Chương 118: Existential

Miram's mouth hung open where she sat in Eoin's workshop.

"That's where the Reel came from? You were trying to build it for Onóra!" Eoin looked embarrassed.

"Well.. she wasn't unique. Our mutual friend Solas proved that. The Tír is full of people who are disadvantaged because of the Ring they were born into. The Amethyst Reel was meant to find a way to harness pure fórsa from the vents and store it - eventually finding ways to allow it to be integrated into a Sidhe's own fórsa. I had hoped I'd found a way to do what Onóra was trying to do… without the sacrifices of living creatures."

"But you failed," Miriam pointed out.

"Yes," Eoin said, sighing. He looked at Sol's face, which was now twisted with the tell-tale expression of their least favorite Wisp.

"In so many more ways than one."

"Just proves to me you were always an insufferable prick," Solas growled.

"At any rate, I told you that story simply to give you some background on what Onóra is after. I haven't seen her for two hundred years and in that time she has definitely grown more powerful. What she has not become, however, is an Ascendant." Eoin shook his head sadly.

"Growing her power is an obsession with her. She won't rest until she sits at a position she thinks is worth of her."

"And how high a position is that?" Miriam asked.

"Atop the Celestial Throne is my guess," Eoin said.

"It should be clear from my story, but she is extremely arrogant. But now, if she has any inkling that somehow you have secrets to Ascendancy? You have undoubtedly become her sole focus. If she had to wait five hundred years she would never let you out of her sight."

"Well," Miriam said with bravado she didn't quite feel, "I guess I'll just have to be ready to kill her. I won't have five hundred years to stay in this Ring." Eoin's face scrunched up in concern.

"Are you feeling the pull of Sailleach already?"

"Thankfully, no. But I think I have months, not years," Miriam said.

"Ok. So we have no time to lose," Eoin said. He shook his head ruefully.

"If you had told me before the Fetchwoods that your path to the Third Ring would involve having to beat Onóra, I would have been writing your obituary. But now… who knows? You might have a shot." Miriam touched his shoulder.

"I know it must be hard for you, Onóra being your old student."

"A little," he said. Then he smiled sadly.

"Still, as much as I did care for her in my way I'm not so sentimental as to be able to overlook the threat she poses. I have your back, no matter what you have to do."

"Thank you Eoin," she said.

"Now, I believe before I went off and challenged a genius Fifth to a duel, you had some plans for our… problem."

"She means me," Solas said.

"Yes," Eoin said, glaring at the Wisp.

"So. Here's where we're going to get existential. Solas. Do you believe that's really you in there?" The Wisp sneered.

"Me, and a couple of other people, sure."

"Uh huh. When you and I met, it was at a tavern near the Academy in Barlow. What was the name of the tavern?" Solas started to answer, but then furrowed his brow in confusion.

"I don't remember. It was a long time ago."

"It was. What was the name of your Advisor at the Academy?" Solas frowned even more.

"Are you trying to say I have a poor memory?" Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"You also don't remember. Who was the original owner of the cabin in which we built the Amethyst Reel?" Solas only glared at him, refusing to answer. Eoin turned to Miriam.

"Cianán made this version of Solas out of trace remnants of his Mind from his Reel, which Sol had absorbed. Have you not thought to consider how a device made to capture fórsa, but is so poor at storing it, could possibly contain the entire Mind of even so lowly a creature as Solas?"

"What are you saying?" Miriam asked, looking at the Wisp in her friend's body.

"That's not really Solas?"

"It isn't. It's a caricature. An artificial Mind built from scraps left in the pieces of the Reel Sol still carried and your memories of Solas." Miriam recoiled.

"Cianán read my mind?"

"He can do many such things," Eoin said grimly.

"He is master of all Natures, somehow. In any event, trying to understand the Nature of the Eternal King is not the task we have before us today. All you need to know is that the creature talking to us from inside Sol is just an image of the Wisp. The real Solas is dead, thanks to you. Cianán built him to be as close as he could get but as he never met Solas, he relied on your impressions of him to fill in the gaps." Miriam sighed deeply.

"That is… difficult to accept. Though I suppose having met Sol himself I shouldn't be surprised at such things."

"But that's the problem, Miriam. The key to removing Solas is to remove the Reel from his construction. However, does doing so permanently remove a part of Sol? Can we make that choice for him?"

"Eoin," Miriam said, nudging the Selkie. Solas's face was locked in an expression of horror.

"Ah, yes," Eoin said sadly.

"Like I said. Existential. And all the dread that comes with it. Not every day you learn you're not a real person."

"So what's the solution then?" Miriam asked.

"Just cut it out of Sol anyway and hope he wakes up?"

"No," Eoin said.

"I think it's too risky. We still understand far too little about Sol's nature itself to risk making those sort of alterations. Plus, I've been studying him since the incident in Teilgcheárta. Things are changing inside of him, and I wouldn't dare mess with it until I knew more."

"So how do we remove Solas then?" Eoin nodded his head to her.

"I had planned some clever gemcraft plus your Growth Adept class, but now we might have a more straightforward approach."

"I don't understand," Miriam said. He hesitated.

"I know you're not going to like this," he said.

"But remember… just like Sol is not Ultán or Solas, this creature is not actually Solas either. He's wearing a mask put on him by the Eternal King."

"Why would that matter?" Eoin shook his head and decided to just deliver the news straight.

"I want you and I to build this version of Solas a new body. Then we're going to give it to him."

"What?" Miriam stood up from the work bench stool.

"You want me to… to resurrect the monster who kept me prisoner all that time? Who was guilty of killing how many human children?"

"This creature didn't do any of those things," Eoin said gently.

"He only thinks he did… because that's what you remember of the original Solas." Miriam held her head, her breathing rapid.

"I don't… I can't do that, Eoin. You can't ask me to."

"Miriam, it's okay," Eoin said, and suddenly he had wrapped his arms around her. Her first instinct was to push away, but instead she let herself sink into the embrace, allowing the raw emotion that welled up from inside go.

"My poor Miriam. I think… I think I've seen too much. Nothing scars me anymore. Nothing reaches the inner part of me. I forget that not everyone is so dead inside. Your time as a captive was so much worse for you than you let on, wasn't it?" She let her tears fall, surprised by how sudden and intense they were. So many years being the stoic Matriarch of the Callihans and she had borne it all without tears, but twice now in recent memory she had found herself unburdened by crying.

That was evidence enough, if the horns and the fórsa powers weren't, that she was truly becoming a different person herself.

"I think… I think it was bad. I pretended it wasn't. I played at being as unreachable as you're now claiming to be, but I suppose it was just acting. Probably like you are too. It was so much… a new world, a new life, and this… this horrible creature trying to take it from me. It was like I had actually died and gone to one of the hells preachers in my world used to warn us about."

"I understand," Eoin said, unwrapping himself gently from her.

"I shouldn't have asked. We will find another way."

"No… I… maybe," Miriam said.

"I just need to think about it for a while."

"Hi," Ultán said from Sol's lips.

"Solas is really freaking out in here. What about me? Did Cianán recreate me too? It would make sense… there's more than one way I don't feel like myself in here."

"You're taking the whole idea very casually," Eoin said. Ultán shrugged.

"Honestly it would be a relief. Like I said… I don't really feel like me anymore. Maybe it's not having the Wind to control, I dunno. It would be nice if there was a good reason." Eoin winced.

"I'm sorry to say that your situation is a bit different. Sol is made almost entirely of you, Ultán. You're not reconstructed memories. You're the real deal." Ultán looked down at himself, a wooden man wrapped in thick vines and mist.

"Well, damn. For some reason that makes me feel worse."