Traveller's Tales

“Tell me about yourself.”

The man sitting before me narrows his eyes, never taking his gaze from me.   “A single summation could never suffice.”

“The important moments.”

“My birth, for instance?   21 Dalori, 1528.  My father was a peasant in a farming village not far from Karasek.   So I remained until the day I saved the Lady Alaine from a wild beast in a ravine in 1541.   Lord Alaine squired me on the spot and knighted me soon after, landing me between Karasek and Anlador.   A small keep, watching over a small but beautiful land, near a similarly small but beautiful village, Mureia.  Lord Alaine all but adopted me, and treated me almost like a son — something his own son resented terribly, though he was assuaged when I left, for he knew his inheritance, if not his father’s love, would be his and not mine.”

“How were you treated by other nobility?”

He smiles, though his eyes tighten minutely.   “I was an oddity, a peasant-knight.   The people of Mureia loved me, though they held me somewhat in awe.   Their prior master had been unkind, but I made every effort to help them, lending my food in famine, my sweat to their forge, my back to their mill.”

“What happened then?”

For the first time, the man closes his eyes; his hand raises, his fingers seeking his temples. “I try not to remember.”

I wait.

“Anara,” he breathes at last.   “Her name was Anara.   Princess Anara, of the Court of Anlador.”

“A Princess?”

He opens his eyes, smiles and chuckles.   “Yes, though I did not realize it when we first met.   My squire and I were riding one eve close to sunset.   Partly a patrol, partly an exercise for him, but mostly a chance for me to be alone with my thoughts.   When we came upon her, she was riding without an escort.   I chided her, for the land then was not entirely safe; the Gochin had been restless in the hills, and the beasts always grew restless at dusk.   We escorted her to the nearest town, and we exchanged names and pleasantries as we rode, though she was especially good at evading the questions that might have identified her stature.   Not until the fourth time I escorted her home did I learn her parentage.   By then, of course, it was too late.

“Too late?”

“Of course.   We had fallen in love.”

“What of her other suitors?”

He straightens, takes a long breath before continuing.   “I had not known there were others.   Most acceded to the marriage with grace and fond wishes.   One did not.”

“Who?”

“In 1545, the year I met Anara, my liege, the old Lord Alaine, died, and his wife followed only months after.   Kaiel, the new Lord Alaine, was the son I had displaced, and he had learned to hate me.”

“He was one of her suitors, then?”

“Yes.   When he learned that Anara had agreed to marry me, he attempted to intercede in court.   Anara’s father, the Baron of Anlador, had been an old friend of the late Lord Alaine, however, and he eventually bullied Kaiel into submission.”

“So, you were married?”

He chuckled. “Yes, despite the odds.   Baron Turiel of Anlador knew I was only a Knight, and a poor one at that — but he had met me many times before when I attended the old Lord Alaine.   He knew intimately what I had done to earn my title, and he held me in high esteem.   He had no need for material gain; he simply wanted his daughter to be happy.”

“So you were married.”

“In the fall of 1547.   The glorious leaffall that season showed as but pale reflections of her auburn hair; the boundless azure skies cloudy in comparison to her sparkling eyes.   The world itself conspired in our joy, and our happiness knew no bounds.”

“And your villagers?   What did they think of all this?”

He smiles, genuinely this time.   “They must have loved me dearly.   A parade, a feast, their very best musicians and jugglers.   It was far into the night before we consummated our marriage, and that was as it should be.”

“You were happy, then?”

He leans back, closing his eyes again.   “More so than any have a right to be.   More so than I ever will be, ’til the world ends.”

“You are the Champion of Dalor.   You are committed to bringing about that very end — a far cry from a happily married knight, living amongst a people who loved him.   What brought you here?”

He shrugs, but his eyes narrow again and take on an unsettling sheen.   His voice unexpectedly raw, he says, “He killed her.”

“Who?”

“Kaiel.   He must have perceived a slight, suffered some unseen last insult.   I do not know.   Nominally, he was still my liege, and when the Gochin came out of Gan Mountain to strike against Karasek, I was called away.   I asked for and received leave on my anniversary.   My fourth anniversary.”

“Fall, again, yes?   1551?”

He nods again, no longer looking at me, but through me.   “I returned to my lands that afternoon.   My keep was broken, my squire and servants freshly slaughtered.   Anara had been tied down in our chamber and raped brutally.   I could not save her.   She had lost.   Too much blood.”

“She died in your arms.”

He grits his teeth and nods, slightly.

“1542 was fifteen hundred years ago.   Still you feel this pain?”

His gaze snaps into focus immediately, locking into my own with deadly precision.   “Lose what I have lost and try to forget,” he says, raw emotion breaking his voice.   “Try.   Try for years, for decades, for centuries, try every day, every hour, and fail.   Then tell me how much your pain has dulled.”

I say nothing.

“I made a pyre for her,” he continues, his voice low but steadier.   “I watched her burn.   I watched everything destroyed in those embers, my soul flying away with hers in the smoke, away to the stars.   I set my blade against my chest and made ready.”

“What stopped you?”

“My Lord Dalor came to me,” he said, resolve clearing the passion from his voice.   “He knew my pain, for it is the pain of all Creation.   ‘The world is broken,’ he told me, ‘and you know the truth of it.’   Despite what I had been taught, I listened to him, to the Great Lord of Annihilation.   He told me that he would give me two things, if I would but serve him.”

“They were?”

“My revenge on the man who did this, and the chance to finish breaking the world, to destroy and remake it, so that no one would ever again need to feel what I have.”

“You accepted.”

“I led the Gochin forces the next day, and spearheaded the flanking charge that destroyed Kaiel’s defenses at Karasek.   The Gochin had superior numbers and sound tactics; they had only needed a strong strategic leader to organize them.   Kaiel was mine by sunset.”

“You killed him?”

“Slowly.   He died perhaps… two years later?   He was alive long enough to bear witness to my conquest of his homeland, my subjugation of his people.   To watch me unite the land under my rule.   He serves me still, you know; some of my finest cutlery was carved from the bones of his legs and pelvis.   Primarily while he was still alive.”

“So much hatred.   Why?”

He smiled, sadly, shaking his head.  “The hatred is gone, long gone; only sadness and pity remain.  The world is broken.   Dalor is right.   The sooner it can be split asunder and remade, the sooner we can at last know a world without grief, or betrayal, or evil.”

“Without evil?”

He nods, tilting his head in acknowledgement.   “The irony of your perception does not elude me.   Yes, I seek to destroy this world; I, and my master, together.   We do this so that one day there need be no more pain, or loss, or hurt.   Evil must be created, you know: it does not simply come into being on its own.   In a world where joy, not loss, were the defining experience, evil could never take root.”

“And the end justifies the means?”

“In a world already broken? What difference can it make, anymore?”

“Even if you are responsible for creating the very pain you say you’re trying to abolish?”

He smiles one last time, a small, sad, honest smile.   “In a thousand, thousand years, when fifty thousand generations have lived in harmony, in a world without violence, or grief, or hatred, ask this question of me.   Perhaps you and I will better understand the answer then.”

(For a more historical view on this character, view his entry in the Codex Vocrotha.)

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