“There are no chickens in the Illeniel Grove,” said Tyrion. “Where will you find them?”
“Can’t you send someone to Colne?” suggested Ryan. “There are a great many things there we could use here.”
Tyrion rubbed his chin. He had never given it thought before. In the past, it simply hadn’t been an option, but with his new status it might be possible to do many things that had been inconceivable before. “That’s an interesting suggestion,” he said slowly, “but we don’t have anything to trade.”
Tyrion’s face grew stern as he considered taking what they needed. He had already forced the Hayes’ family to provide them with a wagon and some goods, and years ago he had forced them to give his parents a considerable amount of lumber. How much can they afford, though? Or should we force some sort of tribute to be given by the entire town?
Ryan could see the wheels turning in his father’s head. “Wait,” he said hurriedly, “Tad thinks we do have something to trade.”
He paused, looking at his son.
“Iron,” said Ryan, answering his unspoken question, “or granite, or even lumber. We’ve gotten very good at quarrying. We can produce a lot of materials in a short time span, compared to what they’re used to.”
Cut stone was a rarity in Colne. Most people used wood for building. It was far easier to work with and moving it in quantity was easier. The only stone masons that Tyrion had ever heard of worked in Lincoln and it was too far to transport much stone there.
“Lumber has to cure, and that takes time,” said Tyrion. “Stone is too much work to transport that far. I can’t have all of you traveling to Colne. I’m not even sure I can let any of you go yet. Iron would be easier. I can produce as much as you might wish, and a single wagonload would be of considerable value.”
Ryan smiled. “I hoped you would say that.”
“Talk to Tad. Draw up a list and figure out what you need the most and then sort your needs out. You’ll want to create a timeline. We can’t do everything at once, so you need a plan—what to do first and what you need for it.”
“Yes sir!” Ryan was positively beaming.
Tyrion watched him walking back, newfound purpose in his steps. He smiled at me. A lump formed in his throat.
***
The next day he had an unexpected visitor. Thillmarius appeared at the front door and politely knocked, which surprised Kate, no one ever knocked. Tyrion’s children came and went, usually wanting to know what would be served at lunch or dinner. She opened the door without giving it a thought.
She stared at the ebon hued man standing on the doorstep. Gold eyes stared back at her with unsettling intensity. “Err…, can I help you?” She stepped back to let him enter.
Thillmarius reached out, touching her hair almost fondly. “Where is your collar, child?”
Kate’s mouth opened and then closed again. She had no answer for him. She knew there were dire consequences for a human found without one, the least of them, being claimed by the first of the She’Har to find them. The worst didn’t bear thinking about. What would he do if he knew it was Daniel who removed it?
She lifted her chin, “That is not for me to say.” She had no believable lie, so delay was her best option.
“I found it inconvenient,” said Tyrion, stepping out from the hall, “so I got rid of it.”
Thillmarius turned his attention to him as he entered, “How fascinating! How did you do it?” He hadn’t bothered to close the door.
“Get the door, would you, Kate?” suggested Tyrion. His mind was racing. Depending upon the lore-warden’s motivations he might have to do something drastic. Closing the door would make it more difficult for an invisible opponent to escape, and Thillmarius was a Prathion after all.
The She’Har turned his head, watching the red haired woman shut the door with something approaching delight in his features. Looking back at Tyrion, he exclaimed, “How remarkable. Are you thinking to kill me?”
Tyrion smiled, fighting to suppress the fear he always felt when he heard Thillmarius’ voice. Despite the years and his experiences, his time under the trainer’s ‘care’ had left an indelible scar on his soul. He hoped he could fight effectively despite it. “Of course not,” he answered, hoping the She’Har didn’t notice the sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead. “I just prefer to keep the bugs outside now that spring is here.”
“Relax,” chuckled Thillmarius. “My purpose here is not so dire, nor do I plan to claim your female. I have another reason for coming.”
“I would offer you a seat, but we haven’t had time to produce many chairs yet,” replied Tyrion, trying to slow his heart.
“We can soon remedy that,” said the lore-warden, lifting his hands and readying his aythar. He paused for a second, “Will you permit me?” He didn’t want to startle Tyrion with sudden spellweaving. The human was quite obviously feeling anxious, and an anxious man might react badly to unannounced magic.
Tyrion nodded, “Go ahead.”
Thillmarius did, and a half a minute later there were two comfortable chairs in the front room. He gestured to Tyrion to take a seat. “Before I say anything else, I would like to apologize to you, Tyrion.”
Tyrion’s eyes widened, of all the things the She’Har might have said, that was the most unlikely.
“When you first came to us, I was ignorant of a great many things, but with patience I have learned from my mistakes, primarily by watching you,” said the lore-warden.
Tyrion opened his mouth temporarily, but he couldn’t decide what to say.
“I have studied your kind for most of my life, but it wasn’t until you arrived that I began to see that much of what I thought I knew was wrong,” continued the Prathion. “It was your startling successes in the arena that got my attention initially. At first I attributed that to your excessive strength, but over time it became apparent that it was much more than that. You adapted and changed much faster than any of our baratti. Eventually we placed you in situations that were far beyond your ability to survive on strength alone, but your cleverness saved you over and over again, despite our best efforts to push you beyond your limits.”
“To kill me,” corrected Tyrion.
Thillmarius nodded, “Just so, and even after you fought the krytek, demonstrating abilities that we believed impossible for a human, I still remained ignorant. It was not until your children were brought here that I began to see properly.”
“To see what?”
“You must understand, that to my people, humans appear to be children. We do not even place much value on ourselves. To us, maturity, adulthood, these are things we attribute to the elders. Humans, with their inability to spellweave, and with their low intelligence, did not seem worthy of much respect.”
Tyrion found himself bristling at the She’Har’s words.
Thillmarius held up a hand, “I do not mean to offend. Seeing you and seeing your children, has changed my views. Your intellect is far greater than that of our slaves, and watching your children, I can see that it is not a rare event. The conclusion that I have arrived at, is that our methods of raising humans is stunting their mental development.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I would like to make amends. When you came to us, I treated you just as I would any difficult animal. I fed you, I watered you, and when it seemed necessary, I punished you. My intention was to train you, as I had so many others, but I now understand that I was doing you a great harm. My efforts were not only ineffective, they may have made it more difficult for you to succeed.
“Watching you interact with your offspring has also made me realize that what happened in the arena a few days ago was a terrible wrong. I do not expect you to believe me, but I campaigned against that match, even though I had no control over the Mordan or the Illeniels.”
Tyrion was stunned. It was difficult for him to decide what to feel. He still feared, no hated, the She’Har, Thillmarius more than any of them, but now he was hear
ing something he had never expected. Is he mocking me? That was unlikely, though. The She’Har were notoriously honest. They could lie if necessary, but a fake apology was far too subtle for them. The She’Har really was trying to apologize.
“Lyralliantha’s pronouncement,” added Thillmarius, “that you were her kianthi, changed your status, but the debate has gone far beyond that.”
“The debate among your elders?”
The lore-warden nodded, “Not just among mine, but the elders of all the groves. Last month I proposed that my people change their definitions of both baratti and She’Har to create a new category for your people.”
“Please explain, Thillmarius,” said Tyrion. “Nothing has changed, why this sudden change of heart?”
“Our understanding has changed, Tyrion. When we first came to this world, we had only three major categories for defining life. The first category was inhabited by just ourselves, living, intelligent, self-aware life that can manipulate and control aythar. We considered this to be the highest form of life, the only sort of life with what your ancestors would have called a ‘soul’. The second category was all other life, the baratti, animals, living things that possessed aythar but could not manipulate it. Humans fit neatly within this category when we first arrived, therefore we had no qualms about taking this world for our own.”
“You saw their cities, you’ve studied their science,” Tyrion pointed out. “How could you think them animals?”
Thillmarius nodded, “We knew they were intelligent, but we did not believe your kind to be truly alive in the same way that we are. We thought of you as living machines.”
Tyrion found himself grinding his teeth and consciously forced himself to relax. “What was the third category?”
“The Great Enemy that pursues us across the stars, across the dimensions,” answered Thillmarius, “but they are not pertinent to this discussion.”
“Could they come here?”
The Prathion smiled, “No. We are safe here. The Illeniel and Mordan elders devised an unbreakable defense for this dimension before we came to this world. The Mordan and Centyr were able to make it work as the Illeniel elders planned. There will be no more pursuit.”
Tyrion had about a dozen questions, but he focused on the most basic first, “Why are they a different category? What’s different about them?”
“That is not something I am at liberty to discuss,” Thillmarius informed him, “nor is it pertinent to this conversation. What is important here, is that we now believe your species is truly self-aware, truly alive.”
Tyrion shook his head, “How could that take you so long to figure out? Anyone could have told you that.”
The lore-warden pursed his lips, thinking carefully. After a brief pause, he continued, “This is difficult to explain. Did you know that it is possible to create a machine that can think?”
His experience with machines didn’t go much past wagons and looms, but he remembered the ancient human city that Thillmarius had once shown him, along with the descriptions of the fantastic things they had devised. It still seemed strange, though. “That doesn’t really make sense.”
“Nevertheless, it is true,” said Thillmarius. “Your people had already done so when we arrived. The main point is that it is possible to create a machine from simple materials—metal, stone, glass. One can create a machine that can think and converse, but it is not alive, it is not truly self-aware. It may have the ‘seeming’ of a She’Har, or in your case, of a human. It can be made so perfectly that it would be impossible for you or me to tell the difference, but it is still just a machine.”
Tyrion imagined a doll that could talk, and the idea gave him chills. “That’s just—disturbing.”
“Just so,” agreed Thillmarius. “That is how we thought of your people.”
“What?! How could you mistake us for machines?”
“But you are, dear human. You are a fantastic, naturally occurring machine, but instead of metal and gears you are built of blood and bone,” said Thillmarius. The look on Tyrion’s face made him hurry to add, “And so are the She’Har, whether you are talking about our elders, or our children, such as myself. We are fantastic biological machines.”
It felt as if he was mentally drowning. The concept that Thillmarius was trying to convey had twisted his mind into knots. “Your argument is circular, Thillmarius. There is no way to know whether your kind or mine are truly alive according to what you say.”
“But there is,” said Thillmarius. “Awareness is a property of aythar, even the grass at your feet possesses it in some small quantity. Animals and such things possess it in even greater amounts. The humans we first encountered on this world had it as well, but they were unable to manipulate it. They were unable even to sense its presence. That is why we thought them to be animals, or in the words we just discussed, minimally aware biological machines. Creatures possessing intelligence but no true self-awareness, no real soul. Therefore we saw fit to do with you as we wished.”
“That’s inane. I have much more aythar than you,” reminded Tyrion, “but I would not be so foolish as to think you were not truly intelligent.”
Thillmarius nodded, “Intelligence isn’t the point, though. We thought there was some threshold of true awareness. Intelligence can be produced even in a true machine without any aythar. The criteria that we thought pivotal was the ability to manipulate aythar at a high level, what we call spellweaving.
“After we produced our first ‘human’ children, She’Har adapted to this world, we proceeded to experiment with true humans. The result was the human slaves you see today in Ellentrea and the other slave cities. They were identical to the wild humans we first fought, but with the addition of a few genetic changes they were able to perceive and manipulate aythar. We had made them mages, just as you are. At that time, we thought that might make them truly self-aware and sentient,” continued the lore-warden.
“But they were cruel and savage brutes. Their intelligence was lower than that of your distant ancestors, and they had no inkling of compassion or empathy. We decided that they must be animals still, albeit intelligent ones. At that point we conjectured that spellweaving must be the crucial difference.”
“We still cannot spellweave,” noted Tyrion. “Has something changed your mind?”
“You, Tyrion,” said Thillmarius. “You changed my mind. Your suffering was apparent from the beginning, but I thought it no different from our other slaves at first. But then you began to show signs of something deeper, your music for one thing, although others debated that the ancient humans had that as well. Your compassion and concern for you children and their empathy for one another were also strong factors in the debate. Even that was not enough to convince many of the elders, though.
“Your success in the arena is what first restarted the debate. Your children’s success is pushing it to the point at which few of the elders will be able to deny it,” said Thillmarius.
“Why would violence and killing change their minds? Your slaves have been doing that for centuries now.”
“It was also your primitive spellweaving,” said the lore-warden. “This ‘enchanting’ as you call it. That was pivotal, but the obvious superiority of your wild upbringing, and the superiority of your children, who were similarly raised, has made the difference. Now my people can no longer ignore what has been in front of them for so long. Not only are your kind aware, but it is the actions of my people that have made them seem so primitive. We have not just taken your world, but in our attempt to create a sentient, self-aware human race, we were actually making you worse. We have not been experimenting with animals, we have been torturing a fellow sentient race.”
Thillmarius stared deeply into his eyes, “This is what I believe, although I was ignorant at first. The Illeniels believed this all along, but my grove, and the others, did not. Now they are starting to change their minds. I am trying to make them see, but some do not want to listen.”
“Why is th
at so hard for them to believe?”
The Prathion looked at the ground, “Because changing that perception, paints my people as tyrants and monsters. If they accept the notion that your kind are like us, then we have perpetrated a great crime against another truly self-aware species. We have been murderers, torturers, and violators of the worst kind.
“I would ask for your forgiveness, Tyrion. I have harmed you, and I continued to harm you even after I began to have doubts. I cannot make up for the wrongs I have done, but I will do my best to create a better world for your children.”
The anger that had simmered for so long beneath the surface in Tyrion began to rise once more. Thillmarius’ admission of guilt did nothing to assuage it, in fact, it only seemed to fan the flames. “The hatred I feel for you and your people goes far beyond what a word like ‘forgiveness’ could ever hope to cure,” he told the lore-warden.
Thillmarius bowed his head, “I can only accept that, Tyrion, for I believe you have good cause to feel that way, but I should tell you, that it is your ‘love’ that has brought the greatest change.”
“Love?!” He hadn’t even thought the Prathion knew the word.
“Yes, love. When Lyralliantha declared that you were her kianthi, she was invoking love. Our people have never been highly emotional, but once, in our distant past, we knew the meaning of love. The kianthi were our partners, and we felt love. They were responsible for the expansion of our race when we were struggling just to stay alive. The elders know this, and the lore-wardens know this, but Lyralliantha did not. We remember what once was, even though it is no longer present in our people. One reason she was chosen to take the loshti, was because the elders suspected she had rediscovered this. If she becomes a lore-warden, she will be able to compare the past to what she has found with you in the present.”
Tyrion shook his head, caught between anger and confusion, but Thillmarius went on, “I reopened the debate about your kind some years ago, but it was going nowhere. When Lyralliantha said that you were her kianthi, her words set fire to the elders’ thoughts. The other groves could no longer ignore my protests, they could no longer ignore the philosophy of the Illeniel Grove. They had to open their eyes.”