OrbSoul (Book 6) by Martin Ash Page B

then it is true to say that I could not have gained the knowledge of myself that I now have. Nor would Ascaria have been destroyed. You have brought light to my world, Leth, and to me. Was it then 'accident and chance', or is there some process in place of which even I know nothing? Is there something greater than we, which cast you into the world in order that I might become fully aware of the creation of which I knew so little?'
      Leth stared long and hard and the shrouded figure, wondering, by no means for the first time, what lay beneath those concealing rags.  'Is that the purpose of all life, Orbelon? Simply to become aware, to make its Creator aware of what it has unknowingly created?'
       'I have no answer,’ Orbelon replied solemnly. ‘But we are linked, Leth, you and I. Very certainly. I believed that might be so when you first came to me. There had been many before you, but when you came it was a time of such extraordinary change. And now you are no longer the baffled student who sits before me. Now you inform me, which is how it should be. It is ironic, but even my enemy, Urch-Malmain, served in his own way to help you. Had he not sent you on where you were reluctant to go, where you believed you had no destiny, Ascaria might yet have destroyed my world.'
       'And what then of you, Orbelon?' Leth asked.
       'She devoured me from within, you say. Taking the world and leaving nothing in its place. Ultimately, then, she could have been the agent of my destruction, as well as her own. I think that is so; again, I have no sure answer.'
       An unsettling thought came to Leth. 'Orbelon, it was the Orbsword that slew Ascaria. It drew her into itself and holds her there now. It is possible, then, that she is not slain but merely imprisoned. Urch-Malmain himself implied that her escape might not be impossible.'
       'Where is the Orbsword now?'
       'Urch-Malmain took it.'
       Orbelon sank into silence. Leth waited uneasily. Presently Orbelon said, 'Ascaria reduced the world to Nothing, you say.'
       'A void, an end of all things. I would have said I can think of nothing with which to compare it but . . . such thoughts become absurd. It is incomprehensible, it cannot be grasped or imagined. Even now I feel that what I experienced, or did not experience, has somehow taken a place within me, and I am deeply disquieted by its presence.'
       'Then Nothing cannot truly be said to be Nothing,' declared Orbelon. 'It gives us cause for wonder and even fear. It is therefore an agency or energy of some kind. I will reflect upon it, in sofar as I can.'
       Orbelon began to rise, then stopped. Leth felt himself to be under intense scrutiny. 'Leth, there is a change in you, or about you. I feel that you have brought something with you from my world, I feel it very strongly. Are you aware of anything? Think carefully now.'
       'I am not aware of anything,' said Leth curiously, after some consideration.
       Orbelon continued to scrutinize him. 'There is something. I am not mistaken. But I will leave it for now. You are weary; you have come a long way. Your wife and children await you. I will reunite you with them now, and you may spend a night together, undisturbed. But think about what I have said. Tomorrow we will speak further, with Triune also. I will say one more thing, though. You are not yet done with Urch-Malmain. He is the key to our future endeavours.'
     
     
    ii
     
       Night came to Enchantment. Not the night of the formed and realized world, the night that settled upon Enchantment's Reach and the nations of the Mondane, but night of another, incomparable kind. A form of darkness could be said to have stolen across the land, but within it Enchantment came to an ever more eldritch life. The strange and ceaseless shiftings of the air outside the walls of Triune's tower, always visible, ever-changing, ever-becoming, grew brilliant and bedazzling in the strange night. The weird-lights of Enchantment,