This must have angered the Gatekeeper greatly, for his presence vanished and the doors to the Halls swung open.
“Our life in the world is over,” Melgalés said. “Our life in the Underworld is just beginning.”
They walked in together, and the doors shut firmly behind them, watched by the envious eyes of the Waiting, yearned for by the jealous hearts of the Endless Lost.
XX – JUDGEMENT OF ALL
When morning came, it was as if the entire world awoke from a restless slumber, from a place of dark and disturbing dreams, of a place where shadows reigned beneath the greater shadow of the night. The sun shone intensely, and even the tired and the sleepy welcomed it, for in its warm rays were the many promises of a bright and hopeful future, and it seemed to all who looked with dazzled eyes upon it that one of those rays reached out to each of them, as if to illuminate the many new paths that each would take.
* * *
Délin did not immediately return to Arlin, even though he yearned to do so. Honour demanded that he pay his final respects to those that had fallen, and so many had fallen. His prayers, though long and fervent, were not enough for the myriad souls that were now ushered into the Halls.
When the survivors began to bury the bodies, he stopped them from burying Elithéa in Boror, a land of kings, or Telarym, a land so devoid of trees that it seemed like it would be an insult to her memory, even if she had so little regard for the body after death. He told his fellow knights that he would bury her in Féthal, her homeland, and Brégest agreed to help him with this.
Yet before they departed, they also paid their final respects to their god Corrias, whose body was nowhere to be seen. Though they were certain that he was dead, they were unsure of exactly what happened to the Céalari when they passed on. Perhaps they went to Halés, or perhaps they went to the Void. Délin thought that it would be a cruel irony for Corrias to join the Elad Éni in the prison he had locked them in. The thought gave him no comfort, and he pined for Corrias, and he pined for a world where Corrias was no longer the father god.
“To whom do I pray?” he asked the heavens. He thought also of that moment when Théos was taken from the world, when he had abandoned his faith in Corrias, had cast his prized pendant into a grave of snow. He felt a certain guilt, even though he hoped he had in some way made amends for his failings.
His eyes looked to Althar above, and it seemed that few eyes looked back. There were few to watch, and perhaps fewer to hear. Though he heard no words in answer to his plea, in time strange thoughts came into his head: Pray to the living. Pray through living. All life is prayer.
* * *
When Délin and Brégest reached Féthal, they were halted at the border by a contingent of the Éalgarth, all in similar attire to what Elithéa wore.
“What is your business here?” they asked, and they mumbled what might have been Ferian insults among one another.
“We come to honour one of your own,” Délin said.
“You are a Man,” the main guard said, as if that were the greatest sin. “Your race does not honour ours.”
“We are here to do just that,” Brégest said. He showed the body of Elithéa.
“Why do you bring the body?” the Éalgarth asked. “Where is her acorn?”
“It was buried in Alimror.”
The guard grew incensed, and the others drew their staves as if they had been greatly insulted. “An acorn is sullied when it is planted in Alimror soil.”
“I said buried, not planted,” Délin said. “This is Elithéa, one of your finest.”
The guard scoffed. “Ah, so she has returned, dead in the arms of a Man. Telarym has tainted her. Yet our spies in Alimror say that her acorn was tainted also. Perhaps then the soil of Alimror can do no more.”
“Will you let us bury her in Féthal?”
“No,” the guard said. “We do not bury the body.”
“What do you do with it?”
“Let nature take her course, and return the body to the earth in time.”
“Then will you take her body to be honoured in your land as your people will?”
“No,” the guard replied. “If her acorn is in Alimror, then her body can go there also, where the taint of the soil may be her most appropriate bed.”
“Whatever might have become of her acorn, she was the best of you,” Délin said, holding back his anger. “She came as a scout, but she stayed as a soldier. She fought and died with many, while none of you came to fight Agon. History will remember that you never came to the aid of those in the east.”
“We fought evils of our own,” the guard said, and he glowered. “You know nothing of the wars in the west.”
Délin prepared to speak, to challenge the guard, but Brégest pulled him aside, before an ill choice of words might be their doom. He suggested they bury Elithéa in Alimror, where she had placed her acorn, and so they returned to that location and dug a new grave, and spoke new prayers, and hummed new solemn songs.
* * *
On the return journey to Arlin, Délin confessed to Brégest that this would be his last war, that he would retire from the knights and live out the remainder of his life away from the battlefield. Brégest was saddened by this, but he understood Trueblade’s decision, and he was honoured to be chosen as Délin’s successor as both Knight Commander and Lord of Ciligarad.
When Délin returned to Ciligarad, the city erupted in celebration. Word had already reached them of Agon’s demise, but they were one of the few settlements to hold off their rejoicing until their lord and leader returned.
Among those waiting for him was Théos, who stood under the watchful eye of the knight Talaramit. The boy stood out against the backdrop of tall knights around him, all of whom wore their finest ceremonial armour. None of them were fighters any more, for many of them were old, some were sick, and others had skills that were better suited to a settled life. Yet as they stood in regiment behind Théos, they looked as strong and intimidating as any of the younger and battle-ready knights that had travelled to Arlin, of whom so few returned.
The sun glinted off the silver and steel, until all eyes squinted. Théos’ golden hair seemed more golden than ever, and his smile was broader than Délin had ever remembered it. He held the stuffed toy tree in his hands, hugging it close to him. He seemed ready at any moment to race towards Délin, and from time to time he looked up to Talaramit, as if for permission to leave his place. In time the knight nodded, just as Délin descended his horse, and the boy charged up to him, and they hugged, and Délin lifted him up into the air, even as a Standard-bearer might lift the flag of victory after a hard-won war.
“Thraslith hassúl,” Théos whispered to Délin. He did not know what it meant, and it reminded him of the gap of language, and of the one who bridged that gap, who was now no longer with them.
Then he was surprised to hear what followed. “Welcome home,” the boy told him. He accented the words oddly, so much so that it was obvious he was from a distant land, but they were words that he could recognise, and though they always had meaning for him, it seemed then that they had more meaning than they ever had before.
Délin was so taken aback that he could not find a response. Talaramit seemed to notice this, for he came to them and placed his hand upon the boy’s shoulder.
“I taught him some of the Common Tongue and Old Arlinaic,” Talaramit said. “He is a studious child, and a faster learner than many—even you.”
“For you,” Théos said, and he handed Délin a pendant. It was a perfect replica of the one he had cast aside on the White Mountains, when his whole world turned to darkness. Had it not been for the lack of scratches and tarnishing on this new pendant, he would have thought he was holding the old one. Yet this one seemed more significant than the other ever did, even though Corrias was now dead, and even though it was as much the symbol of his faithlessness as it was his faith.
“I pray,” the boy told him, “you come back.”
Délin sm
iled in his heart and soul, to match the smile upon his face. “I prayed that you would be safe, that you would be happy, that Iraldas would be saved for you.”
Perhaps the child did not fully understand all of those words, but his smile and the look in his eyes showed that he understood enough.
“Thank you for this gift,” Délin said, holding up the pendant again.
He held the pendant in one hand, and in his other arm he held Théos, and he never felt so glad to not be holding a sword, to hold instead what meant much more to him than all he had dedicated his life to.
Then Théos took the pendant and placed it around Délin’s neck, just as Délin had taken off the pendant Théos wore, which symbolised so many evil things. For the child there was freedom in not wearing that chain, and yet for Délin there was a new kind of freedom in donning once again the symbol of his faith.
After Délin exchanged greetings with his fellow knights, Théos was eager to show him his room. Trueblade was heartened to see that upon the small table by the window, which served as an altar in the sparse rooms of the knights, sat his old, battered helmet, almost like an idol in a place of worship.
“Metal head,” Théos said, and he tapped his knuckles gently against Délin’s forehead. The knight smiled and returned the gesture.
“Délin,” the boy said; it was the first time he had used his real name. “Can I be knight?”
Délin smiled again. “Yes,” he said. “Of course you can.”
They looked once more towards the old, battle-weathered helmet, which might one day be worn by Théos into battle.
* * *
There were mixed emotions for the victors of this war, for Délin learned from his fellow knights that Issarí had passed away only a few days before, that her body had risen to the top of Lake Nirigán, before disappearing entirely the following night. No prayers to her were answered, nor were the prayers to the other gods in Althar that she be restored to life. It was speculated that she died when Elyr Issaron, the River Man, her spouse and lover, passed on, and so she lived up to her final promise that she would not speak with the Knights again, even though Iraldas had been saved.
The celebration of Agon’s defeat was short-lived, and it was followed by a week of mourning. Candles were lit upon little wooden boats, which were pushed out into the lake. They numbered in their hundreds, and were not enough for the tears that Issarí had shed, and were not enough for those who had died in this war.
Délin and Théos crafted a little boat together, and though neither spoke of who it was for, it was clear to them both that it was for Corrias. It was more elaborate than many of the others, but the candle that sat upon it was the same, and when the wax burnt low, it erupted in flame like all the other barges of the dead.
When the week had passed, Délin brought Théos to Alimror, to where Elithéa buried her sullied acorn. The boy remembered the location better than he, and he placed his hands over the spot and said, “A tree.” Délin smiled, but shook his head. He prayed for a moment, and he thanked Elithéa, wherever her soul now wandered, that she had spared Théos, even if the world had not spared her.
Thus ended his honouring of the dead, at least for the time at hand, and so he began to honour the living. He returned with Théos to Arlin, and he taught the child many things, and they both knew joy as if it were another knight that lived with them.
After a year had passed, they returned to the sacred spot in Alimror, which was less sacred to Elithéa in those sorrowful moments when she buried that sullied seed. They saw a wonderful sight: in the soil that was once empty there was a sapling, and though it was small, it hinted to their hearts that it would one day grow into a great tree.
Each year they returned to that place to honour Elithéa, and each year as Théos grew a little, so too did the tree. It even seemed that upon the tree there were some natural notches here and there to mark the boy’s advancing height.
Délin sometimes thought of what might have been, that he might instead be visiting the tree that grew from Théos’ acorn. Though these trees were everything to the Ferian, to Délin they were not enough. To him a person was so much more, and yet he knew that it was folly for him to worry about a clash of culture, which was its own kind of war.
Yet it was a war in which he hoped both sides were giving up their arms and coming to some kind of understanding of one another, meeting out in the no man’s land to share words instead of swords. To him, Théos did much to bridge that gap, and as the boy learned new things, the knight found that he learned just as much, that in the child there was wisdom that sometimes the old were lacking.
“Why do the trees grow, and the young grow, but the old do not?” Théos asked him on one of their many outings.
“The old grow in a different way,” Délin told him. “There is height in the body, but there is also height in the soul. Some shoulders grow broad, and some stay at a certain size, but there is always room for the heart to grow broader.”
“So we are always growing?” the boy asked.
“Yes,” the knight replied. “The seeds of the mind are nurtured by knowledge and watered by questions. The seeds of the heart grow by loving and being loved. The seeds of the soul are planted by our actions, and they sprout from our words, and they grow from our deeds.”
And so Théos grew in body, and Délin grew in heart and soul, and Elithéa’s tree continued to grow, and from it fell the seeds that began the saplings of other trees, and so in her own way she had a family in the forest.
* * *
Herr’Don spent some time at Fort Onar, building a tomb for Edgaron out of the many bricks and slabs that lined the place. Others offered to help him, but he refused, and Belnavar would have helped if he could, though he helped in his own by offering his company.
It was a small tomb, nothing like the splendour of those made by the Tibin in the north-westernmost parts of Iraldas, nor even like the opulent cube of Ilokmaden Keep, which, though it housed hundreds of the living, was its own kind of tomb. It was not truly fitting for Edgaron, Herr’Don thought, just as the mound that became the Amrenan Adelis was not truly fitting for Belnavar. He hoped that when he eventually parted from the world, there would be a monument so massive that all in Iraldas would know of his greatness and glory.
Though Herr’Don prayed and told tales of Edgaron’s contribution to the world, just as he had done for Belnavar, no ghost appeared to comfort him, nor to wander with him. The comfort and the wandering resided only in his heart, and in those fond memories that would never leave his mind.
From Fort Onar, even as he placed the last slab upon Edgaron’s tomb, he heard Boror begin what would be a month of celebration, less for the defeat of Agon and more for the coronation of Aranon, the chosen successor of King Herr’Gal. As one age of opulence gave way, there was another to take its place. Herr’Don was not only not invited to the crowning ceremony, but was actively prohibited from attending. In addition to several messengers being sent out to issue the prince, or former prince, the notice, a second guard was put in place at all four entrances into Madenahan. Herr’Don was not hurt by this, however, for he had no intention of witnessing the beginning of Aranon’s reign, and though he could not deny that he resented the short, thin man that replaced the tall, fat one that came before, he had no desire to cause any havoc on the royal day.
“You should be king,” Belnavar told him.
“You should be alive,” Herr’Don replied with a smile. “Some things do not go our way. But come! I am king of battle, and my kingdom stretches far.”
“And what of your crown?” Belnavar asked.
“My helm,” Herr’Don said, “though I do not wear it.”
“And your sceptre?” the ghost inquired.
“My sword, though I do not need it.”
“And what will they call you?”
Herr’Don grinned. “I think you know.”
Belnavar smiled in turn. “Herr’Don the Great.”
And so began thei
r new journey, back where they had last met each other while both were still alive, on the outskirts of Larksong, where their last quest was set in motion. They cast off in a small boat, and Herr’Don paddled, and Belnavar paddled with a spectral oar. They sailed off into the mist, and they were not seen again for a time. Yet here and there tales began to appear of sightings of a man talking to himself in a boat, and further tales spread of a wandering warrior who went here and there, quelling quarrels, avenging innocents, and freeing slaves. Some said he lost his arm to a monster of the air, and some others said it was a creature of the sea. Some said it disappeared a little day by day from a witch’s curse, and others said it never existed in the first place, and that this is why the old king banished him. Some said he walked alone, but others whispered of another great warrior who walked with him. And so the tales travelled on a journey of their own, and in time they became the most awe-inspiring legends.
* * *
Ifferon also did not attend the coronation, for Geldirana would not enter Madenahan, where she knew that the new king might be different in many ways, but would be no different when it came to treating the Garigút.
“He is not my king,” Geldirana said.
“I guess he is not mine either,” Ifferon replied.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment, as if swearing fielty to one another.
“It is an odd feeling,” Ifferon commented, “to finally come to terms with my bloodline, and now there is no longer any need for it. With Agon dead, what good is the blood of Telm?”
“There are always other evils,” Geldirana said.
“That may be so, but I am not a young man any more.”
“No,” she acknowledged, and he saw in her eyes the memories of their time together ten years ago.
The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 77
