Chapter VIII:
The Fire Bird
Hearthon
'But master,' Hearthon complained, 'you have done such mighty things in Bel Albor! Why must you leave?
The whole camp was making its way through the forest to the Far North, where it was said in ancient times men had first made their dwelling place. They had endured many things together, and seen many amazing things in the lands of Bel Albor. Hearthon had been the first to call himself 'Enthedu' - which is to signify 'one who is of Theodysus.'
In a country that had for ages been dominated by powerful and ruthless lords and where strife was so common, Theodysus brought a message that led men to live peaceful lives. They gave to the poor, nourished the sick and gave their attention to those who were ignored - to children, to strangers and to outcasts.
Hearthon himself was a man of Alwan. He and four others alone had been with Theodysus when he ascended Mount Vitiai. From the place where the old fortress of Adapann once stood he began to teach them, and from that day forward he gained followers wherever he traveled. Several of the elves followed him at first, but abandoned him when they realized that his doctrines would anger Lord Pelas and his Doctrai, not to mention the god-hunters of Sunlan, which was their destination. 'We will lose everyone, my lord, if we find no occasion to give them comfort,' Hearthon had warned in those days.
Theodysus had no interest in changing his teachings, however.
'If I speak the truth, to change it would be to lie - but that is not why I am here, Hearthon,' he said kindly but firmly. 'Those who seek truth will find comfort therein. If they seek meat and bread, then however much I feed them they will have no peace.'
The departure of the elves seemed a small loss to Hearthon in those days, when yet so many were ready to join them. The elves were their oppressors, and it was only fitting that the great prophet should come to those who were oppressed. 'Justice shall fall upon the plains like a Spring wind,' Hearthon had sung, repeating a passage from the scriptures of the Essenes among whom they had come to dwell.
'Nay, justice falls at every moment,' Theodysus rebuked him. 'It is not justice that is lacking in Bel Albor. It is ignorance that injures men, not Pelas and his brother.'
Such rebukes were not uncommon in the camp. Nearly every attempt to flatter or impress their teacher resulted in embarrassment. It was not that Theodysus was mocking them, but his answers made their wisdom appear small.
The people followed him through Ilvas, teaching and recruiting followers all along the villages of the Esse River. When they had traveled nearly the whole length of the river from Ilvas to the northern bank of the Great Lake Brost which lay to the south of Bel Albor they crossed over into Sunlan, teaching along the lake before finally coming to Centan.
It was there, in the city where Sunlan's power was housed, that they encountered the opposition of Xanthur's servants. They were mocked and threatened, and driven from the city by the elves. From there they proceeded to Sunlan and then into the north, where they were at last overtaken by the god-hunters. Many of them abandoned their teacher, thinking that it was better to be alive than to be wise. Theodysus was taken captive, bound and sent to Morarta to be questioned. But the coming of Candor changed the plans of the god-hunters.
'I will be with you but a little longer,' Theodysus said, 'or perhaps much longer, if we remain in Ilvas or in Alwan. But perhaps not. I do not know. Do you fear that the poor shall vanish before you return to the South? Shall the downtrodden vanish before we have a chance to help them?'
'But men are suffering,' Hearthon said with frustration. He had been growing increasingly impatient with Theodysus ever since they began their northward march. A part of him wished his teacher had never escaped from Morarta in the first place. But he was not entirely convinced that there was no reasoning with him.
'Men suffer in Alwan, Hearthon,' Theodysus answered. 'Shall I go to them also? Shall I go to every man? Shall I go to them all at once, and give them what they think they want or what their body needs at the moment? If I did so, I would be a great man, indeed.'
'You would be, my lord. Return to the South, where the poor await us. There is so much work to do yet.'
'We will not go back, Hearthon,' Theodysus said with sorrow in his voice. 'I do not rejoice in their sufferings or in the emptiness of their stomachs; but there are more ways for a man to suffer than to hunger and thirst.'
'Will you truly abandon them, then?' Hearthon asked with sadness. 'What manner of man are you?'
This question seemed to trouble Theodysus to his heart. He turned with tears in his eyes and said to Hearthon, 'Would you have me for a lord if, bearing fire, death and hell, I came with devouring sword, all man's crimes and sins to quell?' He was quoting a passage from the Essene writings, which Hearthon had all but memorized.
Silenced by his own Scriptures, Hearthon bowed low and departed from his master's presence.
'Are you leaving us, master?' a quiet voice asked from behind Theodysus.
'There is no parting of ways,' Theodysus answered. 'But there is a passing out of view.'
'Can I ask you a question, my lord?' the voice asked nervously. The voice belonged to a man named Amadein.
'I will answer you, Amadein,' Theodysus said, still troubled by Hearthon's wrathful departure. 'But will you hear me?'
The True Hunger
'Master,' Amadein asked. 'Why do you not feed all men?'
Theodysus paused for a moment and put his hand upon the trunk of a tree. He shut his eyes in thought for a moment and then answered, opening his eyes at the same moment. 'I do not feed them that I may feed them,' he replied. 'It is my burden to save men, not to save their lives, Amadein.
'What is a man's life?' he continued, 'Is his life meat? What is meat? Is meat that which is, at one time, good to eat, and then at another time, rotten? How is it both whole and rotten, yet the same meat? The Hidden Name gives it its being and its substance, and gives substance to the man also, who is a babe, a youth, a man and an elder all at once - not, of course, at one time, that I have not said. He is all these things in name, for the Hidden Name has given him substance where there is otherwise only the sundry appearances.
'Man's life is in the Hidden Name - bread and meat, water and milk are but parts of him; they are parts of what the Name makes of him. But they are not the man. The man is a name, and all names are in the Hidden Name, which stands over and under all things.
'Why do I not feed all men?' Theodysus repeated the question as if considering it for the very first time. 'What good is meat if the soul is dark? Is meat a blessing if it is fed to a devil? Is meat and water good for a wicked man, so that he might be strengthened when he strangles his victim in the street for a purse of gold?
'And what prevents a poor man from being righteous? Can he not be righteous without meat and drink? Or does the meat and drink, entering into him, make him good? Feed him, he will be unrighteous still. Clothe him, but his soul will remain naked. Heal him, but his spirit will remain sick with evil.
'I came to feed men, indeed,' Theodysus said with a nod. 'All that I possess I carry with me. Clothes to warm my flesh, a knife to cut my food, a staff with which to travel. But what can I give? If I gave away my clothing, who would clothe me? If I gave my staff, what would I lean upon? If I gave away my knife, who would cut my meat for me at mealtime? But my words I can give freely, and without losing what I give. And my words can feed what no meat can feed, and give life where meat and water cannot give life. For man's life is in the Hidden Name, which is all that I know and all that I preach and all that I ever wish to speak of. I came to feed men's souls true meat. For only words can save a man from his ignorance. And if a man's soul is in the darkness of despair, meat will avail him nothing.'
The Ballast of the World
'Master, are you everything? Or are you nothing?' another voice asked. Many of those who surrounded them began to chuckle at this strange question. Theodysus continued to wa
lk, his eyes fixed upon the northward path.
'I am neither, Uilin,' he answered. 'And therefore I am both everything and I am nothing. I speak for the Hidden Name - which is to say, that I speak the Truth. But the truth is everything, so in the truth I am everything. But in myself, I am nothing, for without the Hidden Name I have no part in the truth. In the truth I am everything, because there is only one truth - and the truth has no neighbors.'
'Can any man be as you are?' another man asked. 'Or are all men to be accounted as wicked?'
'If they could not be even as I am, then on what ground is he to be judged wicked? For it is only he who could be righteous who can be judged to be wicked. If no man could be even as I am, then no man could be wicked. If men can be as I am, however, where are they? Follow me.'
'Where must we go?' Uilin asked him.
'There is only one way to be forgiven,' Theodysus answered. 'And that is to make yourself guilty; for only the guilty can be forgiven.'
'But what have we done, that we should be guilty?' Uilin asked with confusion. 'We have given everything to follow you.'
'If you say that you are innocent,' Theodysus, 'then you do well. But if you turn your head toward your neighbor and shake it at him, then you will burn in the fires forever - you shall have your dwelling in the Pit of Abban Don where shame and darkness will enwrap you like a womb.'
'Are you guilty?' Uilin asked.
'I am guilty,' Theodysus answered.
'But what have you done, my lord, that you might be guilty?'
'What have you done? I have done it in you. What has my father done? I have done it in him. What has my mother done? I have done it in her. Man is man for his being, but what is his being except a resistance to other beings? And what is resistance but motion? But how could a thing move if there is nothing else? To even think of a man and his form we must also think of everything else. If you take a step, you do not move - you move the world beneath your feet. If you leap, you do not leap - you push the world away from you. Even the sun does not rise and set, but the world swings under it during the day and over it during the night. To be is to move, and to move is to have your being in all things. For nothing can exist without everything.'
'Who are you, my lord?'
'I am the ballast of the world,' Theodysus answered. 'All things conform to me, and I conform all things to myself. 'If you believe this, then you will know that you are guilty of everything; you will know that you are the cause of all evil. Follow me.'
The Last Battle
Candor stepped away from the Star Seer slowly. The wide glassy eyes now stared at the heavens blindly, and never again would Lapulia hear what he had to say to them, though they had long ago begun to disbelieve him. He had betrayed Lapulia, for there was something they could do about the coming disaster, be it however so far away – Candor felt certain about this. If the end would come through Theodysus, Lapulia could be saved if this fanatic was slain. This would be his last task, and for it he would be received in Lapulia with honors, and his family would be saved from the omen that had for so many years hung over their heads.
He lay a small empty glass vial upon the stone table and sighed. The poison would have made the Star Seer's passing painless. As he looked upon the creature's twisted and broken body he thought that he would have killed him whether he was guilty or not. The words, 'Curse the Tower!' came into his mind, but he drove them away. It was better, he believed, for the Tower to be a little cruel here and there than to be destroyed, leaving men to the plots of the elves in Bel Albor who would have, were it not for the secret efforts of the Black Adder, burst their shores and spilled over into the south to trouble mankind.
Candor followed after Nonix and Leai, hoping that they would reach the camp of Theodysus before he did - otherwise he would probably need to kill them. Once he found the camp it would be easy enough to kill the master without endangering anyone else. He smirked bitterly at the thought that he was even concerned for their lives. But the Black Adder were distinguished not only by their ability to kill, but also by their ability to kill only their target, and very often without being detected. He convinced himself that it was for the sake of the challenge involved in killing only Theodysus that he meant to spare the others, though visions of Leai's beautiful eyes seemed to indicate otherwise.
After nearly an hour he came around a sudden bend in the path and found a huge pillar of stone standing before him. There were tracks passing to the left and to the right so he could not tell which way the camp had gone. He chose the right path and went around the pillar quickly. But as he neared the far side, where the two paths apparently rejoined, he heard the sound of feet stumbling upon the pebbles of the path.
The man to whom these noisy feet belonged had just passed beyond his sight, having taken the other path before Candor had emerged behind the pillar. When he came to the place where these two paths crossed he looked back and saw that the feet belonged to the fanatic Hearthon, who had accompanied Theodysus when first they were greeted by these strange people. He turned to follow, silently making his way back the way he had come.
Hearthon stumbled and cursed as he fled into the night, sometimes weeping and sometimes storming about in the dark silently. Recognizing him, Candor followed silently, waiting to see if he could catch him unaware and learn where Theodysus had gone.
The man proved to be harder to follow than Candor had expected, however, and soon he found himself going much further to the south than he had intended as Hearthon fled from his master and his strange mission to a land where no men dwell.
As Candor observed the man he could not help but pity him. But it served him right, in a way, Candor thought, because if you think too highly of a man you cannot but be disappointed in the end.
After nearly another hour had passed they came to a steep place, and Candor thought that Hearthon would be forced to stop for the night. But the man attempted the descent and, as Candor would have expected, lost his footing and fell into the brush and stone below. Expecting to hear the fallen man's groans and cries, Candor was surprised to hear three other men begin shouting.
'Be alert! They have come!' one voice shouted.
'They are dropping boulders!' another said.
'No, it is only one man, and he is injured,' a calmer, third voice spoke out. 'If he is alive, we must take him to Master Eberu at once.'
The god-hunters had come to the North following Ghastin's report.
Candor crept down the slope quietly, barely disturbing the rocks and dust beneath his feet. By the time he had entered the camp of the god-hunters, Hearthon already stood before Lord Eberu, his face bloodied and bruised, partly from his fall and partly from the abuse of his captors.
'Where is this fool, Theodysus?' Eberu demanded harshly. 'And do not lie to me again.'
Hearthon shook and shivered, both in fear and discomfort. He had been badly hurt during his fall, but he was not being treated any gentler for it.
'We have done nothing to you!' Hearthon protested. 'I have done nothing!'
'Nothing?' Eberu said, pushing his way past his guards and coming to stand in front of the quaking captive. 'Lord Sol suffers on a bed of pain because of your master and his killers. Talk of peace and the world to come does us little good here and now - not while men like you believe every madman's spittle to be a divine oracle. How many others will your people destroy in the end? Nothing to us? Fool!' Eberu spat in Hearthon's face and slapped him across the cheek with the back of his fist. 'What good? Tell me, you faithful one, what good does it do? What does he bring your people into the North to do? To die? To pray? To build up an army to challenge the security of Bel Albor? To overthrow Pelas in Alwan or his brother Agonas in Sunlan?'
'I,' Hearthon muttered, his voice filled with hurt, 'I don't know.'
'That I believe,' Eberu said bitterly, drawing his sword. 'What did you think this man would do that other prophets had failed to do, or fail to do that other prophets have done? W
ere you honestly so foolish to think that at last the ancient gods have taken thought of us?'
'I, I,' Hearthon muttered mindlessly as he watched the blade approach his neck.
'For thousands of years madmen and their dreams have led you blind men about with hooks and strings. When will you grow up?' Eberu pushed Hearthon to the ground and took his throat in his hand. 'We are not here to kill men, but to save them from the abuses of those who would make themselves into gods. If you ever thought otherwise you have been deceived. It is not the god-hunters that people must fear, it is those who escape our gaze.'
Hearthon fell silent and shut his eyes tight. Much to Candor's surprise he suddenly opened his eyes and said, with wrath upon his face, 'I can tell you where he is.'
Eberu paused suddenly and looked upon his captive with renewed interest, as if he had suddenly been exchanged for a different prisoner. He nodded, thinking to himself that perhaps these followers of Theodysus were not so very different from all the other mortal prophets and seers.
'Taral!' Eberu shouted over his shoulder. Looking once more at Hearthon he asked, 'Where is Theodysus?'
'Will you hurt the others?' Hearthon asked fearfully.
'We will hurt no one we do not need to harm,' Eberu answered, his voice suddenly sounding gentle. 'We are not enemies of man, but protectors.'
A rage seemed to pass over Hearthon's face for a moment and he blurted out, 'He goes to the Vale of Athann, to unmake the Dragon - or so he says.' This last part was said with in a bitter and mocking tone. He felt sick because he had thought that Theodysus came to make the world better and to bring justice to Bel Albor. But he had proven himself to be no better than his predecessors, who on mad whims wasted the blood of their followers on vain fantasies - fantasies that did nothing to improve men's lives.
Eberu looked closely at Hearthon's bloodshot eyes, as if by staring he might discern whether or not he spoke the truth. Nodding, finally, he sheathed his blade, and addressed Taral, who had just arrived at the scene.
'Kill him,' he said to Taral, 'kill him, and then lead your men north to the Vale of Athann and kill every last one of those devils. These men have made a mockery of Lord Dalta and the god-hunters of Sunlan; they have injured a high elf and their leader has escaped from Morarta. If we wish to restore anything like peace to Bel Albor, we must, even as they made a spectacle of us, make an example of them. Do not let a soul of them escape!'
Hearthon had no time to protest. Even as his eyes opened wide in horror and his mouth opened to shout his indignation, Taral struck off his head and sent it tumbling upon the rocky ground beneath their feet. For a moment his mouth continued to work soundlessly, and then he was dead.
'It comes to this, then,' Candor said within himself as he watched this scene unfold. He had all but finished his task, the only thing that remained being the destruction of this Theodysus. And these god-hunters meant to do him the favor of eliminating the fanatical leader themselves. As he surveyed their forces - some five hundred trained and armed men - he judged that it would be an easy task for them to destroy Theodysus.
Then Candor could return to Lapulia with honors, and with honors for his long-suspected family. The Proud family could be proud again, he thought with happiness. But a vision flashed before his mind, Leai's beautiful eyes, cold in the sleep of death, with a puddle of blood for her bed. The pain this caused him angered him and he threw himself upon the ground and tore at his hair in frustration. Everything was so clear to him, but this woman's beauty pulled at him, even through his memory.
'What should I do!?' he hissed, suddenly realizing that he was not entirely sure that he was speaking to just himself. He forced himself, shaking, to his feet and walked southward for a little while, stumbling through the forest as he tried to compel his feet to flee the Far North. His heart pounded like a drum of war within his breast, however, and he fell to the ground with agony in his gut. 'POISON!' he shouted, heedless of who might hear him. With a rage he rushed back toward the camp of the god-hunters and stood upon the rocks above them. He spread his cloak wide like the wings of a great bird and shouted down to them, 'Flee! Flee! Flee from this land! Do not try to enter the Vale of Athann, or you will perish, every last one of you. I am the voice of Death itself to you. Hear me and flee, or die every last one of you. This is the only warning that I shall give to you!'
'Bring that fool to me!' shouted Lord Eberu, who stood just beneath the place where Candor stood. 'I want his head upon a spear by midnight! I am sick of these fools.'
Even as he spoke Candor vanished from his spot, and the party of twenty god-hunters who made their way toward him were utterly confounded. They followed the only path available to them, which took them to a pass through which they must pass in single file for a short space. But while they marched through, one after another, Candor released a blast of fire from his Firesling, piercing a bloody hole through six men. He vanished into the shadows, leaving the others to panic in the tight space while they tried to figure out what had happened.
When they had returned to their senses, as far as such a thing was possible after witnessing such devastation, the remaining god-hunters rushed through the passage, coming out into the open among a group of boulders, behind any one of which might be hiding their assailant. They made their way silently between the rocks, searching every shadow for a sign of their foe. All they heard, however, was a sound like an iron ball clanging against the rocks. In the silence that followed they could discern something like a tiny hiss, emanating from somewhere near their feet. In an instant, a Lapulian Thunderstone burst in a flash, the force of the explosion tearing the ten men limb from limb. The remaining god-hunters, their ears ringing from the thunderous sound and their bodies scratched and torn from the rocks and stones sent their way, fled screaming, 'Wizard! Wizard! He is a devil!'
The men fled blindly back down to the camp, some in tears, some cursing madly. They made their report and a search was called, but no sign of the Black Adder could be discovered aside from the heaps of bodies that lay strewn all over the place.
As Candor rushed through the woods toward the north he whispered to himself, 'Poison.' He reached into his sack and pulled out his Spell Book. There were only a few hours before dawn, and the god-hunters could reach the Vale of Athann in less than a day. He would have a lot of work to do before the morning came.
The terrors of that morning were remembered by Bel Albor's leaders for the rest of time - at least, such time as they had remaining. It was called the Black Dawn, and the injury it inflicted upon the god-hunters - both upon their reputation and their numbers - was never fully healed.
The god-hunters had expended a great deal of effort to make the journey to the valley where Theodysus and his followers had camped. And for all this while they were untroubled, except for the fact that several of their men seemed to have vanished without a trace. This, along with the memory of what had happened at their own encampment, filled their ranks with a watchfulness and a fearfulness that was ready to turn into panic at any instant.
From atop the mountains they beheld the camp of Theodysus before them, unguarded and disordered.
'They have no defenses,' a man reported to Taral, who had led the men through the mountain passes into the valley. There was now only a league of wooded hills between them and their prey.
'You know our orders,' he said, masking the hesitation in his own voice. He knew the reasons for their mission, but he could not help but pity the fools. 'Wizard or not,' he thought, 'there is no way these fools can survive an attack from the god-hunters.'
The god-hunters prepared themselves for war and marched into the woods, expecting to emerge from the tree line to see looks of terror upon the faces of the followers of Theodysus. But none of them ever stepped beyond the trees - nay, not so much as a man among them came within half a league of their victims.
Some men simply fell to the ground unexpectedly, almost as if they had tripped upon a root or a stone, but they did
not rise again. Others were taken in snares and slain in cruel traps. Explosions shook the forest and splintered trees, sending men flying in pieces to batter their remains against the tree trunks. Blood and horror reigned beneath the canopy of trees as all the secret horrors of the Black Adder were unleashed upon the god-hunters of Xanthur.
Twelve men perished, choking to death in a cloud of green smoke that burst from a small glass vial that fell to the ground from a tree. Seven men died in the blast of Candor's final Thunderstone. Four fell to his Firesling and many more fell to his swift knives. Many tales emerged from those woods that day as the survivors wept and made their report to Lord Eberu. But only one detail was confirmed by everyone who survived.
'Taral fell also,' one man reported, shaking his head in disbelief. 'He went after the wizard with his sword held high, ready to kill. But the devil evaded him, and put a knife into his throat before he could even draw near to him.'
'The devil?' Eberu asked angrily, frustrated by the way his god-hunters had taken to referring to their enemy as a 'wizard,' a 'mage,' or even a 'devil.'
'We all saw him, my lord,' the god-hunter defended himself. 'Sneaking around in the woods, passing between the tree trunks, or, some say, even passing from tree to tree among the boughs - the man with the book in his hand and fire in his fist!'
As Eberu contemplated this strange turn of events, and struggled with the question of whether he ought to proceed with the remainder of his troops, something new and unexpected happened.
The Fire Bird
Candor had very little time to consider his next steps in the wake of his battle in the woods. He had lost all but three of his knives, and he had used up all of his poisons and potions. His Firesling had no more of its iron balls and his last Thunderstone had been put to good use against the god-hunters. All that now remained in his arsenal was Spell Book and his knives. Even his Smoker, which he used to set fire to the Thunderstones, was out of oil and now useless. He cast aside all these extra burdens and looked around the woods. The god-hunters were all gone, either slain or in flight. He looked out from the shadow of the trees at the camp of Theodysus, half hating them and half wishing he could go to them, and hear the voice of Leai once again.
But he had not yet broken with the Tower. He could still pursue Theodysus, though he did not think it would be easy to approach him. But while all these things were being considered, the light of the dawn burst over the mountains in the east. But whereas the dawn is wont to bathe the land in golden sunshine, or rosy pink light, this dawn was a red as deep and dark as blood.
Every eye turned toward the east, whether they were the followers of Theodysus, puzzled by the sounds and cries from the woods or whether they were the god-hunters, fleeing from the Black Adder in terror. A darkness passed across the rising sun and a shadow as black as night came over the land. Soon they saw a dark form, black against the light of the rising sun, spreading its great wings over the whole land of Bel Albor. A murmur arose and there were sounds of panic and fear everywhere. Amidst the chaos a voice cried out in terror, 'The Fire Bird!'
At that name every man quaked and fell, the followers of Theodysus fled from the camp in every direction, stumbling over one another in their terror. The god-hunters cast themselves to the ground and hid beneath rocks and the roots of trees, some weeping, some repenting, some even cutting open their own throats to escape the horror of the vision. A bird whose feathers were tongues of fire and whose talons were big enough to lift a mountain came into view, its beak piercing the morning mist like a tower and its golden eyes gazing every which way, and missing nothing.
Theodysus alone stood within the center of the camp, awaiting the great bird with fear in his breast, but with his fists clenched in resigned expectation.
The great bird circled around the Vale of Athann three times and then turned toward the camp and dove down toward the ground like a bolt of lightning. The flames seemed to draw all the air into the great bird and for a moment every man thought that they would perish. But the bird turned and swirled, becoming a whirlwind upon the ground, scattering the tents and cook fires of Theodysus' followers like dust in a gale. There was a great thunderous roar and the swirling fires vanished, revealing a man, grey of hair with a kindly face. In his eyes shone all the wisdom of the ages.
Every other man had fled, and Candor alone beheld all of this.