“Thank you.” His mind as clear of fog as the Void was of everything but itself, Dru asked a question that had just occurred to him. “How is it we can speak? Are you-?”
“We speak because I wished to speak! That is nothing! I want to know about names!” The darkness shifted menacingly.
The entity had somehow picked at his surface thoughts, the sorcerer suspected, and learned the language of the Vraad instantly in that way. Yet, it did not understand many concepts, which either meant that it lacked the power to delve deeper or it had not wanted to damage him. Dru was willing to bet on the latter.
“Perhaps I shall take you now.”
“Names!” Dru shouted with such vehemence that the living hole shifted away despite its obvious superiority. “What do you want to know?”
“Know? I want a name! Can I be Dru also?”
“That wouldn’t do for you.” A huge, living pit of darkness bearing his name! It might have been humorous if his predicament had not been so tense.
“What, then?”
What, indeed? If he could give the creature some name it found entertaining enough, it might reward him by helping to find a way out of here… providing there was one.
Descriptions! Descriptions were always a good starting point! “Let’s draw a name from the way you look and act.”
“I act like me!”
“But what are you? Powerful, ever-changing, dark, compassionate…” Dru trailed off, hoping his strange companion would pick up on the flattery while it pondered what it wished to be called. At this point, ingratiating himself in any way to the shifting horror seemed his only hope.
“I am all that and more, but ‘Powerfuleverchangingdark’ is too long a name for my tastes! I want something short, like you have!”
The sorcerer was willing to just fling names at the monster and let it pick one, but he suspected that such an act might just bore the entity into forgetting the entire thing. If that happened, the blot might decide it was time to absorb him.
The mass of darkness pulsated, evidently pondering its choices so far. Apparently unable to come to any decision, it flowed nearer to the hapless mage and said, “I see only me! I cannot describe me! Give me more to choose from!”
Dru took a deep breath. Much of what he would have liked to have said would probably stir the dark creature to anger. Still, it might pick up on something… “I was not whole when you first came to me, so my thoughts were muddled… there was a burst… the darkness was suddenly there before me… where there had only been emptiness before.” The nebulous form was still. “I thought you were a hole yourself, an emptiness that led to… to a place far from where I float now. I-”
“I like that! That will be my name!”
“Your name?” Already? What had he said?
“Not so short as yours, but I am more than you! It has good, strong sounds!”
After a brief moment of soul-searching, the Vraad dared ask, “What is your name now?”
“I am the Darkness! Does it not ring with me?”
“Ring with…” Dru could not help smiling. “Darkness is truly a good name for you!”
Darkness shifted form again and again, openly gleeful about its new possession. “A name! I have a name! It is a good thing!”
“No one can take it from you, either. No matter what they do it will always be yours.” The sorcerer was reminded of Sharissa as a tiny child. The blot-Darkness, Dru corrected himself-was as much an infant as a godlike entity.
Sharissa. Thinking of her made Dru double his efforts now to gain his odd companion’s aid.
“I’ve helped to give you that name, Darkness,” he pointedly reminded the other. “Will you give me something now?”
“You wish to be taken? Very well-”
“I do not wish to be taken! No, I want you to help me find my way home. You have the power, don’t you?”
Swelling, Darkness responded, “I can do anything… and if I cannot, then Other I can!”
Dru puzzled over the being’s words. “‘Other I’?”
“The one from which Darkness was formed, of course!”
“Of course.” The sorcerer decided not to press, suspecting he would not care for the answer.
“So tell me… Dru… what ‘home’ is.”
Another concept his companion did not understand. “Home is where I came from, where I stay when I am not doing anything-hmmm-where I was made.” He spread his arms wide. “The Void is your home, though you were only made in one particular portion of it.”
An appendage rose from the creature’s disturbing form. It came toward Dru, pausing only a foot or two from him. To his surprise, part of it folded away, revealing… an eye. It was an ice-blue eye with no pupil and a stare that made the Vraad turn away before he became lost in it. Darkness pulled the ghastly eye away, using it to scan their very meager surroundings.
“This is called the Void? I did not know that!”
Dru was beginning to have visions of floating for the rest of his existence, trying to fight his way through a convoluted conversation with something that half of the time viewed him as a meal. “Do you understand what I mean?”
Stentorian laughter nearly deafened the mage. He put his hands to his ears, but the effect that had was less than negligible. The laughter went on and on until Dru thought his ears would burst. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the raucous sounds died.
“That was entertaining!”
“What… was?”
“I got bored listening to this voice so I thought I would listen to your other one as well! It says such humorous things! Fright is a fun thing! Do I frighten you much?”
Piecing together the full situation from the mad comments of Darkness, Dru realized that the unnerving creature had chosen to spy upon his thoughts. It now knew of the sorcerer’s fear and desperation. There was no saying how deep the probe had been, but it had been deep enough.
There was no sense lying… for now. As he worked to shield future thoughts, Dru answered, “Yes, you frighten me very much, Darkness! You remind me too much of what my kind are like, what I was once like! You could swallow me up with hardly a care! You’ve invaded my mind! Shouldn’t I be frightened?”
To his surprise, the entity contracted until it was only half its original size. The eye stalk sank back into the depths from which it had come. “I did wrong, it seems. I understand that now. I understand more, having listened to your inner voice.” Darkness sighed, a sound so human that Dru could only stare in astonishment. “I will help you however I can to take you home.”
“Thank you.”
Darkness grew jubilant again. “So, my little friend! Where is it?”
Dru had been so desperate to get this far that he had not even thought about what to do when the moment came. “It’s…” He paused. How could he explain to Darkness what he himself did not understand. “I… wasn’t prepared when I was thrown here.”
The inky blot laughed again, albeit much quieter this time. The sorcerer silently thanked him for the sake of his ears. “You are such an entertaining little Dru! Are all Drus like you?” Before the Vraad could explain how names worked, Darkness continued, “Give me access to your inner voice again! Let me experience your arrival again!”
It made sense to let Darkness survey his memories of the incident, but Dru could not help feeling as if the creature might tear his mind apart seeking those particular memories. They were not surface thoughts; they were conscious and subconscious impressions that even under the best of circumstances the Vraad would have been hard-pressed to recall.
“Come, come! Are you afraid of me? I am gentle!”
Shuddering, Dru finally nodded. When there was no reaction from his amorphous companion, he realized that
