A Cavern of Black Ice (117 page)

Vast continents of ether floated before
his eyes, great cliffs and headlands of dust, yet he spared them
little but a passing thought. The Dark River was here; he knew it, he
smelled it, and within it lived his name. Deeper and deeper he
traveled, skimming the cold peaks and fathomless troughs, until
finally he saw it in the distance. A line of utter darkness. He
sought not to allow himself hope, yet it rose in his throat like a
hard bright thing, and suddenly he felt like a child.

He could not reach the river soon
enough. Cold were its waters and strong was its current, so strong
that it pulled him downstream. Knowledge came to him in tantalizing
glimpses; he remembered a man's face and a night full of stars and
the heat of yellow flames against his cheek. He did not remember his
name. Straining, he swam deeper, giving himself wholly to the
current, and when an undertow seized him with an icy hand he did not
struggle against it.

Heart of Darknessss, you have come.

A voice spoke a name that was not his
own, yet he answered to it all the same. If he had possessed a body
to shiver, he would have done so upon hearing the voice's reply.

We have waited such a long time,
Heart of Darknessss.

Suddenly the Nameless One was no longer
in the river, he was standing on a shore, and before him rose a wall
that stretched to the ends of the world. He had seen this place once
before when he had journeyed here with the Light Bearer, and that
time, as this time, he perceived the same fault.

Push
against it, Heart of
Darknessss, and in return we will give you your name
.

It was an offer he could not refuse.

The substance of the wall burned him as
he touched it, burned with a coldness so deep and so ungodly, he knew
his flesh hands would pay a price. It mattered not. For when the
world shuddered and the wall cracked and the cry of something not
human rose from the breach, the Nameless One received a thought.

It was his name, and he spoke it out
loud.

"Baralis."