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Myron Epimetheus
The little man listens intently as the boy speaks. Still he clings to the illusions that have deceived him - how hard it is for the young to recognize their dreams have been mistaken. “You studied nothing, boy,” the sage says with a quiet sternness in his words. “That shadow you have mistaken for yourself studied and you accepted what it asked you to accept. Even if the woman you seek were here and even were she dead within this grave the spell would not work. You have not the power to cast so great an enchantment regardless of what you have lead yourself to believe.” The sage shuffles forward and stooping picks up the candle. “Spent, boy, like your hopes.” His voice abruptly changes and he speaks quickly in yet another strange tongue and the candle is restored to its original form. “Burn it again, boy, and the result shall be the same. Even were one of great power to burn it and even were this Mistral of yours to be both dead and entombed in this place, it would not work. The underlying structure of shadow out of which it is made is flawed, boy.” His voice shifts once more into the strange tongue of a moment ago and the candle returns to nothing more than few spent drippings of dusky wax. “Accept the limits of your state, boy. You are no mage nor are you powerful, nor is your understanding of things either complete or accurate or clear.” He pauses and fixes his gaze directly on the young man. “Nor is your grief over the loss of your wife any greater than that same grief felt by countless others who have known loss. You are little more than one wounded man in a world filled with the wounded. Boys deny such things and seek to escape them, and boys are easily deceived.” He tosses the spent candle aside, a toy that was only useful in the daydreaming of the mislead.
“You have been deceived, boy. Greatly deceived. A lie was told to you boy, a lie that entered your pain and found there a welcome. A cruel lie. A lie so subtle and so strong it could easily become not only believed but thrust all truth aside in its assertion of itself.” The little man pauses. His grip upon the emerald has grown very tight and his gaze is penetrating as he stares at this young man who stands so unsteadily at such a delicate point in his life. “I have studied the ancient threads of these forums, boy, every one of them. I have discovered the lie and I am here that the truth might be told.”
He falls silent and simply stares at the young man. Minutes pass as he waits for the other to struggle over what he has disclosed to this point. When again he speaks, his words are direct and simple. “You are not, nor have you ever been that One who is known as the Mage that Mods, and Mistral Freelight is not dead.”
[ 07-29-2006, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Cyril Darkcloud ]
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