Kraghtol had trouble following the conversation. More important thoughts occupied his mind, and it was hard to concentrate on anything else but the massive building in front of him. It didn’t feel right to abandon Roderic like that, but then again, Valir was correct: they were neither wardens nor babysitters for the orderkeeper.
“Let’s move on,” he said, almost annoyed that his friends took so long. There was definitely movement in the fog, perhaps animals, perhaps the demon. It didn’t matter, as long as they stayed where they were, away from their group. Dagna and Valir had spotted them, too, and exchanged fearful glances, but at least hurried to catch up with Kraghtol.
“Have you —” Valir began, but Kraghtol answered with a dismissive gesture. “Yes, I know. If they had wanted to attack, they would have done so already. Come on, it’s not far now.”
He noticed the confused look on the noble’s face but ignored it. This was important. Finally, they arrived at the massive stone door. The building was even more impressive from nearby. It was indeed made of stone, but not from individual bricks or slabs. The entire wall rising in front of them had no gaps or crevices that suggested it had actually been built, nor any sign of having been worked with hammer and chisel. Instead, the uneven stone surface appeared to have just happened to grow into this form from the ground.
There was just one thing that stood out, big as a millstone but tiny compared to the entirety of the building. At eye level, but precisely centered in the door horizontally, was a big white crystal embedded into the stone. It formed a flawless circle but had perfectly symmetrical right-angled strands extending into the surrounding stone, like veins. He had seen this before.
“Is that…” asked Dagna, and Kraghtol nodded. “A seal.”
“It doesn’t look like the one in Bronzebreak,” she said, reaching out a hand without touching it. “It looks like it’s made of ice, but it’s not cold…”
“In any case, it’s beautiful,” Valir said. “And the only thing on this whole thing not giving me a headache.”
Now that he mentioned it, Kraghtol could absolutely see that. Before, it had seemed like a foreign and misplaced object in the rugged beauty of the building, but the opposite was also true. A soothing jewel embedded in stone, shining even more from the contrast.
He reached out, hesitated and then finally touched it. He had half expected something to happen, but nothing changed. The surface was smooth to the touch and so perfect it must have taken a master jeweler a lifetime to remove any bumps and irregularities. His dirty green hand looked alien against the pure white structure. He closed his eyes, trying to drown out all distractions. What had the nameless old man said again?
“I think I can open it.”
When he opened his eyes again, both Dagna and Valir stared at him.
“What? How?” Dagna asked, preempting Valir only by seconds. “I thought you didn’t know how!”
“Never mind the ‘how’.Whywould you do something like that?! The wayIsee it, this whole… castle-thing is just pure evil. And this seal is keeping it under control, or perhaps shut. You can’t possibly think it’s a good idea to remove it, even if you could!”
The problem was that Valir possibly had a point. Kraghtol couldn’t deny a part of him thinking the same thing: some things should better be left undisturbed. On the other hand…
“You might be right,” he began, not sure yet where the sentence would take him. “Perhaps weshouldturn around and leave this thing behind. But what then? Where do I go? Where dowego? I mean, look at us. What do we have left? The world is like a perfect clockwork. On the outside. Everything is set in its way from the moment you are born. Tradition, nobility,… tusks. You can only do what is expected of you, and if you don’t… you are cast aside, like a bad potion, not fit for the purpose you were brewed for.”
He looked between the two of them and saw it again, reflected in their eyes, before he felt it. The unseen fire within him, gaining strength with every word.
“Every choice you make is either right or wrong. The right ones bring you closer to being the petty part in the machine you were meant to be, and the wrong ones have to be punished, hard and fast. None of this is designed to befairorkind. I don’t even know if it isdesignedat all, or if it’s just the natural tendency of people making other people miserable. Not because they are bad, but because it’s easy. Well. I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to be what’s expected of me, which, at this point, is dead. And I certainly don’t want to do that to other people, too. I want to be free. Free to follow my dreams, to be with the ones I like, and free to be myself.”
Even though he consciously tried to avoid it, his gaze lingered on Valir’s deranged face for longer than he intended at the last sentence.
“And if that means I’ll have to damage a little bit of the order meant to keep things as they are, if that means I’ll have to take a risk and change things up… so be it.”
A moment of coldfire silence followed.
“Aaand you really want to know what’s behind that door, right?” Dagna grinned, considerably less concerned than the human. “I’m in!”
“Yes, that too,” Kraghtol admitted. “But we’re here together, and you are my friends, the only friends I have ever had. If you don’t want to go in, we don’t.”
The inner fire had receded, but it was still burning. He meant everything he had said, though, including the last part.
“Yeah, I want to know, too,” Valir said quietly. “You make some compelling arguments, Kragh, and I’ve got nothing except ‘it feels like a bad idea’. And the worst part is, now I don’t even know if that feeling is mine, or if it’s just what I’ve been told my entire life. It’s just that… I think we might be in over our heads.”
He straightened his back and collected himself — a simple gesture he probably didn’t even consciously notice. “Alright. Yes. Let’s do it. Take a risk and all that. We started this, so now let’s go through with it.”
Kraghtol felt his eyes fill with moisture at the reaction. Quickly turning around to hide his emotions, he mumbled a thank you before inspecting the seal again. Unlike the one in Bronzebreak, this one had no runes or symbols, but was just a large, crystalline disk. Still, it felt even larger and more powerful than the metal one.
It should be easy. It’s just a matter of resonance.He touched the smooth crystal again and closed his eyes. The association was clear. One half of his being despised everything about it. Smoothness, reliability, symmetry. His Orcish mind, feverishly at work for the last days, trying to find patterns in the swamp’s chaos, wouldn’t have any of it. But there was another part in him, the human part, which was tired and sore from all that was happening around him. And for this part, the even surface was soothing and healing.
Kraghtol tried to tune out the Orcish half, remembering how he had felt after taking the potion. It was surprisingly easy. For once, that part of his mind was satisfied and didn’t resist letting the rational, the ordered human side take focus.
Everything about this seal was predictable. It wasn’t made of metal because it represented another Principle — the Principle of Order. The milky white on the surface was pure only at first glance. Hidden below was an intricate structure of straight, parallel lines, right angles and clear surfaces, refracting the light until it became uniform white, no matter the individual color it might have had before. That was oddly compelling. Despite his speech just a minute ago, Kraghtol could feel that. Individuality was not ordered. Being just like everyone else was easy, liberating. Hadn’t he wished to be like that for almost all of his life? No need to think or to decide. Once everything was in order, there was no uncertainty about anything at all.
