Agony Converging into a River

Within a featureless, quiet chamber of white stone, a ritual is underway. The air hums with a sound too low to be heard and too constant to ignore. Above, the vaulted ceiling ripples like the surface of a pond - stars and lights bleeding together, refracted endlessly in the glass of the void. In the center stands a dais shaped like a broken clock. Upon it sits a great basin filled with light that moves like liquid mercury, wisps of smoke clawing at its edges as if screaming for release.
Harker lies in the chair beside it, eyes open but unseeing, his chest splayed open. His exposed heart glows faintly where esoteric sigils pulse in rhythm with his heart. The light is beautiful. Terrible.
And Harker has bathed in its glow countless of times. Today promises to be the same.
Alvozen moves with quiet precision, robes trailing like the tide of some black sea as he enters the room. In his hand is an obsidian phial filled with motes of dying souls, each one begging for release, clawing at the glass.
One hundred today, Harker thought.
The lich kneels by the basin, uncorks the phial, and lets them flow in. The basin shudders. The screams of 100 souls, muted by the light, deepens until it becomes almost unbearable - an agony so pure it circles back into serenity. Soon, the chamber returns to silence once more.
Alvozen exhales, taking a seat next to Harker.
"Ah," he murmured softly, "listen to them, my son. A chorus of lives once unremarkable - merchants, thieves, paupers, dreamers - all converging into a single stream."
He straightens, gazing at the light that now pulses in time with Harker's heart with a wistful expression. "You see, the process has become so... mundane. Routine, even. I perform it by habit now. You might say we've transcended the tragedy of it - or at the very least, I have."
He leans in closer, examining the boy, and frowns. "My boy, when I instructed you to harden your heart... I did not mean to shut down completely. It's rude to ignore me, you know."
He studies his own hands, pale and delicate, fingers shaking with some mixture of guilt and reverence. "A pity, really. I used to think repetition was a comfort. Alas, repetition is the language of Time, and we have no room for that, do we?"
He looks to Harker, still despondent. Alvozen's expression darkens for a moment - he hates seeing that face. It's become something of a norm these days, and it certainly won't do. Perhaps he needs a reminder.
"Remember this, my son," Alvozen continues softly, "as an Enemy of Time, I know more about the death of continuity than they ever will."
Harker does not respond. With a grunt, Alvozen stands up, circling the chair while pacing with the rhythm of his own words. His speech is accompanied by long pauses, his tone rising and falling on each word as if he was considering each and every one carefully.
"Do you know what Time truly is, my brightest proof? It is the world's most cruel theorem - endless calculations, yet always reducing, ensuring that no matter what number you begin with, you will always end with one."
He gestures toward the basin, where the last fragments of soullight swirl like trapped fireflies. His face twists into a snarl.
"The value of any formula resides only in its answer," he says quietly. "As for the process of solving it… no matter how elegant, violent, solemn, or humorous, it is all utterly meaningless."
Oliver. Kaethu. Eramina.
He stops himself, gazing at Harker again. His face softens. The light from the boy's chest reflects in his sunken eyes, making him look, for a fleeting moment, like his wife. The hum deepens; the souls dissolve entirely into Harker's heart. His body convulses once, then stills. The sigils burn bright gold for a moment before dimming to steady blue.
"You are my answer, Harker, the only proof that remains uncorrupted by Time's theft. An equation solved, a conclusion irrefutable."
Alvozen reaches out, brushing a strand of his son’s hair from his face. His voice drops to a whisper. "If your mother were here, I'm certain she too would be proud of us both."
He lingers there for a moment longer, then turns toward the basin as though seeking solace in its mirrored depths. With a scoff, he looks away.
"Prisoners bound in a cave," he murmurs, half to himself. "Crowning their suffering with heroism, an epic staged with shadows and echoes. But we -" he presses a hand to his chest, then to Harker's glowing heart - "we will write the last chapter."
He closes the empty phial with deliberate care, setting it beside the basin. The room begins to quiet again, the hum subsiding into an almost sacred stillness. Alvozen gazes up to the ceiling, chuckling softly to himself as he departs the room.
Time, for the Enemy of Time, continues to die in silence.