Page 77 of Requiem of Silence

She focused on the center tree and released the massive feline. Its body dissolved into a blur of motion; it was gone and back again before Kyara had finished blinking. However, while she had directed her Song’s actions, she’d done so with no precision. Every single tree was blackened. The two on the ends crumpled and fell into a heap of ashes, fully decayed in an instant.

Behind her, Murmur sighed deeply. “Your heart still is not in this.” He stepped up beside her and waved an arm. The trees were once again whole, standing in a perfect line.

“Nethersong requires intention just as all magic does,” Murmur continued, “and if your intention is weak or unfocused, then so is the expression of your power. Look at how well the young one is progressing.”

Tana had taken to the training like a scalpel to viscera. On the other side of the cavern, her lizard, now a fierce dragon, let loose a fiery breath, which only affected the specific tree she’d targeted. Kyara sighed wistfully.

This was nothing like how her own brutal training had progressed at the hands of the Cantor. Of course she was glad that Tana was not being broken down to bloody bits and then rebuilt the way Kyara had been, but it was still bittersweet. Perhaps the gentle touch would not have worked for Kyara. Maybe she needed brutality in order to gain control.

“You must embrace your Light—your power,” Mooriah said,stepping up to her other side. It was like being in the middle of a disappointment sandwich. “You’re still trying to keep it at arm’s length when instead you mustopenyour arms to it. Your progress is too slow. The wraiths will destroy the entire land before you are able to become remotely competent.” The woman glared then turned away, muttering a curse before disappearing altogether, leaving the heart of the Mother.

“Was she always such a ball of sunshine?” Kyara grumbled.

“Once, she was indeed lighter and happier,” Murmur said. “She was our shaman, responsible for the spiritual and often physical well-being of the clan. Her husband was our chief and they were good leaders. Together, they united the clans and helped us keep our way of life even as so many left the mountain for the Outside. But death was not the respite it should have been for her.”

Kyara swallowed at Murmur’s mournful tone. She’d never spoken to Mooriah of her life or afterlife much. Annoyed as she was by the woman’s imperious manner and amoral methods, such things had not come up.

“I’m not sure how to erase ten years of conditioning and hatred of my Song,” she admitted. “I don’t know what to do differently.”

Murmur peered at her with his colorless eyes, though here, in this strange, magic-made place, his irises and lids were indistinct enough not to be as uncanny as they were in real life. He finally looked off but she couldn’t read his expression. But he appeared to come to a decision.

“You must meet the Breath Father. It is usually a rite of passage after certain milestones have been reached in your training, but I think you should do it now. Perhaps the meeting would help to unlock your block and accelerate your development.”

“Is he… sentient?” She’d always assumed the Breath Fatherwas like the Mountain Mother, part of Cavefolk myth and not an entity that could be met with. According to legend, the two deities had created the Folk from stone and water or some such.

“You will not believe my words, child. Best meet him for yourself and decide.” Murmur looked like he wanted to say more, but held back.

“What is it? Is there more I need to know?”

He took a deep breath. By now she was used to focusing on his face and not the expansion of muscle below. “Remember to breathe, dear. As deeply as you can. And bring the caldera with you—the one you call the death stone.”

Kyara stiffened, she hadn’t told anyone that she’d brought the strange rock along. “How did you know I brought it with me?”

He simply smiled cryptically and then turned to call Tana back from where she was playing with her lizard avatar. They all left the heart of the Mother to return to their physical forms.

Even wrapped tight in its bundling fabric and stowed in the pocket of her trousers, the death stone felt like it was going to burn a hole through her thigh. The heat wasn’t physical, the bundle actually felt quite cold, instead, the all-consuming weight of heavy foreboding was trying to eat through her clothes and right into the skin.

She followed Murmur down sloping tunnels she’d never been in before. The path was well-worn and lit with the strange glowing rocks that offered a muted shine, just enough so the journey wasn’t claustrophobic.

They traveled a long way, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her way back again. Nerves ate at her, and Murmur didn’t seem inclined to puncture the silence with conversation. Finally, they emerged in a huge cavern filled with water. Except that whenshe looked up, a filtered blue sky was visible above them. This place was actually outside of the mountain with some kind of covering protecting them from the overhead sun. The surface of the water glowed softly from the dampened light.

“This is the original caldera,” Murmur said with reverence. “We call it the Origin. Created by an ancient volcano, this crater was filled in over time with water and power and is the holiest place in the Mother.”

“What’s up there?” She pointed to the thing protecting them from the sky. The covering was filmy and made the sunlight refract into waves of rainbow colors shining down.

“It protects us from the Outside. It’s constructed from a sheet of fluorite so those of us too old to withstand the sun’s rays can still come here.” He gazed at the quiet lake reverently, but a growing sense of unease crawled over Kyara. The place was beautiful indeed with its colorful glow, but something about it tickled her senses in an uncomfortable way.

“So what happens now?” she asked, still staring up. When Murmur didn’t answer, she turned around to discover he’d disappeared. She didn’t understand how, he was standing next to her and then as soon as she turned her head, his body was just… gone. Into thin air. He certainly couldn’t have moved that quickly.

She swallowed and considered retreating the way they’d come, but the path had disappeared, too. The only dry land was under her feet; she now stood on a tiny island in the midst of the crater’s lake.

She must have entered some kind of vision. It hadn’t required meditation or drugs, she was just instantly inside it. Her wariness multiplied.

Steam poured off the placid surface of the lake and it began to bubble. She trembled, not wanting to fall off the sliverof land beneath her, which was barely bigger than her footprints. Not wanting to know what was in the water to make it churn and roil like that.

Would Tana eventually have to undergo this as well? The girl would be frightened out of her mind—Kyara was nearly so. She sank into her other sight, hoping it would provide some comfort, some level of control, or even some answers. There shone the light of death, the darkness of life, and the staticky Void, all here in the lake, swirling around one another but separate, like water and oil stirred but always pulling apart.

Out of the mess, something new began to coalesce. It was the variegated energy of the Void, neither light nor dark, but present always between them. Somehow, the Void was solidifying, if that was even possible, and converging into a human-like form.

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