Chapter 195
Chthonian Beyond
Sylas did something that he didn't do often recently--he went to sleep. Most nights he'd learned to meditate himself into a state of nothingness as it was the only way he found to battle the decrepit hands of time, and as he hardly needed sleep to function, it seemed a good choice. But, for reasons bored deep inside of him, instinctively he drew himself to the sleep.
He climbed up onto a tree and found a particularly thick branch before leaning into the soft and yet hardened trunk, closing his eyes. At first, the sleep was elusive. He was aware of everything still, be it by the scents of the roasted meet or stale beer or even the pools of vomit orbiting the encampment, or be it through the senses that were sharper than the sharpest blade.
But, bit by bit, his restless mind began to settle and calm and forge ahead through the indisputable. Unaware, as at his core he was still a human, he drifted away into the land of dreams--though, for him, dreaming had long since stopped happening. Even when he'd fall asleep in the past, they would be dreamless nights and groggy mornings. But something was different this time around he realized almost as soon as he realized he was asleep.
That was the first tick--the fact that he knew. He was lucid, aware of the surrounding darkness, yet also knew that he was locked in the cage of sleep. The darkness, tantalizing though it was, suddenly flashed in a bright light--golden fire spurred in the nothing and the kindle grew into a raging spirit akin to a star. But it was not a star, nor was it a spirit, and nor was it even fire--it was an eye, an eye that slowly began to outline a figure beyond match.
It was a wolf of snow-white fur and black, triangular snout and a pair of ordinary ears. By appearance, though beautiful, it was still just an ordinary-looking white wolf... if not for the eyes and for the size. For Sylas was shorter than the wolf's singular iris which appeared akin to a tiny black hole in Sylas' perspective.
The wolf's eyes, similarly, were indeed a pair of stars--massive, burning, beautiful, breathing life into the cosmic nothing.
The wolf stared at him silently, its eyes never even blinking as though he were a statue. The beast appeared to be lying down, though upon what Sylas was none the wiser. Suddenly, just as he began to adjust himself to the fantasy that his mind concocted, another flash of light disturbed him. Right next to the wolf, another silhouette emerged from the noneafter--it was a lion with silver-hazing mane that flew about sporadically and as though in slow motion. The beast's fur was similarly white to the wolf's, though the lion's pair of eyes weren't golden but rather twilight-shrouded, as though the galaxies lived within them.
The lion, too, seemed to lie on nothing, staring at Sylas silently and curiously. Two beasts remained frozen in place, and no sound could ever be heard--in fact, the silence itself seemed akin to the third presence. Though an actual one appeared soon after with another flash of light. It was an eagle, Sylas soon recognized, its wings coated in blue flames spanning distances unknowable. The pair of eyes were pure white, as though the beast was blind. But it wasn't. Sylas could feel its gaze upon him, silently observing him like the two beasts prior.
The eagle stood upon the lion, half the latter's size, though likely matching it once it sprawled its wings open, and the lion seemed unbothered by it, as though it was a natural state of things. And, right after those three, more and more began showing up all around him, scaling to the point where he himself became just a massive eye. His human body was smaller than an atom in comparison to it all.
First there was a massive, ancient-looking turtle coated in moss and wines and trees and jungles, its eyes lakes of infinite water and wisdom.
Then there was a majestic tiger, its stripes kindled in golden flames, eyes a pair of luminescent golden gems.
Then there was a python, a massive snake that seemed to hug the remaining beasts in a wide embrace as it peeked its head at the far edge. It was wholly black, like obsidian, with a pair of crimson eyes seemingly concocted of blood.
Then there was a winter fox, a peacock bejeweled in rainbow feathers, then there was a black horse whose eyes burned, then a butterfly whose wings were luminous nebulae full of breathtaking sights. Then he saw some smaller ones, like a pair of sand cats true to their image, though with eyes that shone like azure skies, then snow-laced as well as ebony-black pair of owls that had the matching, though opposite pair of eyes, and upon them all were a myriad of creatures, small and large, all uniquely beautiful.
And just as he thought the hall had been filled to the brim, another flash of light surged and a familiar figure appeared--doe, its head decorated with a crow. However, there were differences beyond it simply being massive. Its fur was wholly white while the crow's feathers were pitch black, their eyes iridescent--the crow's in scarlet red and the doe's in pure sapphire.
They were majestic, as much if not more than the rest--and he could see them all looking at him. No, they were looking at a tiny, insignificant spec that existed somewhere down below. A puny nothing made of flesh and bones. Something that was immortal and yet could die. But they... they couldn't. Sylas didn't know how he knew it--or whether he knew it at all or if it was simply their majesty blinding him--but he was certain they were immortal. No blade could cut their flesh, and no time could wane their minds.
They were the Voyagers, or at least how his mind elected to visualize them. They weren't eldritch beasts of incomprehensible shapes, but something far more... human. No, not human--but something far more natural, yet sublime still. He haplessly reached out to touch them, but his had was short--which was when another flash of light surged and he realized he was no longer in the vast nothingness, but rather in an open plain surrounded by summer grass on all sides.
And the animals defying description were no longer behemoths scaling galaxies in their eyes, but were ordinary in size--and all were lying still around the plain, some looking at him, some sleeping, some doing nothing. It was a seeming paradise of calm and peace, a picture-perfect projection of what Sylas had been yearning for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
"You made us beautiful," the doe spoke suddenly, startling Sylas. Though he recalled her voice vividly, that his mind could replicate it so perfectly... shocked him a great deal. "Ethereal. Sublime. Is this how you truly see us?" the pair of eyes that sapped the sorrows from his soul looked at him. They appeared oddly familiar, though as for why, he was none the wiser.
"Isn't that how you are?" he decided to play along with whatever fantasy his mind concocted.
"We can be," the doe said.
"We choose to be," the crow added.
"But you're not? In reality?"
"What we are... is inconsequential," the doe said. "You doubt yourself a human after a thousand years. We have spent infinite lifetimes as infinite things. Perchance, few here remember the days long gone. Though, even in the mind as broken as yours... to see ourselves as such is jubilant."
"... show me, then," Sylas said. "What you are."
"Why?"
"'cause I want to know."
"Why?"
"Are we really playing this game? You ain't four, I ain't your dad, and we ain't talkin' about why it rains."
"... we are shapeless," the doe said suddenly. "And are as we are perceived to be. Do you know why he is a crow?"
"Why?"
"Because those with thought thought him a messenger."
"... shouldn't he be raven, then?"
"Perhaps. But he wished to be crow."
"And you wished to be a doe?"
"I don't know."
"How... do you not know?"
"Why is your name Sylas?"
"H-huh?"
"Why is your name Sylas?"
"... uh. Because my parents were a bit too much into fantasy? I dunno."
"I am a doe... for I have always been a doe," the doe said. "Some of us are such. Him," she turned and faced the first beast that appeared before Sylas--the wolf. "You have felt him before, when you were forging your madness. He is not a wolf... he is simply madness. What is the shape of the madness?"
"..."
"But a fitting figure. He would be happy."
"Uh, are... are you saying I, one way or another, felt all of these guys?" Sylas asked.
"Yes."
"Jesus. How's that even possible?"
"Did you ever feel love?"
"Uh, what?"
"The sand ones are love, the duality of lust and affection. Anger? Anguish? Nihility?"
"Alright, alright. I get it. You guys are emotions bundled into shape."
"... in some ways, perhaps."
"Man. My mind can still come up with all sorts of whacky shit."
"It can," the doe said as the images vanished. "You have glanced at who we are in your heart... and you sought a glimpse of truth. Here it is."
Just before Sylas could ask the doe to elaborate, the plains vanished whole and he was back in the darkness--it was for a moment before the curtain was undone and he saw it.
Sylas snapped awake, still on the tree. It was deep in the night, with most people either asleep or blackout drunk. Silence reigned, save for the howling of the winds in the distance and occasional roar of a beast.
He settled, snapping his knees into his chest and closing his eyes. There was a faint tremor within him, a rouse of terror that embalmed his soul. Yet, within it, within the enshrouding horror of insignificance, there was a spark, a kindle, a taut call to something he knew. Within it all, within the sprawl, within the unknowable, esoteric and chthonian, he saw familiar. A tiny mote of light in the abyss of darkness, akin to a lighthouse upon the sprawling sea, the beam of effulgent light denoting the road home.