4: Scars and Stories

Tal opened his eyes, but the darkness stubbornly clung to them.

Panic seized him at once. He sat up — or tried to. Pain ripped through a dozen places on his body and set his head spinning. Lights flashed in his sightless eyes. The World tilted beneath him, like a ship tossed on a moody sea. His blood ran hot through his veins. His skin felt clammy and feverish.

He paused. Steady, man, he admonished himself. You're not a wool-headed recruit any longer. He listened to his rapid breathing until he finally compelled it to slow. He regained control of his body.

Only then did he attempt to sort out his mind.

He remembered the caribou-shifter bearing down on him. Remembered summoning lightning and striking at the beast. 

Remembered his sorcery crippling him.

Why it had done so was a question for another time. More important were the memories that came after. The shifter had crashed into him. They'd tumbled into the river. Its horns had stabbed into his flesh, holding him fast like a bridge-builder's winch. As the deathly cold water swallowed them, he must have knocked his head, for he could recall nothing afterward.

How am I alive?

The ground was hard and uncomfortable. Tal felt around him and touched a thin blanket, then cold stone beyond its frayed edges. A faint scent of mildew lingered in his nose.

A cave.

Someone must have found him. Someone had saved him. And they couldn't be much better supplied than him, if his bedding was any indication.

But, as the old saying goes, paupers take any coin.

Tal raised his head slowly and opened his eyes wide. Now that he understood the reason for the darkness, he could see past it to detect a faint but distinct glow against the cave's walls. The light faintly flickered, telling of moving flames. 

A campfire. And next it no doubt sat his rescuer.

Easing upright, he extracted himself from the blanket and felt about for his gear. To his relief, Velori lay in its scabbard nearby. He slowly pulled the belt around his waist and secured it. A knife hung from it as well, also preserved from the river.

Tal crawled across the cave floor like a child too young to walk until he sensed the ceiling had fallen away, then tottered to his feet with a groan. His insides burned with the hunger of a wildfire. He kept a gloved hand tracing along the wall as he inched toward the cave's entrance.

He almost lost his balance as a silhouette appeared before the opening. It was night, and the only light from outside was cast by the fire, so the figure's face was lost in shadow.

"You are awake," the stranger said. "At long last."

The voice was a man's, unfamiliar to Tal, and accented strangely. There were notes of an Eastern lilt, but also hints of the Westreach, and the influence of other origins he could not divine.

Tal smiled, though his present state made him feel anything but pleasant. "I had quite the ordeal."

"Ordeal." The man cocked his head to one side in the same manner as Tal had seen his hens do many times back on his farm. "That is one way to describe a life."

Though his head still felt like a barrel of fish stuffed too full, the stranger's words struck him oddly. He had the distinct feeling they were having two different conversations.

Tal cleared his throat. "I believe I owe you a healthy dollop of gratitude. You pulled me from the river, didn't you?"

"Yes. Perhaps in more ways than one."

"Well, for the literal way you saved me — thank you."

The stranger laughed. "'Gratitude is as rare as desert water. We must drink at what oases we find.'"

Tal frowned, the words stirring a vague memory. "That's from the Creed. Spoken by Serenity to her siblings."

"You are either a devout man or a scholarly one."

"I've never been accused of either before. But few in the Westreach can avoid the Creed's influence."

"Ah," the man murmured. "To remember a time when it was not so."

Tal's legs were starting to shake. "If we might continue our conversation around the fire," he said with another strained smile.

The silhouette swept out of the way. "Of course. There are logs for sitting, and food for eating."

Glad that the man had finally refrained from speaking in a riddle, Tal staggered out of the cave and past his rescuer to the fire. He tried to keep an eye on the man, but his weak limbs conspired against him, nearly spilling him onto the ground when he did not watch his feet.

If he was going to kill me, he mused as he lowered himself onto one of the two stumps positioned next to the flames, he could have done it while I slept. With that strangely comforting thought, he lowered his guard — for the moment, at least.

As the man sat opposite him, Tal raised his head and observed his rescuer. He was a comely man and had a youthful appearance, though the strangeness of his mannerisms and the way he spoke told of an older age than he looked. His ears, pointed as they poked free of his blonde, braided hair, and his eyes, a forest green laced with a swirling inky black, told the truth: he was an elf, and a Gladelysh elf at that, unless Tal's wits were more thoroughly addled than he knew.

The elf did not appear to be prospering in his time in the East. His cloak was as much patches as original fabric. His gloves were threadbare, and a finger showed through on one hand. His boots, however, looked to be newly bought and barely broken in.

"Well?" the man prompted him. He had a cutting smile, one as potent as Tal's own. "What do you make of your savior?"

Tal returned the gesture as best he could. "Any man who pulls me from a river looks like a Silence-blessed nymph to me."

The elf laughed, a boisterous sound that defied the darkness and evoked a wince from Tal. "I must imagine so, having never been pulled from a river myself!"

"Does my rescuer have a name?"

"Everyone has a name." The elf leaned forward, the corners of his mouth seeming to stay lifted of their own accord. "Some have many. You may call me Pim."

It was a strange name for a Gladelysh elf, and nothing like the other names he had heard among their people. As he considered Pim's words, he thought it must be a pseudonym.

But Tal only nodded. "Well met, Pim, and thank you once more. My name is Bran."

He had not realized he would give that name until it rolled off his tongue. Strange, he thought, when a man's own given name feels false.

"Bran." Pim rolled the name around his tongue like it was one of the honeyed candies off the streets of Halenhol. "Indeed, it is."

Tal smiled while he decided which of his many questions to ask first. But he realized there was one natural place to begin. 

"How did you come to pull me from the river, anyway?"

The elf leaned back on his stump and neatly folded his limbs so he sat cross-legged, an odd way for a grown man to sit before a stranger. "I was traveling through and saw a drowning man. So I pulled him out."

Tal inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Are we near the river then?"

"Fairly. Our cave is just up the rise from the Reach Road, though on the opposite side of the river."

Tal scanned the clinging darkness around the bonfire and wondered if more of the creatures that had assaulted him were nearby. If any did attack, he doubted he could survive a second bout. For reasons he had yet to ascertain, his sorcery had harmed him as much as it had helped. He could only hope this Pim could hold his own against Nightkin. He was an elf at least, and so would possess his kind's inherent sorcery. And he had been the one to rescue Tal rather than the other way around.

Pim seemed to read his concerns. "We are safe here — as much as there is safety in this craggy land. Ijiraqs are typically quite rare. You were extraordinarily unlucky to have chanced upon one."

"Ijiraq." He said the unfamiliar word slowly. "I've never heard of or seen one before. Are they always hostile?"

"Against solitary travelers? Often. They are carnivores, though they do not look it. And they are fantastically efficient hunters." The ink in Pim's eyes expanded, obscuring the green irises for a moment. "It takes a potent warrior to take one down."

Tal grimaced. He could hardly consider himself a "potent warrior" after the performance he'd put up against the winter beast. But he only shrugged.

"It's foolhardy to venture into the East and not know how to protect yourself."

"Indeed. Some might say it is foolish to even come when prepared. So what has brought you here, Bran?"

This question, at least, Tal had prepared for since crossing the border. "It seems a damnable idea now. But I'm a prospector."

"A prospector!" Pim's perpetual smile widened, seemingly delighted by the idea. "And what do you prospect for?"

"Gold was the notion. I've heard tellings of men making their fortune in these mountains. It's said some rivers shine yellow with all the gold they carry. Now, I don't put much stock in rumor — but in every tall tale, there's a seed of truth."

"And in every legend, a lattice of lies holds it together."

He tried not to startle at that. Almost, it seemed there was a knowing gleam to the elf's eyes. But if it had been there, it was gone the next moment.

"Just so," Tal agreed easily. "I went to Elendol to wait out the winter, intending to make an early start in spring. But certain events threw my plans to the winds."

"Events?"

Tal eyed Pim from across the fire. From his blonde hair to the olive cast of his skin to the hint of Gladelysh accent remaining in his voice, he appeared to be from the elven homeland. He hoped he would not take the news too hard.

"Elendol is at war with itself," he said softly. "The Houses fight one another for the empty throne."

Pim's smile had finally melted. "Then Queen Geminia Elendola the Third is dead."

Tal nodded and lowered his gaze to the campfire. In it, he saw the scene again, as he had countless times in the days since fleeing the elven queendom. Geminia, beaten and bloody, eyes wide, lips murmuring words he heard only in his mind. The Thorn throwing her through the broken railing to a death far below. Flames rising to claim the city as Heyl awakened once more.

Tal had overcome his enemies in the end, if at great cost. But in his nightmares, it turned out differently. Heyl clutched him in its searing hands, pulling his limbs apart as he burned alive. The Thorn laughed as he commanded Tal to contort himself into positions that broke his bones. Once, he even had Tal kill Geminia, taking her apart limb by limb.

He touched gingerly at the newly missing finger on his right hand as it prickled, its absence asserting itself once again. The pain had deadened for the moment, though both of his missing fingers had burned during the initial frantic flight. He wondered if he would ever grow used to their being gone.

The memory a reminder, he felt inside his jerkin's pocket and touched a circle of warm crystal. He repressed a sigh of relief. Even after his tumble into the river, the Binding Ring had not been lost. Much as he resented its enchantment, he needed every tool he had at his disposal.

His strange rescuer broke the silence. "All ages pass, and even good men and women must depart."

Tal looked up at him. Though his appearance was youthful, the way Pim sometimes spoke made him seem ancient. Perhaps he is, he reflected. Geminia had also appeared young, and she'd seen over two centuries of the World. Such was ever the way of elves.

Pim's gaze suddenly sharpened as he stared at Tal. "Bran, forgive me for being so blunt. But this news changes all. There is little time for games." A small smile found his lips again. "Or perhaps only a little time."

His muscles tensed of their own volition. "What do you mean?"

"There are things I must tell you, things I see that you cannot. Trials you must face."

He wondered what this wanderer could know of what he faced. But he remained silent, waiting.

Pim's irises grew dark again for a moment, then gradually cleared. "Wounds hide within you. These are scars that do not wane with time, but wax. Once, we had a name for it — karkados. Canker, it would be in your tongue."

"Canker?" The word was unfamiliar to him, yet he had a creeping suspicion he knew what it referred to.

Pim nodded slowly. "A disease that grows and grows without end. It is born of the very regeneration that keeps our bodies alive, but has been corrupted. Sometimes, it occurs on its own. Other occasions, there is a… catalyst."

Tal knew then, as impossible as it seemed, that this was the truth. He had felt the scars inside him, pulling, tearing. With every spell he had cast during his fight with the ijiraq, they had broken open a little more. And from them spilled a miasma that had defeated him more thoroughly than the beast ever could.

He had felt invulnerable atop Geminia's kintree, all-powerful. He had played at being a god. 

But divine power did not come without a price.

The strange elf's eyes gleamed green in defiance of the orange firelight. "The thing with karkados, however, is that it is a malady born of sorcery. An odd affliction for a human, though possible… if they are a warlock."

They matched stares for a long moment. Tal kept his expression carefully blank, trying to hide the despair seeping into his bones.

"An intriguing theory," Tal said at last. "But seeing as how I'm not a warlock, I must not have this canker of yours."

It was not strictly a lie. Warlocks reportedly attained their powers from spirits they named their deities. Jalduaen was the best known in the Westreach for his prominent place as the patron of the Circle. Tal's sorcery was not born of any god, but had emerged of its own will, as far as he was aware.

Pim smiled widely. "Not a warlock, then. But a sorcerer? Most certainly. I saw the ijiraq's body, Bran. I saw the burns along its hide. There have been no lightning storms in this valley, not in the past day. Those injuries were not born of clouds, but spells."

Tal forced out a laugh. "A sorcerer! Now I know you to be mad."

But his heart was beating faster still. He sees too much. He had to make a choice, and make it quick.

Trust him. Or kill him.

Before he could set his mind, the elf spoke again, his smile fading. "I do not mean to threaten you, Bran the Prospector. I only offer my aid. I can help you in this. I can cure your canker."

Delaying the inevitable decision, Tal stalled for time. "How lucky I am to be rescued by a physician! And how am I to repay you? With a stake in the gold I shall inevitably find?"

Pim shook his head, the movement abrupt. "I require only one thing, a thing that costs you nothing: stories."

Stories. It was far from the usual currency in such exchanges. And though Tal was penniless in Imperial coin, it was still not the answer he wished to hear.

The stories he had to tell came at far too high a price. 

But his stomach for blood was quickly eroding. He was lost in a foreign land. Ikvaldar might be the highest mountain in the East, but with the winter storms raging, he would never find it by sight alone. He needed a map — or, barring that, a guide. 

And then there was this "canker" that he must contend with. He was not so rich in resources he could throw away an offer of aid, even from so dubious a source.

Tal shrugged. "Fine. If you wish to help me so badly, I can entertain you for a fireside tale or two. Though magic is not likely to make an appearance."

Pim gave him a haughty sneer that put Tal's to shame. "You are an amusing man, Bran. I have not seen many puppet shows in my time in the Empire. I'm rather looking forward to this one."

Mulling over the man's meaning, Tal only flashed a strained smile. "Happy to spread smiles where I can. Now, you mentioned something of a meal…"

His strange companion laughed and rose, and Tal breathed a sigh of relief as their conversation steered into safer waters.

* * * * *

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