Eternal Call - Chapter 4

Iselan kept away from the Elder’s tent where Kiema was currently meeting with the Elder and his advisors.  He cleaned his home, straightening and making a place for a pallet for his nephew.  It was time for Etien to break from his mother now that he had journeyed and completed his first task.  Jsiels would have been the better choice perhaps, but he had his own children to look after and guide on the path.  So it had fallen to Iselan to continue the instruction for his nephew.

His own path had just recently left the guidance of the Elder, who instructs all upon the final years before the Sedlaral adulthood of twenty seven years is gained.  Etien would be guided by Iselan for four years.  Then again, if Iselan gave in to the many females trying to win him, the guidance of Etien would pass from him to another, more distant relative.

He dropped a coverlet at the face that rose up before his eyes when he thought of the joining prospect.  He could not understand why the Changling, no, Kiema, why she caused such unwarranted desire for him.  She had given no indication that she played with their emotions, or surely she would have turned Jsiels from his path of hatred.  She seemed so strong willed in some ways, but yet so willing to dance upon the breezes of chance.  Had she walked the Path as the Sedlaral, she would have been an instructor on how to be strong like the mountain but bend like the willow tree.

“Uncle?” Etien called from outside.

Iselan shook himself from the ever persistent question about Kiema and answered, “Come in, Etien.  Your place is prepared.”  Or would be as soon as Iselan picked up the coverlet again and draped it along the foot of the newly arranged pallet.  A flooring brace would be constructed later if none could be spared by another family.

His nephew stepped trough the entry smoothly, confidence brimming in his smile at this change.  He now took to the Path with eagerness, out of his mother’s sight and into the realm of men.  Perhaps he had listened too greatly to the rumors of what was taught in these first years.  So many young men thought great secrets of manly prowess with women were shared.  How far and shockingly abrupt the realization would come when he came upon the true intent of the Path.

“So, Uncle, what now?”  He grinned to him.

“Now, you cleanse yourself from the travels, and then you make our dinner.”

Iselan did not laugh as he wanted to see his nephew so crestfallen.  He remembered his own first day well, and his father’s laugh had not helped.  While Etien washed and then worked on preparing the flat bread and vegetables, Iselan drew out his dagger and whetstone, sharpening steadily.  He watched how Etien moved, made choices, and handled his food knife.  All these things told him where to begin, what must be encouraged and what must be changed.  For starters, he would need to see to patience with self.  Twice Etien dropped something and the dropping only increased his frustration.

The dagger sheathed, he stood and stepped to Etien, “Easy, nephew, calm yourself or our food will feel your resentment.  Keep at ease with yourself and your movements.  This is not a battle of wills between you and the food.  You will triumph.” He took a wooden trencher from a small chest where the other cooking utensils had earlier been stored, and served out the food to both he and Etien.  “Now, sit and eat, and tell me what you learned on your last journey.”

Etien was much too eager to eat now that he had an audience for his thoughts and questions, “Uncle, the Changling is not as I thought she would be.  I did not see her try to escape or even fight against us.  Why?”

“I do not know, but it is certain the Elder chose her for a reason, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why.”

“Mother tells me she was the one that killed all those Sedlaral, but she does not look like she is capable.”

“She did not kill them, Etien.  She inspired them to kill themselves.  Do not judge any one by how they look.  Skills are not written upon the body like words upon parchment.”  Iselan scooped some vegetables on a bit of bread, he nodded towards Etien’s untouched food, “Now try to eat and talk in steady exchange.  Do not blend the efforts.”  A grin as he took some food.

The conversation wandered from the journey into histories of great Sedlaral leaders and how each exemplified the Path in their day.  Iselan took care to keep his mind to the conversation during the meal, then assisted Etien in cleaning up afterwards.  The task was done in silence until at the last Etien asked, “Why is she here?”

“The Changling?”  At Etien’s nod, Iselan continued, “I do not know.”

***

Mearien watched the care taker struggle to lift the pack to his shoulder.  How curiously time played with the bodies of mortals.  Or perhaps it was not time that played upon the bodies, but cares, worries, and emotions.  How free of such things the Brethren strode when in the vapors between smoke and shadow.  Compassion rarely played upon their souls, but of hate, spite, condemnation, love, joy, or so many other varieties of emotion they viewed with the unprejudiced eye of examination to its growth and death in the wisps of life that were mortals. 

Her ability to fulfill the calls, to draw herself into the flesh of a body, often gave her chance to imitate those emotions as it had with Perienas.  As it did now,  “Are you ready?”

She stepped closer to him as he nodded and turned for the door.  “Think with me where we are to go.  Share the thought and draw its reality around us.”  Her voice whispered to him as she rested a hand upon his back and drew him beyond the veil into shadow for the steps it would require to travel his directed distance.

***

Welles looked at the weary farmer.  He knew that look and those days.  It had almost passed him by this year.  Almost he had forgotten that it was time of harvest.  But as he drew upon the farmland, so barren with only a small corner of its vastness used, he had stopped.  The farmer had eyed him and his weapons suspiciously, but spoke without fear.  “The next town is half a day on,” he had answered to Welles question.  “I should put up a sign that says so, for you’re being the second one in as many days that has asked.”

“I am not too eager to reach it, if you could use a hand,”  Welles held his hands out before him, “I used to have a farm of my own before.”

“Aye?  Before what?”

He did his best not to spit out the name, “The Sedlaral.”

The man spat in the dirt at the name, “So they ruined another farmer, did they?  Those demons with their unnatural ways.  Like rats and worse they plague this land.”

“I see you take to my thinking, goodman.”  Welles walked forward and offered a hand out, “I am called Welles, and would be glad to offer you a hand for a few days in exchange for some food and a roof over my head.  Even your barn would serve.”

“Terrell’s my name, and, aye, without my two sons it has been hard upon me as you can see.  I’ll take your help.  I have little food to share, but what I have you are welcome to and gladly.”

Welles felt a twinge of guilt, “Perhaps I can supplement our meals with some game from the nearby woods, but come we can sort this out later.  Let me do what I can now.”  He drew off his armor, Terrell coming to fumble with clasps and buckles to help, and for a moment Welles regretted the lack of Wren’s deft fingers.  Soon his armor aside, his sword as well, but the dagger still at his side, he began to work the meager harvest, taking a scythe to the wheat while Terrell worked upon his knees at the rows of squash.

Their day was long into the evening, and Welles should have felt tired.  Yet his arms and back gave no hint to their abuse this day.  Still, the next day would see the harvest completed, so Terrell had called a halt to their workings.  The old man did not have the gift of an Erien chain.  “You have been an answer to a prayer, Welles.”  Another pang of guilt at the man’s smile, but Welles offered a hesitant smile in return to the elderly farmer.  “Come, come…let us see to dinner now.  And we will speak of my youth, for so you remind me of it, and you will speak of your travels.”

“Agreed,”  Welles refrained from clapping the man on the back lest he send the man tumbling down into the dirt.  He gathered up his armor and armaments from where he had left them and walked behind the man towards the low set home, one side rising only slightly higher than the other.

They both washed in a rain barrel just outside the weary home.  Welles looked at himself in the lamplit reflection in the water.  His face seemed less worldly worn than when he had last looked upon himself.  He wondered what other changes the Erien chain would bring, and would he be able to explain them away to those who knew him well.  He could not let suspicions stand in his way.  He would not be near Terrell long enough for there to be any alarm.  But what if he came across his old warband, or others who might have known him in years before?  Then he would have answers asked of him. 

“Come on now, lad.  It’ll be a bit for supper, but I’ve some wheat beer for us while the stew heats.”  Terrell flapped a cloth at him to dry his face and hands.

Welles dried his hands on the flimsy scrap of cloth that barely served to wick away the moisture.  He took up his items once more and crossed inside, setting the collection just inside the door.  The inside of the farmer’s home was small, two rooms and a loft above.  A smoking hearth, the chimney probably blocked with soot and nests the old man lacked the agility to clean away, glowed low across from the entrance.  A small pot hooked above the flames offered up the starting hints of their meal.  It was a wholesome smell that coaxed memories of simpler times from his mind. 

“Come, come, have a seat, lad.”  Terrell set a frothy mug of wheat beer on the small well used table, and Welles joined him there.  The seat was sturdy, and he felt reassured that it would hold his weight.  “How far have you come?”

Welles shrugged and drank down a deep swallow of the brew.  “I guess that depends on which place was my start?”  A smirk barely betrayed before he sighed, “If you mean from my farm, then many leagues and many years.  If you mean this morning, then a town called Ferisan.”

“That’s a fair distance in the time you came to me just past midday, and you still able to work as you did.  You must have nearly flown.”

“Oh, no, no…just an early start to my day.”  True enough as it had been.  He had arrived in Ferisan the evening he had departed from Wren.  He had not been able to sleep well, and took to the road as early as he could and still have a bit of bread from the day previous given to him by a surly baker.

That he had been able to trot the whole way without wearying did not need to be mentioned.  In the morning he would bid the farmer well and continue on his way instead of staying the few days he had thought.

Terrell nodded, “I am grateful for your speed.  My sons were lost in the wars with those Sedlaral vermin, and you’ve been a great help.  Though you spoke of helping me here, I think me you’ve got the same light to your eyes that my boys did.”

The flickering firelight played tricks upon Welles’s sight, but the man before him seemed to look right in to him.  Not unlike his own father, now dead twenty years.  “You might be right.”

“Might be, heh.  Still,” Terrell rose and took down two bowls and their accompanying spoons from a small shelf above the hearth.  He ladled in the soup with complete balance of an activity often repeated, then turned and easily set the bowl out for Welles, “you have need to move on, and I’ll not detain you.  A good meal, and a good rest tonight.”

Too much like his father, this man.  He could ask a question without asking.  It was a strange impulse to tell him, “I’m going to find the Sedlaral.  I am going to finish them.”

The farmer ate without reaction, then spoke, “A big job.  One that even the great Circelus in the north could not complete.  No, they just drove them down to these woods where they grow and fester, bringing war to my doorstep in fits and spurts.”

Welles felt a his chest tighten.  He was near now.  Near to where they had gone to hiding.  “Terrell-”

But the farmer cut him short, “You cannot do it though, lad, much as I hate them, they cannot be wholly destroyed.”

Anger shot out of Welles, “Of course they can.  They bleed and die just like the rest of us.”

“And just like the rest of us, they want to live.”

The statement sounded worn, well used.  He had used this before.  Maybe on his sons.  It had not worked on them.  It would not work on Welles, “I will find a way to destroy them.  There must be something done before they regain their full strength.  The Changlings are weakened still.  They do not replace their numbers as the Sedlaral do.”  Welles gripped the spoon in his fist.  “I will do this.  I have the means now.”  He scooped more soup into his mouth.

Terrell did not ask what those means would be.  He also ate in silence.  The impertinence of youth and the passivity of age roiled through the room and built its fast barrier between the two men in hazy echo of another night four years before.

***

The Elder exited the tent before Kiema, but the advisors waited until she stepped beyond the flap before they followed.  Jsiels stepped up to take her by the arm, but he was waylaid by the Elder, “No, Jsiels, Kiema Heartruler has agreed to help us.”

Jsiels restrained rebuttal purpled his features ungraciously.  He looked hard at Kiema as though she were a viper now set free among his family’s bedding.  The Elder did not hesitate for the near convulsing warrior, “Call the village speakers together so that they may hear my words and spread them among their kin.”  Jsiels could only bow and departed swiftly with Gilors in his wake.

His firm hand patted Kiema’s arm, “He will turn soon enough.  Come, let us go to the grove where you will hear my words and the people will see you, for I doubt that only the village speakers will arrive.” 

As they walked, Kiema spoke kindly, “Your people here, they drew themselves away from the warring kin of before?”

“Mmm, yes.  Our brothers and sisters were so filled with hate and poisoned themselves with the quest for vengeance of wrongs done decades before.  Few knew the truth of those darker times.  We are a slowly dying people, and we cannot blame the growth of others for our downfall.”

“We must change, adapt, and learn new ways,”  the counselor said from behind her.

The Elder continued, “It is the Path we set ourselves on from youth, and that Path changes with the growing forest.  But that has been forgotten among our young, when they choose to make their own Paths without thinking of the damage to the greater forest surrounding them.  Sometimes new Paths are good.  Sometimes they are bad.  One must look at the whole before deciding.”

“A wisdom not easily heeded for any of us, Elder.”  Kiema bowed her head to him and he smiled upon her.

“True, young one.  Now, tell me what you wish to do with your song and what is next now that you speak for us?”

Kiema thought for a moment, “I shall return to the village and sing a few verses of the new  Song of the Sedlaral for a few nights.”  They reached a natural cavern tucked like a shallow bowl on the edge of the village.  She walked with him down to the center of the bowl where a bench rested.  “I will return to learn more of your people and their needs so I might communicate those to my people, those of the Circelus, as well as share the tune with other minstrels there.  Word will spread to leaders and the populace.  The Sedlaral are an ancient people with many factions just as any other race.”

The Elder stopped and looked closely at her eyes, “It was not always so that you believed these things.  You had a hand in the slaughter of my kin.”

“I defended my people, but we did not seek your extinction.”  Her smile held tenderness for all the distress of her words, “If that was so, we would have succeeded.”

“Hmm,” he nodded slightly, then motioned for her to sit with him on the bench. 

The village began to trickle in and then the flood.  A cacophony of voices whirled around the meeting place in a torrent of harsh tones.  Questions and suppositions bantered back forth by the Sedlaral as they found places to sit next to kin and friends, until the entire shallow arena was full and yet more stood at the back or sat along the aisles. 

Kiema was forced to draw her gift down inside herself, as was usual when surrounded by high emotions and confined spaces.  The confusion, fear, and spicings of anger beat upon her ability to focus and drew instincts up to quell the surging emotions.  She could not start this venture with manipulating their feelings.

Without clear instruction to do so, the gathering fell silent.  As the silence lingered into moments, the Elder stood and addressed the village speakers as though no one else were there.  “Speakers, I ask you to consider our Path.  We have allowed the transgressions of our kin to continue the links in this chain of violence.  We must take this chance to break the link before we pass the anvil and hammer to our children.  Kiema Heartruler will aid our cause.”

***

Iselan heard the call for the village speakers and stepped from his tent with Etien not a step behind.  “The Elder has something he wishes us all to hear.”  He watched as the inhabitants of the village began to walk toward the meeting place.  He gave a wry smile, “It seems not only the speakers are attending.  Come, let us go hear the news.”

He and his nephew fell in step with the growing stream of people.  Etien hailed some of his friends as they passed.  The young men all began to chatter over the latest adventures they all had, but mostly they wanted to hear from Etien.  He, afterall, had been on the journey to get the Changling.  He was the news, and he enjoyed the attention too much.

“Etien, you are veering.”  Iselan warned as the reached the meeting place.

“Yes, Uncle,” Etien began to correct his statements, cleaving to facts more closely this time, though playing his part in the early morning confrontation a bit higher than it was.  What had Uerila done to give her son such a notion?  Iselan sighed with the work to guide his nephew plainly revealed before him.

The sigh lengthened of its own will when he saw Kiema at the center sitting next to the Elder on the bench.  She was so obviously different from the Sedlaral, her beauty less…yes, her beauty, he acknowledged, was so ethereal.  As if should he acknowledge it, try to touch it, she would completely vanish from him. 

“Come, Uncle, here.”  Etien misinterpreted his hesitation as not seeing a place to sit. 

Iselan followed over and took up the seat next to his nephew, listening to the chatter of questions and false knowledge from those surrounding him.  “They say if you burn one, the gifts of others will fade away.  They can not stand flame.”

Iselan tensed.  Surely they were not going to burn her, but then another spoke a few people down from that, “Do not be an idiot.  She’s here to pay blood debt with her life.”

“Me the idiot?  Do you think her one life can make up for the slaughter?”

“A slaughter we brought upon ourselves,” was a calm interjection.  Iselan turned to look at the voice and it was one of the village speakers, who sat serenely with a knowing smile.

“Why is she here?”  Iselan asked of the speaker.

“The Elder will soon tell us,” was all she ventured to offer.

With the time of conversations giving way, everyone fell into silence and looked to the Elder.  A title alone, this man was half the age of the normal Elders in years past.  But those had died away in the Sickness that had come upon them ages before.  The Sickness brought by their enemies.  That had started the war for them.  Agonies of the people coughing away their life as their lungs purged their blood.  It had been a demons way to attack by subterfuge.  Cruel torment that came without warning and in the shadows, not the confrontation of men.  Clans split over the arguments, and those seeking war banded together.  Those seeking peace worked their ways deeper into the forest, welcoming the tired and wounded for healing and relief, but none could stay that sought war.

Not until one Changling had set an entire village to battle themselves in carnage so great the stories did it little justice.  Thousands of Sedlaral dead at each others hands.  It was an abomination to their kind.  Those few survivors, twenty perhaps in all, his brother included, were brought into their village.  Their rage subdued by the horror of what they had done.

Now a Changling sat with them as they lingered on the cusp of life and death for their people.  What the Elder had to say stunned Iselan to the core, “Speakers, I ask you to consider our Path.  We have allowed the transgressions of our kin to continue the links in this chain of violence.  We must take this chance to break the link before we pass the anvil and hammer to our children.  Kiema Heartruler will aid our cause.”

She was that Kiema…the Heartruler?  The one who had called down demon spirits to drive an entire village mad?  Iselan gripped the seat beneath him to steady himself.  She sat as steadily as stone while the tension rose in the meeting place without a word being spoken.

Finally, the village speaker behind Iselan who had spoken before stood, “Elder.”

“Speak, Larene.”

“Kiema Heartruler is known to me.  I have witnessed her power.  I would have an understanding of what I saw.”

“That is not for us to ask.” The Elder scolded.

“Elder, I will answer,”  Kiema spoke clearly.  “If you are to trust me, I will answer any questions I can.”

“But will she speak the truth?” cried a voice all too familiar, and Iselan turned to see Jsiels, grey with rage.

“I will prove my truth.”  Kiema returned easily.

Iselan’s spine hurt from the stiff tension ironing his body.

The space was a vacuum of silence as the Elder looked over Kiema then to Jsiels, and then beckoned Jsiels down, “Come, Jsiels, you will be the proof.”

“Oh Brethren, help us,” Iselan breathed.

***

Mearien smiled up at the night sky.  She had not remembered so many stars before, but the longer she gazed the more it began to seem the opposite.  No, there had been more stars.  That is right.  More stars had once scattered the darkness of night like spilled salt upon a deepest blue velvet cloth.  She reached towards the sky and caressed the stars, comforting the ones that remained.

They had come a great distance, and her manservant was resting away his weariness from the trip so that he could search for the call in the morning.  It was an unusual delay this call.  She does not remember one quite like it.  All the others had been easily found, easily answered, and released her back to shadow’s veil.  A temptation to ask the Brethren was often in her mind.  But to call of need upon a call of need was to threaten a very slender thread of their weaving.  No, she would wait a bit longer.  The answer lay out there for her to scoop up.  There had never been a call she had not answered.  This would not be a first.

***

Welles lay uneasily in his bed.  The Sedlaral so close to him, or so it seemed.  His body urged him to rise and arm himself, walk into the forest with his purpose his guide.  It would not do, of course, and he continued to fight against the impulse.

Terrell breathed slow and evenly on the far bed, curled up with a pillow that must do as replacement for the feel of his departed wife.  Welles could remember those days, hugging a pillow close just to have his arms around something so that he might sleep.  Then Wren had filled that spot, but not as his wife had.  There was lust in Wren but no love.  Nothing that spoke of staying with him through the days of toil on hard land in a hard life.  That had been taken from him, and he would have his revenge.

So close.  Or was it?  That thought broke through the driving thoughts like a wave.  Perhaps the Sedlaral had moved on since their last raiding.  The war bands of nobles having driven them clear of these lands.  He should reach the inn on the morrow and ask more.  And yet, if they have not, he is closer now than he would be then.  It would not take long to venture partway in.  As well, if he went now, in the night, less time lost tomorrow.  That settled the situation for him easily. 

With carefully quiet steps, he made ready for his departure.  He left some coin on the table for Terrell.  At least some of Wren’s thieving ways would go to a good purpose.  Terrell’s breathing sounded as deep as ever as Welles cautiously gathered up his things and stepped from the house.  The cool of night snapped his muscles taut, but he would not put on his armor and his over cloak until he was further from the house.

His stepped to the road and walked for some moments until Terrell’s home was but a hazy shadow of deeper darkness behind him.  He eased his conscience by vowing to return to Terrell’s and help him plant his fields in the Spring.  Yes, that would do.  But now, he had to prepare for his night.  He strapped on his armor, taking time with it buckles and lacings.  The cold metal and leather warmed against his cloth covered body.  The over cloak draped about him cut away some of the light wind chill that whistled its way through branches of the nearby forest.  He kept his haste in check as he stepped for the line of trees.  He could search for days, he knew, but he would take this night to find some trace of Sedlaral.  He would search into the light of dawn, and, if nothing came, he would then turn back for the village. 

This night was for hunting.