Knowledge. Heavy, pulsating, bitter like blood on the tongue, yet clear as a fresh spring. The Book of Signs. In my heart. I felt it. Not as a physical weight, but as an extension of myself, millions of voices finally speaking in one coherent choir. I saw maps of the Eons, cycles of birth and oblivion, names of Wanderers, secrets of the Ancient Echo. And most importantly, names. The name of the Architect of Oblivion, the being who desired the annihilation of all existence. And the name of the other one, the one with the scars, whose face slid on the edges of my memories, and whose motives were as intricate as a ball of shadows. Truth. It was with me.
My hand, the one with the pulsating symbol, now glowed with a faint, blue light. From it, out of nowhere, a new crystal materialized. Pure, transparent, filled with the essence of one recovered Echo. Hard and cold to the touch, yet brimming with energy. It was different from the ones the Collector gathered. It was... complete. I walked to the Collector, who still sat in the corner, surrounded by his own, dull crystals. He was like an ancient tree, rooted in this crumbling world. The new crystal I had created, I placed gently on his clay, open hand. The Golem didn't stir. His single obsidian eye was fixed on me, on my changed gaze. There was something in it I had never seen before—almost... pride. "I must record it," I whispered, my voice clear, free from raspiness and madness. "Everything. For you. For them. For all who have forgotten." I felt the world outside the hut slowly return to me. The smell of damp earth. A delicate, salty wind, carrying memories of a distant sea. Two orange suns, hanging lazily in the sky, cast long, golden shadows. Reality. My reality.
Then it happened. The Collector, that silent, clay statue, made a move. Slow. Deliberate. He raised his other hand and placed it on his own chest. It was strange, almost human, as if touching his own heart. His clay body trembled. On the surface of his chest, where the clay was thicker and more cracked, a small, vertical fissure opened. It wasn't a crack. It was... an opening. From this fissure, slowly, with a silent, deep resonance, a sphere emerged. It was not an ordinary sphere of light, like the Echos he collected. This one was larger than any other crystal I had seen. It held the hue of the deepest blue, almost black, and within it swirled nebulae of white and gray sparks. It didn't glow. It pulsed. With invisible waves of energy that penetrated my skin, reached my bones, to the very Book of Signs within my chest. It struck me. An immediate shiver ran down my spine. It wasn't fear, though the ice in my blood seemed to crack. It was a penetrating sense of alienness and familiarity at the same time. As if I was looking into the deepest abyss of my own existence, which was both foreign and perfectly known to me.
The Book of Signs in my head exploded with contradictory information. I saw images of creation, the Great Dream, the moment the world of Eonum came into being—and at its center was this sphere, pulsating with life. But at the same time, I saw visions of decay, of nothingness, the moment the first Erasure swept through reality, consuming everything—and again, this sphere, pulsating with the same dark energy. The source of life. And the source of all Erasure. It was a paradox. A lie? A truth? My newly recovered mind, though clear, could not grasp it. I was disoriented. "What... what is that?" I whispered, my voice trembling, but this time not from madness, but from shock. "Collector? What is it?" The Golem, his clay hand still pressed to his chest where the Prime Echo glowed, looked at me. His obsidian eye, which had previously shone with pride, now filled with a silent, deep sadness. Then slowly, with difficulty, the fissure in his chest began to close. The sphere disappeared into him, leaving me alone with its resonance in my mind. His gesture was clear: "Not now. Not yet."
I felt the Prime Echo, though hidden, still pulsating within the Collector. It was like a second pulse, distant, but palpable. My Book of Signs, though enriched, suddenly felt incomplete. As if it lacked the final, crucial chapter. I heard from within my mind, from the very center of the Book of Signs, a faint, unnatural hum. A hum that was both a whisper and a scream. Do not forget. Do not forget the Prime Chaos. The Truth of the Void Sun. In my thoughts, each time I tried to focus on the Prime Echo, my mind, despite the Book of Signs, desperately tried to forget it, to reject it, to suppress it. At the same time, it desperately tried to understand it, to grasp its nature. It was an internal struggle between the pursuit of truth and the instinct of self-preservation.
Dusk fell. The two orange suns slowly dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold. In the distance, from the Village of the Last Echo, faint but distinct sounds reached me. Human voices. And I, Elaraith, Archmage and Archivist of the Forgotten Eons, knew that the coming nights would be restless. My dreams would no longer be just chaotic echoes of the past. They would be haunted by the blue-black sphere, the Prime Echo, which promised both creation and ultimate Erasure.