He places the obsidian piece on the scroll between us. In the candlelight, it seems to absorb the light, a tiny, perfect void. The glyph etched into its surface is complex, a series of sharp, intersecting lines that form a shape I don't recognize.
"Maxwell's greatest obsession was a theory. One most found heretical," Thomson continues, his finger tracing the symbol's outline. "He believed that The Gloom was not just chaos, but a kind of anti-language. A system of grammar and syntax, expressing pure negativity. He spent his life trying to decipher it, to find a way to read the Gloom itself."
My blood runs cold. "To read it?"
"And, he theorized... to write with it." Thomson looks at me, and the weight of what he's implying settles over me like a shroud.
A moment later, the oppressive weight vanishes and he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms.
"He was an idiot. A crazy one. He never got anywhere close to even determining that it has any more meaning or sentience to it than a spider's silk." Thomson shakes his head.
He sounds dismissive. It feels like a lie.
"But...why is this different? Why are you showing me this?"
Thomson's eyes flicker towards me. "Because it's not silk to you. You can touch the Gloom. Feel what it feels. Think what it thinks." He leans forward again.
"Does it feel like a language to you, Caden?"
I don't have an answer. I didn't feel anything like that. I just felt the Gloom respond. There wasn't a language there. Not one that I recognized.
"It's... hungry," I say, struggling to describe the raw, instinctual feedback. "It's. Alive, I guess. Or something. But there's no words. It's a feeling, not a sentence."
"A language is simply a system for expressing feeling, is it not?" Thomson counters. "Perhaps the difference Maxwell never understood is that it doesn't use words. Not as we would define them."
I still don't know why he's sharing anything of this with me.
I understand that I can twist and use the Gloom if it's in front of me.
I understand that's an abomination.
But surely he understands I don't know anything more than what I've said. So I don't understand why he's telling me any of this.
Or how it has to do with the bit of obsidian.
It's a rock. A rock with a carving.
"Shouldn't you be asking Michael about this?" I ask. "He's the one who likes this stuff. He's not tainted blood either." That last part comes out with more venom than I intend.
Thomson leans back, a small, almost wry smile touching his lips. "Michael can read the language of men. He can translate ancient texts and parse obscure histories. But he can't read this. He can't feel it. Can you?"
"It's just a rock."
"No." Thomson's gaze hardens. "It's not." He picks up the glyph again, holding it out towards me. "Take it."
My stomach clenches. "Why?"
"Because I want to see what happens," he says, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion that might soften the command. It's not a request. It's a test.
Every instinct screams at me not to touch it. It feels like a trap. A line I shouldn't cross. The thing emanates the same faint, disconcerting resonance as the Gloom itself. To touch it might be to embrace the very thing that makes me a monster in their eyes.
But Thomson is watching. His eyes are like chips of granite. Defiance will only deepen his suspicions. I am a Tainted Blood, an anomaly. Someone who can touch and use the Gloom like any Gloom Dweller. Like only Gloom Dwellers.
My cooperation is the only currency I have.
Slowly, reluctantly, I reach out and take the glyph.
The moment my fingers make contact with the smooth, cold obsidian, the world dissolves.
It's not a vision. Not in the way Amelia creates them. There are no images, no sounds. There is only... a torrent. A deluge of pure, raw feeling that floods my mind, bypassing my senses entirely.
I feel... hunger.
But it's not my own. It's an ancient, endless, starving hunger that has existed since before the mountains wore down to dust. A hunger for warmth, for light, for the spark of life. For souls.
Then, I feel... anger.
A righteous, incandescent fury at the warmth and the light. A deep, abiding resentment for the very existence of things that can feel joy, that can know peace. A hatred that is as fundamental as gravity.
Despair.
An ocean of it. The weight of every tear ever shed, every hope ever crushed, every life ended in misery. It presses down on me, threatening to extinguish the tiny flicker of my own consciousness. I am drowning in the collective sorrow of generations.
It's deep.
No - to call it deep is...like calling a mountain a rock. Or the ocean a puddle.
And this rock in my hand is like a straw dipped into the middle of that ocean.
That's...
What is it?
I want to drop it. I need to drop it. My mind screams at my body to obey, but my fingers are locked around the obsidian, fused to it. The glyph isn't just a thing I'm holding; it's a door I've opened, and the darkness is pouring through.
I can't feel my hand.
I can't feel the air.
I can't see Thomson.
Who-
Who is?
I'm falling. The ground is gone. The crypt is gone. The candlelight is gone. There is only the falling, and the infinite, crushing weight of the Gloom's collective psyche.
It is in me.
No.
I am in it.
The Gloom is all there is.
And I...
I...
Am melting away.
Fading.
Falling.
Losing me.
I-
Leap to my feet as the rock skitters across stone. My gasp echoes in the crypt. Thomson is there, staring at me.
"Are you alright, Caden?" He asks. I'm not sure what the answer is.
My heart is pounding. My lungs are on fire. I am breathing, gasping, alive. I am Caden McLaren.
I am Caden McLaren.
The thought is a lifeline, a shield. I focus on it, wrapping myself in the name, the identity, the miserable, useless, Tainted Blood boy who just wants to be left alone. It's pathetic, but it's mine, and it's real, and it's not the Gloom.
"Caden," Thomson says again, his voice sharper this time. "What did you see?"
My throat is raw. I try to speak, but only a hoarse croak comes out. I swallow hard and try again. "Nothing."
My hand is shaking. The rock is on the floor a few feet away.
"That is not a convincing lie." He says, stepping towards me. I stumble back, but the wall stops me. My back hits stone and I have nowhere else to go.
"...No. No. I saw. I saw. But it wasn't seeing. It was..." I'm having trouble finding the words. I'm breathing heavily, and my heart won't slow down. "Nothing. But everything. Is nothing. And everything." I say, but that's not what I mean at all.
"It was... everything bad. All of it."
I've handled the Gloom. I've used the Gloom. I've touched the Gloom.
Whatever the hell that thing is...
It's not The Gloom.