These words danced in his mind and he did not fight them. He enjoyed the cotton-candy deliciousness of the poetry of possibility and it did not torment him. His Purpose pounded with every heartbeat and it was not unappeased. He did not know if his Purpose was being sated because the answer was there or if just thinking it was the only possibility was enough. Even now, he could accept the possibility that it wasn’t there, except he was sure that this was the only place it could be. Pierait smiled to himself and felt a strange sensation tighten below his belly. When he looked down, he was startled to see a straining erection throbbing there. He put his hand around it and gasped at this new feeling.
The Soulless were as fertile as humans but unless their Purpose involved sex or physical pleasure, they never had use for it. It was also an odd thing that a Soulless parent was never known to have a Soulless child. There was no explanation for why, it just never happened. Nevertheless, whatever force changed a Soulless into something so erratic and human must be a dangerous thing indeed.
Pierait dropped his hand away and set his face with determination. His mind had been telling him he should find pleasure with himself because it might be the last time he ever gets to. He had been close to listening, he had already been circling his thumb around the head of his shaft, but then he had remembered something Rienna had said on one of their many journeys between cities.
“When you fight for something in your heart, you have to forget your heart to do it. The emotions will make you messy, make you blind to what must be done. You have to focus on feeling nothing and if you do your best and don’t die, maybe you get to succeed and feel again,” Pierait repeated out loud.
Humans lived with souls every day. They did not live every day as if it was their last and live long lives. Living every day as if it was your last, doing everything you want to do like there will never be time to do it again, it meant being reckless and Death favored the reckless—it was very likely to grant your wish of it being your last day. The ones that held onto their souls the best were the ones that treasured moments made of good decisions rather than solely what they desired. Humans that lasted saved hard earned money for nicer things, not a pile of losing lottery tickets. They sure as hell didn’t whip out their cocks in a wasteland full of wraiths because today might be their last. No, if he was going to use it, he wanted it to be in a clean warm bed with a beautiful woman…
Pierait refocused and set his face in a stone mask. Humans also knew how to use possibility to their advantage. That was the way Pierait intended to handle it.
As he approached the Wall, he began to drag his hand along the surface. It was a repulsive feeling, like reaching your hand into coagulated blood, goopy and lukewarm and slimy. Still he walked and kept his hand on the Wall, having to stop twice to puke before he heard the ghostly giggle of a little girl and knew he had found it.
He walked a couple more steps forward and faced the wall. He knew it was solid there, but he closed his eyes and walked forward anyway. The wall was thick, he knew, so he kept his eyes closed through the terror he felt and walked 20 steps then opened his eyes and the wall was solid directly behind him. Lyria had said if he tried to open his eyes too soon, the wall would crush him inside of it, something about the mind making fears real.
He looked ahead of him and the image of a girl with razor sharp metallic teeth, her head dangling by a gory strip of her neck’s elastic skin flashed before him then faded. He knew these things were intended to scare; that the things that were dangerous here were wraiths, Furies, and the tangible Lost. Only three things and the rest was illusion.
Pierait intended to deal with none of them and he began to call his Void. He frowned unhappily as he realized the Void he had come to rely upon was weak here and he now faced the dangerous prospect that he had never bothered to arm himself. Pierait did not panic though; the Void was weak, not useless, and it could still have its uses.
Directly ahead of him, he could see the twisted realm of the Furies that they called the Valley of Death. It went on as far as the Barri Range would let it and the creatures inside of it both terrified and saddened him greatly. They were twisted things in a grotesque humanoid form; two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head but the comparisons ended there. The heads were sometimes longer than legs and the legs two different lengths. Sometimes, there were great holes through the torsos. Some walked on one regular leg and another that bent unnaturally the other direction. Their faces contorted in changes and where sometimes he could see the faces of babies or crying women, he might see it contort into a demon’s wicked grin or a bleeding mass of worms. It was a place you could imagine Hell to be and it was no coincidence that some called it the Mouth of Hell. This was the only place on this world where Furies manifested without purpose, usually preferring their own dark dimension, but there was instability here and some were stumbling around there trying to find a way back in. This is what Pierait would become for eternity if he failed. He wondered how many Soulless had come here to join those twisted things soon after. It was possible that the place was here for that very reason.
He followed the Wall south and paid careful attention here. He kept the wall to his left so he only had to watch his back, front and right. Lyria had assured him that none of the creatures would go near the Wall so he was mostly safe as he walked against it. He would follow the Wall south until his Void started to flicker then he would be on his own, heading into the darkness. Nightmarish things would appear before him but they would always fade; maggot-riddled torsos, legs running towards him with the top of the body gone other than a dangling dripping spine. He did not care because they could not hurt him.
Pierait could see human remains in rather alarming numbers starting from no less than 30 feet from the wall and they were not an illusion. He decided that he was safe within 20 ft. of the wall but still stayed close. He had no desire to touch the wall again so he was glad for that at least.
For hours, he had walked along the Wall and the part he dreaded had arrived; the Void flickered like a sputtering flame and he could see the darkness swallowed whatever horizon lie to the west. The night was approaching as well and the landscape so poorly lit was nearing pitch black. Pierait did not let himself fail into despair here and he stopped to think and look around. Far in the distance, he could make out a reverberating light or rather a pulsing spot more dark grey than black; he could hear a low pulsing in time with its dim to dark glow. Not having any plan in mind, he headed straight for it. He might be being led to his death, as the others had, but it seemed like all paths here pretty much did, so there was no use dwelling on it.
If nothing else, Pierait decided his Void at least allowed enough light for him to see where he put his feet. Now that it was night he could see nothing; the horrifying visions of human gore had stopped plaguing him as well, but he realized he was probably signaling trouble to find him. He decided he would much rather see them coming than blindly walking into them though.
“Ah, Soulless, what is your Purpose?” the drippy, inhumanly deep voice had asked him. He did not look around for it felt like it was all around him anyway.
“I am here for a Soul,” he told the asker. He heard the sound of shocked whispers and giggles. After a minute or so the voice came again.
“No, no, lost one, I did not ask you what you wanted; Soulless always get confused here. What is your Purpose?” the voice asked now.
“I already told you. Finding a Soul is my Purpose,” Pierait insisted blankly.
The voices sounded scared and angry as they whispered this time. The drippy voice grew angrier.
“No Soulless is ever given that Purpose; it is doomed to fail! Cease your lies!”
Pierait was angry too now; Pierait was not a liar, even with possibility allowing him to be.
“My mother stole the secret and gave me the Purpose. If it’s so doomed to fail, why am I being led here?” Pierait explained through clenched teeth.
He did not hear the whispers this time. The voice,
when it spoke again, was calm but menacing.
“I ask the questions. Why did you search here?”
Pierait thought back to those last moments with his father.
“Veylic sent me here. He told me it is the only place left that could hold a wellspring. Since I did not understand possibility, it was the only option,” Pierait told the voice.
30 feet in front of him, between him and the pulsing light, a disgusting mass of black, sickly green tentacles with hundreds of glowing green eyes appeared. He stopped and held his ground. The thing’s eyes were all on him watching him. He stared back into the two largest at the top of the mass. It slithered wetly and oozed, both literally and with undisguised malice.
“I am not driving you to madness,” the thing stated, the voice clearly belonging to it. It seemed deeply unhappy with its statement and Pierait had no doubt that most living beings would be driven to madness or fear. Pierait may have succumbed but the closer he had gotten to the glowing promise of a fulfilled Purpose, the less he was frightened by possibility and failure.
“I suppose that’s how you killed the rest of them,” Pierait accused, his voice betraying no emotion or judgment. He simply stated it blandly for the sake of conversation and maybe in small part, curiosity.
“I feed on fear and confusion, but if what you say is true, then your Purpose is protecting you from that,” the thing said, its voice now dripping with intrigue. “I will take you to the Wellspring. You may die as the rest did, but not by my hands… tentacles… whatever… Maybe it’s time we see what happens when the Soulless reach the Well…”
Not because it was his Purpose or because it was the better possibility but because this thing seemed to be offering a sort of limited protection if only he follow the thing. It moved faster than it looked and he had to keep his pace quick to keep up. He could not see the light he was looking for but after an hour of walking and hearing the occasional whisper of the voices that seemed to hover on the edge of their green glow, he was started to see the faint purplish glow of the light from around the massive thing. When the thing slithered out of his way, it was about 100 feet in front of him. Pierait noticed now that his Void was null completely now and stopped attempting to use it. The only problem was that the source of the light was floating above an enormous crater in the ground that he could see no bottom to. It was literally what appeared to be an enormous water well, a circular stone thing with the swirl of light coming up from the crater and again, seeming to go on forever down into it.
The tentacled thing watched him mutely.
“I don’t suppose you know how to get to it,” Pierait wondered.
“No,” it stated.
Pierait squatted down to think, picking up a handful of dust and dropping it at his feet. He frowned as he noticed the fine cloud of it appeared to float in the air where it looked as if it sloped into the crater.
“Is this hole really here?” Pierait asked.
“It is the Unending Chasm and if you fall in, you fall forever,” the thing told him.
So it wasn’t entirely illusion unless this thing was lying. Pierait picked up a handful of dust and threw it forward. It clung to a path in front of him but not everywhere so the tentacled creature was not entirely false; the way was not impossible, just hidden. He stuck out his foot and tested the spot and it was solid indeed. He gathered handfuls of dust in his belt pouches (which were mostly empty due to the fact he had given most of his possessions to Lyria) and started to sprinkle them as he stepped out into the chasm. It was not a straight path by any means and sometimes he had to jump onto platforms to get closer but eventually he stood before it. He had wanted to think about what to do next, but his Purpose and Rienna’s words about the Lifestream probably not harming one with a soul anyway ultimately led him to sudden bravery and he stuck out his hands into the light and a pain so sharp ripped through him that he thought he would tear in half.
He was in such intense pain that he could not even scream and collapsed to the ground beside the well, seizing and foaming at the mouth in anguish. He couldn’t move but he saw the light dive into him and the chasm all around him shook and filled itself in with the dust all around the Wellspring until it was solid everywhere. He thought the light would fill him until he burst but he saw nothing but light and dust and he choked and gasped for air. Blackness covered him and he could think no more.
When Pierait woke, the air still hung with dust and the sky above was not a lightless matte black but the usual navy blue of a night outside the Barren Lands, dotted with the dusting of a million stars. He enjoyed the peace of it until he felt a great tentacle wrap about his waist and thrash him into the air and terror filled him irrationally as he screamed. It was an odd sound he had never heard from himself before and he might have been awed if fear were not so prominently tearing through him. The tentacled monstrosity laughed evilly and opened its toothy maw.
“Oh, the delicious fear, you will be the best meal yet!” the thing promised, its voice higher with delight. How long had this thing waited for him to wake to taste his fear? This creature was patient; he’d give it that.
Pierait stuck out his hand, hoping the Void would be back, but from his hand shot that purplish light that he had seen in the well and it tore through the tentacled thing so that it dropped Pierait as it screamed in a sickly explosion of rubbery blackness and melted away. From its body a green light hovered and became purple and an aural field encased Pierait as he felt his body absorb it.
“Did I just… absorb a soul?” Pierait asked with wonder. It seemed unfair that such an evil creature should have one though.
Pierait started looking around and he was confused, scared, so many emotions so new and strong and lasting were assaulting him. The chasm was filled in somehow but the well sat there still. He ran to it, looking inside to see it was just like any other well; it had a bottom and it was dry to the bone. Pierait shrunk back, wondering what the hell had happened. Had he ended the last Wellspring? Did this mean nothing new could be born?
He turned about and caught his breath as he realized a ghostly man in robes, not unlike a grim reaper in books, stood there unmoving but for a smoky white aura lapping around him in wisps.
“Wellspring, born anew, tell me your name…” the man-thing rasped.
Pierait realized with panic that he couldn’t think of it.
“You are reborn, so you need an extra name; the old will not do, you are no longer you. You will be Pierait Wellbourne, two names, as only royalty and old gods possess,” the man said.
“But I could remember the Well, the Void, my Purpose, my friends… Lyria… why not my own name?” Pierait asked.
“It is amazing you have kept your memories at all. You are All Souls now. In for a penny, in for a pound,” the man rasped.
“So only I can give out souls?” Pierait asked, frightened. He was looking at his limbs, feeling his face, gradually relieved that it still felt familiar.
The man laughed drily.
“No, no, you are like a faucet; you stopped the deluge but not the flow altogether. Souls will be born, the Soulless are no longer, the Furies gone forever, the Barren Lands at peace. No more wraiths or Lost or tormented. The Souls are at rest and the ones who are not needed are at your command,” he explained. He stood in disbelief as this being tossed so many impossible events out like he was discussing the weather. Pierait was overwhelmed —was it the souls that filled him with these chaotic thoughts?
“And what are you exactly?” Pierait asked.
“Mot, essence of Death,” the reaper told him.
“Are you giving me your power?” Pierait asked, but Mot laughed again.
“You have powers over life and death; you don’t need mine,” Mot said. “I leave you with one last warning, Wellbourne. When the ground shook, it is because one of the old gods opened an eye, disturbed from the Dream, when you changed the Well. If that is what they do for so little a movement, imagine the chaos if they were to wake altogether before
the Dream is dreamt. Return to your friends, prepare for what is to come.”
The Barren Lands still seemed like a skeletal dusty place as Pierait had started back for the distant Wall but he noticed with shock that a good half of the sky high mountains had crumbled away, over into the sea apparently, and he could see stars in the sky but clouds were moving in as well. As he watched the fast moving clouds gather, a great rain started to pour, at first kicking up the dust but the great sheets of rain dampened even the air so that very quickly, the thirsty dust became a strange kind of paste as if the dust were faintly remembering how to drink again. Pierait was slipping about, trying to keep his feet, soaked to the bone and trying to see through the downpour.
It took him twice as long at this rate just to get to the Wall and once he did, he was suddenly dodging great black chunks of rock before it crumbled to pebbles. His heart was happy once he realized he would be able to see Lyria much sooner, without the great barrier lengthening the trip between him and the city of Sorrow. He might be able to make it by morning and surprise her before she even woke. The idea filled his heart with complete joy.
When he thought back on his life, he could feel memories now—a thing he couldn’t do before. He felt the strong love and worry for his mother, the absence of his father, memories came with emotions attached and ‘what if’s played in his mind, but he shut them out because he found he could do that too. He wanted to see Lyria, who had trusted him without fail, and he wanted to learn the things that he hadn’t thought necessary before because it wasn’t part of survival or his purpose. From now on, his purposes were of his choosing.
He wept hard for the first time in his life and looked up to the sky.
“Mother, you were right… I am free…”
The rain had slowed by the time he reached the city and he could already see people out in it, as soaked as he was, and they were laughing at the sky and dancing together. People must have seen something odd about him; they had a look of awe on their faces as he came up and Pierait saw the guard he had known as Iric rushing up to him.
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 42