by Dan Wingreen
"You realize," Eallair said after a short pause, "that I already seen you in nothin' but your—"
"So! Divination then?" Aidan cut him off, trying really, really hard to pretend the thing Eallair was referring to hadn't actually happened. He went to brush his hair out of his face, only to realize at the last second that his hair was already pushed back. He stopped just before he poked himself in the eye, let his hand fall into his lap, then shoved it under the blankets a moment later. "How do we, uh, really do that divination…stuff? I mean, it's important and everything. The mighty Excalibur! It needs to be…found. So, we should probably…you know…get on that…I guess…"
Smooth.
"Aidan—" Eallair started.
"I don't wanna talk about it!" Aidan cut him off, still staring at the blanket. "Let's just do the finding thing, okay?"
"That's what I was tryin’ to do," Eallair said wryly. Aidan risked a glance, but it didn't seem like Eallair was mocking him. Well, any more than usual, anyway. And that he could deal with.
"Oh," Aidan said. "Um. So…" He tried to make a 'go on with it' gesture, but both his hands were under the blanket, so it really just looked like he was…not doing that. He felt his face heat up, but Eallair took pity on him and didn't comment. Aidan had never been so happy to be pitied in his life.
"You really do need to lie down, actually," Eallair said. Aidan gave him a suspicious look, but Teacher Eallair was back and Aidan decided he wasn't messing with him.
"Why?" he asked.
"You need to be relaxed, like you're gonna fall asleep."
Aidan frowned. "But you said no one can use magic when they're sleeping…" Unless Aidan could. Which was probably the scariest thought he'd ever had.
"Right," Eallair said with a nod, much to Aidan's relief. "You ain't sleeping, but you can't do it unless you're relaxed. Same with havin’ visions of the future. That's why people call ‘em prophecy dreams and similar such things."
"Oh." Aidan worried his lip. "So, I just…lie down?"
"For a start, yeah." Eallair handed Aidan the battered notebook. I really should just start calling it a spell book, or something. Aidan took it.
"What do I write?" he asked a moment later. "Find Excalibur?"
It couldn't possibly be that easy, could it?
"I'm…not sure," Eallair said, hesitantly. He gave Aidan an apologetic look. "I ain't ever exactly done it myself."
That was definitely the last thing Aidan wanted to hear.
"What?"
"Sorry," Eallair said. "I tried it a few times, but ain't ever got nowhere with it no matter what I did."
"Great," Aidan muttered.
"Hey," Eallair said, tentatively placing his hand on Aidan's knee. When Aidan didn't jerk away, he gave it a squeeze. "You can do this."
Aidan swallowed nervously. "What if I can't?"
"You can," he said. "Don't even think about it. Just think about all the gloatin’ you get to do when you pull off somethin’ I ain't never been able to do. Put me right in my place, it will."
Despite himself, Aidan couldn't help letting out a short laugh. "That sounds fun."
"Course it does. Not too many people been able to put me in my place," Eallair said with a smug smirk. "Joinin' an elite group, you'd be."
Aidan rolled his eyes. Unsurprisingly, he felt the apprehension drain away.
How in the ancient hells does he always make me feel better?
"Thanks," he said, giving Eallair a small smile. Eallair squeezed his knee again.
Taking a deep breath, Aidan lay back down on his pillow and tried to relax. It was easier than he thought it would be, but that probably had something to do with the fact that he had all of three hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours. He studied his spell book, trying to figure out what to write. Eallair sat at the bottom of the bed, a silent, comforting presence.
Finally, after thinking up and rejecting a dozen ideas, Aidan decided to keep it simple.
Find Excalibur.
He tore the page out of the book. "Okay. I'm ready."
Aidan gave Eallair a shaky smile but he the one he got back was filled with nothing but confidence. He's can't even imagine me screwing this up, can he? It should have been terrifying, someone having that much confidence in him. Instead, it made him feel like he could do anything.
Which, apparently, he could. Stop thinking about it.
"I'll be here when you're done," Eallair said, giving Aidan's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Then we can get some sleep, and tomorrow we’ll go get the sword."
Aidan nodded. He wondered if there was any chance that part would be easier. They were owed something easy, weren't they? "I guess it's too much to hope that it's in one of the rooms down the hall?"
Eallair grinned. "Could think of worse hiding places. Who'd ever think to look there?"
"They'd be screwed during renovations, though."
Eallair snorted. "You think the government's gonna shill out money and labor to renovate anything out here?"
"Good point," Aidan said around a yawn. At least he wasn’t going to have any problems relaxing. "I'm putting five dollars on room two-oh-five."
Eallair laughed and very kindly kept from pointing out Aidan didn't actually have any money anymore.
"One thing before you start," Eallair said. "I don't really know what you see when you have your visions, but from what I know, divination'll be different. Visions take you where they want to go, but you're gonna have to direct the divination."
Aidan frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"Just keep thinkin' about Excalibur, and don't get distracted by anything else the magic tries to show you."
Aidan didn't like the way that sounded. "This can't…hurt me, can it?"
"No," Eallair said quickly. "Not at all. Worst that'll happen is you get a headache."
Aidan frowned again. "I thought you never did this?"
"Didn't." Eallair smiled. "Knew some folk what did though. They said it could get…confusing."
Aidan sighed. "Why can't magic ever just be straightforward?"
"You figure that out and you can rule the world."
Aidan suppressed a shudder. He knew Eallair was just joking, but it still hit too close to some of his worries.
"You ready then?" Eallair asked, apparently not noticing anything wrong with him.
Aidan nodded.
"Good." Eallair leaned in and gave him a soft kiss. "Go find our hope."
And so he did.
◆◆◆
Aidan didn't even remember it happening. One second, he was looking down at the page burning up in his hand, wondering if that was going to happen every time, and the next he was…
Somewhere else.
He was floating in the middle of pitch-black nothingness; no sound, no sense of touch, just a sharp stab of panic as he flailed wildly in the air, tumbling end over end as he tried to escape. He thought it was a nightmare, at first. The dark room, part eight hundred. But that was how he realized it wasn't. In his nightmares he never knew he was having a nightmare. They all seemed so real to him that, even years later, he sometimes had a hard time remembering they were dreams and not memories of things that had really happened. This place was dark and strange, but it didn't feel real. It was like he was floating just outside of real.
Also, the fact he could see himself clear as day in the darkness was a pretty good indication this wasn't one of his normal dreams.
He forced himself to stop flailing as his heart rate slowed down to something almost like normal. That was strange, too. He didn't usually get over that kind of terror so quickly. It's like just thinking about it made it happen. Which, when he thought about it, made no sense. Why would he ever jump to that conclusion? The thought came out of nowhere, like…like…
You divined it, idiot.
Right. The whole reason he was here in the first place. He laughed, scaring himself when it echoed back at him. The echo grew louder and louder until it seemed like there wer
e a hundred Aidans screaming in laughter before abruptly cutting off.
Okay then. No more making noise.
Unfortunately, since there didn't seem to be a handy road sign or, even better, a scroll with detailed instructions on where to find Excalibur, staying silent was the only idea he had. He tried to come up with something better, but it was impossible to focus; his equilibrium didn’t care how dark it was, it knew he was spinning, and it was not happy.
How do I stop?
And, just like that, he stopped.
"Oh."
"Oh." It echoed through the blackness, just like the laugh had. "Oh. Oh. Oh! OH! OH! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH—"
Aidan tentatively took his hands away from his ears when the sound cut off. Right. Can't say anything.
If he was being honest with himself, the whole echo thing really freaked him out. That in itself was strange because the darkness, for some reason, didn't. Not anymore. It was soothing. Except that wasn't right; it was that he didn't want to be afraid of it, so he wasn't.
So, anything I wanna know, I know. That felt right, too. Apparently, divination wasn't just about finding things; it was about finding anything, including knowledge. He barely held back a laugh. I could know anything. Again, it felt right. He grinned, thinking this was possibly the coolest thing that had ever happened to him. How is cheese made?
This time, there wasn't a feeling.
A thousand images assaulted him at once, like someone had sliced off the top of his head and started shoving crystal ball after crystal ball into his brain, each with a different recording. A cow being milked. Something being injected into milk. A large, open space filled with machinery powered by the soft glow of magic. A similar room, but brightly lit with a harsh white light and no sign of a magical glow anywhere. A tentacle carving a hole in nothingness with a knife that seemed to go off in directions that weren't real and pulling a perfect, yellow cube out it. Wheels of cheese just sitting on a shelf. A large, yellowish block of cheese with what looked like legs slowly ambling over to another, identical block of cheese and mounting it. More and more and more; piling on top of each other until he shouldn't have been able to tell them apart, but he still could, and it felt like it was killing him.
Stop!
The images stopped. Aidan's head felt like it was about to split in half. He clenched his teeth to keep from crying out in pain.
What the fuck was that?
And because he asked, he knew. It was every possible way that cheese could be made in every universe that had ever, or would ever, exist.
Slowly, the pain in his head began to lessen to the point where he was almost sure he wasn't going to die. Everything he'd seen was still swirling around in his mind, but it no longer felt like the knowledge was tearing him apart. So many different, impossible ways to make cheese, so many glimpses into things that couldn't possibly be real—
No! I don't wanna know. Don't tell me!
Thankfully, there were no more images. No feelings. He let out a relieved sigh, wincing when it echoed.
Eallair was wrong, Aidan realized. He was in real danger here. Wherever he was, whatever magic made this work, it showed him exactly what he asked for, not what he wanted. Ask something too vague and literally every possible way that question could be answered would be forced into his head at the same time. He didn't even need to ask to know that could kill him. He'd probably already be dead if he hadn't stopped it.
No wonder Eallair had told him not to get distracted. But why the hells didn't he tell me this could kill me?
Because he didn't know. Aidan slumped, as much as he could when he was floating in nothingness, anyway. He couldn't even stay mad at Eallair long enough to feel better when he could know with one hundred percent certainty it wasn't his fault.
Okay. So. Aidan needed to be specific. Really specific. And he needed to do it quickly before some other absent thought brought on another rush of head splitting images and killed him.
What can I do to get a single answer to a single question?
He had about half a second to be proud of thinking of that before the answer came to him: Just ask.
Aidan scowled. That was helpful…Why didn’t I get a more detailed answer?
Divination can only answer questions that are asked. It couldn't tell someone what they should be asking. Aidan scowled harder.
Knowing everything wasn't as great as it'd seemed a few minutes ago.
He needed to figure out how to ask what he needed to ask and get back to the real world.
Lee would be so much better at this than me.
And that was when something occurred to him. Something that, once he thought of it, he tried immediately to forget, to push it away so he wouldn't be tempted. He might as well have been standing on a beach trying to push back the ocean. The thought grew and grew until it was the only thing he could think about.
He could find out anything he wanted about Eallair.
Every time he'd avoided one of Aidan's questions, every time he'd deflected or told only half the truth, every time Aidan had so badly wanted to know something about him, none of it mattered anymore because he could literally know anything and everything there was to know about Eallair. And it wouldn't even be like he was pushing, either. He wasn't trying to pressure Eallair into talking about things he didn't want to talk about. The sorcerer would never even know. Whatever secrets he had, whatever things he didn't want to tell Aidan, they'd still be secrets, as far as he knew. Aidan would finally know, and Eallair never had to know he knew. It would be the best of both worlds.
Aidan would know…
And, in the end, that was the problem.
Because it was dishonest, and deceitful, and Aidan would always know he'd done it. He might not know much about love or relationships, but he knew how it felt to be betrayed by someone he cared about. No matter how much he might want to, he couldn't do that to Eallair.
Even if it was tempting…
There has to be something I can ask that wouldn't be too bad…
The answer came to him almost before he'd finished his thought. But not in the almost familiar, out of nowhere way that knowledge came to him in this place. It was a question that had been in between every thought he'd had for a while now. The one Eallair-related question he wanted to know more than anything else.
Do I love Eallair?
The answer was as clear as it was heartbreaking: No.
Why not?
Because the man he thought of as Eallair didn't actually exist.
"What?" Aidan ground his teeth together as the word echoed, the despair behind it growing until it was a wailing that cut off as abruptly as every other sound in this place.
What does that even mean? How can he not exist? I've talked to him! I've touched him!
But Eallair wasn't his name. Not in the way that mattered. He'd said it himself; a true name is a name given to someone with great emotion behind it. Eallair wasn't a name, it was a description. It was what he was, not who he was.
That didn't make much sense to Aidan either. How can a name not be a name?
When it's a title. A definition of function, not an identification.
Aidan scowled. That was just the same answer he'd gotten before worded differently.
Fine, be vague and mysterious and shit. I get that all the time and from people who do it a lot better than you, you stupid divining void…thing. Aidan paused, not sure if the next thing he wanted to ask was too much of an invasion of privacy. If he wanted to know the answer to his original question though, he needed to know how to ask it…
So, what's his real name?
Aidan couldn't help smiling.
It was "Lee". Aidan's shelter from the storm. A name given to him with strong emotions that described not just who he was, but who he wanted to be, better than anything had in so very long.
And…is one of those emotions love?
No, but several of them could turn into love. And, really, that wasn't what he wanted to ask
because at the time he'd first called him Lee, Aidan could barely admit that he was attracted to Eallair, let alone had any deeper feelings. Any strong emotions he’d had back then wouldn’t have been love even if he was madly in love with Eallair now. Which led him back to his original question. The one in the present tense.
Do I lo—
His thoughts trailed off as something in the distance caught his attention.
Actually, that there was even a distance for something to be in was enough to completely derail anything he was thinking out of sheer surprise on its own. This, however, was an actual, physical object in a place he wasn't even sure existed; that he wasn't even really in, since he was presumably, hopefully, still back in the hotel in bed. The strange object looked like a shifting, writhing gray ball, expanding and contracting on itself over and over, like a pulsing cloud made of pure lightning as it moved. And it was moving. It was moving right towards Aidan.
And it was moving fast.
What in the ancient hells is that?
And, because he asked, an answer was provided.
They were the Mists of Knowledge. A collection of thought and deed, the physical manifestation of everything that had, would, or could ever have existed. They were the whole reason divination was even possible. The Mists lived in the void, because the void was a place where knowledge itself lived. Infinite, because there is no limit to what can be known. Black, because knowledge was consumed by the Mists, and without knowledge, there is literally nothing. The Mists were always growing, always searching out new knowledge, new things to know. And yet they already knew everything. They were a paradox that could only exist outside of the physical world.
Just thinking about it made Aidan's head hurt, but he ignored it. Because he also knew the truth of the void was that all light inside of it came from knowledge. It was why Aidan could see himself so clearly despite there being no light. It was why the Mists glowed so very bright even as far away as they were. The fact Aidan knew anything lit him up like a beacon in a world without light. A bright signal to anyone or anything that cared to look. And the Mists were always watching.
And they were always hungry.
What happens if the Mists touch me?