The Chronicles of Ulth'Wakai

Chapter 10

Our perception of the spirits was such that we could never suspect that there was a communal, societal side to them in which the greater good is given priority.

I spent what seemed like a decade in their Great Library only to realize that all that time was spent on understanding but a fraction of the vast ocean of knowledge that was stored there.

All my experiences were grand and unrealistic.

Here I would draw the reader's attention to how I lived in the Fade Citadel.

My Quarters can only be described as befitting a King of Kings and the food and drinks I consumed were ambrosia manifest.

I also spent quite some time indulging the various spirits and amusing them with my tales of the World beyond the Fade of which they knew a lot more than I did but my perception of reality was in a manner amusing and entertaining to them and so they let me enthrall them with my tales.

I realized that no mage had come this far and deep into the Fade literally and figuratively as most encounters in the Fade are very dangerous and getting anywhere in the Fade requires a great deal of magical energy which if expended by any mage would leave him or her in a vulnerable state for quite some time and a demon would make easy prey of the mage.

The spirits told me a great many things most of which they said was not a secret but simply not possible for mortal mages to learn and so I spent what seemed an eternity in their training grounds learning unbelievable spells and curses and practicing them till I was proficient in their use.

I asked the spirit who was my guide in the Fade Citadel whether there was a reason to keep all this a secret from the Circle and he answered that humans had shown that their desire for power was greater than their want of peace so if the many secrets of the Fade were to be revealed then many power hungry humans and other mortals would turn the Fade itself into a battleground for epic feuds which would rise from their need for power and magic was the easiest source of power visible to most and humans had already shown that they do not trust magic and that they wish to exploit it for their own benefit and would go to extreme lengths to get what they want.

I asked whether the spirits could trust a few valiant souls with holding such power and he replied that there was a balance to the power in our world and if only a handful of mortals were given extraordinary powers and expected to behave in an idealistic manner then this balance would definitely be disrupted as the chosen ones would be hunted for their power and they would have to kill on a grand scale to just live their lives peacefully.

I told the spirit that there were already great mages who were very powerful but that did not disrupt the balance and the spirit's reply to this changed me forever.

He said that they were part of the balance and that the balance is constant change and these powerful mages accepted that and thus are able to live in the manner of their choosing. I asked then whether everything was predetermined that whether Fate was real and Destiny our truth and the spirit said that the Fade influenced many things in our world and Fate was just the human way of explaining that which was above and beyond their understanding.

I argued that could not possibly be the truth and that humans and other creatures had strived to understand that which was greater and lesser than them.

He then replied that our so called journey for truth was just an elaborate illusion we ourselves had woven to ensure that chaos and anarchy did not reign and that our destructive nature was hidden behind civilized masks that we wore to live in a society of rules and regulations which furthered the illusion and after a while the illusion seemed like the truth and that became our reality. I argued ferociously that some people had behaved in an extraordinary manner following good and living just lives.