"I wasn't completely alone," Vell said after a moment of quiet. "There was someone else."
Sonder looked at him.
"Endrith was there."
Sonder froze.
The spoon in her hand slipped slightly against the bowl.
Vell noticed the rising fear in her.
"It's all right."
"You omitted his name when you told me about your journey," the Yellow Mage said.
"Yeah… Sorry about that. I wanted Sonder to be here when I told the full story. Endrith wasn't exactly how he was when we knew him."
"What do you mean?" the Yellow Mage asked.
"I think what I found was the barest part of him. Whatever was left when everything else was stripped away. He was there, but he wasn't really responsive. As far as I could tell, he could barely perceive anything at all. I stayed with him for a long time."
"Why?"
"I'm not sure. Perhaps because I understood what it was like to be alone there. I thought it was over for him. I thought whatever had been Endrith had been reduced so far that he wouldn't be able to recover."
He shook his head slightly.
"I thought he might never become dangerous again. He was just some creature imprisoned in a realm that couldn't be escaped. Just like I was. But in the fractions of moments when I did escape, I changed my mind. While I was there, I found something very interesting. A vortex, simply said. Of power. I don't mean a large amount of magical energy or anything as benign as that. If I had to put it into words, it was power itself."
Even telling the story now, Vell seemed to have trouble believing what he was saying.
"I've tried to think about what it could have been ever since I came back. Perhaps it was simply some enormous concentration of energy. Perhaps it was the source of a particular kind of magic that I don't understand. Perhaps it was something more fundamental than magic. I've spent a very long time studying magic. I've read things that most people have never even heard of. I've traveled farther than most people would ever want to travel. I've searched through old libraries, ruins, records, fragments of research… I had never even heard of the idea of such a thing."
He was silent for a moment.
"So I can only guess, but what I like to imagine is that everything draws from it. Not just magic. Energy. Physical energy, too. Movement. Heat. Light. Perhaps even the energy within living things. Maybe even the power required to have a mind. To have a soul."
"You think all of that comes from one thing?"
"I think it might."
Vell gave a small shrug.
"I could be completely wrong. That is what makes it so difficult to understand. I don't know what it was. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it actually was the source of anything. All I know is that it was there. And it was, is, infinite. I'm certain of it."
"Dread Mage, what are you telling us? What is the worry that you have?" the Yellow Mage asked, a grave sound in his voice.
His face wraps warped with a yellow glow.
"I'm saying that maybe that was the purpose of everything he did. That was what he wanted. All the power he gathered. All the suffering he caused. The mask."
Sonder's face had gone pale.
Vell leaned back slightly. "He may have created the mask because he wanted to break through the boundaries of the world. To reach, you know, that."
He frowned. "But I don't understand why. It seems so unnecessary. Endrith seemed to have more than enough power. It is a very matter-of-fact fact that he did. He's been king for who knows how long and was already one of the most powerful creatures in the world. Seeing that he did reach it, I may even say that he is the most powerful."
Sonder looked at him. She had known of the danger and suffering Endrith had caused, but hearing Vell speak about him like that made something cold settle in her stomach.
Vell sighed.
"All of that suffering."
He looked down at his bowl.
"For what?"
His expression was almost sad.