by Licia Troisi
Nihal returned to life in all her strength. She could remember nothing of her supposed death or of her encounter with Phos, but the sprite’s words from that day remained engraved in her mind, and she carried the amulet with her always. It was she who roused me to my former self, who brought me back to life, who healed me. Sometimes, when we think about it, we can’t help but laugh—me, gimping around, she, with her life tied to a talisman for the rest of her days. Maybe she and I are the true relics of the old world.
Nihal’s mind, now, is free of all its demons. Dissolved, like snow in the sun. Silenced at last. “I almost feel lonely, without all the voices. But it’s a beautiful silence, a calm I never knew before,” she told me one night. Of the spell that tormented her for so long, not a trace remains, for Reis, too, is dead, a victim of her self-consuming hate. On the day of the battle, she wanted to descend into the fray in order to see the destruction of her nemesis with her own eyes. Just as Nihal thrust her sword into Aster, Reis cried out with bulging white eyes: “He’s dead at last! The monster is destroyed!”
From the cliff where she looked on at a safe distance from the Fortress, Reis descended onto the plain. Drunk with joy, as if all the heavy years of her life had suddenly been lifted from her body, she dashed toward the immense structure, only to reach the foot of the Fortress and be buried in its rubble. The next day, they found her crushed beneath a heap of black crystal. Still burning in her open eyes was the very hate that had usurped her life. Of all the protagonists in this story, Reis is the only one for whom I’ve never felt sorrow—only a deep contempt.
“In the end, she too was a victim,” Nihal avowed. “We’re all victims of the hate that hides within us, waiting for a moment of weakness to seize control.”
For a long period after we’d recovered, we lived in happiness. The world seemed young and fascinating. For a long while, we believed that with the death of the Tyrant all had come to an end, that evil had been defeated and peace renewed. We’d survived, and we’d survived together. What else could we ask for? But that joy didn’t last for long.
Soon, we realized that if defeating the Tyrant had been difficult, building a world up from the ruins was no less a labor. Aster and his followers weren’t the creators of Evil, merely its latest agents. Though we’d defeated them, hate and wickedness still resided among us.
We understood this more clearly than ever when we went to visit the Fammin. As soon as the war ended, we were presented with the dilemma of what to do with those poor creatures. Oblivious and defenseless as children, they’d fled to the Land of Days, far from the glares of resentment and promises of revenge. In Council, we discussed their fate at length. There were those who proposed to exterminate them, those who favored enslaving them. It was only after a tireless and prolonged deliberation that a suggestion made by Dagon and me swayed the Council: The Fammin would remain in the Land of Days, where they’d be free to determine their own fate.
So it was that one day Ido, Nihal, and I departed to inform them of the Council’s decision. As they saw us approach, many looked on with fear and horror, still mindful of what our comrades had done to them, of the destruction Nihal had brought upon their race in times past.
Nihal climbed to the top of a hill. Beneath her stretched the very same plain that she and I had crossed on our journey, stripped of hope and burning with rage. Nothing had changed. The same air of death reigned over the landscape, the same barrenness as when Aster was in power, only now it was filled with quivering, frightened beings cast into a world of which they could not make sense.
“I know that many of you remember me, and that the memory is not sweet,” Nihal began, toying nervously with the amulet around her neck. “I know you see me as a murderer, and I’m not asking you to erase that memory. An evil done cannot and should not be forgotten. It lives on in our hearts and burrows into our souls. What I’ve come to ask of you, instead, is to not seek revenge. Vengeance brings neither rest to the dead nor peace to the living.”
She was silent for a moment, letting her gaze wander among her strange audience. “What I ask is your forgiveness for what I’ve done and for what my comrades have done and continue to do to your people. In return, I promise that you, too, will be forgiven for what you’ve done, and with even greater sympathy, for you did not act according to your own will. Now is a time of peace. A time to leave war behind and dedicate ourselves to building a new world in the hopes that it will be better than the last.” She paused again, only to speak even louder. “My people have decided that from now on this is to be your land. Here, you will be your own rulers, your own masters, free to seek out your own peaceful existence. From now on, there will be harmony between your people and ours, and I swear on my honor that I will permit no one to raise a hand against you. I know that you are confused, that you don’t know yet what steps to take. We are here to help you find your way.” She turned her gaze to the multitude of timid faces at her feet. “That is all I’ve come to say. You are free to go. Free forever.”
That day, it felt as if we were truly doing our part to secure peace in the Overworld, but we know now that a new problem was born in that moment, one that to this day remains unsolved. Peace between the Fammin and the other races is nothing but a distant mirage. A silent, insidious war is already slithering its way among the races.
Soon after, Nihal was offered the position of Supreme General at the Academy, though she turned it down.
“I’m too young, too distant from battle anymore to hold such a post,” she said, and in turn the position was offered to Ido. He, too, made a number of objections, claiming over and over that it was beyond his merit, that he had no desire to deal with all the hassles that came with the job. In the end, however, Nihal persuaded him to accept, and now Ido sits on the throne that once was Raven’s, Vesa curled at his feet.
At her request, Nihal and I settled in the Land of the Wind. She insisted that it was her land.
Ido comes often to visit us, and he and Nihal spar for countless hours—the only time she ever uses her sword anymore. She decided, at least for a while, to lay her weapon down, and her sword now hangs on the wall in our room. Though not a single grain of dust rests on the blade, and soon, I’m sure, she’ll pick it up again.
We travel often to the Land of Night to visit Laio’s tomb. We miss him so much, his purity most of all. Among us, he’s the only one who escaped the war without staining his hands. Nihal left her armor there, and I, the better part of my former hopes.
I’m still a councilor. Held in higher esteem, at last, by the other members, though no less a vexing presence, always struggling against the current. My duty now weighs on me even more so than in times of war—peace is far more fragile than I’d ever imagined.
The Land of the Wind is a rubble heap. Facing the remains of Salazar again, after so long, was a painful moment for both of us. We entered the charred and ruined city walls, and Nihal recognized Livon’s workshop, where her father had been killed and her destiny set in motion.
“Sometimes I feel just like this room,” she said to me, “burned and destroyed. My mission is over, but what happened can never be erased.”
She stepped toward the crumbling corner of the workshop where Livon had once forged his magnificent weapons. The rusted stumps of former swords hung on the walls. Nihal broke into a heavy sobbing.
“There’s no reason our future shouldn’t be filled with joy,” I said to her. “Yes, to forget is impossible. The pain of torture, the hopelessness I glimpsed in the mind of the Tyrant will never leave my memory. But maybe some good will come of all this pain. Already we’re together. Doesn’t that say a lot?”
She smiled and held me in her arms.
So here we are, in this broken land, trying to squeeze happiness from suffering. But I know we won’t stay long.
“One day, we’ll get out of here,” Nihal said to me. “I want to go back to my roots, to my dream as a
child, when I longed to be free and to travel. We’ll jump on back of Oarf and follow the whirling currents of the Saar. No longer will we be the brave councilor and the glorious knight who saved the world from the Tyrant without knowing how to save it from themselves, but just Nihal of the Tower of Salazar and Sennar the sorcerer, and we’ll encounter lands never before seen, terrifying monsters, and wide stretches of forest, too, breathtakingly beautiful. That’s what we’ll do.”
She’s right, and I feel the same desire. I know that day will come soon. Which is why, I think, I felt like I needed to write this story down, so that maybe someone, someday will remember us, long after we’ve left these Lands. Or so that Nihal will never forget the battle she won against herself. Or maybe just to make sense of all that’s happened these past years.
There’s a question the Tyrant asked me, one I still don’t know if I can answer: Can this world be saved? Sometimes it feels like he was right, that hate is what binds us, that in some ways, we’re each of us the victim and the guilty party at the same time. But then I think of Nihal, and I know that life is worth it, that it’s worth fighting for, even if that struggle is in vain. And I think that’s the true difference between Aster and me. I met Nihal along the way, and he didn’t.
Someday soon I’ll be gone, and I’ll leave this place behind, this world that hangs in a precious balance. Before long, I know, it will tip, and fall again into a bloody war. But then I know that peace and hope will return, and then again darkness and despair.
Isn’t that where our purpose lies, somewhere in the eternal circle?
Sennar
Councilor of the Land of the Wind
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Licia Troisi
English translation © 2015 by Mondadori
978-1-4804-4282-5
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