1 One Wizard

08.01.2022

Ravalor did not dream. No wizard did.

When he slept there was only the mind of the five he was. Sometimes they were quiet, sometimes not so much – but they were always there. Each part finding rest in reaching out to the others, sharing their own existence. Processing, compressing and saving their memories, so when one part of him may die, he would be remembered.

A lost part could be rebuilt, as long as any other part was still existing. Seamless continuation from the point of death based on the memories kept safe within the rest of him. At least in theory.

In practice, however, it didn’t seem to be as clear cut as that theory suggested.

There was something missing. Of course, he couldn’t really know that – his scattered memories ended the very moment he had cut himself off from his Wizard, down in that cave, still a Scion to Zenozarax, and still dazed after his first encounter with the Mindcrawler.

But he knew there was more. A lot more that had happened that he just didn’t remember. He had been alive after that for days – the Wizard had felt it clearly enough – and in the moment when his death finally had come – he had almost known.

It was a shadow, an impression of memories that he had almost grasped before they had vanished into the void. And it hadn’t been the first time. The same shadow lingered over the last death of the Soldier in the Battle of Funnix. Other wizards would tell him that it was impossible, but he didn’t believe that.

Something had happened to the Soldier to make him more than he should have been. And his last memories were lost within the realm of his own existence as well.

He had come so close to see them, to truly reach into the void – but then the Stargazer had broken down. And this terrible sense of restless emptiness, taunting him with these ungraspable impressions, had become unbearably worse.

He hadn’t left this place since.

The one they called the Hermit wasn’t really sleeping. Not anymore. But he wasn’t really awake either. He didn’t want to be.

Distantly he thought he heard low, small voices in hushed whispers. Speaking about something that was dead. Or was it?

Curious.

But mainly he heard his own thoughts.

Today the feeling of dread seemed unsettlingly strong. A feeling vague enough to be called premonition, but not clear enough to become prophecy – lords knew he was deaf to those. But it was something.

No matter how hard he tried, lost in his own mind, he was unable to tell why he felt it this strongly right now. It was a day like any other. Nothing had changed. He hadn’t. Maybe something else had.

Curious.

Suddenly, something touched him. A hard and unexpected push against his leg and immediately he was wide awake, flinching back, eyes open, a breathless gasp, his hands shot up, glowing with magic – in response, a high pitch scream rang in the tunnel and consequently his ears.

And he blinked. A hard breath in his lungs. And he stared into the wide-open eyes of two kids, their frightened faces like little ashen moons illuminated by the magic of his hands and the light they carried.

Dwarven children. Two boys. The stick they had poked him with was still in one’s hand. Thank the lords he hadn’t just blown them to atoms. Sure, their disappearance would have been only one of many in these endless tunnels, but he would prefer not to be responsible for their death personally.

Ravalor let out a deep sigh, lowering his hands and his head dropped back against the wall.

“A–Are you the Hermit?”

“Are you lost?” He mumbled, ignoring the question as he closed his eyes again. By the lords he was still tired – he had thought too much, slept too little.

“No.” He heard the unconfident answer of one of the boys. “Are you?“

“No.” He answered. “I was sleeping.”

“Why are you sleeping here?“

“I was tired.”

There had been a time when he had returned to the tower when he felt tired, but there he had been unable to rest. Not much later, drawn into the ancient structures by a strange feeling, he had carved out a little shelter within the tunnels that had grown into his home over the centuries. But now, more often than not, he just slept where he was while wandering deep through the ancient tunnels. Sometimes not even remembering when he had fallen asleep. When he just sat down somewhere and fell unconscious by exhaustion after being kept awake by his restless mind for too long. But it really didn’t matter. Any sense of normalcy in any human’s eyes had died in the dark of these tunnels ages ago.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” He said, finally opening his eyes again and looking at the boys. Every word came almost automatically, like a mere reflex. How often had he had this talk with this or that young Aeven inexplicably finding him down here again and again – and getting lost in the process? Well, at least a dozen times. This wasn’t Aeven – but the words of reproach stayed the same. All in a fruitless attempt to deter these kids from wandering around down here on their own.

“We have a map!“

“That’s great. I doubt it’s complete. If you get lost down here you will die.“

They looked grimly back at him. He met their expression accordingly. By the lords, were all children this stubborn? Based on his own observations and limited sample size the answer was definitely yes.

“We won’t. We’re dwarves. This is our home.“

“It is not, and last I heard, despite all rumours, dwarves still can’t digest stones. You’re from Brema, that’s your home, go back there.” He groaned, his throat felt sore from speaking now after some months of silence. He did not care what impression these kids would take away from this encounter, he just needed them to leave.

“How do you know?” The impressed excitement over his perceived magical insight only strengthened the accent that clearly gave their hometown away.

“I just do. Now go!” he said sharply, and promptly the two boys jumped up and without another word, hurried away. He guessed his tone had been a lot sharper than he had intended.

He closed his eyes again as the tunnel fell back into absolute darkness. Tempted to just slip into a bit more sleep. But something kept scratching at the back of his mind.

For a moment he just sat there with a slight frown on his face. Thinking. Feeling. Trying to put a finger on this strange sensation again.

The hard stone beneath him was cold. Almost comforting in its familiarity.

But – this feeling of dread was curious. While it also had become almost normal, it had never been this strong and he felt more and more nervous by the second.

The Hermit shuddered, then he stood up, mindlessly brushing some of the dust off his black robe. He figured it barely did any good. It was dark again, there was no natural light down here, and while he saw well enough, he could still only guess the sorry state his robe must be in by now. Without thinking about it he opened a portal and momentarily arrived back in his cave, deep within the tunnels where the walls were rough and no man was supposed to walk. Unfortunately, that promise hadn’t held up against the truth of reality and the curious nature of certain humans.

A soft light lit up the moment it detected his presence, gently floating near the wall and immediately a whole population of critters scurried away from the light. A particularly thick tunnel rat had started nesting in his bed, obviously not only using the old fabric but very familiar scraps of paper for its nesting endeavours. And that was his own fault, he should have put them away when he had left. With a disgruntled murmur, he took the thin blanket, now containing a very angry and hissing mother rat and put it aside in a corner away from his bed. He may wasn’t using it much, but it was still his bed!

Clinically he observed his little cave and the mess his absence had caused over the mess he himself had left behind some weeks ago. He would consider himself rather cleanly, and in the beginning, there had been order to this chaos. But by now there was just too much of everything and no matter where he put this or that thing it never became less cluttered. Not every part of him believed that excuse though. The Kingmaker was the most critical whenever he searched for and brought the Hermit some information or tool, just adding to the mess. And he had to admit, it had been a while since he had even tried to bring any order into it.

There hung some clothes he had washed the dust off some weeks ago. The line was fixed right into the ancient walls. The shelves and sideboard were chiselled right into the rough stone by himself over the centuries.

There was clutter too. Countless books, tools, instruments, some ancient, some broken, none of them unimportant. Maps of the tunnel, of earth, of places far beyond where he had sent the Kingmaker on this or that quest, notes and scribbles of magic and mysteries, the lords’ weapons and artefacts, and his attempt to understand them. He never had put any faith in prophecy, but he sometimes felt his mind drawn to certain ideas and mysteries – feeling like the right thing to do. To prevent the doom he felt looming. There was a purpose to what he was doing here. A reason. There had to be one.

Of course, Mezchinhar had given him a purpose too. Begrudgingly so, after he had vehemently refused to leave these tunnels, he had become Treva’s silent watcher. Not as a Custodian by any means, he hadn’t reached the rank for that yet and neither the planet or the city belonged to him – it was more like a death watch he supposed. To look after a city that was prophesied to fall, to witness its demise – should it ever happen. But more importantly, way more important than the city, he was one of the wizards to watch the one who carried the Hammer Izarax. Admittedly he wasn’t doing that very well most of the time. Then again, in all fairness, the hammer itself did a far greater job in watching out for its owner than he ever could.

Ravalor didn’t believe in destiny, but by now the Hammer and its owner were as much entangled in his existence as these tunnels were.

Briefly, he woke up a few of the holographic displays from their slumber, glancing at the information presented to him. The Prince of Treva wasn’t on earth right now but he was alive. The Northman was with him. Both facts were reassuring.

Given his given purpose, he should be there too. To keep an eye on him. The only reason he hadn’t yet gotten a stern talking to was the fact that the Warrior was close by (In fact he had gotten a stern talking to about that, as he now had two of his Parts in the same solar system and the circle never liked to see that). But technically he was fulfilling his purpose. Even though the Warrior’s true focus and mission was something else as well. Someone else.

The Hermit stepped towards the small area where a crude basin was placed. He turned on the water – there was no pipework down here, of course not, the small tap wasn’t connected to anything there. Just a little, static hole punched through space.

While the basin filled up with ice–cold river water, he looked up at a small mirror he had actually traded for from the world up top. It was old now, the metal had long turned dark, the reflection was cloudy. He could have gotten one from the tower. Oh, there were plenty of mirrors there, seemingly untouched by time. But that hadn’t felt right. He hadn’t stepped in that tower for so long, even though it belonged to him now. It was still there alright, not even too far from here. Still waiting for him to return. Like frozen in time it waited.

But he couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t bear looking at the rooms and halls that were left just like they had been over two millennia ago. Where every piece and object was still drenched in nostalgia and memories – and that unsettling feeling of not remembering coexisting ill-fittingly with the wish to just forget all of it.

In the soft blue light his mirror image looked back at him like a corpse out of hollow eyes in a sharp, pale and dusty face. He shuddered as another wave of that terrible, dreadful feeling overcame him.

News came slow, but they came reliably. He saw nothing of the world but the rest of him watched out where the Hermit was willfully blind.

There was war in the empire. The peak of a conflict that had been brewing for centuries. And the one man that inexplicably yet reliably found him down here over and over again, the Prince of Treva, bound to the Hammer Izarax for a thousand years now, was leading earth’s armies into battle.

And Zenozarax, once defeated by Aeven and imprisoned in a frozen hell, had escaped from Charon.

He had heard of the turmoil above, knew of the wizards of which many had left earth as they too felt a looming threat again, leaving a possibly sinking ship at the first sign of bad weather.

But it paled to the turmoil within himself. With each day he expected to hear about Zenozarax. And with each day the dread became more pressing.

He had the faintest hope that cleaning his outside appearance would calm his troubled thoughts. Taking his focus away from the mess of his own mind he remembered the others. And there was comfort in that.

The Stargazer had woken up with him.

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