“Even in less dim places I find much comfort in the moon,” Ifferon said. He basked in her glorious rays, which seemed like the potency of the sun in the midst of darkness.
“I know a verse about the moon,” Aralus said, sitting up. “Perhaps your boy would like to hear it, Délin? It is a tale about a boy who makes a new friend. I’m sure Théos would love it.”
“If it is a nice tale,” the knight said warily.
Aralus came out from the shadows and drew down his hood, exposing his greasy hair to the moonlight, where it gleamed and sparkled. He held his thin arm aloft, as if he were a bard, and then began his verse:
Namún set sight upon the glades
With caps of ice and roofs of snow;
He saw decline in arts and trades,
And withering on the soil below.
An image formed within his mind
Of all the things he could not find,
And all the things he did not know—
A war was brew with mental blades.
And so the boy looked at the moon
With eyes of tears and silent hope.
The sky looked down on fair Namún,
And on the gentle rising slope
On which he sat in silent prayer,
Whispering thoughts into the air.
On one side fell a silver rope;
A lady stood with flowing tune.
Her face was calm and voice was just;
A chorus rang into the skies.
“We can do only what we must,”
She spoke to him words of the wise.
“Lo! I can sing the hills to sleep,
Or wake them from a slumber deep—
Look now upon this molten guise,
Upon this mount which you can trust.”
The land about began to shake,
And largest rock was smallest stone;
The shadow crumbled with the quake,
And Namún sat there not alone,
For to his right a mountain stood
On stony limbs of greyest blood,
And all was not as once was shown—
Those sleeping hills were now awake.
“A Mountain Moln with golden heart,”
The lady said with tender voice.
“No longer shall you walk apart
From fairest earth, as was your choice.
A child of stone may you befriend,
And with him help the darkness mend.
May cheeks be red, may you rejoice,
For this is joy, my greatest art.”
The lady returned to the moon,
Now with a ripe and gleeful smile,
And all looked well for young Namún,
And his new friend, the mountain isle.
A fortnight and a day they played;
Beneath the moonlit night they stayed.
There were no lies or darkly guile,
But troubled thoughts were with Namún.
That night was full of darkest dreams
Where horror struck his little heart—
He heard a bout of stony screams,
But could not from his dream depart.
When he awoke he searched about;
“Where are you?” he began to shout.
The Mountain Moln was strewn apart
From singing from the stars, it seems.
“That is hardly apt,” Délin said sternly. “I think you are missing a verse.” And so he added a verse of his own to change the cheerless tone of the piece:
But darkness did not take him then;
He knew the Mountain Moln had gone
Back to the earth, its nightly den,
And would be with him once anon.
The dark would lift for young Namún;
The Mountain Moln would be there soon,
A friend, a rock to lean upon,
And he would know that joy again.
“I warrant that is the true ending,” the knight said. “Sometimes a verse is dropped when a story is passed from one to another.”
“I doubt it,” Aralus said. “I knew the man who wrote it. From the horse’s mouth, as it were, and he did not neigh like you, I assure you. The Mountain Moln was strewn apart. I remember it well.”
“Your memory has obviously failed you, Aralus,” Délin snapped. “I remember the Tale of Namôn with the verse I added, and I remember it well, for it was a tale that originated in Bardahan in Boror.”
“But you are not from Boror, are you, Délin? I, however, am.”
“And you have been in Alimror for near all your life, so perhaps your memory of the tales of Boror have failed you.”
“Well,” Aralus said, gesturing dismissively in Délin’s direction, “you are much older than I, so if someone’s memory was to fail, I think it would be yours.”
“Or mine,” Ifferon said to lighten the mood. “I am getting on in years as much as anyone.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Aralus replied. “You are a withered sort, by look and sound.”
“Aralus has the eldest tongue,” Elithéa said, “for he ne’er stops using it.”
Herr’Don clapped and laughed. “I was beginning to think Aralus was attempting to upstage even I when it comes to the art of the verb.”
“That would be a mighty feat!” Ifferon said, smiling.
* * *
The night grew old and the stars grew dim. The fire waned, and with it went the conversation, which had degenerated from tense words to tense silence. Harsh glares and cautious glances were exchanged between opposing parties, as were knowing looks of understanding between the onlookers, who felt the tension just as strongly as the rest.
Thalla retired to bed, curling up beside the dwindling fire, and Ifferon began to doze against the great trunk of a willow tree, which, while sparse in foliage, gave a canopy of cover from the bleak, black sky. Elithéa stood at the outskirts like a stone sentinel, gazing intently at the horizon, where, no doubt, her thoughts wandered further still. Herr’Don, who was suffering from sleeplessness, took to polishing and sharpening his sword and cleaning his boots, soothed by the repetition and the thoughts of a job well done.
Délin sat with Théos on the other side of the fire, watching the boy protectively with one eye as he curled up like a cub, hugging the helm that Délin had given him. His other eye was fixed on Aralus, who sat across from Ifferon, resting against a smaller tree, an ash which had lost all its leaves. Aralus kept his hood up, the features of his face buried deep within its shadow, so Délin did not know if Aralus was staring back.
When Délin was sure that Théos was sound asleep, that Elithéa was still gazing across the plains, and that Herr’Don was still cleaning his boots, he came to Aralus and brought him aside.
“If you make a ploy like that again I will kill you,” he threatened, aware of the wrath that welled in his voice.
“It is just a game, Délin. Do not be so sour and solemn. It gives you wrinkles in your face and dents in your armour.”
“I have no time for your games, Aralus! They are as witless as your head and as sour as my mood, and I warn you that I will not tolerate them for long. Try me and you will see what anger is like through the tip of my blade.”
“You should be careful with your threats,” Aralus said, and he seemed to extend from the shadow of his vesture like a beast on the prowl. “You never know what I might do while you sleep. To you. To your boy.”
Délin drew closer, pushing the man back against the tree, which shuddered from the force. “I warn you, Aralus, stay away from Théos and I!”
“What’s going on here?” Herr’Don asked, stepping forward with his newly cleaned boots.
Délin turned and glanced at the prince, then glared back at Aralus before turning and stomping off to where Théos slept.
* * *
“I thought you were cleaning your boots,” Aralus said, spitting upon the grass to his side as if it were the corpse of a certain knight.
“And they are clean,” Herr�
�Don said. “I was just testing them out.”
“So you can dirty them again?”
“Aye, something like that. But tell me—what was that all about? Don’t tell me you’re on his bad side.”
“He is on mine,” Aralus said. “Him and his false chivalry and valour.”
“Trueblade,” Herr’Don said. “It’s not merely a random title for him. I don’t think it is false.”
“Then you do not think clearly enough, because you are blinded by the glint of seeing your idol up close. He is too quick to deal out judgements, as if he were the only noble man around. Nobility! Ha! I warrant this knight has never tasted poverty or hardship. Look at his armour! It glints in the moonlight like a jewel—and I bet he has jewels, yes, hidden away in his mansion.”
“I have seen his abode. It is quite humble,” Herr’Don said. “But come, I did not know you had such contempt for nobility. Do you think ill of me also because I am a prince?”
“No, I think less ill of you,” Aralus said. “I know you were a mercenary for quite some time, since your father would not grant you your birthright to follow in his stead. Can you see it? How those people with power abandon the very people who keep them there? You should be king, Herr’Don, but right now your father has you wearing the title of prince like an afterthought, when you should be wearing his crown! He laughs at you, Herr’Don. He laughs at you as he gives his power to those who do not deserve it. These people are corrupt: kings, knights, all of them. I despise them all!”
Herr’Don was silent. The journey from Larksong had made him forget his troubles back at Ilokmaden Keep, where his father prepared a stranger to be his heir. The King’s Court had forgotten about Herr’Don, and there was no one there to call him by his title, or to call him by any name at all.
* * *
Dawn came swiftly over the hills that day, shunning night and casting the rays of day upon the Plains. The sun reared up from its slumber and stretched its arms across the land wide and far, bathing them in light and warmth. It was a stifling morning, and soon all of the company were awake, for their daylight dreams had been restless. They broke their fast quickly, eating what little they had or could gather from the sparse bushes nearby, for while the day came brightly, it did not cast the shadows from their hearts; more present than ever was their fear of eagle eyes, for the Plains were wide and open, and there was little place to hide.
Elithéa scouted ahead, and soon the makeshift thalgarth upon her back was all that could be seen, like a huge fan in the distance. Herr’Don and Aralus walked far ahead, discussing battles long fought and those not yet come, and how Boror had changed over the years, disintegrating to a tepid rule by Herr’Gal the Craven King. Délin and Théos strolled behind, the knight humming tales of old that were hummed to him when he was young. And Ifferon and Thalla strayed at the rear, talking about the missing member of their company.
“I chose him, and yet he was taken from me,” Thalla said, her voice faltering. “My choice was ill-made, it seems.”
“No,” Ifferon said. “Not if your heart did the choosing.”
“But they took him from me!” she cried, her body appearing on the brink of collapse. “They gave me love and then snatched it away.”
“They?” Ifferon asked. “The Céalari? No, they did not do anything. Did you fall in love with Yavün because the gods said so or because there was something in him to fall in love with? Did he die because the gods willed it or because the Taarí did? Many of us will think naught of the gods in good times, and yet will cry Beast! and Devil! in the bad. Why not reclaim lost potency by the realisation that our fate, however doomed, is still guided by our own hands?”
“I guess,” Thalla said, wiping her eyes.
“I am no knight or prince, nor am I a Magus or Ardúnar, but I am a Son of Telm, and while such is claimed for me by bloodline, I say to you this: we are all Children of Telm in our own right, and we but need realise this in order to actualise our potential as sons and daughters of the gods, as the rightful heirs of the All-father.”
“You are an inspiration,” Thalla said. “I see now what Yavün saw in you, why he followed you around the monastery ere your chance meeting. Chance! Ah no, it was not so. It was willed, and I am glad that he came with you, or I would not have met him. Yet, if he had not come, he would not have met his end like this.”
“No, but he would have met it all the sooner, for it would have been unlikely that he would have escaped Larksong were it not for Herr’Don, who had come to find me. Perhaps our unlikely meeting was designed to give him the longer stay of life. And he yet lives, does he not? He lives on in our hearts and in our memories, and also in spirit in the Halls of Halés.”
“Yes,” she replied, nodding slowly. “I guess he does. But Herr’Don ...” She paused, as if the name was hard to say, as if there was some hurt in each syllable. “How ill he must feel toward me now. He did so much for me, and for all people ... for you, for Yavün. If it was so that he rescued you both from Larksong, then he must rue that he did not rescue you alone, for did he not then fate my meeting Yavün? But, in truth, it is not Yavün’s death alone that scathes me. I am still raw for another.”
“I can see that you still weep for Melgalés,” Ifferon said, and new tears formed in her eyes at the mention of his name. “I did not know him, but I could see that his passing was grievous. He gave his life for the sanctity of our own, and I will not forget that. He is truly a great martyr, and his name should be held in honour, sung aloft in the great songs of the troubles of our times. But tell me something: how well did you know him? I thought a Master Magus and his apprentice were not supposed to know each other well ere their work, and, indeed, I thought only men took that profession. Where is my knowledge wrong?”
“It is not wrong,” Thalla told him. “We broke the rules. Perhaps that is why this has not worked, why he has, Ardúnar or not, been seized by death, and why a darkness looms over my life, like an oath ill-took, or doom ever-creeping. Such is the added weight of my woe, for he did not want me for an apprentice, but I forced him. Did I not then goad him on to his death, like a sword to the back of one who walks the plank?”
“Do not say that,” Ifferon said. “I have long blamed myself for the death of my parents, and such was not so. I was robbed of them, but then to salt the wound, I robbed myself of innocence, for blame ever dogged me then. You did not kill Melgalés, and you could not have foreseen these events. These are dark times, where evil looks to plant the seeds of self-doubt in the hearts and minds of the good.”
“Again you inspire and reassure,” she replied, and she almost smiled for a moment, as if the weights that hung about her mouth, forcing her to frown, were lifted. “I like the idea that we are all Children of Telm. I cannot wield his sword, nor speak aloud the Last Words, as you can, for his blood does not run in my veins. But it is comforting, and I feel less gloom to think that Yavün is a Child of Telm in spirit if not in blood. For is there not a Hall reserved for the children of the Céalari, where they are honoured and revered?”
“Yes, there is a legend of such a Hall, and the people who are admitted may choose those whom they love to come with them, whether they are god-children or not. And so perhaps you will see him again some time. Perhaps you will meet once more in the Halls of Halés when the time is come.”
“That would be nice,” she said. “When the time is come.”
“Now, tell me, Thalla, what is it that made Melgalés defy the rules of the Magi to admit you as his apprentice? Never before have I heard of such defiance.”
“That is a long tale,” she replied. “And I have not the heart to speak it all here.”
“Then tell me what you can,” Ifferon said, for his curiosity had awoken like a memory of his adventuring days.
“Have you never wondered about my name?” she asked.
“Thalla? No, it is common enough in Boror, is it not?”
“Thalla De’Hataramon,” she corrected.
“Ah,”
Ifferon said. “Who has not heard of the House of Hataramon?”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Were your family the owners of that brothel? Would that not make you an Arlinian?”
“My family moved to Arlin to find their fortune. They did not find it. They never owned a house, never mind a whorehouse.”
“Then why do you have such a name?”
“Because I chose it,” she said. “But I only chose the name.”
“You do not mean ...?”
“My family sent me there when I was twelve. Old enough to work, they said. I did not know what type of work it was until they left me there. It was not good money, but my family earned enough to live that way. They had to do it, I guess, but I do not love them for it all the same.”
“That is terrible,” Ifferon said. “I ... I really do not know what to say.”
“No one does,” Thalla replied. “That is why I do not tell anyone.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because you asked how it came to be that I became Melgalés’ apprentice. He saved my life. He saved me from the House of Hataramon. You see, he is a wandering sort—never stays in the same place too long. He knocked on the door of the brothel in Mariar one day looking for a room. He did not know it was a brothel, and he was disgusted when he found out. He offered Hataramon a lot of gold to buy all the girls off him, because you could never be freed—you had to be bought. But it was not really gold he gave him—it was coal with some enchantment upon it. I am sure Hataramon was not very happy about that. But see, Melgalés gave all the girls some real gold and told us to go, but we did not understand. He bought us, we thought. He was our master. When we realised he did not want us, we were confused, lost. Some of the girls went home, if they were still welcome there. I did not. I followed Melgalés for days, like a stray dog looking for scraps from a noble. He kept telling me to go away, and oft he would disappear in the smog of the city. But I would not stop until I found him. I asked people, bought directions and listened to rumours of a wandering Magus. Eventually I found him again, staying in a little cottage just outside of town. He was busy with all his potions and books and other oddities that seemed like toys to my childish eyes. I wanted to be a Magus. I asked him if I could be his apprentice, but he did not want one, and he certainly would not have a girl if he did. But that did not stop me. I stole one of his books and started to learn some magic on my own. One day I knocked at his door with a phantom hand and sneaked into his house to show him what I learned. He was proud, but not exactly happy. He told me that using magic without a Beldarian would kill me. He understood then that he had to train me or I would destroy myself with magic trying to please him. That is how I became his apprentice.”
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 22