Chapter 8: Beyond the Veil
The warm light that invited Elijah was not blinding but inviting, cutting across the deeply dark darkness like a thread of hope that gently pulled forward with quiet determination. And so, in walking towards it, shadows which stood dark and filling with threats all around him were gradually set in motion to swell softly in time with his step-for-step advancement, as if they had determined to be his ally instead of his adversary.
With every step, his mind expanded; his understanding of the shadows deepened. The question which the voice had asked him still hung in his mind: What lies beyond the shadows? It is a question that grows ever more profound and profoundly the more one thinks on it the answer, as if given, is like definition of existence itself.
The light drew nearer, and Elijah perceived that the path beneath him had changed. No longer was it of the shining translucent rock; it had become something else-the silky smooth surface seemed to absorb his steps, quieting each one. And about him the air had become charged with the scent of something unwhispered, something ancient.
In front of Elijah, the bright light coalesced into a shape. It was vague at first, an amorphous mass of light, but as Elijah drew near, it clarified to be tall and imposing and covered in robes both of light and shadow with the two co-mingling forces living around him like where day and night met each other.
Elijah froze, his heart thudding in his chest. He didn't need to ask who-or what-this was. Before him stood the presence that breathed power and authority, that which must belong to one who had seen the birth and death of worlds.
I have waited for you," the figure said, its voice deep and resonant, echoing through the darkness like the tolling of a distant bell. The voice was familiar-the same one that had spoken to him in the void.
Elijah swallowed, his throat dry. "Who are you?
The figure didn't respond right away, but instead raised a hand before the swaying light and shadow opened up, like a curtain to a vista beyond Elijah's wildest imagination. He saw worlds—at least thousands of them, replete with life, light, and darkness. These ranged from brilliant, full of energy, to cold, barren, and forgotten.
"I am a sentinel, as you are now," said the figure finally, its voice bearing the weight of untold millennia. "I watch over the Veil, the boundary between the known and the unknown, between light and dark. And you, Elijah, are now a part of that same balance."
Elijah's breath was stopped in his throat as the figure continued.
The shadows you wield, explained the figure, are not tools but more like a 'folding of the fabric' of the Veil itself. One force which holds the universe in balance: light and dark, truth and illusion, two sides of one coin. A shadow is the same thing as light.
Elijah slowly nodded his head, his mind reeling to keep pace with the enormity of the statement. "But. what lies beyond the shadows?" he asked, barely above a whisper.
The figure turned his gaze to him, its eyes-if such they were-moonlit with an apparently piercing light that seemed to bore into Elijah's very soul. "What lies beyond the shadows is not for me to reveal," it said. "That is a truth you must discover for yourself. But know this: beyond the shadows lie creation and destruction. Beyond the Veil, forces lie that even we, the guardians, cannot fully comprehend.".
Chills running down Elijah's spine. "So why am I here? Why has anyone ever called me forward?"
The figure reached out with one hand and leaned forward and, for the first time, Elijah caught sight of intricate patterns scrawled across the figure's skin: symbols and runes like those etched into the pages of the volumes on the shelves of the Library of Truth. "Because you are different, Elijah," it said. You can see beyond the veil that others cannot; you understand balance. That is why you have been chosen-you walk a path few have dared to tread.
He kept his peace, deaf and blind to the depth of meaning held in the weight of the figure's words. He knew, deep inside his innermost recesses, that his affection for the shadows made him special. But this-this was something that far eclipsed his endeavors ever to conceive.
The figure lowered his hand, and the swirling lights and shadows around him seemed to grow calmer. "The path you walk will not be easy," he cautioned. "There will be forces-both light and dark-that will seek to sway you, to break you. But if you remain true to the balance, if you master the shadows within you, you will find the answers you seek."
Elijah straightened up, fists clenched at his sides, a steely determination falling over him like a cloak. "I will. "
He nodded once, and the movement seemed to reverberate through the air. "Very good," he said. "Then off you go."
The figure stepped aside silently, and the light behind it brightened up to reveal another path-but this one out of smooth obsidian stone, glistening in faint light of a distant star. Endless it seemed to stretch out. Into the horizon, really, it plunged.
Elijah breathed in, steady in his chest. He was ready for whatever waited. The shadows inside of him thrummed their response: no longer wild and untamed as before but controlled and calm, an appendage of hisself.
And as he stepped onto the obsidian path, the figure's voice called out to him one last time.
"Remember, Elijah," she said, her voice low and mysterious. "What lies beyond the shadows is not for the faint of heart. But for those who dare to seek it, the rewards are beyond measure."
Elijah didn't look back. He didn't have to. The path ahead was clear now, and he would walk it, no matter where it led.
With every step Elijah took along the obsidian path, the air around him thickened and grew heavy with almost a palpable tension. He felt he was being watched by something or by someone, though no one appeared. The shadows around him stirred, moving subtly though intentionally, as if sensing the lift in the atmosphere.
Before him the path rippled, as water cast by an unseen hand, then ran: the ground shook to his tread, and up from earth a low, rumbling voice was thrown.
Elijah hesitated, his eyes holding fixed on the scene.
And then, without warning, the path split apart.
A deep chasm before him opened out; his gaze could not see its depths, for darkness engulfed it-a darkness impenetrable. The obsidian stone crumbled over the edges and fell into the air as it fell away into the void below. For one fleeting moment, Elijah stood on the precipice of the chasm, gazing down, into the jaws of darkness. His shadows, restless as was the forest, of urging seemed to nudge him to movement.
Elijah took a deep breath and stepped forward.
He was on the edge of the chasm, when shadows inside him leaped to life embracing his body with a protective cocoon. It crackled around the air as the world went fuzzy because the shadows were carrying him across the void.
When Elijah's eyes cleared, he was on the side of the chasm. The obsidian path unfolded before him again, this time without shadows retreating into calm ever-present huddles.
Elijah took a long breath and stilled his racing heart. The path before him was long, but he was ready.
Guided by the shadows, he plunged into the unknown darkness, into whatever existed beyond them.