IRON GOD | 2: Empyrean

[20] Xigon: Hold Close This Sacrament {II}

Xigon's torpor, for something so still and silent, was beyond overwhelming.

Every sensation from the outside world still clawed at his motionless body, and new ones surged up like water from a newly-formed bluehole. He could only describe it as dreaming while conscious. At least, he imagined this was what dreams were like. As long as he'd lived, he'd never had a dream, not as far as he could remember. In any case, facts and whims tangled together here. Whatever here could be called.

He held his lantern out into the dark haze, scattering it to reveal a cold emptiness. Where was he standing, then? He turned his boot and stirred up a pale dust reminiscent of ashes. The sky, if one could call it that, was pitch-black and starless.

Then there were the ghosts – for lack of a better term.

Vital force blurred his sight like heat waves. At first, he thought the heat was his own, but it looked twisted, perverse, as if his reflection in a mirror were quietly laughing while he cried.

Xigon heard himself chuckle. Why would he cry at his own strength? Azvalath had said he was like a god once, and had always practically worshiped him anyway. Why not affirm him for once?

He heard Azvalath yelling frantic commands back where his body was. Alone now, the ache deepened, and Xigon remembered why he was here.

The master came to the edge of an ink-black pool. Dark water lapped at the toes of his boots. Nothing reflected on its surface.

"And upon the darkest shore, in the eye of a storm that swallows all horizons – I'll be waiting." Xigon whispered the words like a comfort to himself. They came from one of his favorite old stories – one where Vraelen reassured a battered and broken Ferash Therall who was losing his faith and will to go on. Xigon knew staking faith in their dead god was naive escapism at best, but it soothed some of the hollow in his heart and gave him a small shred of courage. Just enough courage to let himself fall into the pool.

The inky depths robbed him of any and all sensation for a strange, seemingly eternal fraction of a second. Not even Kaosaan's whispers reached him.

He let himself sink deeper still. Small flashes of heat started cutting through the black. It struck him, then, that maybe he'd taken scraps of many different souls through a lifetime's battles, and simply never knew it. The realization should have stung him at least a little bit, he knew – but it didn't for whatever reason. He felt detached from whatever he'd once been. A comfortable detachment, like a child with a book of history, not real in any way that mattered here and now.

"Why won't you listen to me, i'iba?"

The voice was like an icepick in Xigon's skull. His boots sank into soft sand and he turned his head, expecting to see Kaosaan.

Not the lanky, glassy-eyed, repulsively vulnerable boy Xigon was more than content to forget he'd once been. His lantern's light reflected on tears streaked down the weak little creature's cheeks, and he scorned it. "Silence is all you deserve from me."

It bowed its head. "I understand, i'iba."

Xigon's stomach turned at the repetition of that specific address. He'd once called Qila by that title – an indication of superiority in every sense, beyond master or even goddess. A soul before my own. And the truth struck like lightning.

"I'm sorry." He grabbed the child's hands. They were only slightly smaller than his own, but near perfect likenesses. "I see you, child."

His own eyes looked up, brimming with tears.

"I see you." Xigon repeated those words with greater resolve and bowed his own head to bestow a blessing. "All shall be as I will it – all will be well. Hear me, Iron God."