“I am not sure if I can do this any more,” the knight said. His voice lacked the energy it previously had. “I feel like an old guard in a new world that no longer cares about the same things, the little things that I thought were central to all good folk. I feel like I am losing more than Théos here. I feel like I am losing my will to fight for freedom and honour. I feel like I am an accomplice to evil, leading Théos to his doom in the Old Temple. I feel even worse that I worry about my own petty feelings when a child lies dead because I could not save him.”
“His death was not your fault,” Ifferon said. He did not feel like admitting that he felt the fault rested with himself, that Théos would only travel in the company of a Child of Telm, and so Ifferon was the bait, pulled along by strings he did not see.
“You are a good man, Ifferon,” the knight said. “Even if you do not recognise it. I do. I would not have travelled with you if you were not. But I am not sure if I can continue with you. Too much has transpired that has killed off whatever hope I had. I thought maybe, just maybe, we could bring Théos back, but Rúathar wants to bribe fate so that Corrias is restored instead. Tell me, Ifferon, what if I were like Rúathar? What if I could bribe fate so that Théos came back instead?”
“I do not know the answer to that,” Ifferon said. “I do not know if it is even possible.”
“It is possible,” the knight stated. “If you go to the Stumps to seek relics from the Old Ones, then you can bend fate. You can alter the rules, because you then become the rule-makers. Yet if life is this, if life is the game we have been playing all this time, is it not cheating to change it now, to alter things when pieces are still in play? It makes me realise that I have been playing differently to everyone else. I have been trying to follow the rules, to play by the book, while others are rewriting the book, and some are even ripping out the pages. Is this what this world has come to? Am I the only one playing by the rules, and am I a fool to keep doing so?”
Délin stood up, and his armour clanged together. He paced to and fro and then sat back down, as if he could not support the weight. “There used to be rules in war,” he said. “Emissaries were always immune from the fighting, but Agon changed that. Civilians were taken prisoner, but never killed—but Agon changed that. Children … children were never the target, never the ...”
“It hurts me to see you like this,” Ifferon said. “What you stand for is what makes you who you are. If I had your strength and courage I would not need the blood of Telm. I would have something much more powerful. Experiences like these test us, and sometimes they test us daily, and yet if we persevere we can come out of it all the better. I would not abandon anything that makes you who you are, because then if you were to restore Théos back to life, he would not recognise you.”
Délin nodded his head slowly. “Yes, yes, you are right, Ifferon. You might not have really been a Cleric of Olagh in your heart, but you know how to act like one, and I do not think you are merely acting. If a cleric is a link between Iraldas and Althar, then you are most certainly one, and perhaps the only true cleric, for you not only bridge the gap in blood, but you make mere Men down here realise there must be something more, something greater.
“It seems to me that it would be so easy to give up fighting for the world, when the world seems like a place where all we do is fight. If I could harness the power of the Elad Éni, perhaps I could change it all. Perhaps I could restore the balance. Yet it seems that I would lose myself in the process, that to save the soul of another I would have to slay my own.
“Part of me is crumbling, Ifferon. Maybe it is because I used honour as my foundation, and it does not seem strong enough to support the weight of sorrow. Whatever fortress of the heart I built cannot hold for long, but for now it still stands. I will do what I can then to help see this quest through. I will honour my commitment to Iraldas, even if Iraldas does not know honour any longer. The eyes of my soul are darkening, for the sky seems bleaker today than it did the day before, but while there is still a pale glimmer of a star I will clutch to hope, and pray that fate is kind. Maybe you are not a Cleric of Olagh, but I ask that you pray this too.”
“I will,” Ifferon said, but he wondered what good his prayers would do. He recited the many prayers he had memorised from the Olaghris at the monastery in Larksong, but he did not believe in them, nor mean what he said. If Olagh was really Telm, and Telm was dead, what good was it to pray to him? Even the father god Corrias could no longer answer prayers, himself dependent on the prayers of others.
* * *
Délin carried a large wooden chair from the nearby barracks and placed it down beside the stone table where Théos lay. He removed his metal gauntlet and brushed the boy’s hair; parts still felt like grass and straw, even though the body it grew from was dead. His skin was cold and his face was pale—and yet it had always been cold and pale in life, as if he was barely ever living. Délin thought of what it must be like to be a vessel for another, to have no life of one’s own. This was not what he dedicated his life to Corrias for, not what he dedicated his honour to Issarí for.
He was glad to be wearing his helmet now, even in the heat of Alimror, which was warmer than he imagined, and warmer than his bones had felt in a long time, with the frost of the White Mountains still lingering in them. He was glad his eyes were shielded from the world, that few could look into his soul and see his growing despair.
He recalled a song that had been sung to him as a child by his grandfather Celsinin before the siege of the Kalakrán at Geladilok, the last remaining Shadow Crypt in Arlin. At the time he did not understand the words, and, on reflection, he realised that he never truly understood them until now. He sang softly to Théos:
Sleep, dearest child, for the dark of night has come,
Yet, to some whose eyes deceive, it is still day.
When the sun is down, to fairest dreams succumb,
But listen to my voice, lest they lead astray.
Sleep, dearest child, where no daytime evils reach,
Where all whom the day has stole are still alive.
The mind is a castle that no siege can breach;
Retreat, therefore, that you might at least survive.
Sleep, dearest child, for the chill is in the air,
When the warmest rays are buried in tombs deep,
Where none at all can hear our bedtime prayer;
For each count of hours, the longest breaths they keep.
Sleep, dearest child, while rest can still be made,
When pillows are yet fluffed and beds prepared
For restful times beneath the canopy of shade.
To those the day has hunted, the night has spared.
Sleep, dearest child, throughout all these needless wars,
Through the darkest stretch of night, which we call death.
When day and night lock horns and try to settle scores,
Wake from this nightmare world—enter slumber’s net.
The words faded out and all that was left was the weariness. He had slept little since Théos had passed, and he never closed his eyes willingly; instead he was dragged into dreams by sheer exhaustion, when he could no longer keep guard against the night. His eyes felt heavier than ever, even heavier than the burden of his heart, but still he resisted. While Théos needed him, even in death, he would keep watch.
* * *
Elithéa had no issue resting, but she also had no choice. The Al-Ferian had locked her in a cage that might be used for an animal, though she knew that even they would not treat the wild like this. They had removed her gag, and she spit on them and told them she would hunt them also, but they were too concerned with the coming siege to worry about her words.
Thalla sat down near her, and for once she did not feel as though she was collapsing from fear or exhaustion, nor was she curling up into a ball or cradling her woes—now she felt as though she were taking her place upon a throne, finally seizing what was rightfully hers.
“We
stood in that forest as sisters,” she said. “Our races divide us, yet our sex unites us, and while you might prefer a life of solitude, I do not. So I try to find that which unites us together, and maybe to some that’s a weakness, but to me it’s a strength. So we were sisters, and maybe we can still be.
“Yet you think it is I alone who have a lesson to learn, but that’s another thing we have in common, for you are in need of learning also. You told me that I must escape the bonds of men in my life, and yet you must escape your own bondage, a bondage of the mind and heart, which prevents you from opening to others.
“And there is the bondage of your race, for you blindly do as the Éalgarth would have you do, and you do this for Éala, so you say, and yet you work against others who work for Éala, though we call him Corrias. So you see, if you were able to escape your own prison, then perhaps the world itself could also, or perhaps instead the only one to break his bonds will be Agon. Then it will matter little what our personal failings are, for we shall have a greater failing: the destruction of all races, and the ending of this world. Then there is the prison of death that none of us can escape.”
Elithéa did not speak for a while, but it was clear from the glisten in her eyes that the words had touched her heart, wherein there seemed no struggle. Yet pride was a shield to the world, and she would not abandon it so easily. Thus she spoke after a time:
“It is a lofty ideal indeed to speak of freedom from imaginary prisons, when you sit beside me like the jailer of my cell. Perhaps if I were not bound like an animal then I might be able to contemplate such deep philosophies that you seem to have the time for, despite the perils of the world.”
Thalla smiled, and she knew it jarred Elithéa, for the Ferian tilted her head and gave a curious look to the woman. “You are a rose buried in thorns, and so few see your beauty. Yet you even seek to sting the hand of any who try to tend to you, to prune that which has overgrown.”
“So you are a gardener now, I see,” Elithéa mused. “Yet only of words, while I alone here have any true appreciation for the flowers and the leaves. And that, Thalla, is not something you can try to bend to unite us, as if in doing so you might gain your way and so justify your time here.”
Thalla smiled again, and Elithéa recoiled, as if her shield had been shattered, and now she was left defenceless. “I think you enjoy these little skirmishes,” Thalla said. “I think that is why you never killed Aralus until it became necessary. I think that is why you turned on all of us when Aralus was gone. You need these wars of words, because you need to win something, when all else is a reminder of loss.”
Elithéa was silent for a time, but she would not be overcome so easily. She shifted in her cage and struck the bars with her hands. “Save your poetry for your dead mate. He has more use for it than I. And see, even the very allusion to him brings weakness to your eyes. Who you are has always been about who other people are around you, and who they want you to be. You make it look like you had some great victory against the men in this world, that you were accepted as an Apprentice Magus when no other woman has ever been, and yet you are powerless without a Beldarian. Why have you been following all these rules, which are just little prisons made of words, when you could have gone out and sought a Beldarian of your own?”
Thalla was feeling less confident now. She thought she had grown, that her conflict with the fire had earned her some level of wisdom, that her newfound experience in battle and amongst adventurers whose names were known across Iraldas had given her strength. Yet now she thought of Yavün, swept away in the gorge of the goddess Issarí—and her heart panged. She thought also of Melgalés and his Beldarian, which protected him from magic, but not from the world—and her soul shuddered.
“Has our talk made you meek, as the men would have you?” Elithéa taunted.
This got the better of Thalla, and her previous composure crumbled beneath her anger. She grabbed one of the metal bars that Elithéa held, and it turned red from the heat of her palm. Elithéa cried and let go, blowing upon her scalded hand.
“I do not need a Beldarian,” Thalla said, but the smoke that still wafted from her hand suggested otherwise. Her anger, at least, helped her conceal her pain.
“Then perhaps you will see the poet boy again,” Elithéa replied, “for you court death as much as you courted him, even while still in the court of another.”
Thalla stormed off to the bunkers far from the gaze of the Ferian, but her feelings followed her, and she found she could not so easily escape her shame. To those who watched as she charged away, they saw a trail of smoke—and wondered who had left the fires burning.
* * *
Ifferon waited by the bunkers, glancing to and fro at the commotion around him. He saw Délin singing a song to Théos, and he saw Thalla and Elithéa talking in what looked like a bitter exchange. Yet he also saw the Al-Ferian at work, bringing supplies to the bunkers and looking out warily upon the land around.
Then Ifferon was greeted by a number of people brought to him by Rúathar. There were two Ferian twin boys, around the age of twelve, a restless girl from Boror of ten years, an old woman from Arlin who had seen too many summers, and her daughter and granddaughter, whose pale complexions showed that they had not seen enough.
“These are also Children of Telm,” Rúathar said. “Their blood is not as pure as yours, nor as powerful as Théos’, but they have been hunted by Agon all the same.”
“Why are there so few?” Ifferon asked. His imagination had conjured an image of hundreds, even thousands, teeming beneath the mountain like a colony of ants. He knew from his books that Telm was prolific in his mating, and he was so beautiful in countenance that there were few, woman or man, who could resist him. It troubled Ifferon greatly that so many of Telm’s progeny had vanished over the years, as if Agon himself were the one historian, spilling the ink and blotting out the names.
“There were more before,” Rúathar explained. “There were over a hundred a few years ago, when we lived among the trees. But many were killed, and so we retreated to Abi-Enuth, and they now live in the bunkers beneath the earth. When Arlin and Boror were attacked, we saw an influx of people claiming to be Children of Telm. Not all of these were true, but some were, and we have been a refuge for many since.”
“Yet still not a safe haven,” Ifferon said.
Rúathar looked at him grimly. “Let Larksong be your lesson. You know well that there are no safe havens.”
* * *
Rúathar brought them all to a small storehouse, which led into a bunker, which led into a tunnel. The guards were still busy moving supplies that covered the secret door into the secret cellar. As they toiled, Rúathar spoke with Marilah, the elderly woman from Arlin who spoke little, while the Bororian girl stood beside Ifferon, and though she looked up at him, she spoke down to him with her eyes.
“Are you the one they call the coward?” she asked. The Ferian twins giggled behind them. They did not know much of the Common Tongue, but they knew the insults.
Ifferon was taken aback by the question, even though he supposed he should not have been, for he thought surely all were wondering the same thing—and surely some had even worse names for him.
“You don’t look like a coward,” the girl said.
“What does a coward look like?” Ifferon asked.
The girl placed a finger on her lip as she pondered the question.
“A coward looks like a craven cat,” she said.
“And what does a craven cat look like?”
“A coward.”
Ifferon laughed. Suddenly he did not feel so bad about the accusation—though still a part of him was not so easily consoled.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Affon,” she told him.
Ifferon paused for a moment and noted the girl’s blonde hair, which was pulled back tightly, not free-flowing like that of most other girls. “That is a boy’s name,” he said, though he realised he also meant: that is a boy’s
cut of hair.
“So?” she asked gruffly. Even her voice was like a boy.
“You are not a boy,” Ifferon said, though it was less of a statement and more of a question.
“No, I’m stronger than one,” she said, and she kicked a stone away, as if to prove the point.
“Well, you have the blood of Telm in you.”
“So do you,” she said, “but if that’s what makes you strong, you wouldn’t be a coward, would you?”
“I suppose not,” Ifferon admitted. He knew well that the blood did not give him much by way of strength. Indeed, he felt that the burden weakened him. As the years wore on, the heavier the burden became, and so the weaker he became in turn.
“They should have gotten a younger man,” Affon said, looking Ifferon up and down and noting his arched back, thin frame, numerous wrinkles, and almost bald head. “You don’t look like a coward, but you don’t look like a hero either.”
“Maybe I’m not a hero,” he said. “Who are they anyway?”
“The gods, the ones who picked you.”
“I don’t think they picked me, child.”
“Then who did?”
“I think it was random, a chaos of sorts.”
“But then who’s in charge?” she asked, and she looked about as if she might march up to them then and there and demand their resignation, that she might take their place.
“I’m not sure. I’m not even sure anyone is.”
“That’s not the way I’d do it. I’d be in charge and I’d pick someone strong to fight Agon.”
“Where in Boror are you from?” Ifferon asked, trying to pinpoint her accent. He had spent so long in Larksong that he had all but forgotten some of the different dialects of his homeland.
“Lots of places,” she said. “I wander about. Staying here for the last two years is about as long as I’ve been in one spot.”
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 39