"Hmm." Ron murmurs. "Similar work even now." He chuckles, and Merrin claps his back.
"No need."
Ron says nothing, smiles. "This is for me."
There is fragility. Wrong. It is bizarre to him. To see this—such purity turned into power. A creature of might. That was never Ron. He was…the light.
Ron stands before the oval entry, his height beyond it. Arms wide enough to vanish the door. But he remains for a moment, and Merrin imagines the fear he feels. The terror of a good man as he must bleed for others.
He is me.
Then, he grabs the rim, and sizzling floods into the chamber. Screams. His feet plant, and pulls. Flesh is burning—the smell of roasted meat mouth-watering, fills the space. Merrin is repulsed by his reactions, but Ron cares nothing for it. Pulling. That is all he does now.
He is burning. He is screaming. His hands now become like Merrin's. All because of my witnesses…There is ice in his heart. I curse my weakness.
A creak sounds, and the door is busted off its hinges, slamming down as Ron jumps two steps back. The earth trembles at the collision, and many gawk at it. Ron. He falls to his knees, hand quivering, smoke steaming off the bubbling red flesh. His palm is now a red, distorted thing; skin hanging out the side, bones revealed in some fingers. Critical.
Catelyn moves past Ron, steps into the darkness of the now-formed tunnel. "This is the path. We should go."
"A second!" Merrin snaps. "Someone bandage his arm."
The witnesses surge to his orders. Quickly, they wrap both palms in clothes. Dirty rags, but clothes nonetheless. It is enough for now. Haste is needed. A cleanseWitch—healing. Merrin narrows his eyes, the world blurs in hues of dark and brown, and tears rest within his eyes. He holds.
"Are you okay?" His tone is calm, and this brings the wonder of Ron's thought. What if he thinks him a wickid thing, incapable of feeling? So he smiles. "Thank you."
Ron smiles back with the pain, sweat simmering down his face and neck. "Nothing done. Much to do."
I will never make you do that again.
A few minutes pass, and Catelyn seems eager to move. He sees it now. This is her. This is who she was. A woman ready to do anything to survive. Anything at all. It hurts, but he thanks the almighty that his secret remains away from her.
Soon, Ron is ready to move. He thinks not, but the giant insists. So they empty into the tunnel. And dark stones greet them.
Like the other, the channel is old, impossible old. More, there is an air of patchiness in it. Odd wood rests on the side, like pillars holding up the cragcave roof. There are many of them—every three steps, there is one. And they are unburned. What wood doesn't burn? He wonders if froststone was within it. Stupid as given the age, they should be out of will. The other was the casted means. That is the prominent thought.
A need to confirm speaks, but the pain vanishes it. A miracle is the fact that he walked. Each step was torture, like flame coiling through his flesh and blood. He seeks to scream, to cry, and to writhe. But….But if he were to cry, then they could not. So he doesn't. So he takes each step, grits, and takes another.
The pain could be worse—much worse. Most are buried in memories, hidden. They would surface, and he would break. He would be unmade. Mist. What a tattered thing he would become then. Merrin shuts his eyes, swallows the mouth moisture, and watches the corridor.
Ron is ahead, helped by two witnesses—hooded men. They look like walking sticks beside him. Black canes. Merrin considers what he seems beside Ron. Compared to these, he is shorter. Lords, he is an impish creature.
A moment passes, and Davos somehow stands beside him. The sheepish creature is in dark rags, wrapped over skin. He is like a shadow of strength, and he moves sidely, silent.
Is he afraid of me? Merrin thinks. A surface pondering as the inner depth required the force effect, and now he resisted using any. Or the pain did. He asks anyway, "You are well?"
Davos jerks, a shrill escapes his mouth. "Wha—Wha—What?"
Merrin offers a calming smile. "Nothing. Just asking."
"Oh." He lowers his head—he is like a child.
Merrin stops. Davos stirs. "What?"
"Nothing." Merrin says, "Just repeating something I shouldn't do."
"What?"
Merrin says nothing of it. "You're a slave."
Davos offers confusion. "We are all slaves."
This stuns for a moment. "Yes, yes. " He says, "What about before?"
"Before?"
"Before you were a slave. You were something. Everyone is something before the servitude."
"Nothing." Davos shakes his head.
A lie, but Merrin presses not. That was not his secret—not his to know. "What were you here?"
Davos responds. "Nothing…I was nothing."
"That can't be possible."
Davos looks to him.
"I've walked on mountains and never once have I met someone who wasn't important."
Davos is silent—but he smiles, just for a moment, and it's gone. Now he looks away. Merrin thinks his shy—embarrassed by the spoken words. He wonders to ask for another, "How about the leader?"
Now Davos stops, his shoulders tremble, and he looks to Merrin, says weakly, "Are you really some god?"
Mists!
Merrin feels empty within. What a question that was….Was he a god? How was one ever to answer that? He looks down at the crudestone floor, bumps of blackness, littered with shards of the strange wood. He remembers a simpler time.
Wind on his face, rain drenched into skin. The taste of moisture and the warmth of mist. The thrill of cutting through the air, chain in hand, stoneknife in another. An easy existence.
Now this.
He holds back a scoff. Am I a god?….No. I'm not. Merrin feels to scream his words. I AM NOT A GOD! I'M JUST A SLA—AN ASHMAN.
But.
A smile curls on him, and he says something that churns wrong. "I have been many things. But…Now, I am new. Something old. Something simply impossible. I am called the sun. Light. I am your savior. Always and forever."
"Then why didn't you save my sisters?"
Merrin hardens his body and calls that awesome power. Like a tide of water sliding through rocks, the mind flows with a sudden strength. He thinks. Ah, now he thinks.
"Why didn't you save her?"
Davos eyes is wide—mouth agape. Horror. "What?" He mouths obscure words. "I wasn't there. I would have."
"But you didn't."
"You are the savior!" He shouts now, and this calls attention to them.
"I..am…your…savior!"
"WHAT ABOUT THEM!"
Merrin feels the cold despite the warmth. To wrap himself, hide away from these eyes, that was the thing he craved. Not this. Not this forgery of an existence. He wants to scream. He wants to cry out. He wants to stop.
Yet…He drowns this man in guilt.
"Did they witness me?"
Davos steps back.
How easy it is to read a man.
"If you had kept them safe, then they would have seen me. Seen the light. But you failed to. You failed them. A thing of a coward."
Davos looks around. He is seeking shelter, but none delivers it. So he moves back, a wooden pillar behind him. "You know nothing. You know nothing of what I've gone through. You know NOTHING! False savior!"
"I"
He trips and falls into the pillar. A crack and it bends. Dust falls, and another snapping is heard overhead. Merrin turns sharply to all, "RU—"
Rocks descend from above, and darkness swallows his world.
Slowly, his mind drips with awareness. Aching awareness. He wants to curl into nothing—to become nothing. Emptiness. The pain is hell. All burns. Everything is a wrongness of sensations. His legs are licked by fire, arms tremble as though caught in the cold.
He is sick. He is tired. He wants to stop.
A scream strikes into his awareness, and the world opens to him. Chaos all over. They run like animals—shrieking, pushing, bleeding. Stones, near boulders, fall around them, smashing into the earth, cracking like eggs. Men draped in dark kneel, mouthing words. They should run, Merrin thinks, but they don't. They only kneel, wait, pray, and die.
I did this…I made men into children.
He grabs the floor. Stone crumbles before him—inches away. The sound is a boom, drowning out the madness for a moment. Something is wrong.
I should be dead
Hand clenches around his heart, he peers up, and there…the despair returns. Ron stands, hands up against a large stone, a flat boulder. Blood streaming down his bare skin. He roars like a beast. An animal of unrelenting strength.
No!
Something else catches the moment. Ron is smoking. Dark vapour rises from him, and on his trousers, the froststone dulls in its azure radiance. Merrin realizes: It has depleted of will!
No!
Something bright red ignites beside him. Horror, like sure death, whispers. He turns and sees a man running frantically, waving, screaming. He is on fire. Then there is another. Another. Another and Another. They are all burning. Cries like water fill the narrow tunnel. Stones rain on them, and they drown in fire.