The Quiet

Nti Anem led the group through a marshland, for some reason he insisted that they walk and not take to the air.

"Where are we going?" Ku Jian asked.

"I am not yet sure if it still is," he said vaguely.

"You are still to tell me why Brother Ed must talk less and why he has his eyes closed all the time," she said, and then turned to Ed who was moving with ease as though his eyes were open.

"Brother Ed, you have been closing your eyes since I came, you have not even looked at Jian," she complained but he continued eyes closed.

"He better not open his eyes. Are you so clouded by your fantasies of him that you cannot tell that there is something wrong?" he asked and she threw Nti Anem a dirty look. Of course, she had noticed, but what does it matter? Brother Ed was Brother Ed.

"He is not truly the Ed you know right now, he is the Hell tree. Well, he is both," Nti Anem said and she frowned.

"What happened to him?"

"His highness has enemies; those that have been hunting him for several lifetimes. Every time he is reborn, they kill him. This is what we have deduced from one of his memories," he said.

"Who are they?" she asked dangerously and he chuckled.

"No matter how angry you are, you are still not capable of doing them harm. For some reason, when His highness took the tomb, he recalled the tomb owner's past life and saw someone he recognised. The same person that sent him here," he said.

"And where is here, the mist?" she asked.

"Yes. I had long suspected she had sent him here to die. It must be because she thinks the mist will kill him completely, taking away his consciousness. It seems just killing his incarnations was not good enough for them. From the memory, she had killed him quite a few times and others too. Heavenly mandate, it seems,"

"What nonsense heavenly mandate? Whatever did Brother Ed do to them?" she fumed.

"Well, the Hell tree must have been one of his incarnations and he had completely absorbed this incarnation somewhat. If Ed speaks, he calls to laws I do not understand. He had said casually that I die and my being was almost torn from my body," he explained.

"That is why you told me to seal my being in my body?" she glanced at Ed moving beside her through the marsh somewhat dirtied by the mud yet seeming very much part of the landscape. Like a graceful wind passing through.

"If it was any other but me, they would have died instantly," he said.

"And why did you not? That blood witch that taught me magic talked about how powerful you are, she said you may not be human," she said and he chuckled.

"Are you some powerful witch?"

"Sorcerer is the word you are looking for," he said and she raised a brow.

"Are you?" she asked.

"Has she told you how magic is different from cultivation?" he asked.

"Grace," she answered, "Just like I graced them,"

"It is a gift, is the better word. My powers were gifted to me by the creator," he said, "Does that make me stronger than most, yes. I dare say there is only one as strong as I when it comes to magic and none stronger," he answered and she furrowed her brows.

"The creator? That is vague. Aren't all things of the creator?" she asked.

"The creator," he answered and she paused letting them walk ahead. The creator, the actual creator? The same way she blessed others, the creator did?

"How?" she asked and immediately caught up to them.

"How did you bless them?"

"I do not know that, could it be the mist?"

"You are starting to blame it for everything? It is not an entity or a being,"

"Does it even exist? How can it exist and I not know?"

"Ku Jian, what happens to the other witches back at the village when you take back your blessing?" he asked.

"They will die there. It takes a certain kind of power to leave that place and they do not have it. The resources are limited. That place used to be a graveyard for former witches anyway, it might as well return to one," she answered, "If you are worried about the loose ends, forget it. There are none,"

"Yes, a graveyard. What is the story behind that?" he asked.

"I don't know much. The blood witch did not either. When her order was destroyed, her master sent her there. The order had a key but apparently, only one witch of their order could go in for some reason. Before they could decide who would go in, they were at war and her master sent her there. When she had first entered, she saw the altar already there and the bones of the dead. Then there was a graveyard. It seemed to her that some lived there and buried themselves then as resources ran out, they died all over the place, leaving the bones she saw," she explained.

"Yes, I walked that graveyard when I visited the village to see you. There were many names. Some names were erected many times. The same name epitaph was erected many times. I even noticed that some graves had multiple bodies, placed in the same way. Ku Jian, your village is odd," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

"The people you left behind in your village,"

"...Not my village,"

"That village, the people you left behind, do they have the same names as those buried in the graveyard?" he asked and she nodded, "Yes,"

"And now that you have taken away your blessing, they will become former witches with limited resources. When they start to die, they will bury some, probably in the same order of the graves there, around the same times, and raise epitaphs with the same names and when the rest die of hunger, they will turn to bones littered all around," he said and she paused.

"But, the blood witch named them... the blood witch named herself... she," her brain seemed scrambled.

"Oh? There will probably always be a blood witch in the village. I wonder, with how many bones of the same people there, how many times have you gone that way?" he asked and glanced back at her with a slight smile as they paused in front of a boulder in the middle of the marsh.

"But, I have only.. this life is," she stammered.

"The mist is the mist. Does it exist or does it not, it still is the mist," he said then turned back at the bolder, "We are here,"

"Where? she asked.

"The Quiet,"