Fable - Ask To Purvey

[One Eye]

But the darkness was there to greet him. When those eyes did come open. But in flickers and flutters. Thin lines of sight, for the crust of a strange bile formed around the eyes of that most precious being they brought to this dark and dank place. Hidden from the sun. Wet. With a stench of iron and oil and rot.

Metal clanged, as large gears cranked and turned in the distance. The cold staccato of chains, like a melody of ice come to crack.

The sound of water. As if beneath its crushing depths. Every breath a bubble, contained, a sphere, kept together by pressure as it gurgled toward a surface that was not there. The eerie blue light that seemed to diffuse unevenly in the eye. Blinding. Burning. Yet soft all the same. Cold. It took as much as it gave.

Two forms stood before the light. Dark and twisted. Their backs turned toward the glass tank that gurgled with pale cold amnion fluid.

"My, he did do a number on you, didn't he, One Eye?" a small hunched man with an arm made of silvery metal, much like a spider's leg, strung together with silver string alloys that gleamed like blue silk. The hunched goblin of a man, with lenses upon lenses over his eye as his aracnhic hand twidled and danced, knitting silken strands together. "The Killing Light," he little man laughed. "Yes, yes, now, he will kill for us, won't he?"

The One Eyed Archer, being stitched back together, sat upon the cold stone slab. Strange smile across his strange face. His single red eye shut to the world around him as he breathed shallow breaths.

"We will see what comes..."​

---

Art by Dominik Mayer "The Great Synthesis" for MTG

 

[Solon Raye]

Was there any nightmare greater than a night without stars?
Was there any pain greater than loneliness?
In that space, days and nights may have passed and yet...

He dreamed of her.
​

He could barely make out her visage in the sea of flame. Her eyes and locs were obscured by the fire that made up her skin and aura. Whenever she came to see him, he wasn't alone. She wept with him and told him tales in a language he only understood in the depths of his being. She spoke flame in an attempt to light his own. And when his light didn't return, she would weep and wander off into that black void. She didn't know that he could hear her.

All this time... Did she know that he still longed for her.

It was a touch that woke him to an eerie blue light. A touch and a demand to figtht... And yet even though the light had returned to his spirit, his muscles were still weak. A sword arm that had fallen great liches, vampires, werewolves, brigands, warlords, and things indescribable was all but useless. But the fire still burned. In his eyes...

Frantically, they looked about, fighting to see through the crust that had formed around them.​

​

 

[Three Eyes]

A pale hand touched the glass of the amnion tank, withered and scarred.

"Pull him out," commanded a voice, low but feminine. Chains rattled, until they pulled taught, and slowed to a singular clinking sound. The fluid stirred as the tank descended, into depths of machinery below the floor. The man remained, cold lines of wetness flowing off of his form like a robe. The blue lines formed a froth of foam as they slid back into the tank.

The first choking breaths of air would burn for the Killing Light. They always did.

"Light remains in the man," the same voice said. Standing before the tank was a woman clad in white. She lowered her hand, and it disappeared into folds of cloth. "He cannot become a vessel until he is empty... there is still something keeping him tethered."

There was no smile upon the woman's face. Her features, marred by time and bile, were grim set into her emaciated form. Two colorless eyes looked upon the man. The third was closed, a vertical slit upon the woman's brow.

"But that is why you have brought me here, isn't it? To cut that last thread."

One Eye Solon Raye

 

[One Eye]

"That is what you do best, Hierophant," came the sure and distant tone of One Eye, the Archer.

A pounding from the distance. The soft sobs that came through cold iron. A warmth, most fragile and delicate, like light refracted and traced across the hairs of a moths' wings, bathed in the twin moons' light. Far removed from the bright shine of the day's star, but aglow with the memory of it.

A hiss came from the small man with the spidery metal arm. "That wretched child," his voice tightened to a whine. "Why we don't just, pluck her gifts from her, use them," he nod his head in short jittery bobs. "Yes, pluck her gifts and give them to-"

A strong hand snapped up. Its strong fingers wrapped about the small man's throat. A breath choked in his throat. The Archer, whose single eyes was shut to the world, stared on at nothing as his new fingers flexed their strength.

"You have no say in the fate of the Child," the Archer's words were as cold as the new hand that worked tighter around the small man's neck.

A grunt. Struggle to draw in breath. The man with the spidery arm squirmed as his pale face purpled. "Of- course, Arrthun, of-" The hand squeezed tighter. The small man's singular eye bulged further out of his skull.

The Archer released him.

The small man fell to his knees. His flesh hand braced against the floor, as his strange metalic limb clutched at his reddened neck. He drew in breaths desperately.

The Archer rose from the altar he had rested upon. He flexed his new-found arm. Its long boney fingers gleamed steely blue.

The small man coughed, wheezed, gathered himself back up to his feet. "Shall I-" he coughed more. Settled his breath. "Shall I acquire the needle?" he asked.

Three Eyes Solon Raye

 

[Solon Raye]

"But that is why you have brought me here, isn't it? To cut that last thread."
​

"...You had best acquire tough shears, demon..."

The words he spoke broke through his burning lungs. Discomfort was something that he had grown used to. Wise men who begot their knowledge from wise men taught him a valuable lesson. There was no such thing as greatness without adversity. Pain was something he learned to welcome a long time ago. An old friend who would hold his hand gladly as he stepped into the light and became one with it. His body ached and his lungs cried for more air all the same, though. The body could only take so much, but it was Solon's spirit that kept him defiant in the face of the blackness of his foe's evil.

The one with the weakest spirit among his captors had spoke of wanting to pluck the powers from someone... Who? A Child? The Child? Solon attempted to will himself to his feet. He had no sword, but he had his two hands and his own great will. The Killing Light tried to convince himself that he had been in worse situations. There was always a way out. Some incantation to use or some weapon to grab. There was always a throat or a tongue near enough that he could tear asunder from some villain's body. Though the light was still within him, he knew his body was weak. And it would grow weaker the longer they tried to break his will.

Perhaps more than his own safety, Solon knew that the safety of the child was of paramount importance. If they broke him and used him for their own ends, they might have won countless battles. But to use the Child? The war would be over...

And so Solon Raye slowed his breathing and withdrew into himself. He bit his tongue and allowed his mind to do the speaking.

If he reached out to the Child, could she hear him? Could her third eye see more than the two that were blinded?

 

[Three Eyes]

Needles, shears... The three eyed Hierophant sneered at the artless assumptions being made by the men around her.

"Nothing so barbaric. This isn't one of your lifeless dolls, Simon. Such toys will not work on the Killing Light." Teeth flashed in a scowl, jagged as the scars upon her face. She turned her back to the suspended man, her long robes twisting round her ankles as she did so. Watched passively as the Archer tested his new arm out on that maggot of a tinkerer.

Behind her, the prisoner retreated into himself.

Simon, the little man, scrabbled back to his feet and fled the Archer's path. He went to the array that controlled the amnion tank's machinery. That annoying spider-limb clacked over the crystalline surface and glowing runes.

"Perhaps we've been too rough with the Killing Light," Simon said in a cruel tone that made it seem as if he wished he could be rougher. "He's gone unconscious again."

---

The Child was huddled, alone, in a dark place. Her cries stopped and she raised her head from her knees, looking past the iron bars of her cage. In that third place, that dreamscape of the eye and soul, the Child would see Solon Raye. But standing between them was a cold shadow, a silhouette of snowy white that blanketed everything, doused every fire, and silenced every cry of help.

The Heirophant raised her hand against the light of Solon Raye, and the Child cowered behind her.

You flee from me, Flame, right into my own domain.

Solon Raye One Eye

 

[One Eye]

The Child. Mina, of the Trinemorro. She could see with her eyes unclouded. In that space of dreams. In that space of desires. Of the mind. Of the soul. One eye upon the Mud. One eye upon the Ash. As easy as breathing.

Only now, she could hardly breath. So gripped by fear was her heart.

A visage appeared before her, there in the depths of the slumbering mind. Within the un-light of the Loch. Refracted and diffused. Rays of light's memory. Distorted and changed.

A man stood before her. A man at once familiar to her, and strange. There had been another man too. Strong and brave, like this man who shimmered before her. But that man had brought her here.

Another figure appeared. As pale as a ghost. Robes flowing like banners in the currents.

You flee from me, Flame, right into my own domain.

The Child. Mina. She gasped for breath. Fingers dug into the silt of the mire, took hold of it like a cloak, and turned to billowing curls of muck.

Solon Raye Three Eyes

 

[Solon Raye]

In that void, he could see the light from her third eye still. As brilliant as anything Solon had ever seen when he took a step into that layer of the loch. Certainly, he could reach out to her and at the very least carry her consciousness to somewhere safe. Far away from these creatures that could twist her into something horrid. Or use her for some foul purpose that even outside of his own body, Solon shuddered to imagine.

And then that ghost appeared before him, a pale flame with her robes flowing in a wind he could not feel. He was outmatched here. But he would not recoil he would not give up this child's life out of the fear that gripped him. His greatest teachers always told him that fear was natural. Unavoidable. There would be enemies that would seem insurmountable. But he had to push through...

He had to push through....
I will not cower before you, wraith!

He didn't need to vanquish her. The child needed only watch what he did next so that she might do the same. Behind her third eye was the boon she needed to be as bright as any flame. Bright enough to follow him into ash. And so heat began to rise from him as he prepared himself. His own flame was not pale. It burned like the light of a furnace. A different color than the mindstuff that surrounded them.

 

[Three Eyes]

The knight stood his ground, flaring hotter still. Tried to make the heat of his will burn through, but he could not even singe the hem of her robes.

The Heirophant scowled, or grinned. It is a valiant effort, however wasted. her voice echoed through the mind. You rabble knights think you know the other realms so well. Even naming your ranks after them: Loch and Life, Flame and Death. Perhaps I will show you a glimpse of the truth, before you die.

The Heirophant held fingers up. One little cut, and you'll be free of all that. Free of pain, of sentiment, of this fire which burdens you so. She brought them together, mimicking the slick of scissors. But before she could complete the movement, the child stood up.

The Child--!

Mina. She gasped for breath. Fingers dug into the silt of the mire, took hold of it like a cloak, and turned to billowing curls of muck.

The Child, protected in her cloak of smoke and soot, caught fire.

A scream of pain came from the Hierophant. She covered her face, shrunk back against the heat of it.

The dark of the room was lit blindingly bright with flame. Around them, the cold stone floors of the prison melted. Iron bars bent and warped. What had seemed an inescapable prison, crumbled as it burned.

And then, all was Ash.

Solon Raye One Eye

 

[One Eye]

A land of utter light. All colors, burned away. For the Flame burned so, that all three eyes need be shut.

Mina shielded herself from it. Eyes squeezed tight as she recoiled from the glare. But there was no hiding from the heat. The blaze that burned of every color there behind the lids of her eyes. Where there was once rest. Now there was only the relentless will to be.

Open.

Her eyes could not but remain open as her feet felt aflame against the earth. A searing so bright, every fiber of her being cried for the light.

Open.

Her eyes did open as she looked out unto the land. Unto the barren scape. Shades, staccato and shimmered about her. Shapes of those she once knew. But flickers of black and blue. Sparks of green and violet. Crackles of light. There and gone between blinks she could hardly feel.

She opened her mouth to scream. But only fire poured out.

Solon Raye Three Eyes

 

[Solon Raye]

Do you still search for me as my heart has searched for you?
Have you longed for me as my heart as ached for you?
Should you find my desire written like burning ink upon your heart, then I hope you find me here.

Time is limited in passion, my love.
​

He liked to think himself comfortable in the realm of fire. Fire was what he was made of unless it was all tall tales. Even he had come to believe them from time to time. Otherwise, why would he dream as he did? How else would he hear and breathe his love's fire into his lungs? How else might she receive his message so clearly as he had imagined she did. As he'd hoped she did... He relied on something he didn't even know existed and yet, he pressed on.

She might learn of his whereabouts, but there was another that needed him presently.

He appeared before the Mina as a ghost among the flames of passion that surrounded them. Solon tried to let her know it was he amongst all the colors. And so as hatred and love and lust and avarice and destruction battered against the very fabric of his soul, his conscious persisted. A brown flaming hand reached out to guide her. His golden armor was forced for form and yet it was still made of the realm that surrounded it. It's light being carried off into the inferno until it was a shine like any other present. But his eyes shine like stars. Gentle stars amidst Hell that one might know heaven could exist.

He spoke flame in hopes that he might continue to teach her to understand.

"Take my hand. And be not afraid... I shall protect you."​

 

[Three Eyes]

"Take my hand..." Spoke the man in golden armor.

The words echoed through the child's heart, welling up a pain that was as fresh as the bruises on her body. Her father, saying the same words to her.

Mina shrank away from the memory. But there was no running from one's own shadow in the Kingdom of Ash, where feeling was form, and ghosts came alive.
_______

It was hot in the midday sun.

That day had been suffocating, cloud cover giving no relief from the summer sun. And when the rain fell, it was warm, beating the dry, red earth into streams of blood. The earth would not accept that bloody rain, refused to drink it in. As Mina and her family fled the fields, rivulets ran over cobblestone and choked gullies, staining the hems of her skirts with the rust of it.

The sound of the approaching army -- screams of fleeing villagers, the crackle of thatched roofs burning - frightened Mina. She tripped, and fell into the mud. Her father turned back for her.

Take my hand--

And there, her father gutted, pinned to the wall of their cottage, as the soldiers stormed in. What could anyone do to protect her? When the red rain could not be shuttered out? When the doors of her home were battered down, and the enemy stalked her very mind?

One Eye Solon Raye

 

[One Eye]

A shout erupted from her throat, as flames licked about the snap of her teeth and Mina beat away the hand that had been offered.

"You cannot protect me!" she growled, her whole self there in that moment of fury. Flesh and bone, in skin the color of the most bountiful earth, and hair a deep and ruddy brown as sun-kissed maize. Her three eyes fixed upon the Knight, wide with a wrath that kept her fist clenched tight at her heart.

Gone in a flash as a curtain of suffering burned across her in white sparkle and dash. Her eyes came shut, and she screamed again. Turned to flicker and flame. As the feelings of that day seared through her core. Ate at her heart.

"No one can protect me!" Her soul shook with rage. The flames of her spirit leapt. Higher and higher in this place without shadow. Till her form seemed an endless mesh of flame, spread across the blinding echoes of eternity.

Her formless self crashed against that armor of gold, hungry. Wrapped and wreathed in grief. The flames of Mina clutched for that hand, so like the own flesh she once had.

Solon Raye, Three Eyes

 

[Solon Raye]

"AGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Her pain had rendered him bare.

If he had eyes to see, they would have melted from his skull. If he had skin to feel, he would have been fortunate to disintegrate before pain would take him. In her pain, he had seen eternity. A brightness so radiant that it was inescapable. His scream was but one of millions and Mina's pain made them all sound as one. He knew not that he would soon be dust blown upon the wind by powers that would make the gods shiver. He knew not to remember his iron will as iron was nothing in the face of such grief and wrath in pure form. Mina was the fire that turned flame to ash. And Syr Solon Raye now knew the understanding of oblivion.

His father's dead eyes would be the last thing he saw. Knowing that the man died in terror. Seren Raye. That was his name. When was the last time Solon had ever even thought of his father's name? At one point he'd decided he would bury it. he could bury it beneath gilded armor and runes and heroics. He loved that he'd become revered among his peers and cherished every battle scar. The pain was worth it. Every bit it. Every claw mark. Every burn. Every heartache. It was worth it to fill the hole in his heart. To place the light back in old Seren's dead eyes.

To tell Helena he loved her one more time...

Certainly he was gone now. Soul dust upon an endless expanse of fire.

And then he spoke up to her wrath and clung to her flame with whatever strength he found.

"Y-you... are not alone..."
He clung to her clutching flames. There were things still worth living for and Mina had to know she was one of them...​

 

[One Eye]

How his scream pierced through the crackle and hiss of her fury. How his pain, splashed across the roaring tempest of her heart.

In that moment, upon which he dispersed, she felt it all course through her. Too quick and too complex to be made into any form of sense. Raw as fresh tinder, the memories, the sorrows and joys. All fed her endless oblivion. All fed the flame of her light.

Her three eyes opened. Wide and wanting, they could see it all. Every speck and mote of the man that once was Solon Raye, twisted and withering, like so many embers and sparks made to ride the cosmic winds.

She could feel the cool kiss of tears clung about each eye. Pour down from that third eye that rest above her brow. That third eye that pulsed with the cool darkness of rest. The tranquility of the Loch.

It wept, and she felt some form of colder feeling sprout from her heart. Up from the mud and silt. The spiraling pieces of the man, like so many stars scattered across the endless plane of grey and white, how they wobbled and slowed. Came together again against her burning form.

Again his hand formed. There in that kingdom of Ash.

Clutched at her. She looked down at him. Eyes wide with all he had bared.

"Even through all this, Solon Raye," she spoke in a voice at once her own, and at once the voices of all who had come before her. All who could see her now. Her people, the Trinemorro, they could see her now. Spoke with her. Helped her see what was true. "You would help me?"

her hand came to his, and his form came together again. Bit by molten bit. Cooled by the trinary nature of her touch. Here in the realm of the soul. The Kingdom of Ash. Past and present blurred into one. Hope for the future.

Solon Raye

 

[Three Eyes]

In the waking world...

Cool blue light filtered through the waters of the amnion tank. The light's rays were disturbed by the figure there within - a pulse of sound, a shimmer of heat that swirled and twisted against the tank's glass. Building, pressurized.

This went unnoticed by the Sightless in the room.

Only the Hierophant could have noticed, and she was blinded. The third eye of the pale witch flung open, screaming wide. She clawed at her own face until berries of red fruited under her fingernails. She's seen it. Eyes worthy of her master's visage, two moons with the sun burning in the center. Everything she was not.

Faithful rushed forward to hold the witch down. Their hands grabbed at her robes, urging her to stillness. She felt metal wrap around her wrist. The wretched spider of a man, Simon, shouting at her.

"The child wakes," she said, unseeing. "Flee, flee this place!"

Solon Raye One Eye