The Nightkin beast edged forward to continue her cautious investigation. Pim, despite all his bravado, now stood completely still. Tal followed his lead, trying not to show fear and making no movement other than breathing. The World seemed to sway around him. He wondered if he would faint, and if that might help or hurt their case.
The creature began to circle them, maintaining a scant distance of a dozen feet. Tal longed to follow her progress behind them. All too easily could he imagine her talons tearing through his flesh, her sharp beak ripping his head from his shoulders. His bladder bucked insistently inside him. He wondered if, for the first time, he might experience the fear that made some men wet themselves.
The gryphon appeared around the other side, edging closer still. He could see the muscles rippling beneath her rich beige plumage, see every well-groomed feather atop her shining white head. She circled around to stand before them.
Then she stopped.
This is it. Now she'll recognize us for what we are. Now she'll lunge.
She moved toward them. Tal readied to bring the dam inside him crumbling down. The temptation was almost too much to resist, and he barely held it at bay.
The gryphon stepped up before Tal. Bowing its great head, it nudged his chest so he stumbled a step back. He looked up and, in his astonishment, accidentally met the gryphon's eyes. No detectable emotion lay in those predatory eyes, no sign of what she might do. Yet she didn't attack. Instead, she slowly edged her beak forward.
With a mother's gentleness, the gryphon began to preen Tal's hair.
"Now what?" Tal asked of Pim later, after they had escaped the attentions of the mother gryphon.
They had moved to the shore of the frozen lake and begun to make camp there. After she had properly groomed them to her satisfaction, the great beast had launched herself into the air and, with crooning calls, returned to her young on the opposite side of the lake. Only as she flew away was Tal able to breathe again.
In other circumstances, their surroundings might have been idyllic. Even frozen over, the pale green hue of the lake's waters shone through as the sun touched upon the glossy surface. Peaks surrounded the shallow basin, snow-capped sentinels to their mountain oasis. But with the gryphon nest nestled along a cliff's nook on the opposite bank, its three occupants just visible through a break in the stone, Tal's rest was far from easy. Looming largest in his mind was where the father drake might be off to, and how unhappy he would be to return to intruders in his territory.
The Extinguished paused in his preparations and grinned. "Now we rest."
"Surrounded by gryphons?"
"Guarded by gryphons. They are fiercely loyal to their nest, you know. Even if your pursuit happens to follow us up here, we will not need to raise a finger to defend ourselves."
Tal frowned, struck by the irony that, oddly enough, it wouldn't be the first time gryphons had defended him from Ravagers. When he had hunted down Hellexa Yoreseer's tome years before, he had only escaped the headhunters by stirring up a gryphon nest along the way.
"Then we're safe from the gryphons? They won't recognize us?"
"We are safe." Pim drew the shelter taut with one of the tying ropes, then let out a satisfied sigh. "There, that ought to do! Though perhaps continuing to receive baths from our new mother might be prudent."
Tal, remembering the petrifying experience an hour before, repressed a shudder. "I'd rather sleep in the filth. But if we're safe, then I have questions for you. Many questions."
"Of course you do. But perhaps you would like to ask them sitting at a fire?"
Before Tal could question the wisdom of lighting a fire in the nesting grounds, fearing the smoke might be rather alarming to the Nightkin beasts, Pim had muttered a word and spread his hand over a piece of broken timber he had claimed from a fallen tree. At once, flames leaped over the wood to cover it, crackling and spreading heat and smoke into the air. No amount of reservations could keep Tal from edging closer and stretching his hands toward the fire. He could have cried at the reprieve from the cold; his remaining fingers felt as absent as his missing ones from numbness.
Pim watched him, the black in his eyes spinning. He seemed as little affected by the warmth as the cold. Tal wondered if beings with as little remaining mortality as he felt such sensations anymore, much less were bothered by them. But it wasn't the most pressing of his queries.
"So," his strange companion prompted him. "You wished to ask a question."
Tal slowly nodded. He expected to begin with the immediate mysteries surrounding Pim: why an Extinguished would save him not once, but twice; what his intentions for Tal were; why he'd led him to Vathda only to be captured. But his first question took him by surprise.
"We've met before, haven't we?"
A strain of sorrow seemed to enter Pim's expression. With his entire appearance an illusion, Tal knew better than to trust it. He hardened his will as he waited for a response.
"I wondered when you would guess." The fell warlock looked out over the frozen lake. "Yes, Tal. We are quite well acquainted."
"You were Inanis once. The elf who was advisor to Lord Yardin."
"Much as I regret to say it, I once claimed that role and name."
"You betrayed him." Tal found his temper rising, and could think of little reason to stop it. "You made me betray him." Kill him, he amended in his head, but it hardly needed to be said.
Pim accepted his anger impassively, showing nothing more than that small, sad smile. His coal-laced eyes swirled slowly.
"As I recall, I then freed you," he said quietly. "I preserved you from your fate."
"Not out of any kindness in your rotten heart. 'So you may serve our Lord again' — isn't that what you told me?"
"So I remember."
Tal narrowed his eyes at the man sitting across from him. By all appearances, he seemed an ordinary elf. He did not strut and flash his feathers as Soltor had in the Ruins of Erlodan. He did not gloat and revel in his atrocities like the Thorn. But he was Extinguished. He was one of Yuldor's four apprentices, those who had given up all they knew, all they loved, to embrace a black power and terrorize a continent. And as Inanis, he'd commanded Tal to assassinate dwarves — good-hearted dwarves, he'd learned afterward, all to incite civil war among the clans, as the Thorn had done in Elendol.
And yet he'd saved Tal without any stated conditions — not once, but twice in the past week. He claimed to know where Tal's maladies might be healed.
Can even an Extinguished have a change of heart?
It was too preposterous a question to consider. Yet here he was, contemplating exactly that.
"Why did you save me? And how?"
Pim nodded, evidently expecting the questions. "I had been seeking you, Tal. Ever since I felt Thartol return to the Heart, I knew you were precisely the man I needed. So I came to the border, hoping to have guessed your intentions accurately."
"My intentions?"
The sorcerer cocked his head in that curious manner of his. "First Soltor, then Thartol. You were moving east, ever east, and slaying Yuldor's disciples as you did. It seemed a pattern — one that could only end at Ikvaldar."
Tal smiled his wolf's smile, even as his mind pondered the revelations. "You'd best hope it's not a pattern. Or else you're next."
The Extinguished laughed at that. "I can only hope I have done enough to save myself!"
Tal ignored the mocking note in Pim's words. "You say you need me. Why, and what for?"
"Should I be manacled? Is this an interrogation?" Pim was shifting now, like a boy made to sit too long — like how Rolan might behave, he presumed. For a moment, he remembered the boy and his frog; then, inevitably, he thought of his mother. A heavy sorrow fell on him that was difficult to shrug.
His companion was watching him. When Tal gave no reaction, his grin faded. "It is no great mystery why, Tal. You have the blessing of the Heart. You are Skaldurak. You are a tool any side in this war would be fortunate to employ."
&
nbsp; Pim hadn't truly answered his question, but Tal's mind was already seizing upon another. "Skaldurak — you Soulstealers keep calling me that."
"What could be more appropriate? 'Stone in the Wheel' — quite a flattering label, really."
Tal raised an eyebrow. "I could think of better titles."
"Then clearly, you require some context." Pim leaned forward, and Tal sensed a story coming. How many lies will I be fed now?
"Yuldor Soldarin was, as we both know, once a mortal — an elf from Elendol, as my previous tale implied. In him, talent and ambition were perfectly matched, and though originating from an expunged family, he quickly ascended to power and respect."
"I know all this," Tal interrupted. "How is it relevant?" Though he knew it might be valuable to hear more of Yuldor's origins, the pain that still curled around his bones inspired little patience.
Pim only smiled. "I invoke his past for context. Ever since he was thrown into muck, his House all but dismantled, Yuldor has been obsessed with accumulating power. But it has never been tyranny that he sought, nor the comforts that power may provide, but progress."
"Progress." Tal barked a laugh. "He thinks war is progress?"
"Of course not! War and the strife it brings are unfortunate outgrowths of advancement. But to his mind, the presence of negative externalities does not mean his endeavors should cease. He believes that, one day, he will establish a greater good — one that will justify every sin he has committed, every sacrifice he has been forced to make."
A bitter smile forced its way onto Tal's lips. "Paradise," he guessed.
Pim eyed him, the black tendrils in his eyes spinning faster. "Precisely. Paradise — and the progress and peace integral to its conception — are what Yuldor wishes to gift upon the World, not the privation and pestilence that presently plague it. His is, at its core, a noble goal."
Tal stared flatly at his companion. "And one you evidently still believe in."
The Extinguished shrugged. "In a certain manner. But two may share a vision and approach it with differing methods."
"And yet they might both still be scoundrels." Tal gave him a cutting smile. "Now what's this to do with me?"
Pim sighed. "You are an obstinate man. Your name becomes clearer to me each day we spend together. 'Stone in the Wheel' — at its core, it is simple as metaphors go. The wheel, as one of mortals' first tools, represents progress to Yuldor — and you are the stone that impedes that progress."
Tal had to admit, he was almost disappointed. "That's it? I'm a bump in the road?"
The Extinguished smiled with all the trappings of sympathy. "You must admit, even with all you have accomplished, Tal Harrenfel, you remain but a man with a mortal's shortcomings. You have slain my comrades, true; some on multiple occasions! But in beings that cannot truly be killed, what is the loss of a few years? Progress might be slowed, even by one mortal — but you will never outlast a god."
"A god." Tal did not bother to repress his sneer. "Is that what you believe your master to be, then? Even having seen him as a man?"
"Not despite — because. Knowing Yuldor as he was before only demonstrates how little of the profane remains in him. He is a god, Skaldurak — or as close to a god as this World has ever known."
He couldn't help but laugh — at the absurdity of it or the terror, he didn't know.
"And the Whispering Gods and the Night — I suppose they pale before your Peacebringer?"
Pim shrugged. "They were gods as well, once. But that is another story entirely." The Extinguished rose nimbly, not seeming to possess the normal aches a man would after sitting cross-legged for a time. "We must finish preparing camp before dark. And I am sure you require sustenance after today's trials."
Truth be told, Tal did feel shaky with hunger. But he didn't move from where he sat.
"You haven't answered my question still. What do you want with me, Pim? Why did you seek me out and save me? You know me to be nothing more than a man. Why, then, do you go to the effort of keeping me alive?"
The disguised elf paused. Then a slow smile spread across his lips.
"A man can always become more, Tal Harrenfel. Even a mortal may touch divinity."
Tal stared up at him. In that moment, he understood that Pim knew what he was. Perhaps he didn't have the words for it; perhaps he just wasn't sharing them. But somehow, Hellexa Yoreseer's theories and predictions were not as secret as he'd hoped. The Thorn had sought to use Tal to unseat Yuldor as well before Tal overcame him. He wondered if he'd blundered his way into being the pawn for a different Extinguished.
"You should get some rest," Pim said. His tone might have been kindly coming from another. "We have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow."
"And where would that be to? You've told me precious little of how you intend to kill this 'canker' of mine."
"Even immortality does not grant omniscience, Tal. We must go where we can find healing for afflictions such as yours. To someone who has treated karkadosi such as the one you experience now. We must go to the Nightelves."
Tal stared, wondering if he'd heard him correctly. "The Nightelves?"
Pim smiled again, then turned and walked away. "I will fetch more wood if you set a pot to boil!" he called over his shoulder.
Tal was left with nothing to do but stare at his back, then reluctantly go about the task as he was bidden.
A New Legend
Tal is dead.
The thought echoed through Garin's head as he sat silently with the others. No one spoke, yet it seemed as if they murmured the same chorus to each other for how it resonated throughout the room.
They had not returned swiftly after the conclusion had been drawn. Desperate hope and a Warder's meticulousness led them to tramp about the scene a dozen times over. Helnor had even made the arduous climb down to the fallen stor to see if it might lend any clues. They had all followed the Ravagers' path down to the road. Nothing had yielded any more fruit than their original investigation.
There was only one thing they could reasonably believe. Yet Garin could still not accept it.
Out of desperation, he had reached out to Ilvuan. The Singer had found Tal once before in Elendol; Garin thought he might do so again. But though they had communicated earlier in Vathda, his old devil was absent now. Garin wondered fearfully why that might be, but could come to no solid conclusions.
When every possibility had been exhausted, they had finally returned to Vathda and their rooms there. Each had responded to the inevitable conclusion in their own way. Wren and her father had been the most outspoken in their reactions, though they demonstrated opposite opinions.
Falcon repeatedly denied what all knew to be true, often laughing in disbelief at what he claimed to be a jape on them. "You know how Tal can be," the bard appealed to them. "He's faked his death what, twice before? Why not a third occasion?"
So he prattled on until his daughter inevitably snapped at him. "Quiet, Father! Quit playing the fool for once in your life and face the facts. Tal is dead; everyone knows Tal is dead. Why can't you just accept that and sit down?"
His own despair seemed to bring with it a strange clarity. Garin saw her anger for what it was: the only way she could confront the truth. Yet he knew of no way to comfort her. So he bowed his head and dreamed of sinking into himself, never to rise.
Ashelia shared his feelings. Despite Rolan's anxious inquiries as to if she were ill, she barely spoke two words together. More than for anyone else, Garin wished he had solace to give her. She had once been Tal's lover, and might have been again, from the final interactions he'd witnessed between them. Tal meant more to her than anyone else, even Falcon.
Even me.
Helnor, in a misguided attempt at reassurance, or perhaps to cope in his own way, had begun spinning out theories for how their presumptions could have been mistaken.
"Even a fall like that might not have killed him. Maybe we saw no tracks from the stor because he used sorcery to disguise his trail — smoo
thing the snow behind him with a gust, say. That's possible, isn't it, Aelyn?"
His House-brother only sneered, his reply even uglier than Wren's. "Possible, yes. But it is far more likely he finally paid back the Mother for all the luck he's spent over the years."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Falcon's one hand clenched in a fist, his joviality melting before Aelyn's smugness.
The mage's eyes burned with emotion, swirling like a fire stirred in a gale. "It means he died as he lived — a fool."
"You piss-eyed, goat-sucking—"
"Enough."
Ashelia did not speak loudly, nor even lift her head, but the argument ceased at once. Both her House-brother and the bard looked around much like boys caught in some wrongdoing.
"This news is hard for all of us to bear." Ashelia's words suddenly choked off, and she turned her head as if to hide her tears. A moment later, she seemed to find herself, for she straightened and raised her gaze to find Garin's. The tears in her whorling eyes seemed like rain falling from a thundercloud. "Some more than others," she whispered.
Garin looked aside, clenching his teeth.
"But," Ashelia pressed on, "we must decide what comes next. We cannot impose on the Hardrog clan when they have suffered such recent losses. Particularly not when the raid may have been Tal's fault."
He looked up, surprised from his daze. Almost, she sounded accusing of the man, though laying the Ravagers' wrongdoings on Tal, particularly after his death, seemed too cruel to imagine, most of all from Ashelia. As if ashamed by her words, the Peer's gaze lowered to her son, who sat in her lap.
Silence reigned for a few moments before Falcon broke it. "Well, it's obvious, isn't it? We have to follow the Ravagers!"
Garin looked around at the bard with everyone else and didn't bother to hide his incredulity.
Falcon crossed his arms. "If Tal's alive, then they'll either be pursuing him or holding him captive. Either way, we'll have a trail to follow."
An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3) Page 16