III

The Fallingway

Gripping his hat against the wind Milton gazed at the distant tree line, a swathe of dark green stirring under the deepening sky and the granite lake glinting from between the pine boles. He made his way towards the lake across a field of short grasses and pale flowers that bent under the gale. Coming near upon the tree line he stopped. The hooded figure stood motionless under the swaying eaves of the great dark pines that gathered on the lakeshore. Buffeted as he was by the squall coming in off the lake the figure remained still, trance-like, as some ancient carved form staring out with stone eyes against the winds of another age. The faint thundering of distant falls filled the pines. Deep grey water chopped in the wind.

Uttering a quiet word of command as he approached the figure Milton’s staff began to pulse with a golden light. Two depthless blue eyes stared out of the shadowed red shroud and a resonant voice issued forth.

‘You will have no need of that, Wizard’

‘Nonetheless’ Milton answered as he planted the staff firmly in front of himself.

‘We of the realm are aware of your undertaking and have perhaps guessed of its purpose’

‘Is that so?’ Milton replied. ‘And what am I to expect from the Dreamers of the lake?’

‘There are among us some who are not opposed to the task with which we believe you to be attempting. To challenge the sacred fire…the consequence of this would be of interest to us.’

‘So, I will not be hindered?’

‘At this time indeed not. We can offer aid. Here in this place, as you know, resides such a being as you seek.

‘Yes. My divination led me here. I shall find it in the lake.’ Milton replied with slight impatience.

‘Not so’ the figure intoned ‘What you seek resides beyond the cascading waters. You must take the Fallingway.’

                                                           \*\*\*

Milton stood staring up at the vast roaring sheets of water as they fell, foaming white against the dark slate of wet stone that rose to a mountainous peak enveloped in mist. Following the path revealed to him by the dark figure he came upon a narrow continuous outcropping that appeared to run directly into the base of the falls. Edging slowly along the slick rock path towards the thundering falls Milton pondered more than once if this was not some ploy by that hooded figure to leave him crushed and lifeless there among the boulders and raging waters. But just as it seemed that the pounding crash of the falls would block his way the path turned sharply inward and continued along behind the violent impenetrable wall of water.

An arched tunnel spread darkly before him and the booming echo from the falls receded into the silent darkness like some last utterance of a soon to be lost world. Illuminated by the light of his staff the walls revealed their runic surfaces aglow in deep amber. Milton traced the inscribed runes with his finger, their jagged lines bitten deep into the stone and reverberant with a subtle force wholly unknown to him. He continued deeper into the tunnel encircled by the dim glow from his staff, his footsteps falling on the very edge of that illumined perimeter. As he went on, a distinct chill pervaded the narrow space. The air grew sharper and the stone walls radiated a barrow-like cold.

As Milton continued the tunnel began to widen, the darkened stone walls retreating further into pitch black space and almost at once Milton perceived that he was within a vast cavern whose boundaries were lost to him and unseen. Slowly the light of his staff began to falter, a last mote of golden light dimming away on the shores of a measureless dark. Milton gave a loud word of command yet the light of his staff drained away to nothingness and he was left in a darkness absolute and implacable. He shifted warily on his feet with his staff still held aloft for all its purposelessness. There was no sound save for the close rustlings of his cloak as he turned again and yet again to attempt any vantage in that utter dark. The way back was as lost to him as any possible way forward.

Slowly from out of the surrounding obscurity a frail glow was congealing, taking on an indistinct form of silvered light that wavered barely perceptible in front of Milton. Squinting he moved to take a step toward the light but was suddenly halted by a staggering presence within his mind. Wordlessly Milton was filled with the notion of a great threat, flashes of an ancient pain and of a timeless entrapment arose sharply and then gradually dissipated leaving only a leaden sense of despair.

Held fast by these unbidden forebodings Milton struggled to move, with great effort he managed to reach within his cloak and grasp one of the binding crystals concealed there. As Milton’s fingers wrapped around the hard crystalline surface a brilliant clarity sheared the intruding presence from his mind. The task with which he had set himself and the return beyond hope that he sought now filled his mind, briefly freeing him from the moribund influence of that belighted incarnation.

In those vast surrounds Milton stood with the crystal in his palm glinting softly in the light of the shimmering spectre that floated before him. He felt once more the intrusion of the presence seep into his mind, yet instead of threatening pain Milton felt a questioning sense roam his thoughts and perhaps buried under countless dark ages a meagre, ever faint glimmer of hope. Milton pondered this momentarily and then bent and placed the crystal on the dark stone floor where it lay like some sacred offering gleaming in the ghostlight between wizard and apparition. A timidness flitted briefly through Milton’s mind and then slowly he felt himself suffused with a sense of deep acceptance. Floating forward the spectre halted, lingering above the crystal. As Milton watched grains of light began to fall delicately from the hovering spectre onto the crystal below, as if within that deep cavern in the silent darkness there fell a gentle moonlit rain.

Yellow light blazed forth from Milton’s staff as the last silver ember drifted down onto the crystal and was absorbed therein. He stooped to grasp the crystal and stood with it in his palm, gazing at it as it glowed with a seemingly benevolent inner luminance. By the light of his staff Milton made his way back through the dark tunnels until he could hear the thundering of the waters and he passed again through the Fallingway.

Entered by: 0x9D04…0922 and preserved on chain (see transaction)