Albrýndaer. Vælírian Year 1150

“Father, I have read the book that you shared with me,” says Albrýndaer to Daeran one evening, “and I was intrigued by it. Thank you for requesting it for me. I learned much from it, even as it revealed to me how little of our history, and of the history of our ancestral people in Telmérion, I truly know.”

“Your education could only be fragmentary, son, given the circumstances of your birth. I hope that you understand that.”

“I do.”

“But I suppose you have some questions, now, concerning what you read?”

“Too many to count. But at present I wish to ask only one.”

“And what is that?”

“Even in what I read it spoke very little of the origins of the Empire and of the Emperor’s rise to power. I expected more in this regard, considering our prior conversation.”

“So you wish me to recount it to you instead?”

“If you are willing.”

“As I said before, much has been forgotten or twisted over the centuries that have passed since then,” Daeran explains, “but I will share with you what we know with relative certainty. And no—I see the concern upon your face—I shall not color the facts with my own interpretation. What I share is yours to judge as you see fit.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Where then shall I begin? It was the end of the sixth century since the settlement of our land, and for decades previously there had been increasing conflict between the various city-states in the heart of Vælíria—though of course our land had not yet come to be called by that name. Some of these were petty trade disputes or arguments over lands and borders, but others were harbingers of the greater conflict that was to come. For many years previously the culture of the kingdom of Vælaróma had become increasingly expansionist and its rulers inclined to extend their rule over the surrounding kingdoms.”

“Why would a king desire such a thing?” Albrýndaer asks. “It seems to me that having more to rule would be a burden and not a boon.”

“Remember what I told you in our previous conversation. One may rule for others’ benefit or one may rule for one’s own. There is often hidden in the human heart a lust for power that, when it finds an avenue to express itself, leads to the greatest of evils.”

“So that is what happened? The rulers of the kingdom of Vælaróma grew in power until they conquered their neighbors?”

“One would assume so considering what I have said thus far. But no. Things in fact turned out quite differently. It is true that the kings of Vælaróma began to subject with violence the surrounding clans and kingdoms, forcing them to bend the knee either after they had been crushed in martial combat or in order to prevent such a fate. At first the kingdoms of Authringhaem and Elándreä were subjugated, and the clan of the Turínhäs, and shortly afterwards the Ulfäs and Niminhäs. King Ágnar and, after his death in battle, his son Rándulf, were successful in bringing into their domain large swathes of the land, from Dringhaem in the north to Héndra in the south. Then a hero arose on the scene, one who has gone down in history as a legend of almost superhuman proportions: Soldís the Deathless. He was the high thane of the kingdom of Corándis in the far northwest. His first recorded public act was an intervention in what has come to be called the Battle of Mallórna Pass. Being given command over the armies of his kingdom, he led them into battle without, as far as we know, having received either request or plea for aid from the neighboring kingdom of Elándreä. He ambushed the forces of the kingdom of Vælaróma to the great surprise of both sides. And in a matter of months, joined with his new allies, he had pushed the armies of Vælaróma south to the borders of their own lands.

“During the next two years this legendary warrior and statesman made promises to the other besieged kingdoms that if they were to rally to his banner he would not only protect them from any military threats but also ensure their peace and prosperity through other means. And this was borne out to be the truth, as Corándis had long accumulated great wealth from the rich mines hidden in the mountains of its domain, and it distributed it to other kingdoms and clans in their time of need. Even in the midst of conflict, trade began again to flourish and wealth to increase, and in but half a decade almost all the kingdoms of our land had joined with the kingdom of Corándis against that of Vælaróma. The threatener had now become the threatened, and king Rándulf and his counselors had no choice but to surrender.

“And yet rather than working to maintain the peace and to consolidate brotherly relations between the newly liberated states, something else entirely happened. After a bitterly cold night in the dead of winter, it was announced that the king of Corándis had died in his sleep, though he was but thirty-four years of age. Speaking promises of continued benevolence, Soldís proclaimed himself regent in place of the deceased king until a suitable ruler could be found, the king having no children of ruling age. In coming days, with a speech as elegant and persuasive as his fighting prowess was unbeatable, he convinced the majority of the other states to swear fealty to him and his banner, to unite in one great kingdom, thus receiving the boons both of his protection and of his wisdom, and of the influx of wealth that had rescued the peoples of our land in a time of desperate suffering and lack. And those few kingdoms or clans which refused were soon consolidated by force, being unable to resist their neighbors roundabout, and the pressure placed upon them. So you see, what began as apparent altruism, as an act of intervention and salvation, eventually lead, through the machinations of one man, to the enslavement of an entire people. And so it is so often throughout history, that those who present themselves as the saviors of mankind are a greater threat to its well-being than those who are its professed enemies. Violence is all the more insidious for being more subtly concealed, and the loss of freedom is all the more grave whenever it is given away freely in response to fallacious promises.”

“Soldís was the first emperor?” Albrýndaer asks after his father’s voice has fallen silence.

“Aye, he was. Many further things happened, of course, that we do not have time to recount at present, to lead to the situation in which even four-hundred years later we still find ourselves. Most significant of these was his taking possession of the seat of Vælaróma and his declaration of himself as Emperor Supreme, and his renaming of the land as a single empire: that of Vælíria. His descendants have sat upon the throne of Vælíria ever since, and the name that he bore in his time, the Deathless, has lived on in them in surprising ways. Not only have they been unmatched in battle, but they have been exceptionally long-lived. Many say that a blessing of the gods rests upon the rulers of the Empire and that this line of rulers has been chosen by heaven itself. This alone, such people say, explains the uncanny wisdom and prowess that they have without exception displayed over the course of many centuries. And yet I wonder if the blessing is in fact a curse, a curse upon our people, and their rule a blight.” Daeran pauses for a moment and draws in breath, thinking, and concludes, “But I said that I would leave the judgment of the facts to you. And there you have them, in as succinct a form as I can manage.”

† † †

In the days following upon their conversation, Albrýndaer takes to pacing slowly, head bowed, along the edge of the encampment, though the sentinels who watch its outskirts in vigil for any attack of the ötûnr allow him to go no further, nor does he wish to do so. He is preoccupied with all that his father has shared with him and also with the events of the previous days: with the assaults of the creatures of darkness, with the powerlessness of the inhabitants of the prison to resist them, and with the forced departure of Ílya. As he reflects, he realizes that his increased interest in the history of his land is in part an escape from the desperate situation in which he finds himself. When there is nowhere to turn, nowhere to escape in his present circumstances, his mind has taken flight into the past. And yet at the same time this is not all that is at play, for his questions are valid, as is his pursuit of the truth. And if all that he has experienced raises questions within his mind and heart, he cannot but seek for answers.

He has glimpsed in the accounts of the past the tiniest slivers of light, and yet the impression left upon him has been overall negative. The amount of human malice and cruelty, trickery and lies, violence and bloodshed, is immense, far more than he, in his childlike innocence, had ever thought possible. And he finds himself caught between the senseless present violence and destruction of the ötûnr and the bloody past of his people, and he sees no way out, neither up nor down, neither past nor future.

His mother too has become withdrawn, silent and still, hardly moving from where she sits in the shadows of their dwelling except to prepare what little food she can for her family. His father, on the other hand, has joined the watch, and has once already returned home bloodied and beaten from an altercation with the ötûnr. Soon he shall not return at all. Even as Albrýndaer thinks these thoughts of death sounds disrupt his thoughts and he looks up to see the silhouettes of ötûnr emerging from the shadows of the cavern as they draw near for yet another assault upon the encampment. Cries echo from the sentinels as they call out their preparations to fend off yet another attack, and Albrýndaer intends to turn and to flee, to return to his home and to bury his head in his hands and wait for the horror to stop. Instead, he finds himself affixed to the spot gazing out at the attack as it unfolds, events happening much faster than he had thought possible. There are not many ötûnr in this siege, a half dozen at most, and yet before they have all been slain by the defenders of the encampment Albrýndaer witnesses what finally causes something within him to snap, the last thread binding him to the light to sever and give way to rupture and to loss. This killing happens before his naked eyes, as a man whom he has seen often since his early childhood is ripped open by the claws and teeth of a wolf-like ötûn as if he were a meal for a voracious animal—though the ötûnr have no need for food, and live solely on violence and death. What he witnesses in this moment is rivaled in the intensity of its effect on him, the numbness and death that he feels invading his heart and his bones, only by the execution that he had witnessed years before, an execution which had gone by the name of justice and yet which had scarred him almost as much as the molestation which he had suffered at the hands of its victim. All of this floods in upon his memory and his imagination now, an overflowing torrent of death and absurdity and loss, flowing like a current unbreakable and unstoppable until it empties into the abyss. And as he draws near to his family’s dwelling, almost unconscious of his surroundings, Albrýndaer has resolved to take the first opportunity presented to him to either escape from this place or to throw his life away in trying, however vainly, to defend his people. He thinks now: it is better to do something, however hopeless, however absurd, than to do nothing at all and to descend, paralyzed and helpless, into nothingness.

† † †

Almost as if in answer to his resolve, it is only a matter of days before Albrýndaer encounters a group of people whose hearts seem to coincide with his own in their questions and their aspirations. Broken in spirit and losing at long last his belief and trust in the goodness of the world into which he was born, and in the goodness of the hearts of men, fickle and deceitful, he is offered a solution, a path that promises an avenue into freedom and clarity. They are a fellowship of fighters, men both young and old, who travel from encampment to encampment recruiting others to join them in their struggle against the creatures of darkness and in their pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. For the strength of their claim, and of their martial resistance against the enemies from the depths, lies in their cult, in the worship of the being or beings to whom they are eager to introduce Albrýndaer.

Of course there is conflict before he agrees to leave his home and to accompany these men to their own abode, to the deep dismay of his parents. For they wish for nothing but to keep him with themselves as if they could protect him, or as if he could protect them. Or perhaps it is simply the bond of familial love that moves them to hold him tight to themselves in the vain hope that, even if they are to drown in the darkness that swells now to swallow everything, they shall do so together, side by side. What does it matter? The time of his parents’ sheltering has ended; now is the time for Albrýndaer to mark out a path for himself, to grasp on his own initiative for what has so continually been torn from his grasp by others or by the painful circumstances of life. Indeed, if he desires to have even the slimmest chance of saving even his own parents, then departing from them is his only hope. And he has seen these new warriors fight, almost berserk with strength and fearless of pain or death, slaying the ötûnr left and right with seemingly superhuman ease. It is thanks to them, after all, that his own encampment was saved from an assault of the creatures of darkness. Traveling through the large underground cavern from settlement to settlement, and even through the side tunnels, armed with what weapons they can craft or take for themselves, they raid the enemy wherever they find them. So it is that they come upon Albrýndaer’s encampment only shortly before a large group of ötûnr emerge and attack; and all men and women would most likely have been slain were it not for the visiting warriors in their midst.

After the fight one of their number approaches Albrýndaer directly and speaks with him, “You look young and fit enough for battle, though bearing the weakness that afflicts us all.” Albrýndaer nods but says nothing, and the man, at the start of middle-age though already with a beard of full gray, continues, “What prevents you from joining us in our fight? We will train you, but even more importantly, we shall show you the path to true strength, to authentic power.”

“What do you mean?” replies Albrýndaer, finding his voice, though it cracks in the speaking.

“No longer need you cower in the darkness waiting for evil to assail you, letting your puny heart and flesh wrinkle in fright and cowardice until death takes you and all those important to you. Come with us and we shall show you all that you have ever sought.”

Albrýndaer, too surprised and startled to answer in the affirmative, says that he will think on this proposal, but that he is certain his parents shall not approve.

“Would you rather stay and watch your parents die before your very eyes?” the man responds. “Only with us can you hope to find the strength to save them as well as yourself. But we will not press you to answer. We go into the caverns nearby to root out what ötûnr we might find. We shall return two days hence, and you may give us an answer then.” And leaning forward and speaking softly, almost in a whisper, he adds, “I see the fire in your eyes, and I am confident that we shall receive the right response when the time comes.” And placing a firm hand on his shoulder, he turns away, and the man and his companions depart toward the tunnels while Albrýndaer and the people of the encampment remain to dispose of the bodies of the ötûnr, that they might not be raised again.

Within four days Albrýndaer finds himself in the encampment of the warriors, having traveled with them from his settlement, anxious of what awaits but energized at the thought of finally doing something and taking his destiny into his own hands. Even so, the painful separation from his mother and his father lingers in his mind and heart. He still feels the sting of Daeran’s bitterness as he turns away from his son and says, “I thought that you were growing in wisdom, but I see now that you are a fool, Bryn. And I fear that you shall come to a fool’s end. But I cannot force you to remain here. I had thought from our recent conversations that you had a good mind within that head of yours and that you saw clearly. But it is evident that I was mistaken.” Even though Albrýndaer knows that these words were spoken in anger and in fear, the scars linger still. But even more deeply felt than the pain in remembrance of his father is the pain he feels as he recalls his mother, Milly, clinging to his garment with tears streaming down her face, almost hysterical with grief and terror, as her son pulls away from her.

But now is not the time to linger on these things. Now is the time to press forward, to throw himself unreservedly into the pursuit of strength, the strength to fight. Now is the time to seek to discover the nature of this “spiritual enlightenment” that he has been promised, and which has been much on the tongues of the warrior company during their trek back to their own encampment. Whatever it is, the way that they speak of it sends jolts of energy through Albrýndaer as if they were offering him a flask full of water while he dies of thirst, or a table laden with food to satisfy his desperate hunger.

The camp, when he enters it with the entourage, is quite impressive in comparison with the other encampments that he has until now encountered in the underground prison. Not only does it seem to give off the same aura of strength as do the warriors themselves, and much strength was clearly needed in its construction, but so too is it different in design than any other dwelling that he has seen. For rather than tattered leather tents or natural crevices in the walls of the cavern, a large proportion of the camp is made of makeshift buildings of gathered stone plastered together with dried mud. Only two or three other buildings has Albrýndaer seen erected in this manner in the whole of his life, and certainly not an entire encampment of nearly fifty men. Have the people among whom he has lived for the whole of his life truly been so overcome by weakness and despair that they could not build their own dwellings to protect themselves from danger and from the elements? For as he beholds them now, they seem the most natural and obvious thing, and he cannot understand why they have not become the standard in every encampment.

The warriors’ abode lies nestled in a corner of the massive cavern where the stony roof that arches hundreds of yards overhead finally juts downward toward the floor, and here, in this hidden alcove, is split by a cleft about a hundred or so feet across, creating an enclosure that is all but invisible from a distance. A single path runs through the center of the encampment, abodes to the left and the right, while the ground rises gradually to a crest against the back part of the alcove, completely hidden from view not only to outsiders but even to those in the encampment itself. Here lies the shrine around which the religious life of the warriors is focused, and wherein their spiritual exercises are performed, though their whole life indeed is strictly regimented with such practices as are ordained toward attaining enlightenment. This Albrýndaer learns immediately upon his walk through the settlement, hearing the monotonous chants of men sounding from within their dwellings, repeated again and again as a mantra seeking to dig deep into the soil of the heart or to pierce through the heavens, he does not know, or perhaps both simultaneously. He hears too, to his surprise, the lashing of a whip, and is disturbed by this, wondering what forms of punishment they inflict upon their members, and for what crimes. His disquiet is not lessened when he sees in passing that this act of flagellation is not inflicted from one man to another, but by each man upon his own flesh. And yet in the same measure that his heart is unsettled by what he sees and hears, so too is his curiosity piqued and his yearning for strength, for a life of vigor and discipline, awakened. He yearns for what he sees, for that virile power that can strip itself of all else, and can cause itself pain and torment, all for the sake of the goal that it seeks. All of his trust, all of his waiting, has led him to nothing but loss and death, and what he thought would come to him as a gift from without, pouring freely into his receptive poverty, has proved both untrustworthy and ineffectual. And so he now resolves to instead seek through the energetic striving of his own will what he had failed to receive in all his previous hopefulness and receptivity.

“A newcomer, eh?” says the voice of a man unseen as they crest the rise and stand a short distance from the shrine, an altar of cut stone that is currently in heavy shadow with no light from any source cast upon it. The roof of the cavern hangs so low here that the area seems almost to be a man-made dwelling with a ceiling, though not far before it the stone is split wide, cleft upward for hundreds of yards above them. Looking around for the source of the mysterious voice, Albrýndaer sees a figure emerge from the deep shadows behind the altar and, when he steps into the light, his face is revealed. He is old in comparison with the other men in the camp, his face lined with many years and furrowed with age and suffering; and his eyes are distant, almost as if even in the moment that he directs his gaze upon Albrýndaer he sees him not, nor cares to see him, so occupied is he with striving to see things beyond.

“You have come to join us, and for this you shall forever be commended,” says the man. “But know also that in departing from your home and from the old world you once knew, you have forever forfeit the right to return. Henceforth we alone shall be your family and your love, and the object of our worship shall likewise be the sole purpose of your life.”

“I know little yet of the things of which you speak,” Albrýndaer says in response, and it takes effort for him to find the courage to speak in such a manner. “Neither my mind nor my heart is ready for such a commitment.”

“And yet you came. The leaving itself is everything, and it allows no looking back. To firm and strengthen this commitment, and to bring you to understand the nature of your devotion, you shall undergo the trial which all new members of our order must undergo. This shall be your introduction into our way, and we are confident with utmost surety that when you come out of it you will never wish to depart from this way again. For it is the only true way of life and of power.”

“What is the nature of this trial of which you speak?”

“Worry not, it is something quite simple,” the man remarks. “But I leave that, and the explanation of the tenets of our belief, to another. I have many affairs to which I must attend, and, having greeted you, I must now return to them. Please, Vildrin shall take care of the rest,” he concludes with a wave of his hand.

Having said these words, the man turns away and disappears again into the darkness as if swallowed up by it and by it hidden from this world entirely. The man standing near Albrýndaer, who had first spoken with him in his own encampment and invited him to join them, turns to face him directly and says, “You have heard our leader. It is up to me now, according to his word, to introduce you to all else you need to know, though your true initiation alone shall reveal the greatest mysteries.”

“To speak truly,” begins Albrýndaer hesitantly, “I am somewhat unsettled.”

“Only somewhat?” Vildrin asks with a raised brow, though Albrýndaer cannot tell with what intent he asks this, whether it is sarcasm or some other thing. But before the latter can say anything more, Vildrin speaks again, “Come, let us find a place nearby to sit, and we shall speak together.”

This they do, finding shelter in a narrow structure not ten paces from the base of the rise of land on which the shrine is built, and together they sit facing one another. “I must inaugurate you,” Vildrin begins, his eyes bright with a mysterious excitement even in the midst of the heavy shadow that hangs upon the rest of his features in the dimly lit space. “I must inaugurate you, I repeat, into our way. It is my greatest privilege to do this.”

“What, then, is this way?” asks Albrýndaer, his stomach hard with anxiety. The weight of the unknown presses heavily upon him, and even as he tries to silence his own fears, he has seen little yet to console him and give him confidence. Even so, he sets his sights and his desires upon the power that is promised to him, and he tries to stir up in his heart the willingness to do whatever is necessary to attain it.

“You need not even ask,” replies Vildrin. “Your questions, be they petty or great, matter little now, though you are free to ask them. What matters is what we deign to bestow upon you—for you are but an ignorant little child before the dispensation of the great mystery. Each one of us is such when we first arrive, preoccupied with our questions without realizing that they matter not. Only gradually do we come to grasp the truth that we must forego understanding so that we might gain knowledge, must forego our curiosity that we might gain penetration of the mystery, must forego ourselves that we might gain power beyond ourselves. This is what lies before you, provided that you prove worthy. So open your heart to what I have to say to you.” With this he pauses for a moment, as if collecting himself to say fittingly what he has to say. “What is most important for you to know is also the source of the power that you seek. In other words, the great mystery we revere and the source of our strength are one and the same, identical in our eyes and in truth; what you worship is also that which bestows the power to possess more than any man could ever hope to possess, to be more than he might hope to be: to become an akafûnd, a great-man, a man who has truly reached another level of humanity beyond the weakness and pettiness inherent in our kind. For surely that is why you came, is it not?”

Albrýndaer nods mutely.

“Of course it is,” continues Vildrin. “And so I introduce to you the great secret, which we call according to a tongue no longer in use the anári. It is a plural name, yet only one mystery, for in it lies the multiplicity of all forms of power and knowledge. These deities, these powers—multiplicity and singularity, one—are what we worship, and it is they, or it, who bestow upon us that which is greater than ourselves and yet which becomes so truly our own that with it we may smite our enemies. They give this power in an agreement or pact in which something of ours is offered that we might receive something of theirs, taking possession of their power. How this commerce functions and its true nature I do not understand, nor do I think it much matters. For in this bond we are the beneficiaries. They, on the other hand, have little need of receiving benefits of any kind. They must either be well-disposed to us or natively generous for granting us such great boons. Or perhaps they care so little about us, and yet have such immense power, that they hardly give a thought to sharing with us what we ask in response for the little we give them—as one would give a candy in order to quiet a child.

“Nonetheless, it is my opinion that they are the ground of every benefit in this world, the true power that moves all things—all real things, mind you. For the things of the flesh, the things seen with the eyes and touched with this frail and faltering skin, these things are mere appearance and shadow. Mere darkness before the coming of the light. They are naught in comparison with what is. They deceive and they lie. They flicker before our very gaze and they fade away before our very touch. But the ossa ria endures unbroken even when all else turns to dust; and it is our task precisely to reduce it to dust, at least in our own heart and affection. We turn from the visible to the invisible, from the tangible to the intangible, until we cease to love anything that is known to the fleshly man that we once were. We enter into a great unknowing, into the annihilation of all that we once esteemed, so that we might find true enlightenment on the path to seeing, a seeing that is the fountainhead of true power. But this seeing is non-seeing; it is the realization that there is nothing either to see or to know, and that all is vanity and appearance, and that the only reality that endures when everything has faded is the power of the anári and its inflow into the purified human spirit devoid of all else but this.”

“You speak of these anári,” says Albrýndaer, “but I have never heard of them. Who are they, and from whence does our knowledge of them arise?”

“It is not surprising that you are not acquainted with them. Or perhaps you fear that they are some new discovery or incipient belief? But I tell you that they are the most ancient of all the gods, and indeed beyond the gods, revealing these latter to be nothing but lies, faces that fearful men and women have painted upon the blank canvas of the universe to give them solace in their weakness. But such ‘gods’ have no strength, nor do they give strength to those who worship them; rather, this false worship only confirms such people in their own paltry inability, giving them permission to remain too weak even to strive for a life greater than their own. But these anári, no, the worship of them is both deeper and wider, and more ancient. People, and by this I mean the truly enlightened, have recognized the anári from before our ancestors even came to this land. Their cult was brought across the ocean from the land that was our origin, and their worship has been preserved over the millennium and more that has passed since that time. We seek only to revive this tradition and to allow it to live again, to come to the insight that was granted to our forefathers of old, and which, we believe, is the true foundation stone of our society.”

“Who, or what, are these anári of which you speak?” Albrýndaer inquires.

“Such questions are unfitting for them, though your asking is entirely understandable, considering the ignorance from which you come. You see, they are not bound by our logic, by our indefatigable impulse to put names and titles to things, and thus to control them. No, the anári are approached not through knowledge, but through the forfeit of knowledge. This I have already said, though I recognize it shall take you time to adjust yourself to this realization, to approach things in a manner far different than you did before. And if you persevere in this way, a great realization awaits you. For the anári are known not through the feverish grasping of the mind, but through the direct experience of their power. And they are power. If anything can be said of them at all, it is this. They are power. Where all other forces fail, they deliver, fulfilling the requests of those who call upon them and granting them abilities far beyond human imagination.”

“But I wonder: how do we know of them? From whence does this knowledge, and its trustworthiness, arise?”

“Did you not just ask that question a moment ago?” asks Vildrin, his eyes flaming either with anger or with passion, it is impossible to tell.

“I-I suppose I did.”

“But no matter. All of this takes time. Even so, you must be generous on your part. We cannot do all of the work for you. So let me repeat. It is as I said: we know them through the experience of their power. Only in this experience can you know their truth and cease to look for proofs on the level of reason and history, understanding and flesh.”

“You speak of the power to defeat that which threatens our people, which threatens my family?”

“The very same.”

“This power can defeat the beasts of darkness which come from the depths and which bring death to our people?”

“The very same. You have seen it already.”

“How shall I experience and receive this power?”

“Oh, you shall experience it, though the manner of its reception only you can say, when your heart is made pure,” Vildrin says. “But perhaps you have tasted it already, in rare moments of your life, when you were restless for a life more than the one you have always known.”

Thinking for a moment, Albrýndaer takes the risk to say, “There is something—someone—whom I have known since I was a child. However, I do not think I would explain it as ‘power.’”

“From childhood, you say?” Vildrin asks. “In what manner did you know this reality?”

“I sensed, in a way I cannot quite explain, that it was all around me, indeed, within me, and that it upheld all things even while being always beyond them. It was not until recently, of course, that I explicitly thought of this awareness, or even became fully conscious of it. But it was always there, as the horizon of all my feeling, thought, and act. In truth,” and at this he pauses and lowers his eyes, “it was not until I lost its consolation and light that I fully realized how deeply I had experienced it before. Not until it was too late did I recognize this presence, for then it had already departed from me.”

“If you experienced anything at all, it was the anári. Of that I can assure you. But what in your prior experience was a true glimpse of their power, I cannot say. Only a new experience of them, one according to their measure and not according yours, in a break from all your prior knowledge, can reveal this. And the anári are a mysterious energy that permeates the cosmos. You can never be without their presence. You need only learn to tap into it once again. It is they who are the source of all power—that is, all true power. There are many forms of false power, as we see, for example, in the gods who are but facades of human imagining or in the creatures that now beset us from their abode deep within the earth. They would rule us, subject us, and even destroy us through fear, and not liberate us through strength. The only way to combat this falsity is to tap into the true power, to harness it and make use of it.”

“And how do you gain access to such power?”

“Through sacrifice. No power is gained without sacrifice,” explains Vildrin. “We give to the anári something, and they in return bestow upon us a portion of their power, the greater in proportion as what we sacrifice is greater. Do you not feel powerless when left to your own devices? Do you not wish to be able to prevent more death and destruction? The anári can give you such power.”

Both confusion and longing grip Albrýndaer’s heart as he tries to mentally and emotionally sift through the words that he hears. Among the more opaque things he has been told, much also seems to him to have a foundation in truth; and yet it also feels a hair’s-breadth off from truth’s center, a perversion that he fears conceals a far greater divergence underneath than he can yet see. Also, something about power being given in exchange for sacrifice stirs a deep unease within him; and yet at the same moment he cannot deny that he does desire greater power, the power to protect and to fight, even to make those who harm the weak and the innocent pay, be they beasts or men. This thought that stirs within him frightens him, as until this moment he did not know that it lay hidden within him. But there it is, as if looking back at him from the darkness. Suddenly, raising his head and looking deeply at his interlocutor, he asks, “What if these powers are given to you by the very same energies that give life to our enemies, to the ötûnr?”

“What a foolish question,” Vildrin replies almost without thought. “If an army is arrayed against itself, how could it possibly be victorious? Why would the anári fight against themselves? That is like a man slaying his own kin or for no reason plunging his knife into his own vital essence. No, the ötûnr are creatures of the dark, creatures born of the false powers of the universe, the ones that for many centuries have been called ‘gods’ by men. They demand worship and obeisance for which they give in return nothing but heavy burdens, shackles, and suffering. That is what those who parade as ‘gods of light’ offer. No, it is the anári who are the true heart and soul of this world, and its true vigor.”

“Did you not say that these gods were but imaginings from the heart of fearful men?” asks Albrýndaer. “Yet now you speak of them as demanding worship and obeisance. Which is the truth?”

“Perhaps both are the truth,” Vildrin remarks with a careless shrug of his shoulders. “Such contradictions can be taken lightly. There can be yet other forces in the universe arrayed against the power of the anári, and yet in truth they are nothing but shadows and imaginings, for it is the latter who alone are. All else is but dust and ashes.” Pausing, Vildrin looks over him for a moment, and then continues, “I see it in your eyes. You still ask: ‘How can I know this?’ How can you know? You can know only through the direct experience of their power. When you have felt this in your own bones, when you have experienced their energy surging within you, then you shall doubt no longer. But first you must offer sacrifice, for unless the deal is sealed, unless the bond is forged, no power shall be granted. And if you refuse such sacrifice and fail to receive such bond, it would have been better for you to have stayed with the doomed people of your encampment, eking out a pitiful existence until the last flickering light of your life is extinguished.”

“You really think they are doomed?”

“We are all doomed unless something is done,” says Vildrin with emphasis. “You know this as well as I. And that is precisely our aim: to do something to stop this spiral into death. Shall you not join us?”

“I…I shall join you, though I have been given little choice. But I want to know more of what you speak, to understand more of this mystery. For at present my mind stands as before a wall of blackness that I cannot penetrate, and I feel only confusion.”

“That is a good sign,” affirms Vildrin. “Passing that wall of blackness is your only way forward. But you must leave the stubborn efforts of the frail mind on the outside, and let only the naked spirit pass beyond. Let your confusion be a sign for you of your own fear, of your own stubbornness, and learn to renounce yourself for the sake of the greater knowledge and power that lie beyond.”

† † †

Albrýndaer is led now to what can only be termed a cave-within-the-cave, carved by nature into the wall of the great cavern. For tunnel it is not, nor is it a structure fashioned by the artifice of man, though it is recessed a good twenty feet into the wall, narrower at the opening than it is at the back, where it spreads from the breadth of extended arms to two or three times that size. Inside this alcove there is neither furnishing nor lamp, nor in fact anything at all but rough and naked stone, and both darkness and silence complete and undiluted.

“Total deprivation shall teach you to be strong,” Vildrin remarks at Albrýndaer’s side, his voice seeming surprisingly near and loud in the enclosed space. “Take this,” his voice continues, and at first Albrýndaer is confused as something is pushed into his hands. He realizes that it is a flask of water. “Drink this now—all of it. For you are not allowed to keep it with you, to keep anything with you at all.”

“What do you mean? Am I…” but his voice trails off, for somehow he knows what is expected of him. And the thought scares him. And yet even as he fills his stomach with the contents of the flask, the fear recedes a bit to leave in its wake a profound unease and, buried deep under this unease and almost entirely inaccessible to Albrýndaer’s consciousness, the resolve of a will ready to undergo whatever is expected of him.

“Now strip off all of your clothes,” says Vildrin, turning away. “When I said nothing, I meant it. Cast them out of the cavern, and then we shall seal you in.”

“I…” Albrýndaer begins to speak, but his voice again dies in his throat. He does as he is asked. And then, without another moment’s time to speak or to think, he is left alone in the darkness and the entrance to the alcove of stone is sealed with a thick wooden frame to forbid escape. All that he is told is, “Many days you shall remain here, and you shall be provided, at our discretion, with enough to stay alive. You must know not how long or short it shall be. Indeed, only the gôdi himself shall decide when your trial is complete. Without food your body shall hunger and shall cry out; but it is water above all that you shall need, and which shall drive you nearly mad with the desperate clamors of the flesh. Overcome them and you may truly be a man worthy of the name, and one of us.”

That is all. The only thing that crosses Albrýndaer’s mind as the entrance to his new home—his prison—is sealed is that not knowing the length of his trial is more maddening to him, and scarier, than is the certainty of going without food and water for the same span of time. Not knowing the length of one’s trial increases its burden profoundly. But surely they would not leave him to fade away in the darkness until hunger and thirst weaken him beyond repair? Certainly, therefore, his confinement cannot be too long? With this frail and self-made hope, Albrýndaer paces the alcove, trying to still the restlessness and agitation of his heart, trying also to make some sense of the events that have led him to this place, grasping to find some clarity through the heavy fog of confusion that fills his mind and his heart.

But now is not a time for fruitful thought, as the terror that only minutes before Albrýndaer had buried with all the energy within him (even beyond his own awareness that he was doing so) surges again to the surface. And when he has exhausted himself in his frantic pacing, added to the stress and fatigue and fear of the previous weeks, he collapses to the hard ground, breathing heavily, his heart sick within him. Curled up with his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth, he lets the tears flow freely from his eyes—tears of grief and frustration, of fear and anxiety, of the utter feeling of hopelessness and, already, if he were honest with himself, of regret. And after these bitter tears have drained the last of his stamina, he slips at last into sleep.

When he wakes, his mind is flooded with the thoughts and fears that tormented him in his restless dreams. But now his fear is awakened not so much by the time that he knows he must spend in solitude and need, as rather by the wider plight of his people. In comparison with the situation in which the entire community in the underground prison finds itself, a handful of days, weeks, or even months confined in solitude seems to be nothing. But this does not make it any easier to bear. For he cannot help but torture himself grasping for answers and seeking to regain some semblance of control in a situation which utterly surpasses his capacity for control or comprehension, which tears him utterly out of his depth.

Pacing back and forth in the narrow space between the rock walls of his cell, or sitting in the corner with his knees drawn close to his chest to hold in warmth, or lying down and trying to sleep but unable to truly rest, he is unaware of how much or how little time passes. Soon indeed he has hardly any concept of time at all, and is unsure whether it is still the first day of his enclosure or the third or the tenth. The only sense of connection to the world or to time that he is granted is an occasional tiny sliver of light and the soft thud of a wooden plate being set on the hard stone by the entrance to the cavern. Crawling to it in the refreshed darkness after that moment of light, he feels a bit of hard bread and a small cup of water—just enough to sustain life, and no more. Other than this, he has nothing, no nourishment, no occupation, and no sense of either space or time, be they anything but the cramped and fearful spaces of his own heart and mind. And even as he suffocates in the narrowness of his own interior world, lost to time and lost to connection, this very loss opens up within Albrýndaer an ever more profound sense of vulnerability and exposure, as if the foundations of his life and his understanding are pulled out from underneath him. What he finds instead is a gaping abyss of unknowing. Never before in his life has he known such uncertainty and such fear, like slipping down into nothingness without even the hope of a handhold to halt his descent. He feels the utter fragility of life, his own life as well as of everything that lives. It all appears to him as a profound question, a question uncertain of ever finding an answer. Indeed, even the voice of the question seems to fall mute, unintelligible, before the profound uncertainty and fear which preclude not only an answer but even the possibility of an answer. And in this state he remains for a long time beyond measure and thought.

Little by little, and imperceptible to himself, as the timelessness carries him onward and his mind passes in and out of thought and of silence-beyond-thought, something begins to change at the heart of the abyss. He realizes, almost in passing—almost apathetically, as if noticing it from a distance—that this “unknowing” is the place to which the members of the cult desired to lead him. And yet it seems so small and narrow now, so cramped. It is not a liberation or a dilation from the prison of his narrow self, but at most a sinking into resignation or acceptance. And in this very recognition, this recognition that in his own heart alone he can find neither rest nor freedom, neither wideness nor depth, Albrýndaer tastes the first breath of freedom, the first drop of living water upon his tongue, not of flesh but of spirit. For he is carried further, beyond the unknowing, beyond the letting go of all things and the utter nudity of thought and affection that it brings, to a place where both thought and affection are born again within him, all the deeper and wider for having been pruned in the darkness and awakened at the heart of loss. In this thought and affection, he remembers first his earliest memories: those of love and warmth, of tenderness and kindness, of kisses and caresses and words softly spoken. And he remembers the blossoming of his friendship with his beloved Ílya. He recalls her beauty both of spirit and of body, the radiance of her person so unique and so special, her laughter and her tears, her playfulness and her sobriety, the lightness of her heart and the heaviness of her pain. He sees in his mind’s eye all those whom he has known throughout his life, those who have been kind to him and those who have not, and those who have hurt him profoundly. And he sees himself, too, in this current of thought, woven into the fabric of the world even if buried under its surface in a prison made of stone. And in all of these things, all of these persons and experiences, he sees with a vision beyond sight and a knowledge beyond uncertainty, the presence of the One whom he has known from his earliest days to be infinite and eternal Love.

In this remembrance something is unsealed deep within him, and the solitude which before was torturous and anguished, filled with fear and desperation, is now bathed in peace and security, joy and gratitude. For a light dawns upon his interior vision, and he sees. He sees a figure approaching him as it were clothed in light, wedded to light, indeed a figure composed entirely of light itself. And yet the figure is also unmistakably human, emerging before his vision in the flesh and the form of a man. As the figure draws nearer Albrýndaer beholds his countenance, his face, which is directed upon him with a gaze of unutterable tenderness and breathtaking delight, with a kindness before which all human kindness pales, with a love before which all earthly love is but a tiny spark before a blazing furnace. This figure stands before him in all of his spiritual nudity and yet is not exposed, for the light enshrouds him in a manner that is both revelation and veiling, both vulnerability and security. And Albrýndaer, attracted by this gaze and by this nudity, steps forth into the light himself, reciprocating gaze for gaze, heart for heart, gift for gift. And even as he does so he feels himself lifted up and mingled together in the light with the figure of light, joined to him in a way that reveals both his own most singular truth as beloved of the light and also the truth of the Other, this Ineffable One who is so transcendent and yet so near.

And in the blaze of this radiant glory, the vision shifts. In a sight that is both of the eyes and beyond the eyes, Albrýndaer finds himself joined to the gaze of the One who first looked upon him, coming to see with his own vision. And he gazes thereby, with the One who has first looked upon him, upon the Origin of all things as this Origin pours himself forth in unbounded love and tenderness, delight and predilection. And this gift from the Origin of all, to his surprise and wonder, pours forth neither into nothingness nor merely into finite creation, into the bounds of the cosmos, but rather into the very One whom he first encountered, the figure of light, who can only be described as the perfect reflection of the splendor of his Origin, who is boundless infinity even as he is a delineated figure of radiant and glorified flesh. Albrýndaer beholds the gift given from the Giver, the One from whom all giving springs, indeed who is the very foundation of Being itself, the very definition of what it means to be; and he beholds and experiences in himself this gift eternally realized and received by the Other who is as a mirror-image of the First, and yet is distinct and unique as Beloved is distinct from Lover or Child from Parent. And in receiving the love and gift of his Origin, this Beloved exists forever as reciprocal gift back to the Giver; the One Given is also Gift to the Giver. And in this reciprocal gift a Third exists, the very union that they share and the abundance of their mutual life. And Albrýndaer also experiences the mystery of this Third, the union of the Two, of the Lover and the Beloved. He feels in himself that this Third is the flow of gift between Lover and Beloved, the circuit of exchange that has always been and shall always be, before all the ages of the world ever came to be, and in which these ages are encompassed as a drop of water in a boundless Ocean—and this flow of gift and this bond of union between Lover and Beloved is so radiant, so true, so beloved too, that he reflects the Two who are his origin and exists, also, as a Third, as One in relation, as One who receives and gives love, who is everlasting communication, dialogue, gift, and belonging, and who is thus unending and uncontainable joy and gladness.

For as the Beloved is eternally born of the gift of the Lover, from the womb of his everlasting delight and predilection, his tenderness, his loving outpouring, finding in this love his own identity, so too the Beloved becomes for the Lover all that the Lover is for the Beloved. And yet he is so in the unique contours of belovedness: he is reciprocal delight, predilection, tenderness, reception of the gift and its giving-back, with all that he is, to the One who has first loved him. Albrýndaer witnesses this reciprocal giving as an abyss of infinite Love pouring into an abyss of infinite receptivity to be loved, and the reciprocal gift of Love back to its Source. The Lover is as an infinite waterfall of boundless fullness and intensity forever pouring out in love to the Beloved, and the Beloved is infinite and boundless receptivity and responsive gift, being in himself equally infinite: the Abyss to the Abyss calls and the Abyss responds in love, and all is love and the unity of love. For the Third is this shared Love of the Lover and the Beloved, the current of their mutual gift and delight and seeing and predilection: the mutual communication shared by the abyss of Lover and the abyss of the Beloved. This Third is the vibrant atmosphere and the sweet fruit of the shared love of the Lover and the Beloved, the silence in which the everlasting word of truth, goodness, and beauty echoes, the music of eternal harmony, the breath of shared life and indwelling, the kiss of complete mutual surrender. And he is loved in his own right by the Lover and the Beloved with the same love with which the Lover loves the Beloved and the Beloved loves the Lover, and he is toward both Lover and Beloved what they are toward him. And this total mutual possession of love—or rather this total mutual belonging of love—allows the Three to reciprocally inhere in one another completely, to live each in the other, forever without end.

And Albrýndaer finds himself held direct in the center of this everlasting embrace, utterly permeated with the surging currents of this life which vibrate through him and cause him to tremble as strings of a harp under the master player’s fingers. And indeed, in beholding and experiencing this Three-in-One unity of everlasting and consummate Love, a Love that is permeated by wonder-filled delight and lighthearted play, Albrýndaer knows that he beholds also the origin and consummation of the whole creation. For as the Second pours forth in love from the First, and receives and reciprocates in this love both his very own existence and also the love of his Origin, so too is the whole cosmic order both born and carried to its fulfillment. Conceived as it were in the womb of the shared play and intimacy of the Three, the cosmos is brought forth as an expression of such love and such activity, such gratuity and such delight, meant to be as it were a “playmate” of the Three, sharing in the belovedness of the Beloved and in the fullness of his life. And as this reciprocal love is consummated in a Third at the heart of the Threefold life, so too is creation brought to its highest and fullest realization in the reception and reciprocation of love, in the sweet kiss, embrace, and breath of unity that is the fulfillment of all being by drawing distinction into unity without dissolving distinctness, but rather affirming and fulfilling it. For the cosmos exists, from beginning to end, cradled in the intimate space of the shared love of the Three, in the outpouring of One into the Other and in the Unity that they share. And the world, thus, abides according to its purpose and intention insofar as it remains in the stance by which the Three always live in relation to one another, allowing itself, thus, to be integrated into their own life and to become thereby a sharer in their endless bliss, abundant play, and everlasting happiness, the happiness of perfect Love.

Three-in-One and One-in-Three: this is what Albrýndaer beholds—whom Albrýndaer beholds. And though his limited earthly mind cannot grasp it and contain it, he beholds its splendor and its beauty, the splendor and beauty of Being who can only be called God. Bathed in the light of this vision, Albrýndaer knows now with a certainty whom it is he has encountered. This is a certainty born from the crucible of his experience of the abyss of loss and yet it builds a bridge over it, a bridge so firm that in the moment of its realization in him, he almost laughs out loud with delight. For he has encountered, he has found—or rather he has been found by—the God who is himself an eternal Abyss of Love and everlasting Communion.