Day 29 (The Word That Ends the World)

"It is clear" Craig finally spoke up "that you have the mastery that I feared I might. You bear my title, and I am certain now that it is yours more than mine. I am but a shadow of the truth. I suppose I should be relieved, knowing that I could speak all I wanted. Even so, I fear the power the word has. Maybe I'm close enough to kill most of us, instead of all." He glanced back up at her, gaze narrowing. "That's not important. What is important is the question the Sightless posed: Who are you, that you can do such things?"

She was momentarily confused. It had seemed a minor detail. "I told you who I was, just like I told it."

He shook his head. "That is not the nature of the question. He did not ask your name, but he asked who you were. Clearly, you are not who you seem."

"I am exactly who I seem!" she gestured to herself. "Granted, I'm gifted so I'm more formidable than I look, but still, I'm me."

Craig laughed then. "More formidable than you look indeed!" he paused to stop chuckling. "Young lady, think for a moment. There are other gifted like you, are there not? Which ones could do what you have?"

She stopped, then. "Savant?" she suggested.

The formerly silent monk shrugged, a gesture he'd obviously perfected over the years. "It seems to me he might have some ability, but he's not focused enough. I ask you though, before you experienced it, had you ever even heard of someone with such power?"

The questions were confusing; what was he driving at? "No, I suppose not."

His reply was immediate. "Who are your enemies?"

"The Army of the Unknown and the Voice of the Unknowable."

"They obviously have dominion over chaos." he pointed out. "Are they as powerful as you?"

"I suppose so. I mean, I can deal with them, but the two I fought outside were right... I don't think I could stand against a whole army." She found herself wondering, though. It had been simple to make the Soldiers vanished once she'd realized how. Would it be that difficult to fight an army?

"Think of that." he said. "Your council itself, three of them, fought against a single Soldier of the Unknown and lost. You, a single person, have thus far killed three and sealed this passage from untold numbers of others."

She shrugged. "Savant said I'm the chosen one... I don't really want to be, but it looks like he's right."

Craig seemed disappointed to hear this, he shook his head. "No, it's not about the title of 'Chosen One', whatever that even means. Ask yourself - what kind of being has the sort of power you do? What can transcend order and chaos?"

She laughed. "Some kind of god, I'd guess."

He didn't laugh. "Exactly."

Jacob did find it funny, though he managed to stifle his reaction.

"I'm not a god." she insisted.

"Aren't you? What can't you do?" he challenged her, arms crossed.

She thought for a while. The way she'd dove into chaos mentally and dispersed the Soldiers with only a thought had seemed a bit much. Her insight into the nature of the world - order stretched over ever-changing chaos - lead her to suppose that she could shape the world of order as easily as she'd shaped Chaos. But she hadn't tried.

"Only one way to find out..." she muttered. She was pretty sure that Craig hadn't heard her, but the smirk on his face seemed to indicate he had a good idea of what she was about to try anyway.

Bookshelf. Chaos has everything. It's constantly changing, never settling, but you can force it to take form easily by looking for that split second where it's exactly what you want. Then impose order. Seven feet tall, mahogany. Filled with books on the topic of... let's see... monastic orders of East India. Why not?

It was the same sort of thing she'd done to banish the Soldiers. Imbue a bit of chaos with order, freeze it in place, and it ceases to become chaos. The part she hadn't tried yet was to use a bit of the chaos to make it move where she wanted, then order to stop it in place.

There was a quiet rush of displaced air, and a few monks toward the back of the room stumbled forward. A seven-foot tall mahogany bookshelf, immaculately stocked, rested comfortably against the wall as though it had always been there.

"I told you." Craig said. He wasn't even looking.

"It doesn't mean I'm a god. It just means I have mastery over order and chaos. It's exactly what the prophecy predicted, and we've already established I'm the person concerned in that."

"The prophecy isn't going to predict a nobody." Craig argued.

"I am not a god." she insisted again.

He couldn't repress the smile. "If it helps, you actually aren't, at least not in the way you'd typically think. In this place, you have mastery over order and chaos. Everything you see around you, even - probably - me, comes through you. You will it into being."

She frowned. "So I'm not a god, I'm simply God, is that it?"

Jacob piped up. "Hey Alyssa, can you make a rock so heavy you can't lift it?"

She didn't respond to his humor; if anything her expression deepened. "I could barely lift you." she admitted to him sadly. A thought occurring, she glared back at Craig. "My partner's on the right track with the philosophical questions. If I'm almighty like you suggest, why do bad things happen? Jacob's missing his goddamn eyes!"

"Why do nightmares happen?" he shrugged. If he was discomfited by her emotional outburst, he wasn't showing it. "There's always something in the subconscious of even the most normal of us. Fears, doubts. On some level, you think you deserve it."

"Maybe I do. It doesn't mean he does."

"You misunderstand. It's not happening to him. It's happening to you. The bad things aren't happening to others, they're things you are bringing upon yourself."

His words were misplaced, though - understanding was upon her suddenly. It couldn't be right, but his words, the way he'd phrased them - hell, the way the prophecy itself was phrased. "You said my name was a title. How did I get it?" she was going to work her way up carefully, making sure not to miss anything.

"It's always been yours, ever since you made this place." Craig's tone was casual, as though speaking to the one he believed to be his creator were no more unusual than any other sort of conversation. Then again, considering his vow of silence, perhaps it wasn't.

"What does it mean?"

"You know what it means."

"Who are you?" she finally asked. "I ask you the question of the Sightless. Who are you, that you know this?"

"I'm you. Craig D'Eldess is not my true name, any more than Alyssa D'Eldess is yours. Ask me my true name."

"No."

He nodded, as though this response were as reasonable as his own question had been. "Would you have me tell you yours? Even now, you deny it."

She grit her teeth. "Fine, tell me my name."

Craig clapped his hands together, then drew them apart. Hovering between them was a shimmering blue blade. She knew without being told that it was the same material her claws were made of. "Spill your blood on this." he said. "and I will learn your name."

"I thought you said I was you." she replied. "Shouldn't my name be the same as yours?"

"Of course, but you've already demonstrated that you will not take my word for it. If you do this, I will learn your name. I will tell you what it is, and you will know it to be true, because it's your name after all."

"Not a good idea." Jacob pointed out. "I mean, giving out the true name of a god probably isn't wise."

She shrugged. "He told me the word that ends the world. Seems a fair trade."

Craig didn't move, nor did he speak. He simply waited, blade suspended from his hands. Alyssa thought for a moment and then, before she could reconsider, poked her hand with a claw. The stroke was light, but it still hurt like hell, and more blood than she'd intended to spill came forth. She moved it clumsily, but directed it over Craig's weapon regardless.

If the old monk responded in any way, he didn't show it. Alyssa drew on the same technique she'd used in the Chaos to create her body. This time, she simply wanted to change part of it - the wounded part. It was easily done - one moment her hand was bleeding, the next it was whole. The pain vanished.

"That's one way of pinching yourself." Jacob remarked. She didn't dignify that with a response.

Craig moved suddenly, darting right up next to her, and whispering in her ear. She only barely caught it, but as soon as her brain processed it she knew it to be true. No, not even that - before he'd even spoken it, she knew it to be true. Granted, it didn't make any sense, but none of this did.

She was so overwhelmed with the implications of her newfound knowledge that she didn't pay attention to Craig's movements when he leaned back to his original position. She didn't notice him prick his hand on the claw she'd left out. Only at the last possible moment did she see the drop of blood on her claw, and then it was too late.

She saw the images then, a flood of them overtaking her as they had when she learned the true name of John Slayton. A man late at work, a man talking to his roommate. Speaking to co-workers, writing a report. A man of ceaseless routine. She knew this man, knew him as well as she knew herself. And she realized that Craig had not been lying - the name she Knew now was the name he had whispered to her. She heard someone calling out her full name, her true name, calling out to her as though she was late or lost. Michael. They asked for Michael. Michael Dorest.

"Michael Dorest..." she whispered.

It was with that epiphany that she returned to her world. It felt like it was her world now, more and more. The control over chaos had initially been a matter of survival, now it seemed part of who she was. She knew, now, with the revelation of their shared names, who she was.

"The title. D'Eldess. What does it mean?" she asked him, weakly.

"I told you before," he replied. He sounded like he was speaking from a very long distance, though she could see him standing right there. "you know the answer."

"I do." she admitted. "But tell me anyway."

Craig nodded. "In this place you have taken the name Alyssa D'Eldess. I do not know the significance, if any, of your chosen first name. But your last name is a title. You are Alyssa of the Dream."

"Which one of us is dreaming?" she said.

"You are."

"But you're Craig of the Dream, are you not?" Her voice was quiet, and had not grown louder.

He nodded. "But you are the dreamer." He offered no explanation, but she needed none. She knew it to be true, now. "I told you the title belonged more to you than me." he added, shrugging.

She simply sat, and thought. The prophecy made sense now. The dreamer could forget the dream - and thus damn the world, or the dreamer could remember - and thus immortalize it. But the world couldn't be saved. The dream would have to end somehow.

"How will it end?" she whispered.

Craig shrugged. "The Unknown and Unknowable are exactly that." he began, by way of totally ignoring her question. "I don't think you can ever truly find out what they are, because you yourself don't know. The same thing that breeds nightmares makes them, and they are restless. This is not an ordinary dream, I think. There is no knowing how long you've been asleep. Clearly, we are not ordinary figments. Your friend Jacob means much to you. You have lost friends in this place, and your enemies seem deadly and implacable. If those who chase you find you, who knows what they will do? If you do not emerge from this sleep, and the Unknowable capture you, what would become of your world then? This, I suspect is why it will end. How, of course, is up to you."

"I've seen this one." Jacob offered sardonically. "She just has to tap her shoes together and say 'There's no place like home'."

"You jest." Craig pointed out. "But it just might work. It is her world."

She thought, then. "All I have to do is speak the word. Of course it ends the world, it does what it is."

"You're talking like him now." Jacob said to her, even though she hadn't been speaking to him. "Throw a few riddles in there and you're the new Savant."

It was Craig who spoke up next. "That is not exactly correct. The world will end the world, but I do not know how. It is as you said, you can forget or remember all of this. But if you come out of the dream slowly you might be more likely to recall. If you are jerked out of it, you may be distracted by the real world, and forget. So you could speak the word, but it might not have the effect you want."

She frowned again. "It has to end sometime."

Craig's face, which had been smiling recently, turned back into the solemn frown he wore the rest of the time. "It doesn't. There is always my path. You control this world. In time, you can make it anything you want, and not even your own fears can defeat you then. Stay here as I have, meditate on your abilities. There is much you could learn, much you could make."

She shook her head. "It's not real, though. It's all a dream."

"You have no proof that the real world is, itself, real. At least here you know for certain. The real world can hurt you, can kill you. Would you ever even die in this place? Maybe when your body gives out, but you might not even know when that happens. Few people want to die, but think that if it were to happen, they would prefer it be in their sleep."

"I don't think I'd want to live in a fantasy world. It's just not healthy." she pointed out.

"You saw the same visions I did, dreamer. Was the world you lived in before all that much healthier? You did the same thing, day in and day out. When you had a reprieve from work you wasted it with meaninglessness and then re-adopted your ceaseless routine. Is that what you would return to? In this place, you matter! You have friends here, people who depend on you."

"Imaginary friends." she retorted, then felt guilty as soon as she did so. Jacob was not an imaginary friend. No. She would not let that be. He was real - everything in this world was real. Even if she was imagining it, it was still happening.

Craig was upset, she could see. He'd said earlier that he'd planned for every conversational twist over the years, and given his composure earlier one of the things he must have foreseen was that the dreamer - if it wasn't he himself - would come to visit. Now, though, she was clearly going off-script. "How can I reach you?" he said. "Think upon the matter. Everything here is a symbol and every choice you make is symbolic. Anything you decide, therefore, has a greater implication than you may first realize. This place is a place of knowledge and learning. A monastery devoted to control over the self, study, concentration. In a place like this, you could not be assaulted by the enemies that lie within you, because you would have made a decision to learn and overcome them. That decision alone would be enough. Recall your mastery over chaos and order - you placed that bookshelf because you knew you could. It was no effort. Once you consciously realize something in this place, it becomes true."

"If I chose to stay here, everything outside ceases to exist." she said. She didn't know whether this was actually the case, but it was consistent and she felt it to be true. "It just becomes this place and the teachings. When I was in Chaos, I commanded an entire world a few meters wide. I'd be returning to that if I chose this path. There are people in the rest of this world, people who are real to me. I do not want them to vanish. I don't want to forget them." at this, she turned to Jacob. "You mean something to me." she said.

He smiled at her. "If it means anything, and if Craig's right and you are in fact making this up as you go along it might not, you mean something to me too."

Alyssa faced Craig again. "Staying here is the same as giving up. Turning this place into a playground for whatever I might think up is no better than forgetting the dream. Everything that's happened... it's important. I want to remember it."

"If you go back out there," Craig warned. "You will face them again. Your enemies. They are of you, and so they know what you know. You know what they are, but if you spurn the place of knowledge that would protect you, it will only make them stronger. Think, think hard of what would happen if you fought them. It would be worse than fighting Chaos. There, you merely had to gain mastery to survive. To survive an assault by the Unknown and the Unknowable, you would have to master your own subconscious. This, after you had purposefully turned away from the path which would allow you to do so. You have heard of people ruled by their fears? This would become an entire world ruled by your fears. You would survive only as an extension of the worst of yourself. Very likely, the worst of humanity which dwells in everyone. Sane people keep it suppressed, but you are turning your back on sanity. If you are captured, your friends are as good as dead. Your fears and hatreds will kill them as surely as forgetfulness. More so, because while forgetfulness would simply banish them, your hatreds would torture them for eternity, and you would remember every moment."

"For someone with my name, you don't know me very well." she insisted, glaring at him. "I would not let that happen."

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