Traveller's Tales

‘Tell me about yourself.’

The man before me laughs. ‘Beginning with what? I’ve lived longer than most civilizations.’

‘Fine, then, let’s start with that. How old exactly are you?’

‘By the filthy lizards’ calendar, which, by the way, is the most accurate of the lot, I am four thousand, four hundred and fifty-three years old. I was born St’kss the 40th. Many years, mind you, before those who made that calendar had gotten past snacking on each other after battles.’

‘Amazing. You don’t look a day over a hundred.’

He snickers. ‘How very kind of you.’

‘Why do you take such joy in killing?’

His face furrows, lips pulled back in a snarl. ‘Is this how you conduct allyour interviews? “Hi, how are you, how old are you, and how many babies did you eat for breakfast?”‘

‘Answer the question, please.’

‘”Enjoy” is too strong a word.’

‘Is “satisfy?”‘

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m a perverse bastard, that’s why.’

‘Go on.’

‘You’re the smart one. You figure it out.’

‘I’d rather you told me.’

He growls, grudgingly relenting. ‘I was born here, on Vocroth. The first generation of my kind to be born out of slavery to the V’Sta’ak. We had no direction, no defense. They abandoned us.’

I nod.

‘We only knew that our old masters expected us to do well, but we knew none of our goals past survival. We hadn’t been free for centuries, and our leadership wavered, saying much, doing nothing. And then the lizards came.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’d arrived on what would become Khozhn’ol, once the lizards stopped eating each other. They were clannish, paranoid and xenophobic. Once they’d finished fighting each other and joined under a single banner, they decided to cleanse the continent. That meant killing us.’

I nod. ‘You lost much.’

He snorts. ‘Putting it mildly.’

‘Family? Friends?’

He glares at me. ‘Bastard.’

I wait.

‘There were two thousand of us in my village when the lizards came, okay? A hundred of us lived through the first attack, and six of them managed to leave the continent before they were hunted down and slaughtered. Many villages were less fortunate.’

‘”Six of them?” You mean you stayed behind?’

He nods. ‘Someone had to exact the price.’

‘And you did. You slew their Empress.’

‘I brought her rancid head to the newly forming council on Dalkiar, to show my fellows. We had made the first step towards avenging our dead, though it brought us no closer to home.’

‘You could never go back.’

His eyes look past me. ‘No, not then. Not now. One day.’

‘That is your goal, then?’

‘Perhaps. We marshal our forces, plant our members amongst your kind, where they rise to places of power. When we rule you utterly without your knowledge, then we will exact our revenge.

‘No forgiveness? The Drakkhozhn have –’

‘None.’

‘Don’t you have any compunctions against enslaving the other races?’

‘Enslaving? I prefer “Directing.” In many cases, we are fairer, juster rulers than those who preceded us.’

‘Like what happened at Throntor, of course.’

Kur D’Shan shrugs. ‘It was imperative that Daln not take the city.’

‘You still haven’t explained why all this brings you satisfaction when you kill.’

He leans forward. ‘You can’t imagine what genocide feels like, so don’t even try. Even you’re not safe, you know; we know the Gates better than you do, what they do, and where they go. Take a good, long look at your leaders, your role models. Wonder how human they really are.’

‘Answer the question, please.’

He sneers at me. ‘Fine. Every death is a friend who died. A neighbor that never had a chance to lift a finger. Every death is someone who never left Khozhn’ol. Or maybe one of their descendants, who would never be born. Better still, every death is one of my kind who were humiliated, or tortured, or killed outright when they came to Dalkiar, begging for help. Each death is another year my people have been kept from their righteous vengeance.

‘You can’t understand genocide, so neither can you understand my hate. If you cannot understand my hate, then you cannot understand me. This interview is over.’

“Tell me about your home.”

He frowns. “Where I grew up, or now?”

“Either. Both.”

His lips twitch briefly into a half-smile. “I grew up in the north, on a small farm just outside Forgent. Life was hard but simple. You worked or you died.”

“What kind of work?”

He shrugs. “Farming in the short summer. Hunting, trapping and fishing year-round. Seems like we always had nearly enough, but not quite.”

“You watched a lot of people die.”

He looks away, takes a breath, nods without meeting my eyes, a small, sad smile on his lips. “Yes.”

“Which death was the most painful?”

He almost frowns, a flicker of anger, quickly mastered. “My father,” he says softly, finally looking back at me. “Father was the hardest.”

“How did he die?”

“There was a famine in the summer,” Korrian says, his voice unnaturally steady. “He’d given up too much to mom, to me. Hadn’t kept enough for himself. The cold killed him.”

“Did you have any brothers? Sisters?”

He nods once, sharply. “By then they were all gone.”

“Why was he the hardest for you?”

“Because he knew,” Korrian says, his face betraying the pain he prefers not to acknowledge. “He knew he was responsible for us. He just wanted to make sure we were provided for. Knowing he had to leave us killed him as sure as the cold did.”

“Your mother died soon after.”

He nods slowly, his eyes bright. “I buried her that spring, but she died when father did. It just took her that long to realize it.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I wanted to die. I… I didn’t have the courage. I went to Forgent. The smith took pity on me, made me his apprentice.”

“That’s where you found Dalor?”

“No,” he frowns. “That’s where Dalor found me.”

“The Gochin attacked Forgent.”

“Yes,” he said, shaking his head. “So many people died. So many lost their children, their wives, everything they had. I realized then that I wasn’t alone. I realized why all those stories about Dalor show him weeping while he kills. I found that I agreed with him.”

“Even if it were to mean that all your men would die?”

His eyes narrow, his look fierce, protective. “My men all come to me for the same reason. They hurt, they see the world for what it is. They know it’s wrong. They are the very best of men. They’re not fighting for themselves; they’re fighting for a future they’ll never see, for people they’ll never know. If I ultimately lead them to their deaths, how does that make me any different than any military commander? On the other hand, if we can trade our simple lives for a healed world, doesn’t that seem a fair trade?”

“You care a great deal for them.”

“They die for me. Of course I do.”

“What if you should let them down?”

His face angles fiercely. “I have never let them down.”

“You’re mortal, aren’t you?”

The sharpness fades, dulls into a faraway concern, the shadow of a reasonable doubt. “I can’t let them down. They need me. They trust me. There’s not a commander in all the world who’s as good as I am, sir, and that’s no boast. If I can’t keep them alive…”

“What if you can’t?”

He understands the question this time, shakes his head and smiles tightly. “I will. I understand what you’re saying. But I will.”

“Hello. What’s your name?”

“Elidor Daln. What’s yours?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.”

“Call me Arn.”

“That’s not your name. Is it.”

“It’s as good as any other, and I’ll answer to it.”

The boy hesitates, then nods, slowly, once. “All right. Arn.”

“How old are you, Elidor?”

“Nine,” he says, completely without the characteristic pride that usually accompanies such boyhood achievements. “How old are you, Arn?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Maybe you don’t think so, but I do.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll ask the questions this time. You can ask them next time.”

He looks at me, his wide eyes open, his dark brows folding slightly together. “Promise you’ll come back.”

“I promise. And I’m thirty-two.”

He smiles, a brief glimmer that almost touches his eyes. “All right.”

“Who are your parents?”

“My father is the Warlord,” he says, guilelessly.

“What does that mean?”

“Everyone trusts him. They say he’s a great hero.”

“What about your mother?”

His eyelids droop, just a fraction of an inch, and he draws back into himself, looking away. “I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“She went away.”

“When did she go away?”

“After I was born,” he says, glancing behind him.

“Why?”

“Because she loved me,” he says, his face contorting into something vaguely between confusion and loss. “That’s what father says. I always think of her in the fall. She smells like the fall.”

“How do you know?”

“I have her hair. A lock,” he says, again looking behind him. “Father says it smells like her. It smells like the fall.”

“Is she still alive?”

He solemnly shakes his head. “Father said that I would never see her again.”

“Did he ever say that she died?”

“What would be the difference?”

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes,” he says, and for the first time his face shows a hint of concern. “I don’t know why. How can you miss something you never had, Arn?”

“You can’t, Elidor.”

“But I never had my mother,” he says, gazing seriously at me.

“Then why do you think of her in the fall?”

“Oh,” he says, opening back up, his intense gaze focused, piercing past my eyes. “I understand now.”

“A visitor?”

I nod briefly, smiling at the pretty auburn-haired woman. “For a time.”

“I am unaccustomed to visitors,” she says, venturing a small smile. “Some tea, perhaps?”

“If you would join me.”

“Of course,” she says, standing briskly and moving to the cupboard. Filling a thick, stonewrought kettle from a ladle, she addresses me. “Tell me, what conversation is so compelling that my husband might allow you to see me?”

“We can get to that in time. I’d like to know how you’re doing.”

An infintesimal pause in her movement as she considers the question. “Quite well, I should think, considering the circumstances.”

“And what of the circumstances?”

She places the kettle atop the mantle and seats herself, arranging her skirts, before answering. “I want for very little. I am well kept, well fed. I have books to read, yarn with which to knit, journals in which to write –”

“And no freedom.”

“Who of us are free?” she asks, a small, certain smile brushing her lips upwards.

“I am free enough that I may pass through that door behind me. You may not.”

“And yet you are not free to do as you will once you have passed it, are you? You must abide by others’ laws, do their bidding in order to survive in their world. Your movement is free, but your will is not.”

“You go to great lengths to justify your imprisonment.”

She looks away, thoughtful. “Once, perhaps, you may have been right. It took some time to adjust to this existence. I found books to be my salvation.”

“Philosophy?”

“Philosophy, religion, wild tales, artistic sketches, bawdy romances, treatises on logic. There are so many ways to see the world, and even more ways to express those visions.”

“And they kept you sane?”

“They gave me the option to find pleasure in what I have been given. He has given quite a lot, really.”

“Does he visit you?”

She stands, turns to collect the kettle from the hearth. “No.”

“You told him you did not want to see him again.”

“I did,” she says calmly, placing finely crafted stoneware mugs on the low table. “Given the circumstances I believe it was an appropriate response at the time.”

“And now?”

She pours the tea, carefully, methodically, replacing the kettle on the hearth before replying. “We fought the Night together, you know. Side by side, we drove back the agents of Vran, of Toras and Dalor. We were matched like no others. When he… when I was brought back, here, now… well, when I discovered he was in the service of the very ones we had struggled so hard against, it was more than I could bear.”

“You have not answered the question.”

She smiles suddenly, sipping at her tea. “Yes. No? Whatever would I do with him if he did come to visit?” she asks contemplatively. “Before I… died… we lived in the same world, ate the same foods, believed in the same things. When I returned, I hadn’t changed at all, but for him…”

“Three thousand years had passed.”

“Can you even imagine it?” she asks, awe plain in her expression. “How can… how can anyone hope to have anything in common with that? I judged him poorly when I sent him away, I fear. I have since learned — I have realized — that my husband died the same day I did. Paldor… he means well, and in his own indecipherable way I know he loves me. But he is not my husband.”

“And what of his devotion to you after all these years?”

She chuckles and takes another sip. “It’s not me he’s devoted to. It’s my loss he’s enshrined, the moment his world was broken. That was when he found his great truth. If it were me he was devoted to, we’d have run off together and been done with this entire affair, don’t you think?”

“You don’t sound resentful of his priorities.”

“Resentful? The man has lived through three thousand years! We were married for three.” She sips, smiling to herself. “I’m pleasantly surprised he even remembers my name, to be frank.”

“And what of your son?”

Her smile wavers, ever so slightly. “That circumstance, I do regret.”

“Having had him?”

“Not in that sense. I have not been able to see him, to touch him or hear his voice since the day he was born. When I was revived, Paldor was… well, we were rash. I did not yet realize how utterly the world had changed. When I did, I… I said some foolish things.”

“You threatened to stop your own pregnancy.”

She nods, sadly. “I wouldn’t have. Or maybe I would have. I’m not sure, really.”

“So you became a prisoner.”

“A restrained and sedated prisoner, I might add. Carefully watched and guarded at all times — not a moment’s privacy! Half a year of utter madness, and nothing I said could change his mind.”

“And what if he had relented?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s easy to threaten such a thing, early on, but later — well, it didn’t matter in any event. He never relented. My child was born and taken from me. And here I stayed. He felt I might be a risk to the child, but he couldn’t bear to see me harmed. This was his solution.”

“Do you miss him? Your son?”

She hesitates. “I wanted to lash out at you just now for asking that. Of course I miss him. But… but I know now, after these many years, he is no longer just my son. I don’t know what they’ve told him, but he either believes he has no mother, or another woman has filled the role for him. What pain would he feel in discovering me? I would wish him happiness, and I do not know that finding me would make him happy. I miss him, but I am… not content, exactly. He lives and is well. It is enough.”

“Do you miss the outdoors?”

She smiles, sipping again and placing the empty cup on the table. “This is my world,” she says, gesturing to the expansive suite. “This is my empire, and I am its mistress. Beyond that door, that which you call freedom is a world I can only barely comprehend.”

“The sun has not changed, even in three thousand years.”

“No,” she says, for the first time with a hint of sadness, “but everything it shines on has. Those things I miss the most are gone, forever, and shall not return. Perhaps, in time, this new world may interest me more than it frightens me. Until then, however,” she says suddenly with a disarming smile, “would you like some more tea?”

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