner’s enormous foot crashed upon the floor, but I only began to feel its result, as just then I was cast back upon the descending staircase. The Turner and Wheel were gone from my site, replaced by dark and the faint golden glow of my armour. Gasping for air, I fell back upon the stairs, my armour clanging in protest.
I felt a rising within me, similar to my first thoughts of this place, yet altered. Perhaps it was my memory that had changed, however, for so many lifetimes ago did I awake within the wall of mountains. I then heard the voice of the great tree.
“Deriosen”, the voice uttered.
“My Master”, I breathed.
“Valour could not save the haven.” The voice said lowly, yet reverberating all around me. “It will destroy another as feared.”
My mind whirled in confusion. “I do not understand”, I choked.
“Long has it sought this place, to taint this haven like it has tainted the others. Now, its dream will be realised.” The voice paused, and lay upon the cold stairs was all I could do. “Deriosen, you must see that time has never penetrated the haven until now, and even though it will not for nearly a thousand years, it will come. The haven was free of time, and now the root of the mountains will decay, as will all. You were not the correct soldier for the haven, and failure has brought about this death.”
Suddenly feeling restrained like a caged beast, my muscles moved upon their own accord and I began to flee up the stairs, toward the sky. Yet it felt as though I had ran for weeks and the small opening that was the sky never grew larger to my eyes. It was this that inspired the eternal fear within me.
“Deriosen”, the voice of the tree followed. “You are stuck between the river of time and a haven which resists it. You will escape this dungeon of nothingness in three days after nine hundred years have passed. Until then, your mind must decay as the haven one day will.”
Those were the last words the tree ever spoke to me, for I am certain now that its life-force has abandoned these lands. That day when the staircase closed around me seems like years to me now, yet I have no real way of telling. I reside in this cold black always. Un-aging for time still hasn’t reached this place. The Turner’s hand has yet to reclaim its place upon the Wheel it seems. I know only the dark now, pacing the stairs that lead neither upwards nor downwards, filling only the immense reach of space between titan forces that yank viscously upon my strings.
I have had all too much time to recover the lost fabric in my mind where my past is written, revealing the secrets to my coming of this place. There, deep in the locked door of my mind lies the key to answer of how it was I that came to exists here. To see powers beyond any force of the world, witness armour glowing gold in the darkness and to feel no fear. Pacing the staircase, turning my thoughts always inward, for there is no outward amongst the black of this place.
I search my past for answers to riddles. I accept my title, though diminished, I must wonder still if I remain… the servant of a haven.
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