Chapter 19: The Thing That Dreams Beneath the Mountains
Mountains were not supposed to breathe.
Lucien felt this was an entirely reasonable expectation.
They were, by definition, large collections of stone that remained in one place for unreasonable lengths of time. They did not move. They did not think. And they certainly did not answer when someone on the other side of reality implied that a greater power had just become aware of a conversation.
Yet the western mountains disagreed.
The first breath came slowly.
The peaks surrounding the ruined city rose by several inches before settling once more. Snow slid from ancient cliffs. Entire forests swayed despite the absence of wind.
Then came the second breath.
This time, everyone felt it.
The ground expanded beneath their feet before contracting again, like the chest of some sleeping giant.
Aiden looked toward the nearest mountain for several seconds before quietly lowering himself onto a piece of fallen stone.
"No."
Lucien glanced toward him.
"No?"
"No."
"Insightful."
"I'm serious." His brother pointed toward the horizon. "I've reached my limit."
"You've said that before."
"I meant it this time."
Reasonable.
The older Lucien remained seated on the rubble, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that the mountain range itself had developed respiratory functions.
His missing arm had already begun to regenerate.
Lucien had decided to stop questioning that.
For now.
"What is beneath the mountains?" he asked.
The older Lucien's expression became unreadable.
"A mistake."
"That's becoming a common answer."
"Because we made a considerable number of them."
The Dragon King lowered his head until one eye was level with the ruined city.
"It sleeps."
Lucien looked toward the mountains.
"And?"
"And it should remain that way."
Fair.
The Last Witness, however, had grown increasingly tense within the Infinite Mindscape. The stars surrounding the black door continued to dim one by one, while the remaining chains groaned under a pressure they were never meant to withstand.
Lucien noticed something else as well.
The voice beyond the door had gone silent.
That disturbed him.
The entity that wore his voice had not stopped speaking since his rebirth. Its sudden silence felt less like peace and more like anticipation.
"Master."
The old man did not turn.
"Yes?"
"Why has it stopped talking?"
The Last Witness was quiet for several moments.
"Because it is listening."
Lucien felt a chill run down his spine.
"To what?"
The old man slowly raised one hand and pointed beyond the stars of the Infinite Mindscape.
"The same thing we are."
The mountains breathed again.
This time, a sound accompanied the motion.
A heartbeat.
Deep.
Ancient.
Impossible.
Every dragon immediately froze.
The Dragon King spread his wings. The dark dragon lowered its body into a defensive posture, while the silver dragon's scales began to glow.
Even Eternity's enormous eye narrowed.
"IT IS WAKING TOO EARLY."
Lucien was beginning to develop concerns regarding the frequency with which ancient entities awoke around him.
"Too early for what?"
No one answered.
Naturally.
Vaelith, who had remained silent since revealing the truth about his death, finally spoke.
"The last time it woke, three universes died."
Silence.
Aiden stared at her.
"I refuse to believe that's a real sentence."
"Unfortunately, it is."
The older Lucien sighed.
"To be fair, one of those universes was already collapsing."
"That does not improve the situation."
"I thought it was worth mentioning."
Lucien looked between them.
"What exactly is beneath the mountains?"
The older Lucien considered the question carefully.
Then, with all the casualness of someone discussing the weather, he answered.
"The thing that taught us how to dream."
Silence.
Lucien blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"You heard me."
"No, I understood the words. It's the meaning that concerns me."
The older Lucien leaned back against the rubble.
"Long before dragons existed, before the Architects inherited reality, there was only darkness."
The mountains shuddered.
"And within that darkness, something slept."
Lucien had a very bad feeling about where this was going.
"It dreamed."
The older Lucien's expression became distant.
"And from those dreams came stars."
The ruined city fell silent.
Lucien slowly turned toward the horizon.
"You're telling me the mountains contain something older than the universe."
"Technically speaking, the mountains formed around it."
Of course they did.
"Why is it here?"
This time, no one answered.
Not the dragons.
Not Seraphina.
Not even the Last Witness.
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
"Master."
"No."
"Master."
The old man sighed.
"Because you asked it to stay."
Silence.
"What?"
The Last Witness finally looked at him.
"It wanted to leave."
"And?"
"You convinced it not to."
"Why?"
The old man's expression grew complicated.
"Because you said you would be lonely."
Lucien stopped breathing.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"It has been waiting for you ever since."
The mountains breathed again.
And for one impossible moment, Lucien felt something.
Not power.
Not fear.
Affection.
Ancient.
Patient.
The sensation was so overwhelming that his knees nearly gave out.
The black door within the Infinite Mindscape trembled violently.
A seventh chain snapped.
The sound echoed across his soul like thunder.
The older Lucien's expression immediately changed.
"Oh."
Lucien was beginning to hate that word with an unreasonable passion.
"What?"
"You felt it."
"Felt what?"
The older version of himself was quiet for several moments.
Then—
"It recognized you."
The heartbeat beneath the mountains suddenly stopped.
Silence descended once more.
Absolute.
Then, very slowly, the western horizon split apart.
Not cracked.
Opened.
The mountain range separated down the middle, revealing an endless abyss of golden light beneath the world.
Everyone stared.
Lucien heard Aiden quietly whisper something about wanting to return to accounting.
At the center of that light, something moved.
It was impossible to comprehend its true shape.
Every time Lucien looked at it, his mind supplied a different answer.
A dragon.
A star.
A sleeping child.
An endless sea.
None of them were correct.
Two eyes opened within the abyss.
They were larger than the sky.
And they were looking directly at him.
The older Lucien slowly stood.
"Well."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Unfortunately, yes."
Lucien stared at the impossible being beneath the mountains.
"What is its name?"
Silence.
Then, softly, Seraphina answered.
"It doesn't have one."
"Everything has a name."
She looked at him with an expression he couldn't decipher.
"It asked you for one."
Something broke inside Lucien.
Not physically.
A memory.
He stood beneath an empty sky, speaking to something vast and unseen.
"Do you have a name?"
"NO."
"Then that's unacceptable."
"WHY?"
"Because everyone deserves a name."
The memory blurred.
He remembered laughter.
Warmth.
And his own voice saying—
"Then I'll call you..."
The memory ended.
Lucien gasped.
The being beneath the mountains continued watching him.
Patiently.
Waiting.
The older Lucien looked toward him.
"You named it."
Lucien swallowed.
"I don't remember."
"I know."
The two enormous eyes blinked.
And then, for the first time since the beginning of creation, the thing beneath the mountains spoke.
Its voice was gentle.
Ancient.
And filled with a love so profound that it made his chest ache.
"WELCOME BACK, LITTLE STAR."
The black door exploded.
Not opened.
Exploded.
All seven broken chains rose into the sky of the Infinite Mindscape like streams of light.
The Last Witness shouted something Lucien couldn't hear.
The stars above him shattered.
And somewhere beyond the darkness, something that had worn his face for countless ages finally began to laugh.
Not cruelly.
Not maliciously.
But with the joy of someone who had been waiting a very, very long time.
Lucien fell to his knees as memories older than worlds clawed their way toward the surface.
And the thing beneath the mountains whispered one final truth.
"YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD NEVER FORGET ME."