"This is your first winter in the East, I trust?" he called pleasantly over the wind's yowling.
Tal gave him a half-hearted grin, the skin of his lips cracking as they stretched. "Is it... that obvious?" he spoke through panting breaths.
"Only by the misery etched in your every feature." With a smile that wasn't entirely devoid of mockery, Pim looked out across the craggy landscape. The day was gray and flurried with snow, but they could see the tops of some of the shorter mountains. In warmer conditions, Tal might have been struck by the austere beauty of the scene. As it was, all the sight promised was more chapped lips and cracked knuckles and cold that burrowed into his bones. He wished he could let his sorcery warm his blood once again and only barely resisted the temptation.
"This is far from my first time," Pim said, as languid as a fabulist before a crowded campfire. "At first, it was a sore disappointment. I missed the warmth and the towering trees of Elendol. I yearned for the emerald greens and bursts of bright colors. I longed to simply be surrounded by things alive! But as the seasons passed, and the snows abounded then disappeared, I came to appreciate them for what they are. Contrast, my good Bran! Contrast is how we distinguish anything in life: good from bad, right from wrong, fair from foul. If the snows never fall, would the spring feel so warm?"
Pim deflated with a sigh. "But, you must be thinking, 'I'd rather not be cold right now.' Indeed, we always prefer the comfortable. But life requires sacrifice; after all, do we not consume animals and plants to survive? There is no living without killing."
Having little tolerance for philosophy at the moment, Tal studiously ignored the diatribe. At least it gave me a chance to catch my breath.
"How long have you been here?" he asked. Pim had evaded his earlier questions regarding his background, and Tal feared he would do so again if he pushed too hard.
"Many years," Pim answered vaguely, not looking at Tal any longer, but scanning their surroundings. "Long enough to grow weary of the snow once more."
Tal found his patience quickly thinning for his companion's cryptic answers. "This town we are headed for — Vathda. You think I can find help there?"
Pim had set their destination that morning. Vathda was apparently a settlement of dwarves — dwarves from the Westreach, no less. The revelation made Tal distinctly uncomfortable, but resupplying was necessary. Pim had limited resources, and Tal next to none. He would not make it to Ikvaldar without food, shelter, and water, and sooner or later, he would need to leave his strange companion to head off on his own.
"Help? Who can say? 'Look to the past if you wish to know your future.'"
"Is that another quotation?"
"Indeed it is — from quite an intelligent author."
Tal guessed whom he meant by the darkening of Pim's eyes. "It's you, isn't it?"
His guide guffawed into the mountain air, provoking Tal to wince.
"Come, my serious companion! We have a day and a half to travel still, and you look as if you could use a bed. One can only hope a cot awaits you."
With a final enigmatic smile, Pim started down the slope.
Tal stared after him for a moment. In all his years, with all the names cast his way, he had never been accused of being serious.
"Everyone changes, I suppose," he muttered under his breath as he followed.
They continued all through that day and into the next in a similar fashion.
Pim, Tal was beginning to find, had his fair share of idiosyncrasies, but was not a worse traveling companion for them. He was vivacious yet focused, entertaining but also efficient. If not for his tendency to skirt any questions relating to his past, Tal might have almost begun to enjoy their journey together.
But there were times when the odd elf unsettled him. Many of these instances came when he was telling a tale from the book he claimed to have written. Each occasion began the same way.
"Have I mentioned that I have authored a collection of sorts?"
Tal raised his head from their endless march to find a mischievous glimmer in Pim's eyes.
"Once or twice," he managed to wheeze, as they were once more laboring up an incline, of which the East seemed to have an endless supply.
"It is a point of pride for me, I must admit — a collection of fables from these Eastern lands. Would you care for me to tell you a story from it?"
Tal shrugged. Even if it turned out to be drivel, he didn't see how it could make the pain of the march much worse.
Evidently taking the gesture for permission, the elf made a sibilant humming in the back of his throat, then began to speak in a minstrel's lilting rhythm.
"Once, there was a man, an elven sorcerer from a far-off land. We shall call him the Dreamer, for he had a vision — nay, a flash of divine insight — toward which he devoted his life. What is this dream, you wonder? It is this: to reform the World so all men and women, from every Bloodline and race, and in every nation and land, are equal, and peaceful, and prosperous. He wished for progress, true progress, for the betterment of all, everlasting."
Even through the fog that covered his deadened mind, misgivings seeded their way through. Progress. Reform the World. He had an inkling he knew where Pim's story was taking them, and what it might say for the man's beliefs and inclinations — and, most importantly, for his intentions toward Tal.
Pim continued to prattle away. "The Dreamer first tried to bring his revelation to his queen, who was reputed to be a fair and just ruler. But he came from dubious origins, and in his society, one's pedigree mattered more than one's character or ideas. So offended was the queen that she not only threw out the Dreamer from her court, but banished him from her domain entirely. He became an exile, never again to return home, and his dream seemed all but impossible to attain."
Now it was a certainty in Tal's mind of whom this fable spoke; the events mirrored too closely Geminia's account of Yuldor's origins, though with a distinctive twist in perception. The Prince of Devils was not portrayed as an ambitious schemer in it, but a wronged visionary.
It is only a story, he reminded himself. People tell many tales they do not believe.
And at the very least, he found his pains somewhat lessened by the distraction.
"But the Dreamer held to his resolution," Pim said, a performative smile stretching his lips wide. "Though he yearned to free his own people from their suffering and unjust rules, he yielded to his queen's command, knowing only sorrow could arise otherwise. Thus he traveled eastward, to lands foreign and frightening, walking the very mountains through which we now trek. We travel over the trails of legends!"
"Imagine that," Tal muttered, wondering again at Pim's choice of words.
His guide laughed. "But as I was saying — the Dreamer did not go alone into the East. His four most loyal and humble servants, the only disciples not to abandon him before the queen's wrath, went with him. Yet even among them, they began to have doubts, as the rugged, foreboding land stretched on for miles and miles around them, unceasing and uncaring. 'What justice can be found here?' one among them questioned, who was always first to doubt and last to believe. 'What Paradise can one man forge from snow and stone?'
"The Dreamer, hearing his disciple's skeptical words, only smiled and turned away. 'If it can grow here,' he said, 'can it not grow anywhere?'
"The doubtful disciple was perplexed by this and kept his misgivings quiet for a time.
"They found the East was not entirely forsaken. Here and there, gathered in clusters of kin and clan, were peoples of all races, with a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Yet none of those whom the Dreamer met was a savage, as he had been warned they would be, but kinder and more generous than most of his neighbors back home. When he was hungry, he and his disciples were fed. When they needed shelter, they were offered a roof. When the Dreamer was injured by a misstep, he was given a place to rest and heal. Thus he came to know the mountain people, and love them, and he said to his disciples, 'Where there was hate, love now lives. Did I not say sto
nes would blossom?'
"The doubting disciple saw that his comrades agreed with the master. And so he still remained silent, and nodded with them, and followed on.
"The Dreamer led his disciples farther still into the tundra. He had seen a place in his reveries where he might begin enacting his revelation, a location unlike any other across the World. And when the Dreamer finally pointed to the sky and declared, 'That is where my Paradise will begin!' the doubter believed him mad.
"'There?' cried he. 'But it is above the clouds!'
"'Behind the clouds is the highest mountain in all the lands,' the Dreamer told the disciple. 'Only when one can see far can they dream widely.' And he called the mountain 'Ikvaldar,' for it means 'High Paradise' in the oldest tongues of this land."
Ikvaldar. Tal just managed to repress a laugh. How often had he thought of that elusive mountaintop? Yet Pim made no mention of the Worldheart. That, at least, remains unknown to the common anecdotalist.
His guide let out a low chuckle of his own. "Ikvaldar. To the doubting disciple, it seemed a bitterly ironic name, for as they ascended to the apex of the peak, he found it the least hospitable and most agonizing place on the World's surface. Worse even than now, Bran, if you can imagine it!"
Tal only waved a hand, too breathless for a retort.
"Yet the Dreamer's inspiration was not unfounded, but divine in origin, for he would prove himself correct in his naming. Ikvaldar was a frozen wasteland above the clouds, a place of eternal ice and wind. Yet with his disciples by his side, the Dreamer began to wage war on this formidable foe. He brought to bear all the magics he had gathered, then sought deeper for the seed of divinity planted within him.
"It was an effort of years, decades, perhaps even centuries — but, as the faith of even the unquestioning disciples began to break, finally the endless winter yielded. From the ice grew a tough, gnarled tree, black in bark and with spines instead of needles or leaves. Pitiful, perhaps, to be the fruit of eons — yet it was life, life where it had never existed before. It was the proof that, inevitably, Paradise might spread to all the World.
"From this success, the Dreamer redoubled his exertions, as did his disciples. Not long after — relatively speaking, of course — all the peak of Ikvaldar was rife with greenery, and of even the most delicate kinds. It was a garden unmatched by any that a king or queen could requisition. No one would go hungry there, for the forest provided food, and the animals offered themselves for meat. No one could be ill, for from the flowers flowed elixirs for every malady. All was well in that jungle, and it could truly be called Paradise.
"But when those below looked up at Ikvaldar—" Pim raised an arm to point into the impenetrable clouds. "—they did not yet believe in the Dreamer's vision. They saw a miraculous thing, perhaps, and wondered at it, but they did not understand what it meant. To them, it was only a forest where none had grown before. It did nothing to change who they were at their core. Even the peaceful Easterners waged war, and conflicts always simmered between the differing nations. They were not ready for Paradise even if it came to them. War would not end until their hearts and minds had changed and begun to accept the Dream of Paradise.
"The Dreamer, understanding this, sent forth his disciples to spread the good news he had to share. But he knew the hearts of men well, and thus knew a word alone would not change the course of the World. So he also had his disciples form an empire of all the disparate peoples of this World, beginning here in the East. Only under one government, he reasoned, could all violence hope to cease, for kingdoms will always come into conflict with one another.
"As the empire spread, the Dream of Paradise did as well, and many began to believe. And it is said that when the Empire of the Rising Sun encompasses the entirety of the World, and all peoples in every land have readied their hearts to accept the vision, only then will he — the Dreamer, the Peacebringer, the Lord and the Savior — make a new day dawn for all, and allow Paradise to spread and reign evermore."
At the last word, Pim halted. Tal stopped with him. They were midway up yet another incline, and tucked within the valley, the views were nothing much to look at. Tal soon lowered his head again, his chest heaving to catch his breath.
"Well?" Pim asked, his melodious voice so soft the wind almost swallowed it. "What did you think of my story?"
Your indoctrination? But Tal did not say it aloud.
"Intriguing," was all he managed before he had to suck in more air.
"Intriguing to a Reachman, perhaps. Yet it is a story every civilized child in the East knows. It is the foundation of their belief in Yuldor as their Lord and Savior."
Something in Pim's tone made Tal look up and meet his guide's swirling eyes.
"Do you believe in Yuldor, Bran?" the elf asked softly.
The base of his neck prickled with anticipation. Here was a balancing moment if he'd ever seen one. Fall off the knife the right way, Tal thought, and you may avoid gutting yourself.
Somewhat recovered, Tal brought himself upright as he ordered his thoughts. "I believe he once existed," he said slowly. "And I believe he's impacted the World in immeasurable ways. As for the rest — well, consider me the doubting disciple."
To his relief, Pim threw back his head in a guffaw.
"The doubting disciple, indeed! Very well, Bran the Prospector. We shall see if spending time in the East improves your faith. For in seeing, I have been told, there may come believing."
Tal shrugged. I'll see the truth of Yuldor soon enough. Then, he trusted, the matter of his beliefs would be decidedly settled.
A New Master
On the second day of their journey with the caravan, the afternoon sun finally broke through the clouds.
Garin glanced up with a weary smile. The mountain storms had harassed them throughout the past two days as they trekked behind the sleighs. The going was slow, and twice Helnor had suggested they move ahead to find their own way. But Ashelia, who was of the opposite opinion, prevailed once more.
"We can all use a rest, Belosi," she told him. "And moving swiftly in the wrong direction will not find Tal any faster."
"As you command, my Peer," Helnor muttered in return. His retort received a snort from Wren, who overheard it along with Garin. Ashelia had given them a flat look, and included Garin in it — rather unfairly, to his mind.
But not all their days were so light-hearted. Without a trail to follow, they had no evidence that Tal remained alive, nor that their pursuit would yield any welcome discovery. Yet, though Garin was sure the others felt the same way, no one spoke of their worries. He himself refused to believe Tal was anything but alive and well.
He slew Heyl and the Thorn, he thought. Not even the beasts of the East could kill him after that.
Almost, he quieted the doubts. Only at night, when he was falling asleep and his mind was unguarded, did they creep back into his dreams.
During the day, he kept himself occupied. Their slower travel gave Garin the opportunity to drop back to where Aelyn and Kaleras took up the rear of their party. They were not his first choice of company; in fact, the mage and the warlock might have been his last preference. But they were the two most qualified to instruct Garin in the sorcery he suspected he would need to survive their journey.
Wren cast him a skeptical look as he fell back. He returned it with a mysterious smile before matching pace with Aelyn. He had chosen the side intentionally. Though he knew Kaleras was dedicated to their cause, Garin was still far from comfortable around the elder. He had, after all, stabbed and poisoned the man. And though he had been possessed at the time, part of him still felt he was to blame. He couldn't be sure Kaleras' thoughts did not lean in the same direction.
Aelyn gave him a sidelong glance. "What do you want?"
Garin raised an eyebrow. "Who's to say I want anything?"
"You would not willingly subject yourself to my company, boy. Don't think I don't know that."
"Am I not now?"
"Only for some ad
vantage. Now, out with it before I lose my patience."
"You'd have to have patience in the first place to lose it."
Kaleras spoke up, startling Garin. "It seems you've learned his manners."
Garin blinked, taking a moment to reason out what he meant. "You mean Tal's, Magister?"
Kaleras peered around his fur-lined hood to give him a tight smile. On another man, it might have appeared friendly. But Garin had trouble believing it of this warlock.
"I am no longer a member of the Circle," Kaleras responded. "Just call me Kaleras."
Garin gave a quick nod and looked forward as if to keep track of the trail. "As it happens," he said, doing his best to ignore Kaleras, "I do have a request."
Aelyn exhaled noisily. "Of course you do."
"I want you to teach me more sorcery."
That shut the mage up for a long moment. Garin risked a glance over to see the bronze in his eyes had turned molten.
"And so you turn back to me." Aelyn's words dripped with satisfaction.
"I don't have anywhere else to turn, do I? Ashelia and Helnor don't know the — the Darktongue." He hesitated to say it aloud, even though his peculiar affinity for sorcery was no secret among their party. "And I need to learn more if I'm to survive this… well, whatever you might call what we're doing."
"Puerile pursuit?" Aelyn suggested. No doubt his feathers were ruffled by constantly tailing after Tal.
"Hollow hunt, I might put it," Kaleras murmured, only just audible to Garin's ears.
Garin only shrugged. "So will you instruct me? But no holding back," he added as Aelyn opened his mouth. "Not like last time."
The mage clenched his jaw for a moment before speaking. His sharp features and spare frame made him look swallowed within his winter cloak.
"I am the instructor, not you," he replied tightly. "I will decide the pace of your learning as I see fit."
Garin opened his mouth for a retort, but Kaleras beat him to it.
An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3) Page 5