A six-pointed star? he thought, since it was what he assumed at first, and there was no way he was mistaken.
The upward-pointing triangle appeared to be filled with a substance like melted gold. As Maze observed keenly, he noticed how it seemed to be moving.
It is not that my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I can clearly see it is whirling.
He was further bewildered by such a fact.
On each side of the triangle was a circle, and in each circle, there seemed to be a symbol. One appeared as the stiff silhouette of a man; on the other end was a flickering flame, and the one at the summit was a series of spiraling lines.
He stared at them for a while before he averted his observation toward the other set of circles.
The inverted triangle was a deeply carved line filled with melted silver. This substance was similarly dull, lacking any radiance as it flowed in a constant, slow pulse. Maze traced its points with his eyes and noted a symbol that resembled a clenched fist alongside a single concentrated droplet. The final point at the bottom was a wide hollow expanse that appeared to be a dark space.
Maze was already stooping over it to get a closer look, finding a flat tree made of glass that was placed at the center of the six-pointed star.
The glass was shaped into a sturdy trunk with branches reaching out. While a few leaves were scattered upon the limbs, it was mostly the bare reaches of the wood that stood out. Unlike the churning gold and silver, the glass tree was motionless, yet whatever truth it was meant to signify remained a mystery that Maze had no inkling of.
"You are easily captivated, are you not, Maze?" Vaelstrom's voice carried a hint of interest as he stood behind him. "As I have said, this is the Chamber of Sanctum, a place where one might cogitate with the aid of this platform. It is a ritual structure, as it meant to guide and navigate toward one's soul space — a difficult task, particularly for those of our station."
Soul space. That was another strange term Maze learned today. He could only sigh inwardly because he felt that he indeed had much more to be taught.
"Then what should I do?" Maze asked with a curious tone although he was unsure whether he was really prepared.
Vaelstrom placed both his hands on Maze's shoulders and guided him down. The latter sat without resistance. "You must settle yourself comfortably and ensure your eyes are closed."
The albino man stepped back and observed as the lids fell shut.
Maze could only hear Vaelstrom wander with his footsteps as he tried to maintain his current position.
"Attend to your heartbeat, for it is the primary step of cogitation. You must retain this conscious self of yours behind closed eyes and feel the expanse around you."
Maze was lost for a bit. He had to do what was required. He focused on hearing his own heartbeats. At first he could not hear his heart until at some point he finally could.
"Then steady your breathing. You must breathe as if you care for the earth, as if you are the wind. By doing so, you remain wary of the fact that you possess a body."
Maze inhaled steadily and then exhaled. He did so on and on without any lapses.
"Envision a color of your choosing, or perhaps a shade. Whatever it may be, it is necessary to anchor your focus so that you do not stray."
A shade of white appeared.
"You are performing well."
In the eyes of Vaelstrom the platform had already glowed from the carved lines of the six-pointed star. The symbols on the circles at the edges remained dark for now. The two triangles had begun exchanging positions as if they had been born to life while they circled in their place.
Vaelstrom noticed how Maze had begun sweating; while the latter had his jaw clenched already.
"Now, imagine your conscious dream. It is the dream where your soul lingered and does nothing but wander. Do you still recall the structure of it?"
"Yes."
Maze recalled the tree-bearing dice fruit on a landmass surrounded by black waters.
"Picture yourself in that dream, but do not succumb to sleep."
He was now standing before it.
"Now, feel it as if you truly are there. Remember that this conscious dream is a part of your Phantasm, as it is called a Vision. As a Vision, it is necessary to maintain control without losing your grip on reality . . . without falling into slumber."
The wind touched him and the grass brushed against his skin.
"Do you perceive anything?"
"Yes."
For Vaelstrom his confirmation was the glass tree symbol that had showed a dull golden light on the platform.
"Do not lose the sensation, do not lose your bodily senses, and do not let your soul stray. Otherwise, you shall fail."
In a while Maze stood in front of the tree in his Phantasm as he tried to hear his own heartbeats. He understood now that he had to be both physical and soul at once. Doing so exhausted him.
Vaelstrom noticed how the symbol that looked like a stiff silhouette of a man had now begun to shine. Next was the flickering flame symbol.
"Your body and soul are now a two-fold existence, wandering as both." Vaelstrom circled the cogitating Maze as he observed how Maze seemed to be breathing heavily: "An advise, you must maintain your steady breathing, and you must not yield to fatigue. Do so until your spirit is revealed to you. Even if it takes an eternity."
Now the six-pointed star was swirling madly on the platform. The symbol of spiraling lines flickered as if showing light.
In Maze's Vision, the brumal wind suddenly lashed out in all directions, turning into a howling gale that bit into his skin. Below him, the solitary landmass began to groan, sending a violent tremor through his feet that made the very air vibrate.
"I . . ." His throat went bone-dry, making his voice a scraggy rasp. "I . . . I think the ground is . . . breaking."
"So it is finally happening." Vaelstrom halted, his shadow lengthening across the glowing stone. "Do not fear the revelation."
Maze gripped his knees and tried to steady his breathing, but the earth beneath him buckled and heaved. A sensation like a cold blade began wounding him, yet he could not tell if it was cutting his soul, his body, or both at once. It felt as if he were being torn into separate pieces. With a thunderous crack, the landmass split down the center, and Maze felt his soul slip into the dark fissure, falling toward a distant pit of colorful specks of dust.
Meanwhile, Vaelstrom noticed that the flickering flame symbol had begun to shine with a steady, haunting light.
"You are now opening your path as a blessed, Maze, and it will hurt from now on."
It was indeed the truth. Maze clawed at his chest as a sharp pang pierced through his ribs. Groaning silently, he fought to maintain what was left of his focus while his soul continued to tumble through the endless, empty space.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Your body speaks to you, your soul speaks to you, and now, your spirit is revealed. Such is your three-fold existence aligning altogether as the key to cleanse your path from corruption."
The six-pointed star shone with a blinding brilliance that forced Vaelstrom to step back. He observed the man writhe in his overbearing sufferance, an invisible force ripping at Maze's clothes and violently swaying his hair. Maze sweat even more, his fingers digging into his skin as if he were truly trying to rip his own heart out.
Vaelstrom's eyes flickered.
"From this moment on . . . it is solely up to you."
A SEARING AGONY ignited within Maze's marrow, a hellish heat that transformed his veins into the flues of a stoked fire pit. Outside, his physical frame writhed in the grip of the ritual, but within the Phantasm, his soul plummeted through a void teeming with specks of colorful dust.
He was both burning and falling.
As he fell, the dust ceased to be mere light, with the motes becoming a buoyant current, a swirling void that caught his weight to experience levitation. Even without his soul experiencing the incineration, his body inside the Chamber of Sanctum did so for him, like a split reality he was bound to harness. With him being anchored and having one choice but not to lose consciousness, he was both punished and blessed.
Then there came falling rocks from every direction, surging toward the center in front of Maze. While the observing soul had no way but to watch, the stones collided and eroded against each other, with embers feeling like sparks made by fireworks. Boom! Boom!
With every collision, the entire space roared and writhed in tandem with his physical frame, as if producing sounds of terror and the otherworldly; the debris fused into a land with a flat surface and a deep, hardened foundation of soil beneath it that reached into the dark. The colorful motes clustered as Maze was subjected to draw nearer the landmass, until his feet met the cooling crust. He stood as a solitary subject upon an island in a deep space that abhorred him with chaos—
Until the sound stopped resonating, and everything went still and quiet.
Just as Maze thought it had come to end with peace, his body groaned and shook to the blistering pain, suffering a gruesome fatigue, like he was about to lose it.
But slowly, something was blooming inside Maze's body, deep within his chest, like a beating whisper that was cold and restful. This cooling effect fluctuated and began to grow, and before he knew it, even when he did not want to cry, tears had begun falling on his cheeks. It was a feeling that was . . . healing him.
From his Vision, moss grew from the landmass and covered the surface, and the colorful specks of dust and space around the island were blanketed by a blackened sky. Even in that darkness, six stars appeared, not as sources of light, but as objects of guide like stars in the night, without the presence of a moon, surrounding a sun in the center, much bigger and looming than them.
Soon, the incineration of Maze's body had ceased, as the cold was now enveloping him, yet not enough to freeze him to death, merely sufficing for his sweat to turn chilled as well.
He still could not feel Vaelstrom's presence, but he was not lacking awareness that he possessed a physical frame, and his spirit was being birthed inside him, with his soul as the witness.
This . . . Maze said inwardly.
Beneath the surface, wooden, tentacle-like roots emerged and wreaked havoc, a violent tremor as if they were plowing the very ground. Crack, crack! At the center, others entangled with one another in an upward direction. At first, Maze had no inkling of the intent, but as he realized a trunk was being shaped, as he now knew a tree was being born. The intertwining roots became smaller as they climbed, and without satisfaction, they stretched toward different corners to form branches after branches, leaving Maze bewildered by the view.
Then several pale green leaves began to sprout at the branches, with Maze unexpectedly coming to realize that he could count how many were they, as he could clearly measure about a hundred of them.
"Maze?"
The voice echoed within the landmass, causing slight vibration.
That voice . . . It seems familiar. Maze had a hunch of who could the voice be, and yet, when he looked around, he could not see anyone else within the expanse.
"Maze, this is Vaelstrom, can you hear me?"
He tried to feel his body and let his finger twitch a bit, and although, still struggling, he responded: "Yes."
"Better." Vaelstrom sighed in relief before he knelt one knee and scrutinized the relaxed body of the new Child. "Uh, I require your attention. Can you grant it?"
The body responded, "Yes."
"It is a trial at first, but soon, you shall master the art of governing your three-fold existence at once." Vaelstrom seemed to think for a moment. "For now, remain as observant as your replies allow, so we may determine the nature of your experience and glean wisdom along the way. Do you, er . . . copy?"
"I copy."
With his soul now looking at the tree, Maze was hearing Vaelstrom as the sound of the wind brushing passed him.
"Where do you find yourself right now?"
"I am in an island that floats in space. It seems that . . . there is a tree in front of me, which bore a slightly transparent glowing pale leaves."
"It is your soul space, Maze."
Maze was silent, as the wind talked again.
"A soul space is your inner world, and it reflects your essence entirely. Specifically, it is called a Soul Tree."
"Why . . . " Maze was hesitant. "Why Soul Tree?"
"Because it defines the very space itself. It is the tree by which you are seeing right now. The roots, barks, and leaves, they are the structure of your soul. So . . . attend to me and answer: Is the color of your tree bark dark brown?"
Maze inspected the trunk for confirmation, and when he realized that indeed it was, he answered: "Yes."
"That is the color of your path."
Maze tried to make it make sense. "What exactly is a path?"
"A path is a road the Child can take to ascend and descend. In your case, as a Child of the Widower, and as a subject of the Tower of the Widower, you are treading a specific fate, which aligned to your existence. Such fate is the Path of Orphanhood."
Orphanhood . . . It was something vague but also something understandable for Maze. It was solely due to the truth that the Tower is of the Widower. In terms of logic, a widow or a widower, had the very fate of losing their loved one to death, and hence, someone that was a victim of grief. The very same could be said to orphans, a child abandoned by a parent, experiencing the absence of parentage. Although facing separate tragedy, they shared the same grief: abandonment.
"As one who walks the Path of Orphanhood, you are identified as an Orphan. But this path — is not your ascension path yet — that is your descension path."
By that logic, it could only signify that he was losing something, if descension indeed function as something that Maze knew of.
"Do I get to lose humanity?" he asked, at last.
"Hmm. . . Imagine a tightrope and you are walking on that. You take a path ahead, but you dread the fall. Then, what should you do? Stabilize your stride." Vaelstrom paused for a while. "There are many ways to seek equilibrium, but understand this: a Descension Path doesn't necessarily mean that you lose your humanity, although you can become a victim of corruption. Simply put, the color of the bark on your tree signifies what you can become, not what you are becoming."
"Then, is my path the path of the Widower?"
"No." It was a quick response from Vaelstrom. "The Towers have a maxim you must follow through and remember always, and that is: if one ascends, one also descends, and that is the philosophy of stability. Let it sink in you like this . . . you ascend in power and, at the same time, descend to your true self. Which means that as you are an Orphan Child, you are a subject of an ascension similar to an orphan, and that is, Selfhood."
Ascension Path of Selfhood, that makes it more vivid. Clearly, there are other paths, but what makes the path that I tread special than the others? Like those from the above towers . . . As Maze wondered, he might need to recall the matters he learned and perhaps wrote them.
"Now, that you have learned about your paths," Vaelstrom halted, "let us turn to the color of your leaves. Are they . . . er, pale green?"
"Yes."
"If the color of the bark determines your path, the color of the leaves determine your progress, Maze. The first of your progress is called Fertile, it is like a beginner's stage. Now, tell me how many leaves are there."
"A hundred."
Vaelstrom was not heard for several seconds, as if shunned.
"Are you certain, Maze?"
He even wanted to confirm, and so Maze was somehow confused by the sudden reaction.
"I . . . am."
Vaelstrom cleared his throat. "It seems that it should have been Sir Azaniel to guide you here, so . . . " he heaved a sigh, ". . . let's stop from here. Less knowledge is more knowledge for beginners, although I might say, you impressed me."
Maze looked at the tree, and asked, "How do I get out?"
"Focus and open your eyes, and you will meet me eye to eye."
As Maze did that, he did saw Vaelstrom kneeling in front of him, but due to fatigue that caused his body to almost fall down and his sight to blur, he unintentionally leaned a hand to Vaelstrom's frame.
Rasping, he almost fainted!
"Let's get you to your own room first."
Vaelstrom pulled Maze up and supported his walking.
"Now that you are an official Orphan, I am also officially welcoming you to our sect: the Sect of the Orphans."