Chương 79: Sounds Of Silence

Arielle expected to open her eyes to grassland and shimmering auroras. She expected it to be like the last time, when she landed face-first into Elfheim, met the Elven Prince, and retrieved his father's pet dragon from their forest. However, this time all that met her was darkness and silence. She didn't even know if her eyes were open. She didn't have a clear understanding of her own body, and though she thought about reaching out to touch something, she didn't know if she actually did.

Her existence was just floating in the nothingness for… she didn't even know how long. There was no concept of time here, nothing to measure against. There was really only this moment. Arielle still had a total recollection of what had happened earlier. She knew that she had touched the stone and gotten transported somewhere. She also knew that she had seen Professor Graham and a strange man as the darkness had cleared. Where did it go? Maybe the darkness had entered her?

Maybe she was currently possessed by a Shadowling who had taken control of her body, which was why she could not use it. Because her soul was trapped. In that case, how did she escape? She had no clue, especially since she could not even touch anything. Could she use magic here? Well, there were no orbs. No limbs. No cores even. It was just her and her consciousness floating in the darkness. What if she were trapped here forever? Oddly enough, the first emotion that hit her was relief.

She didn't know how to define it. It was like all her life, there was this constant discordant tune itching at her, irritating her brain. A hum that never quite stopped, whether she was asleep or awake. Sometimes it became too much, and when she was a child, she would either scream or go into a corner and push her hands over her ears as hard as she could to stop the sounds. She'd eventually learned to suppress and live with the constant discomfort. But now it was all gone.

Just like when she'd nearly drowned in the bog, there was no more sound. No constant irritation. If this was what the afterlife was like, then maybe it wasn't so bad. It was nice and quiet at least. In fact, this entire sensation felt familiar. Comforting. A mild pressure and a perpetual silence that didn't acknowledge the passage of time or the existence of anything else outside of it. She could rest here for a good while, perhaps for the first time ever.

However, a mix of emotions suppressed by the otherworldly silence began to shoot through. Her family. Lyra. Maus. Elric. She would never see them again. If she stayed here, a Shadowling would take over her body, and she would slowly decompose until she felt nothing. Then she would truly be gone. Also, what if she eventually got bored with the silence? What would she do then? As nice as it was, she needed to get out of here. However, she didn't know how to fight her cage without magic.

She had nothing here but vague senses. So then… maybe she should use that. Try to sense what was beyond the silence. She listened to the nothingness, observed the darkness. What's on the other side of nothing? What is beyond the void? She had to experience it to know for sure. She concentrated, trying to differentiate the sounds of silence, splitting through shades of the dark. She tried to identify the streaks or dots that often appeared when one closed their eyes.

She attempted to communicate with things that she could not see, and probably could not hear her. Hello? Can you hear me? Shadowlings? I would like my body back. She felt a little silly, and the struggle for what was beyond felt futile, but there was really nothing else she could do except flail about and panic, and that seemed counterproductive. A better use of her time would be to attain an understanding of her situation and what she was facing. It didn't matter how long it took.

It wasn't like she felt it anyway. She stared at the abyss. The abyss stared back. She recalled what her father told her to do whenever she was lost in the forest. Listen for the croaks, he would say. The hisses. The roars and the rumbles. Listen for what is underneath–the stream. It will take you home. She missed her father. And her mother. And her family. She was glad that they would be having a break soon, so she could go back to visit them. Once she got out of the cage. If you get out. Doubt trickled in.

Fear soon followed. This wasn't like the usual challenges she could overcome by using essences or core control. She had no cores here. It was the same as when she had faced the Hybrid and felt so utterly bereft, so alone. Except it was worse. Because it was potentially permanent. It hit her then. The silence was very comfortable, but being so alone, without her family, her friends made her think maybe comfort wasn't everything. It was better to be uncomfortable with them than comfortable alone.

Her heart, wherever it was, raced. Panic bubbled up to her throat, urging her to scream and cry and lose her mind. The change was swift. Madness coaxed on the horizon, and the more she thought about it, the more she was pushed to despair. The abyss loomed, seeming even wilder and more menacing than it did before. Until she noticed that her distraction caused the blacks to meld together again.

Her panic caused her sight to darken, which meant that her previous focus did have some brightening effect, even if she had not noticed it at the time. Staring at the abyss without fear was the key. Keep going. She swallowed everything down, compartmentalized, and went back to what she was doing. She would commune with her orbs again, but for now, she needed to commune with whatever this was.

"Hello," she said.

"I am Arielle Blacksoil." It might be her imagination, but the silence, the darkness retreated, just an inch. She continued to talk to it, the darkness, to communicate what she wanted. She continued to try to understand it, sense it, the only way she knew how, with tools she did not understand. She refused to allow doubt to distract her, facing it head-on with a single-minded zeal.

And each time the abyss probed her and attempted to push fearful thoughts at her, she would shove it all into a container of'Worry About Later." It was not that she was not concerned about the madness, but if she were going to go mad, she might as well do it fighting for a way out. In fact, she would face it head-on and make the madness help her. She was not afraid of the dark. She did not fear death or silence. But she did not want to be here alone. She, of course, didn't know how long she listened to the silence.

It began to prick at her. Then it began to hurt in some intangible way that felt like fire was consuming her mind. Yet, she remained still. There was a fizzle somewhere underneath it, and the longer she focused on it, the clearer it became. It became a buzz, like insects communing at night. Louder and louder, as they became more distinct, and the longer she listened for them, the clearer they became. These were not insects. These were voices. Millions, no billions of them. More than that, even. It melded together.

Different languages, probably. Different species, perhaps. She could not hear a single word that was being said because it all merged into a drone. Whenever she would try to identify a single voice to the end, it would hurt as though she had reached the limit of her focus. But she had not. She would keep going. Was the voice the outer world? Was one of those voices Professor Graham, trying to rouse her from her own body? She kept going. The fire burned hotter. Her vision got clearer.

Speckles of color began to leak into the darkness. She began to feel the passage of time once more, which made things harder, also. A few seconds or eternity, it didn't matter. It began to wear on her when she noted that there was a voice slightly louder than the rest. She held onto it, tuning everything else out and simply allowing the volume of this voice to rise and rise. She wasn't entirely sure how she did it. It came almost naturally to her, as though it were something she had done before.

The one voice became much clearer and much louder than the rest.

"Pleasepleaspleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease."

"Hello?" Arielle said the words without a mouth. It wasn't as simple as thinking them, but the mechanism wasn't the same as talking either. It was something in between the two, a projection of sound that she hoped reached the right person. And it did, because their desperate pleading stopped. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. They didn't respond to her at first, but they had to have heard her, or they wouldn't have stopped talking. She tried again.

"Hi. Can you hear me?" The other person uttered a loud, rattling gasp.

"You…are you human?"

"Yes."

"You can hear me?!"

"Yes." Another even louder gasp, accompanied by the sound of crazed laughter.

"Heavens! I thought I was losing my mind. I mean, I'm pretty sure I already lost it, but…How? How can you talk to me outside of mass?"

"I'm not sure."

"Who are you?"

"I am Arielle Blacksoil. Who are you?" He didn't answer her question.

"I've never heard that name before. Are you a new member of the Church?" She paused.

"You mean the Church of the Wayward?"

"Yes. What is your rank and position? You must be very high-ranked to communicate so freely in the In Between?"

"In Between?" For the first time, her psyche shifted, and Arielle started considering a different possibility. She had touched the ruin that the Drift had led her to. What if it wasn't a ghoul possessing her body after all? What if the Drift had taken her somewhere... and abandoned her there? Why? Why would he bring her here? To find him? Why did he want her to find him so desperately?

"This place is called the In Between?" she asked.

"You do not know?" He sounded just as puzzled as she felt.

"Where exactly are you from?"

"Fenway Basin."

"I do not know what that is, but that is not what I meant. I meant…how did you arrive here? What gate did you open?"

"Gate?" Every word he said just confused her even more, but at the same time, she was fascinated. No longer occupied with getting out of here, she now wanted her questions answered. It felt like the Drift was playing a game with her, but there had to be a point to it. What was it?

"The ruins in the Helleron forest," she said.

"That's how I got here." He was quiet again, and once more she felt that that wasn't the answer he was searching for. It was as if he'd asked her what time it was and she'd responded 'Blue.'

"Who are you?" he asked again, and this time his voice had a quieter undertone to it.

"Arielle Blacksoil," she said again.

"Arielle Blacksoil," he said her name slowly, like a litany.

"Was it Payn who led you here?"

"Pain?" She thought about it.

"Well, I guess it hurt a little when I fell, but apart from that–""No, not pain. Payn. A name."

"I do not know who that is."

"That is…odd."

"Yes," she responded.

"I get that a lot."

"You should not be here without meeting him." Yet here I am.

"Maybe I met him in the past, and I forgot."

"You would not forget meeting Payn, or signing the covenant."

"What covenant?"

"You never signed it?"

"No." The silence that followed was thoughtful. He didn't say anything else for a long while, and she knew it was because she felt each second. She finally felt time.

"You are a human who entered this place of your own volition?" he asked.

"No. I think the Drift helped me." She thought for a second.

"Is Payn the Drift?"

"No, Payn is the overseer of the In Between."

"What is the In Between?" she said.

"Is it in between worlds? Like in a rift?"

"It's not a rift," he said.

"But I will tell you that, however you entered this place, you should leave before Payn notices. Or he will be very upset, and he might trap you in here with me."

"You're trapped?"

"Yes, but it is a trap of my choosing, a sacrifice for power. I assume you have not done the same?"

"No. I have not."

"You should leave."

"I see. And is that what you were begging for? A way out of the trap?"

"I plead for a simpler quest. Sometimes, I seek a time before I came here. I wish to see my family for the first time in…. Gosh, I don't even know how long I have spent here, but I know it has been far too long. I pray for the day he has no use for me anymore."

"The Drift?"

"You speak his name so casually, as though you know him. Do not do so. Now you must leave this place. I will try to lend you some of my power, what little of it I can."

"Thank you," she said.

"You are welcome. If you are here, it means that you have his mark on your soul and you have his attention. But he can only do as much as you allow, and he cannot take you without your permission. If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it's to not take the covenant, no matter what you are offered, and do not tell anyone about his offer, or this place, or him, for then you endanger them too." Too late for that.

"Okay," she said.

"I will try to help you if I can."

"Do not. Simply tell my family that I am sorry. Especially my brother, if he is still alive."

"Who is your family?"

"I do not know who they are now, as they might be long gone. But perhaps you can find my descendants with my name."

"And you are?"

"My name is Cornelius Draco." A whoosh of sound hit her ears, and for the first time, the blacks truly split, allowing light to shine through. At first, it was a light too glaring for her eyes, but suddenly she began to feel her body again. Her cores were the first thing she sensed, and she grasped onto them for dear life. She nearly sobbed at having them back, and she felt his power, shoving her through the gate. It still took her effort to grasp her own body and draw herself out.

Once again, she did not know how she did it. Once again, it felt eerily natural and familiar. And when the gate closed again behind her, she heard Cornelius say sadly, "Goodbye, Arielle Blacksoil. May we never meet again, for your own sake."

The transition from the In Between back to the real world was not as smooth as it was the other way around. Then it had been instinctive. Here, Arielle had to strain and focus on the voices to settle back into her own body. When she opened her eyes, it was to stare at the grey, jagged ceiling of a cave. It was cold enough to nip her face, but someone had put a blanket over her at least. That was very nice of them, and it was thicker than any boarskin she had ever felt. It reminded her of home.

"She's awake," someone said with a voice like a rumbling mountain. She looked to the side in time to see Professor Graham and Dean Octavius approaching her. In a shadowy corner, a giant of a man stood.

"Arielle," Graham spoke first, putting his hand on her forehead.

"How are you feeling?"

"Cold," she admitted. He took out his wand.

"[Warm Touch]." A warmth emanated from him, and it travelled through her whole body.

"How about now?"

"Not so cold." He smiled, relief slanting his eyebrows.

"I'm glad." She glanced behind at the dean, who was giving them a measured look.

"What are you doing here, Dean Octavius?" she asked. Graham also glanced back and said, "That is a very good question." The Dean didn't speak at first, allowing Arielle to ask a follow-up question.

"What happened to Professor Woden? Did he get kidnapped?"

"No," Graham responded.

"He's fine. Grumpy that I insisted on coming back and threatened to slug him if he didn't bring me, but otherwise fine."

"I don't understand."

"I never wanted to leave you in the first place, Arielle. If anything, he kidnapped me against my will."

"You left?" she asked. An expression she recognized as shame spread across his features before the Dean stepped forward and said, "This is my fault, Arielle."

"What is?"

"Your being attacked by the Shadowlings. I asked Yom to do that, and asked your professors to leave you behind. It was all manufactured by me, but for some reason, I could not foresee you passing out as you did. It was not in my calculations."

"Why?"

"I do not know. They are usually very accurate, but perhaps there is an anomaly that I can't–""No, I meant, why did you do all this?"

"Oh." He cleared his throat.

"It was a test." Ah, that made sense.

"You wanted me to battle the Shadowlings?"

"No. You would need a very specific set of tools to fight them, tools you do not have."

"So… how was it a fair test?"

"It wasn't fair. On purpose." He came closer, the light shifting over his face.

"You weren't supposed to win that test, Arielle. It was meant to show you the consequences of failure, something that you haven't had the luxury of experiencing since you've been here. Failure is something we must all learn, and unfortunately, we could not get that to you without cheating."

"You tricked me." She was shocked and more than a little upset to hear it. The test had been a trick. She had been set up to fail.

"Yes," Dean Octavius said, earning even more of her ire. She did not like to be tricked. It reminded her of her school days, when the other children had played such pranks on her. People would tell her things that she wholly believed, only to realize that it was a lie later. They would laugh at her for trusting them and mock her for not understanding their sarcasm. She had never found any of it funny, not one bit. In fact, it had made some moments of her childhood unbearable.

But her mother had comforted her by telling her they would grow out of it when she was older. Now, however, it seemed adults were doing it too. And he was not some stranger or an acquaintance. He was Elric's friend, someone she trusted. It hurt.

"You were making fun of me," Arielle said.

"Not at all," Dean Octavius insisted.

"I wanted you to understand the danger that comes with this life."

"You could have explained it with words."

"I didn't think you would take mere words seriously. You don't strike me as the type to heed warnings until you're directly affected by them."

"You didn't even try to warn me!"

"I did. Others did," he said.

"And it didn't seem to have any effect. I thought a demonstration might help it sink in." He came closer.

"Arielle, being an ascendant, is more than just being strong and skilled with magic. Some people will try to hurt you, or use you for their own nefarious reasons, and it will be dangerous to trust the wrong person."

"Yes, I know that. Elric told me that. I don't like that you lied to me," she told him.

"I'm not stupid. I don't appreciate being treated as if I were." They both blinked at her. The Dean shook his head.

"I think we are seeing this very differently, although in retrospect, I should have anticipated this."

"It is not a nice thing to do, Dean."

"It's not supposed to be, but we did not do this because we believed you were stupid," he said, "Quite the contrary, actually. Now and then, we receive an exceptional student, one who is undefeated in all their endeavors. A student like Gio Li. They bypass all our traditional mechanisms, break rules, flout our guardrails, and, because of their power, they cease to fear consequences.

We've seen this play out a few times already, and this either turns them into someone who does not respect danger or a fiend who craves more of it, or it gets them killed. Talking doesn't typically work with people like that. Over the years, we've found this is the best way to do it. I thought perhaps it would be best for you to understand what is at stake and what others might be capable of." She stared at him for some time, and he stared back.

"I understand what is at stake," she said quietly.

"I'm not them. I'm Arielle. I respect danger, and I do not fear death, but not because I don't understand it. I just physically cannot feel that fear." That gave him pause.

"What do you mean?"

"I almost died when I was a young girl. I think something else happened to me at that time. something...." She thought about it, and about whether it was linked to her current predicament and her experience with the In Between. Anchors of the Living. Souls of the Dead. But she couldn't tell the Dean about where she was. She wouldn't tell him even if she could. She didn't trust him because he had played a cruel trick on her.

"I am sorry, Arielle," the Dean said.

"Perhaps there were other things I could have tried first, but seeing you sneak off campus and do other things that endanger your life... it felt like this was a lesson you needed to learn. Not as punishment, but for you to understand that there is more out there than you know, and you should be cautious. But this was never supposed to end with you unconscious." Arielle glared at him. She didn't even know whether to trust what he was telling her right now.

"Is that apology real, or are you lying to me again?"

"It is real," he said.

"Although, if you want, I will teach you to better identify lies. We can have extra sessions, and you may be able to create some spells that can help you, although stronger mages will be able to identify you using a spell on them."

"I don't want to have more sessions with you," she grumbled and looked away from him stubbornly. The giant man in the corner finally moved, and she glanced over at him. When he moved, the essences in the room parted for him as though they repelled him. Her anger was temporarily driven back by surprise and a little bit of fear.

"You're a hybrid," she said.

"Yes," he responded.

"And what are you?"