The mountain pass proves more difficult than Ihren imagined it would be. Steep inclines through a thick forest makes his progress slow. If there were ever a path leading to the temple it had been enveloped by nature long ago. The temple itself is long forgotten and he questions its very existence. Reaching a clearing near the top he finally sees the ruins of the temple and his heart sinks. Much of the temple’s walls had fallen away and the forest was reclaiming the stones. A tree had broken through the ceiling and now towered above. Doubts fill his mind. Could anyone really live up here? Was this journey, too, for nothing?
Ihren begins searching for an entrance and thinks of his sister. Had she made it this far? Did she see the temple and find a way inside? Or did she lose hope at the sight of the ruins and seek answers elsewhere, never returning home? This was her last chance, she would not have walked away, he concluded. This was never a journey Ihren thought he would undertake. He had given up searching for answers centuries ago. If she had not ventured to this place, he would not be here now.
Pushing hard with his shoulder against the door, he forces it open enough to slip through. The door slams shut behind him sending a gust of wind through the small entryway of the ruined temple. He hears a windchime and the sound of papers rustling from the breeze nearby. Gazing around the dark, empty room he sees a dim light just beyond the antichamber he stands in.
The interior of the temple is warm and almost inviting. The crumbling exterior did not give him a good feeling when he reached the top of the mountain after a long day of climbing. Sections of the stone structure had fallen away and it took him some time to find the entrance. He had feared it abandoned as he searched for a way inside. Following the light within, he enters a small, open room with pillows and thick rugs scattered across the floor. A small windchime of old, hollow wood comes to rest. Sitting at the far end of the room, he sees an old man, covered in blankets, eyeing him as he makes his way across the room.
“Are you Celon, the Mystic?,” he asks.
The seated man nods and holds out his hand offering him a seat. “You look tired, friend,” Celon says. “Sit. What is your name?”
“My name is Ihren,” he says, sitting on a small, faded rug. The two men look each other over. Celon is younger than Ihren, though both men’s ages are difficult to decipher. Ihren is thin and wrinkled but Celon looks more frail. “I seek your wisdom, old man.”
“Of course,” Celon says. “You seek death.”
“I’ve walked these lands over four thousand years. I’ve seen all there is to see, I’ve heard all there is to hear. I’ve grown weary but am not granted solace. I see my family continue to age, and suffer. Friends, strangers, enemies; their fates are all the same. We keep going with no end in sight.”
“Tell me of your travels, Ihren.” Celon listens patiently.
“I journeyed to the cliffs of Karlot, where the great beast Pulore was said to reside in the waters below. I climbed to the top on a clear day when the wind raced from the south, as the tale goes. I said the prayer of the sea serpent and cast myself over the edge three hundred feet below where the waters crashed against the rocks, but there was no beast. I waited at the bottom of the ocean but he did not come. I searched the ocean floor and the current took me out to sea. For two years I searched the ocean but never found death. The current took me to a small island where I found what I took for a lost tribe. They lived in small huts and danced under the moonlight. The inhabitants had all once looked for Pulore and been carried out by the sea, just as I had been. They had come to believe they had found death, and thus named the island Pulore. There was no arguing with them so I fashioned a small boat of wood and vines, sailed until I found land and made my way back to my home.”
“Pulore is a myth, my friend. It never existed, as you discovered,” Celon says. “That is the way of rumors. I too sought an end with Pulore, and I too found that island. I share your disappointment, friend. What else have you sought?”
“I traveled to a set of caves and followed them down to where it is said poisonous gases seep into the caverns. I breathed in the poison for months until I grew bored with the darkness and the smell. I’ve tumbled off mountains. I’ve tried the cleansing fires of volcanoes and buried myself in the unforgiving desert. Nothing can kill our kind. We are truly immortal.”
“How did you hear of this temple?” Celon asks.
“Through my sister,” Ihren replies. He looks around the small room, devoid of even modest furnishings. It is clear Celon is a hermit with only decades old blankets and rugs to stave off the cold. If he had to guess the age of the temple it would have to be thousands of years old, given the state of it. It was crafted with great skill, no doubt, for it is still standing. Where are the rest of the people who built this place, Ihren asked himself. He knew for sure Celon could not have built it alone.
“My sister made the journey here three years ago and never returned,” Ihren says. “At first I thought she found another false hope and decided not to return home. Or perhaps she heard of something else to try while she was here. Perhaps she never made it to this temple at all. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to make my way here and seek out the old man on the mountain. You are much younger than I thought you would be.”
Celon smiles and pulls his blanket tighter around him. He shifts positions and
stretches out his legs. “I spent a thousand years searching, as you did, to find a cure to everlasting life. I nearly gave up as well, until one day I happened to find this place, quite by accident.”
“You did not build this temple?”
“I did not. I found it just as it is. I spent months searching and years understanding what it was I had stumbled upon, learning the secrets left behind by those who built this temple. These chambers and hallways once were home to hundreds of our kind. They examined the history of philosophy and studied life in all its forms. From the lower creatures whose life force fades to us, the immortals. They expanded their knowledge and developed ideas that unlocked the gates to what they called the afterlife.”
“After life? What does that mean?”
“They thought they had discovered an existence beyond this life,” Celon says.
“What happened to them? Where did they go?”
Celon smiles again, this time a great big smile. He stands and beckons Ihren to follow him down a dimly lit hallway. “I’ll show you, friend.”
They enter another chamber with a large in the middle and a stone staircase carved into its sides leading down into the darkness. There is nothing comfortable about this room and the staircase gives Ihren pause. Celon picks up a lantern, lights it and descends the stairs, imploring Ihren to follow.
“This way to revelation, my friend.” Ihren follows him cautiously, running his hand along the surprisingly smooth rock wall of the staircase. Ihren thinks of his sister and wonders if she walked this staircase behind Celon as he now does. Did she even make it this far? What became of her? Each footstep echoes around them and there is a very unpleasant smell coming up from below.
“Now, this next part will be troubling,” Celon says. “No one is ever prepared for this part.” Celon hands Ihren the lantern and points down the stairs. “Take this and continue down a little further. After you find your sister, and when you are ready, return to me at the top of the stairs.” Celon walked past him up the stairs and Ihren watched him for a minute.
“My sister?” Ihren asks.
“Yes,” the old man smiles.
“What’s down there?”
“The dead, my friend. The dead.”
Ihren stares into the abyss as Celon’s footsteps fade away. He holds the lantern out to see what is below him but sees only darkness. As he descends the smell grows stronger. Ihren covers his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his arm. He continued until something blocks his way. Lowering the lantern, Ihren sees a strange sight of multicolored fabric on the ground with no discernible pattern to the rug at his feet. Closer inspection reveals immortals laying haphazardly on top of one another. Their skin, covered in dirt, grime and bruises, is pale with green blotches. None of them move.
Ihren nudges the nearest person with his foot a few times with no response. He kicks it hard but still there is no movement. He remembers his sister and the way she looked when she left for the temple years ago. Holding the lantern over them he searches for her. Carefully making his way onto the pile of bodies to continue his search. People do not make for solid footing; he falls and struggles to stand back up.
Something catches his eye and he holds the lantern out in front of him. Seeing a spark of light reflecting off of a necklace, he reaches out and lifts it up to get a better look. He turns it over in his hand. It is oval shaped with a flat back. The oval is light blue with gold trim and a symbol is carved into its face. He traces the symbol of his family crest with his thumb. He follows the gold chain that is still wrapped around his sister’s neck. Her eyes are closed and something looks off. Like the others, her face is discolored and her lips are severely dry. Her cheeks seem sunken, but he recognises her.
“Varine?” he says to her. “Are you sleeping, dear sister?” He touches her face. Her skin is cold and dry. “Wake up, Varine. It’s me, Ihren.” He sets the lantern down on the pile of bodies and grabs Varine by her shoulders. “Wake up, Varine!” he shouts as he shakes her. Her head flails helplessly. Despair quickly builds inside him like the raging of the ocean waves, crashing down over him with an unheard of force of reality. He drops his sister's body, grabs the lantern and scrambles over the pile of corpses desperate to get away. He runs up the stairway dropping the lantern along the way. Passing Celon at the top of the stairs, he heads directly for the entrance. The sudden realization of death overwhelms him as he fails to get the doors open.
After some time pounding on the doors, Ihren begins to think clearly again. He sits with his back against the doors, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He thinks of his family; his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Their importance to him suddenly becomes clear. The image of his dog appears in his mind. He had not thought of her in hundreds of years. Her death was an idle thought when it happened. Animals were on a lower order than immortals, but he did feel sadness when she died. Mortals live and die, that was natural. For the first time, Ihren equated himself with lower animals. Realizing they were now on the same footing, at least where lifespan is concerned, Ihren cried.
After a while, Ihren begins to regain his composure. He catches the smell of food and follows it back into the main chamber where Celon is cooking.
“Do you feel better, friend?” Celon says turning over some meat in a pan. “Have a seat and we’ll share a meal.”
“Thank you,” Ihren says as he begins to eat. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“I do. You took the first step towards enlightenment today! You saw death for the first time. Now you know death is possible, there is no going back.”
“But, how is it possible?”
Celon pauses for a moment. “I am not exactly sure of it myself, though I know it works. After we eat, I’ll show you.” They finish their meal in silence.
Across from the chasm is a small alcove on the far side with a table. On the table are small vials of liquid and a book. Ihren picks up one of the vials and examines it before putting it down and turning a few pages in the book.
“What language is this?” Ihren asks.
“I do not know it’s name. The author refers to the people who founded this temple as Blathites. They followed someone calling herself Blath. She claimed to be in congress with supernatural beings who taught her their language. She, in turn, taught it to her followers who wrote that book.”
“How do you know all this?”
“There are many books in the library, some of them have copies in a language I can read. Through years of study and matching symbols, I pieced the language together until I could read this book. It contains the formula to ensure death. Something that has been promised for many millennia but only found here. This book was written thousands of years after Blath ascended into the beyond by taking the last of the elixir of death. One of her followers did not ascend with them, but instead stayed behind to spread death to everyone on the planet. He worked diligently to recreate the elixir, which he finally did. I’m not certain what his plan was, but he took his life and left the temple abandoned. The final page of this book has the last formula he attempted, which is what I use now.”
Ihren picks up another vial. It is completely clear. He shakes it and the liquid settles quickly. He opens the vial and sniffs it. “It’s just water,” he says.
“Far from it, friend. Drink from that vial and you will soon fall fast asleep. You will sleep, but you will never wake up.”
“What is death like?”
“No one living knows,” Celon says. “The Blathites imagined a land not unlike this one where everyone lives in harmony, and dies peacefully only to be reborn again in an endless cascade of life, death, and rebirth.”
“That sounds tedious.”
“I would have to agree. What awaits us after death we shall never know until we are there. And no one has ever come back to tell me what it’s like.”
“How many have come here since you’ve been here?”
“Dozens.”
“Only dozens? Why have you not spread the word of this miracle of death?” Ihren says, looking into the vial again.
“My plan was to make enough vials for everyone who wants this infernal life to end. But, I’m running low on some ingredients. I’m going to have to find more. Soon I will have to leave this temple and find resources to make the elixir elsewhere. Until then, I will tend to those who seek death. Like you, my friend. Drink and it will all be over in a matter of minutes.”
Ihren walks over to the chasm, holding the vial in front of him. He looks past the vial to the darkness below him. “When I stood on the cliffs of Karlot I did not hesitate to dive into the waters below. I had hoped that would kill me but I never actually believed it would. If you had told me this elixir would cause me death before you showed me the pit I would have drank it without question or hesitation. I would not have believed you. But now I do, and I hesitate. Why?”
“This is something we have never experienced as a species,” Celon says. “Pain can be overcome, so we do not think twice about risking injury. What is a season or two of healing among the infinite seasons ahead. We are bold because there is no real risk. But now, you know it can end and for the first time you are frightened of losing your life. This is the ultimate risk. Now, finally, you are mortal.”
“And you are sure it will work?”
“No one who has drank the elixir has walked up those stairs in all the years I’ve been here,” Celon says, standing straight to his full height.
Ihren removes the top of the vial and drinks its contents down to the last drop. It has no real taste to it, other than water. He rejoins the cork to the vial and hands it to Celon. They look at one another for a moment.
“Please,” Celon says. “Do me a kindness and stand at the edge of the stairs. This way you will fall into the pile and I won’t have to drag your corpse. Thank you.”
“How long does it take?”
“You’ll be dead before you know it, friend.”
Ihren’s body suddenly feels heavy and he can not stop himself as he falls to his knees. The room spins and he loses feeling in his hands and feet. The numbness races through his body and he is incompaciatated.
“Farewell, my friend,” he hears Celon say. “I hope you find sweet oblivion.”
Ihren sees the ceiling for a moment as he falls backwards into the pit. Through the haze of his blurred vision he sees a mural of the sun, moons and stars stretching out into a void of darkness. He lands hard on his back atop the pile of bodies unable to move. Though terrified, he is elated to finally be free of life. Comforted by the thought of drifting off to sleep, never to wake, he tries to close his eyes. To his surprise, they will not shut. The light above him goes out and Ihren is left in darkness.
Hours pass and he is unable to move in the slightest. He has a violent urge to move his legs but he can not get relief. He screams without making a sound. ‘It’s not working,’ he shouts, though his lips do not move. ‘Celon, you fool! I’m not dead. Get me out of here!’ The despair is crushing as he realizes everyone in this pit is still alive. Thousands of years of internal suffering without end and no way to escape it. Eventually, he too might be covered by bodies and he will face eternal darkness. What will be left of his sanity by then?