“You betrayed your people.”
The glimmering eyes of the Asker glow harder than ever. Nimtha stops his narration and gazes at the eyes, fear threatening to sneak back to his chest. Steadily, the unearthly presence approaches the lit area.
"What makes you different from them?” hisses the Asker.
Angered, Nimtha’s voice echoes across the walls of the bunker. “Everything! It was they who betrayed everyone. I could still recall what happened eighty years before I went to Mergal, the incident that drove me away from my own people in shame. I buried the memory of that night deep in my mind and chose to move on, out-casting myself from my home. But I never forgot.”
Then his anger flares out as he continues, “The Shards of Mergal are not the Genn’s to do with them whatever they want. My kin abandoned their place as a neutral force and swayed to a side. I didn’t aim to restore the balance, but I intended to stop them from disrupting it further.”
“That was a risk.”
“It was,” comments Nimtha distantly. “And the price was hefty.”
***
My last look toward Xolis at the Iskath’Dorai showed me that he and his followers were descending to the Karonis Shore below. I turned to follow the diminishing trail of the Sedai of the Duke and started running west, outrunning the dawn with the leaving darkness and listening carefully to the fading music, trying not to lose it.
Like a blur, I ran along the lonely path under the early morning sun for a full day. Then into the night, my running continued, shadows stretching until they became one with the darkening land. The Sedai tunes led me west. Under true starlight I ran, remembering Mergal's false night.
The clouds stole pockets from the stars and from my sight, but I rarely depended on light to guide my movements. The trail continued until it reached the barren rocky lands of Tamos, covered in tiny hills peppered with scarce, dry ash trees.
I could see Mount Helmight far to my west, the realm of the dwarves. If any place was to have expert smiths and loremasters, they would likely dwell there. Perhaps I could pay them a visit and try to decipher the true value of the Shards of Mergal. After all, it was because of them that the Shards came to be. House Helgar was still ruling Helgon, and thought I could find answers from his successors or perhaps from any Trodon I was lucky to come across.
After I had journeyed an hour or so deeper into the night, the path led me to a small valley, some fifty feet wide. A small cottage lay ahead on its western sandy edge. Cozy cinder-like light flowed out the window, shining on the small, fenced-in garden. A few other cottages were there too, but lifeless and empty as flooded anthills.
Changing my color to human complexion, I approached the cottage with the lights, cautiously listening for any sound. I opened the tiny fence's gate, intentionally making it creak.
Before I reached the window, I heard, "It is not here anymore.” The mature male voice, with a peculiar pitch, sounded from atop the cottage with lights. Guided by the light from inside and the cold night gleam, I walked around the cottage.
"It moved on, treasure hunter. It evaded your greedy hands." The voice came from atop the sloping roof of the cottage that faced the western side of the valley. There sat an elder Ekran, the eagle-headed men of K’ra, the mountainous realm far west. They were also called Sky Gazers. His mane was gray, and his long, claw-like toes held a firm grip on the edge of the roof. He wore a simple dark blue tunic that matched the sky above and held a wooden staff that was carved like a talon.
I thought of an insightful reply to his statement, resenting his comparison of me to regular treasure hunters. But he was right... I was a treasure hunter, just not the kind he seemed to think. Remembering what I heard about K’ra’s downfall at the early stages of the Redemption Wars, I forgave him for his unfriendly welcome. I was actually amazed to see one of them still around.
“What happened here? Where is everyone?” I asked.
He eyed me with little patience and then replied, “As you might have heard, the Crown’s Hall decided against joining forces. Now Tamos has to fend alone against the Cardia Ferra at its western borders, and Sidnia has to stand alone against the Vile Born to the east.” I could see the gleam in his eyes.
“And you’re happy about that?”
He continued looking at me with piercing eyes and replied in that peculiar pitch, “Happy? No. We Ekrans endured a similar fate when everyone abandoned us. And betrayed us. Yet we, the few left behind, remain strong and proud. We feel no comfort in others’ suffering.”
“But the Vile Born were defeated. The eastern border is safe. The Serador have returned” I expressed.
“ Safe? ” he shrieked with a painfully piercing voice. “You’re not well informed, Genn. Your kin are the ultimate watchers, but you have no eye for bigger pictures. The return of the Serador is the harbinger of the end, the plunge before Talor falls apart. Not that your kind would care.”
I knew what he was referring to, and although I could have defended the honor of my city and my people against the Ekran, I was ashamed of both. He was fair in his criticism, I knew. The Genn were aloof to the extreme. We were far, too far, from the rest of the world to see what was happening there. We were too far to notice the failure of other surface races, and when we had first started to notice, we didn’t give it much thought. On the surface, the dark ages reigned as wars ravished the realms of men. No land was safe from the terrible fires of the Redemption Wars, and each country had to choose a side. But we were untouchable, different from the others.
I didn’t bother to reply. I turned to follow his gaze and saw a narrow cave that opened to the valley. The sandy hill containing the cave was topped by a plateau so perfectly horizontal that it was as if it had been neatly leveled and combed. Something had been there for ages as indicated by the marks printed on the sand. Up there, I could see a smooth round ten-feet-wide hole, not more than an inch deep, as if something with a circular footprint had been removed from the spot.
“Was it there atop that hill? The instrument I heard?” I asked, and I could detect the weariness in my own voice. "What was it?"
The Ekran turned to me with a faint, arousing interest. "Heard it, you say? Then you didn't just follow the local rumors. You didn’t tip the bartender in the nearby dwarf town, greedily searching the lands for ways to increase your horde of treasure?"
"No, my friend, I just came out of a century-long seclusion under the skin of Talor," I replied.
"You are not my friend, Genn,” the Ekran said. “I know the likes of you. Of all the takers of all the worlds of men, you are among the worst.” I said nothing. “You leave no room for second chances. You leave nothing behind, and you have the audacity to justify your actions by protecting what you coldly snatch. Then you claim that the Lady of Whispers will someday reveal her cosmic plan to you.
“You betrayed us all!” he cried out in screeching anger. “Your people cost me not just my family, but our entire realm. Your glamorous city turned its back on us when your kin abandoned the role of the watcher and played in favor of the Chain of Cas.”
"Trust me, Ekran, I was not part of it,” I replied. “I planned none of this either. Not this part, at least. My journey is for the sake of a dying wish of a pure soul. Her loss reminded me of our curse; that we, the Genn of Verda, are not meant to be part of anything. I curse our legacy much like you do, believe me. Whatever we touch, is doomed to oblivion and exile from Talor. Though we initially have no ill intentions, and whether we like it or not, we are the last stop beyond which there is only regret." I spoke with my hidden bitterness. I turned around and searching for any traces of the musical instrument. I expected him to throw more of his justified accusations toward me, an ill legacy of my blood, but they never came. I glanced at him only to find him eyeing me with curiosity.
"Pure soul? What do you mean, Genn? I have no tolerance for more nonsense from the likes of you.”
"This week witnessed the final chapter of a brave woman's life, a Genn o
f untainted soul; something that I thought impossible to find." I gazed toward the Goshean Bracelet lurking in the distance like an enormous array of gray clouds that had fallen to our world.
“Yet I, who could appraise the value of an odor shyly carried by the wind from miles afar, failed to value her during her life. Now, after she is gone, my heart warms to her. That is the punishment I deserve.”
I paused for a moment, trying to regain my composure. “It seems that something else was with us when the Gray Hammer fell… something that saw her fall and mourned her with me. I never heard such beautiful tunes before, music fit for her departure. And it definitely came from here."
I waited for him to object to the notion that there were pure Genntay, but he surprised me.
"What you said is true,” said the Ekran.
I looked at him, perplexed.
"I will not make the mistake of your kind by giving you less than your worth. Perhaps we share something, and if that is the case, you need not be an enemy of mine.”
"So you heard it too?" I asked with a sincere hunger for information. "What was it? Was it some device atop that hill? And what were those shadowy manifestations?"
He answered, "It was there alright, undetected atop that hill. That was the sedai you heard, waiting. It was camouflaged as an abandoned tent. The true name of the instrument is unpronounceable in any language.”
“What does it mean, then?”
He thinks for a minute. “Anguish. In the Tower Eclipse, the tower of knowledge, they referred to it sometimes as Sky Anguish. At every age, it takes a new name according to its player. Each new player gives it a new name. Its original makers were referred to by the Owners of The Seventh Seat, entities whose reality escaped the knowledge of this age.”
“And now?” I ask.
“This age, it is called the Sedai of Duke Varis, or Varis’s Anguish. The instrument is played by an ancient griever. As for the ghastly figures, they are called the Weavers, the Nomads of the South. They are the ones who uncovered the Sedai centuries ago,” he added. “They are the Weavers of Fate..."
"Are they the ones who play Anguish?" I asked.
"No, the Duke does. The Weavers are the link his world has to ours. They watch the calamities of mortals, turning them into melodies so genuine and profound that they break all the rules you know. Then the Duke plays them,” he said.
"And who is Duke Varis?" I asked.
"A sinner. He is the greatest griever in the history of Talor. If you are fated to get closer to his truth and to the artifact, you will know about him when that time comes.”
I stood in reverence. If anyone would appreciate such a tale and value such a legacy it would be a Sever.
"I first saw them when the woman I told you about died. Did you hear the melodies of the past days, those mourning her?" I asked. “And those for the Dargos?”
"Yes, I heard them. Spending couple of centuries in the company of the Anguish made me able to understand the songs of the Duke. He grieved for the girl and the Dargos. And at the end, I think it played for you.”
Before I could object, he read my mind turned his eyes back to the hill. "You were part of that melody. You heard it, and that was not by chance. The Sedai chooses whoever hears it, however far away he is. All who hear it are part of the song."
I remembered Idath’s family.
He then added as he stood up, “Come, you’ve earned yourself a dinner.”
I was in need of a quick rest and a warm meal, so I accepted. He spread his weary wings and pushed off the roof with his aging legs. His now-rusted iron talons let go of the roof’s edge as he leaped towards the star-filled sky. He flew gracefully and looped back into his cottage through a window on the second floor. I went to the door and waited for him to open it.
He let me in through the door and bowed slightly as I entered. “My name is A’rak, by the way.”
“And I am Nimtha” I replied as I entered the cottage.
Inside it was as cozy and warm as I’d imagined when I first saw the light. The majority of the furniture was made of hay. We sat at an old wooden table in the middle of the room, silently eating a warm lamb stew he prepared while I sat there. Every now and then, he glanced at me, and I put no guards on.
Halfway through our meal, he stared at me and said, “You think it is all some bizarre collection of coincidences, those events that led you to arrive here, don’t you?” Not waiting for my answer, he continued, “Events are never random, Genn. None of what man has experienced on the face of this world or the one below is random.” He took another bite of stew.
I put down my spoon. “I know what you endured, you and your folk, noble Ekran,” I said in an understanding manner. “I know that your lands were among the first to fall under the mutated monster that was once Lorken.”
“So that is what you think I am doing? Mourning the end of my civilization?” he asked with resentment. “No, dear Genn, we are not extinct yet and I am here waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” I asked.
A’rak leaned back, pausing for a moment, and then he explained. “It was a very old sin that brought our world down. While you Genn hid away, man continued fearing the winter. He thought of it as life’s end, as everything falls into its eternal cold tomb. We Ekrans, however, believe that life was born out of winter, blossoming in the spring and maturing in the summer. It is the autumn we fear, and we are walking toward it. Winter to us is the final peace, but in autumn we will witness the agonizing end.”
A’rak stood, picking up our dishes, and took them to the kitchen. The kitchen held little more than an oven and a sink, both on the left side of the room. He leaned on the small wooden table separating the kitchen from the dining room and continued, “Are you going after the Sedai?”
I nodded.
“Well, you cannot find it,” he replied “It finds you. In fact, it follows you if so it desires. If the Duke so desires. And you have a long journey ahead, it seems.” Then after a pause, he approached the window and gazed outside into the darkening Tamosian night.
“The Vile Born of Zuld are only a fraction of the forces of darkness. Evil is not just behind the Wall of Enigmus. It dwells here too, but with different forms and faces that look much like ours. So, you better be prepared for the surface of Talor.” He turned to me, asking, “Do you know when the Sedai of Duke Varis appeared on this hill?”
“When?”
“It was in the Year of the Traveler. The same year the Redemption Wars burnt through Talor, taking away the crowns from kings and the freedom and dignity of their people. The Redemption Wars rose to bring absolute freedom in every way possible. Yet all it created was a chain, a chain that bound them all.”
“The Traveler. I heard that name yesterday. Tell me about him,” I said.
He ignited the oven beneath the kettle and continued, somewhat reluctantly. “You spoke of intentions earlier. Let me tell you a story where intentions were as pure as can be.
“Before that miserable year, in Lorken, there was a glorious order, a strong example of good: the Order of Mercy. Evinshan, its first cleric, was a soul so pure that people wove myths around his origin. Some said he hailed directly from the Erans, the first civilization on Talor which went extinct before recorded history. Some went even further, claiming that he was, in fact, an angel sent to teach us to look out for each other in this savage world. The holy Order of Mercy sought to give aid to those suffering from suppression and wars. Though they were not many burdens in those days, at least not like those we see now. Still, they sent cures, medics, and medical supplies to those unfortunate few.
“But another man, Sidius, joined the Order of Mercy too. He was an average man, a merchant, and was seen as a devoted follower. Briefly, after he joined the order, he gained the enmity of Evinshan. He managed to recruit followers using promises of wealth and power. Seeking only to increase the size of their treasury, a wider variety of services was introduced to the order. They supplied a wider range; from
potions and magical scrolls to protective gear. Eventually, the once innocent Order of Mercy reached the point where providing mercenaries and soldiers was the next logical move, presumably to aid the defenseless. But what really happened was that the Order of Mercy supplied both sides of wars with enough arms and soldiers to wipe each other out in endless battles. As you can see, intentions are often gray.
“Evinshan witnessed that transformation, but even with all his powers, he couldn’t sway his order back to the code of Mercy. The Evinshanost, a sub-order, was created within the desolate chambers of the order, named after Evinshan out of spite. It meant the Mercy-less and through it, Sidius corrupted the will of the Order of Mercy. The year Sidius appeared was the year that witnessed the death of Evinshan, and Sidius had no trouble taking his place. Sidius foretold the arrival of someone that he referred to as The Traveler and kept saying that certain preparations must be made for his arrival. He said the Evinshanost needed an army to prepare. In an order already filled with mercenaries, this was easily done.
“With too-perfect timing, the Council of Steel; The Makers Of War Through Flame And Steel, threw the king of Stegia and took control of the kingdom. The Evinshanost found its soul mate in this council. Together, they saw to the eruption of fiercer wars between the eager new armies. Those wars yielded whole new level of arms dealing, which Sidius assured would yield the most valuable riches. And from defeated armies to conquered lands, war prisoners were brought to the chapels of the Evinshanost in every land and sold as slaves. And it all started with such good intentions.” A’rak stopped narrating as he poured water into the kettle.
“So was it this Traveler and his lieutenant, Sidius, who stood behind the fall of Lorken and the Redemption Wars?” I asked, staring at the steam racing towards the ceiling.
“The wars that came to be through the union of the Evinshanost and the Council of Steel wasn’t nearly enough for them. So let me tell you then how Lorken fell to corruption and created the Chain of Cas. Let me tell you how the Redemption Wars erupted.”
The Dark Season Saga- the Final Harvest Page 10