Meanwhile, Inside The Cave

Daisy was going crazy. She was sure of it, and didn't mind. But it wasn't the worst kind of crazy, it wasn't really a problem. She was starting to see things that logic wouldn't have shown her. Her thinking was thus:

There are true things that are definitely true, but can't be proven normally. So they don't look true. Therefore, to understand them, you have to look at them in an abnormal way.

Daisy had her eyes closed to avoid looking at Brant. Brant was definitely not a sight to inspire. he was sweating and haggard as he tried to maintain his defenses, and the demon, when it was visible or even audible, berated him constantly, using words that Daisy blushed to even remember.

At the moment the demon wasn't visible. Which was a mercy. But Brant was all too visible, and was ranting. Quietly, slowly, but incessantly, like the rant was a mantra.

Order. Chaos. The un-justness of the first and the raw power of the second. Even with her eyes closed these words were echoing in her head, indeed they seemed to be pressing into her psyche even more.

Daisy imaged what order would look like if it were a thing, and realized that was the wrong metaphor. What if it were a place?

She imagined a town square, a large mechanical clock in the center of town. A clock that never went wrong. When it ticked to a new minute that was the minute, without doubt. The people lived according to that clock. When the hands hit five in the morning they arose, when the hands marked five in the evening they left their labors and ate. There was a fountain in the town square of Order, but the water didn't sparkle or splash, each stream from the top fell in a perfect, solid stream directly into the bowl, where it didn't splash, it simply reincorporated with the water, ready to make the trip again.

Her thought moved outward. Perfectly laid out streets, an unerring grid. Each house was built to accommodate a family in a specific phase of life, and each phase was known ahead of time. When you were so old you would wed, your spouse chosen by the patterns of Order, known from the time of your birth, predicted from the beginning of the Universe. When you were so old you and and your spouse would have your first child, move from a “marriage” home to a “married-with-children” home. Each child would grow according to the plan, each job would yield predetermined and known yields. there were no sudden catastrophes, but no miraculous recoveries. A life, each life, was set in a groove and followed it, like a wagon wheel in a deep rut. Order was ultimately safe, but also ultimately sterile. Daisy tried to imagine the Divine as the ruler, or even an advocate of this anodyne world and it didn't fit. The City of Order she had imagined was brittle and fragile. Any disruption would throw the entire thing into disarray, in fact into Chaos.

Daisy then thought about what Chaos City would look like, but it was the wrong question. Chaos wouldn't built a city, it would be ultimate disarray, no streets, no clock, no concept of linear time. But that wasn't it either.

Even if Chaos was lawlessness, it still followed patterns. Brant was a symptom of that, Daisy realized. Chaos saw itself as the antithesis of Order, and was therefore governed by order. Daisy smiled a little as she realized this. For all of Brant's Rant, for all of the Demon's protestations, their Chaotic world nevertheless bowed, ultimately to order.

But what about her? What about Daisy? She was not ultimately orderly, nor was she ultimately chaotic. Neither, she suspected, was the universe meant to be run entirely by the laws of either. The seasons rolled in their constant order, but winter didn't start halfway between the equinox and the solstice, it started when it started. When you went outside and the air smelled like frost and the light was lead-colored but still dazzling, winter had begun. The Divine was the force that put the world and the stars in their constant order, but was not brittle, was able to flex and change when the world changed.

So was the entire thing a sham?

Or was there...a third option?

Daisy imagined herself standing between the two worlds, and then saw herself drift out of the line between the two, to make a triangle.

Sometimes things happened because they wanted to happen, Daisy was sure of it. Flowers grew according to the pattern in their seeds, but were nonetheless still different and individually dazzling. When people fell in love it wasn't because they were built to fall in love, it was because whatever that magic something was happened to them. Falling in love was neither orderly nor chaotic. So what was it?

Daisy looked for a good word. It beat listening to Brant, after all.

Willful? no, that sounded belligerent. Arbitrary? Seemed too directionless. You don't fall in love with someone chosen out of a pool of people, you fell in love with the right person, but not the right person according to “order”. Many perfect couples were obviously wrong for each other in every way except for the fact that they were perfect together.

Whimsical? No, that sounded like how you describe a children's story.

It was Capricious Daisy thought, and loved that word, somehow felt that it was the right one.

And her mind took the next step, but it was a flight.

Order had power, healing was largely governed by the power of order, plus the effort instilled by the healer. Wizards were more orderly and could sell their magic, but also needed the wizard to instill some of their own nature into the process. Caprice was the third power, the one that informed the other two.

Justice was entirely orderly: you did this bad thing, you got that bad result. But mercy had that nature of caprice, you did a bad thing, but due to an outside action you didn't get the bad result.

And once you understood that, you understood how magic actually works. Caprice was the ability to shape the world according to your will. It can't do the impossible, you have to learn what you can do and then make it happen. A machine can't cast healing spells because it requires a person to move that energy from the orderly world around them into the cure.

And that was what made the Divine, well, Divine. They could do anything, because they knew all things. And that was the divinity inside of people. Divinity was divine because it comprehended order and caprice, and was bound by neither. Chaos was weak because it hated both, and wanted to bind everything into its own form of weakness.

Daisy wasn't sure if she was entirely insane or finally really understanding.

She opened her eyes, realizing that the Brant Rant had stopped some minutes earlier. In her current state of mind she found it impossible to see Brant as a threat or even an enemy, and wanted to share her discoveries with him, to see if she could make him understand.

But he was leaning against the wall. His eyes were unfocused, and he was sweating harder than ever. As she watched he slid down the wall, slumped over, panting.

“Brant? Are you okay?” She asked.

“Every time. Every thing I try...she brought...that blasted priest. Why? Aughhhh” Brant moaned, sinking down to his hands and knees, breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Brant, what's happening?” Daisy asked, and there was a sound the echoed down through the cavern. The torches flickered as the the air suddenly moved more than it had done in days.

“Very well,” Brant said, his voice more steady now. “Those have ended, the illusions failed. It's almost a relief,” he said, standing back up. “This is better, in a way. The moon is almost ready, but I think we can start a little early. But not quite yet.”

Brant took a knife off the altar and cut the tip of his finger, spreading his blood around the edges of her cell. “As for you...” the blood smoked and steamed, and a swirling red mist rose over the entrance.

“Stay where you are.” Brant said. “I'll deal with your friend and that priest.”

#Chapter

© 2020-2021 Nathanial Dickson. Written during #NaNoWriMo 2020 Contact me on Mastodon