Through the pain, Fionn attempted to click his fingers, but a spark did not form. The tendrils around his body shifted, pulling him inwards. With another sickening crunch, Fionn’s lower torso caved in. Unbearable agony filled his mind, pushing out every other thought. He tasted iron on his tongue.
The walls! wailed Sir Bearach. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, they’re stone! Stone! The dead knight’s hysteric voice sobbed through Fionn’s mind. Can’t your magic move stone?
If one last attempt to placate the knight was all Fionn could do, he would make it the last thing he did. For all the time they spent together, bickering, arguing, aiding one another, Fionn would try this one last thing. For the companion he had been. For the friendship they had fostered. For the love that came with it.
Seletoth’s form convulsed, pulling the rest of Fionn’s body inside. Fionn raised one hand in defiance. The hand that once belonged to a brave knight, and he focused on the stone around him.
Geomancy had never been his strength, but with ease, the power of his soul touched upon the ground. Some great Geomancers could cause mountains to rise and fall, though Fionn was not one of them.
His pain reached a new, terrible height as the remnants of his legs burned to Seletoth’s digestive juices.
Fionn closed his eyes; only his head, shoulders, and one arm were free. His focus now was only on the stone floor. If not for a distraction from the pain, then for the soul of Sir Bearach. The soul that begged him not to give up.
With Geomancy, he groped along the stone floor. The weight of the stone was far too much to push or pull. He moved his power away, touching upon the ground of the path that had taken him here, searching for anything that may give way, for anything that may help.
Once more, Seletoth bore his strength down upon Fionn’s broken body, pulling his head inwards. Fionn’s eyes burned, and his skull cracked, but his arm remained outside, his fingers touching the air, the power of his soul uselessly scrambling across the cavern walls.
Until there, something felt different. Not stone but iron, and lighter too. It felt like a door, which pushed open with some effort. The stone out here was different, with images etched into them. Like a blind man, Fionn used the last of his strength to trace their etchings, trying to conjure an image of what they looked like.
Fionn’s skin burned, as his arm up to his wrist was consumed, but his soul still fought. Not his soul, their soul, searching the ground, trying to find anything to help. Even if futile, Sir Bearach deserved an end like his first, out in the fields of the Clifflands. A fight until the last breath.
Then Fionn found a rock made from a different type of stone to the rest. It was circular in shape. Smooth to touch.
With sudden realisation, Fionn flared the final strength of his and Bearach’s soul. The object came hurtling through the darkened halls of Seletoth’s caves.
When it collided with Fionn’s opened hand and Seletoth’s body, it exploded with a deafening roar that shook the cavern around them, consuming them both in a mighty torrent of blue fire and cracking the very earth itself.
Chapter 21:
Omniscience
As my most loyal servants and I gazed into that poisonous chasm, we learned the Truth: Seletoth is no god, but a malignant being born far from this land. Further than mortal minds can comprehend.
But still, He welcomed me like a father would a son. That terrible, rotting, pulsating creature at the bottom of the Glenn praised me for bringing His creations to this land, returning them to Him, and for a horrifying moment, something overtook me; a compulsion to give myself to this monster.
But as I stepped closer to the valley’s edge, something deep within me fought back, and I steadied myself. My allies, however, were not as strong-willed, giving into that madness and throwing themselves into the pit to be devoured by the horror.
I was powerless to help them, so I fled.
For a week I dwelled upon what I had seen, urging my men to explore other parts of the valley and beyond. This I did, until I came upon the only conclusion available to me.
Seletoth had to die.
Under the cover of night, I rode out, my most powerful battlemages by my side, but when we came upon that unholy chasm, the Lord was gone.
Back at camp, I questioned my men, and found that I had been deceived. Seletoth, it seemed, had spoken directly to the minds of others who served me; those who would not hesitate to betray me. They had deserted me and found Seletoth in the Glenn. But to where they took Him, I spent much time wondering.
Many years later, when my Lady Mother died, she transcended into a beautiful goddess of blue light. With this power, She could see the fates of all who lived, who had lived, and who would ever live. She named this the Tapestry of Fate, and it detailed the actions of those who had betrayed me for Seletoth.
Those deserters had found Him and carried Him to an isolated region near the western coast of this land. There, Seletoth created a mountain in which to dwell.
When I asked why, my mother said that Seletoth only had to wait, for there would come a day when a girl, and girl she named Godslayer, would claim all the souls that Seletoth had created, including Hers and mine, and bring them back to Him.
I confess, I did not know how to proceed. I asked my mother for council, but She said that even my own efforts would cause this fate to unfold as She had seen it.
So, I lied. I lied to my wife. I lied to my son. I lied to every man, woman, and child who served me, because the Truth must be concealed.
I write this by my own hand, only to be shared with those most faithful to our cause. Our new Church of the Trinity shall conceal this Truth and spread the teachings of Seletoth as we had first worshipped Him in ignorance. As a father. As a Lord.
As the god that never was.
The Truth, by King Móráin I, AC55
***
Alone and afraid, the young mage tried to move, but his body failed to comply. He attempted to speak but found that he had no voice. As he tried to remember where he was, or who he was, his memory recalled nothing. For indeed, right now he was nothing. No voice, no body, but just a vague awareness of being.
Sir Bearach! he thought, suddenly recalling the name he had given to other soul that once dwelled within him. Sir Bearach? Where are you?
There was a time, long ago, when the mage had first used magic to reach out and touch the soul for Sir Bearach. This he did again, his power searching through the void for the familiar warmth of the dead knight. But it could not be found. Instead, the mage found something else. Something different. Another soul, far larger, and far more powerful than anything he had ever sensed before. This other soul recoiled to the mage’s touch, but the mage pressed on.
As if grabbing the other soul by two hands, the mage merged it with his own.
Slowly, the names of other people the mage had once known came back to him. First was Fionn, which had been his name once. Then he recalled the Simians, Farris and Nicole. The Humans, Aislinn and Padraig. Morrígan, who had caused all of this. King Diarmuid, Fionn’s late father.
But this other soul did not belong to any of those people. An incredible force surged within Fionn’s own soul as it touched this other. The darkness that surrounded him seemed to cast itself aside, replaced by a deep, golden light. Abruptly, Fionn opened his eyes for what felt like the first time he had ever done so, and with this came a sudden understanding of the world around him.
Then he remembered one more name. One more important name, which had set him on this journey.
