MERDIGEN’S TALE

The storm hadn’t done any of them good, Dale reflected, except possibly Alton. It seemed to ease some turmoil within him; that is until he realized he was beset by yet more delays, namely having to deal with the devastation in both encampments. As the man of rank, it was his obligation to oversee recovery efforts.

The wind had peeled roofs off new cabins in the main encampment and trees had flattened tents. Every single person worked to secure shelter, rescue supplies, and tend the injured—even Dale, though Leese made her rest frequently.

Being struck by Alton and falling into the mud had not helped Dale’s injury, but it wasn’t so much the physical pain or telltale bruise on her cheek that hurt most. It was more the wound to her spirit. Rationally she knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her, that he’d been caught up in some inner battle the way he’d shaken his fist at the storm and yelled who-knew-what at the gods. He’d looked a madman in the flashes of lightning as the wind and rain lashed him.

She remembered how the moon priests used to talk about the demons that occupied the hells and how at times they escaped their imprisonment and infested the souls of people and changed their behavior. At their worst, the demons could provoke people to commit vile acts like murder. She didn’t think Alton struggled with actual demons, but it was a good metaphor for what he seemed to be battling.

In the days following the storm she’d heard the whispers circulating among the soldiers, laborers, and servants of the two camps, who thought him cracking just like his cousin had. Alton must have overheard the talk, too, for he’d worked dawn to dark to restore order, reshingling roofs, clearing broken boughs, mending tents. She believed only the thinnest of veneers, however, held his frustration and anger at bay.

Yes, rationally she knew he wasn’t himself when he’d hit her, but no matter how often he apologized, hurt lingered inside. He had not been able to stop himself from hitting her, his friend and fellow Rider.

Presently the sun beat down on her shoulders as she stood before the tower wall. She could not reconcile the day’s serenity with the howling tempest of that night, but the debris still strewn about the encampment was sufficient evidence of what had happened.

At breakfast, Alton declared enough work had been accomplished that he could once again focus on the wall and Tower of the Heavens, and now she sensed his presence behind her like a physical force urging her to pass through stone.

She sucked in a breath, touched her brooch, and without looking back or speaking to him, she sank into Tower of Heavens. The passage was not as fluid as she remembered, but jarred her with sharp edges and the texture of stone scraping her flesh. The voices were there, scratching at her mind, and restless. When she fell out of the wall into the tower chamber, she exhaled in relief, a little disoriented.

“Back so soon?” The sarcasm in Merdigen’s voice was unmistakable. “At least a hundred years or so haven’t passed this time.”

She found him sitting at the table and combing out his beard. A couple long white whiskers drifted to the floor and disappeared.

“Um,” she said trying to organize her thoughts, “there was a storm.”

Merdigen grunted.

Dale joined him at the table, brushing off what must be several hundred years’ accumulation of dust from a chair before sitting on it. Merdigen sneezed at the cloud she raised. “Do you…do you really need to sneeze?” she asked.

Merdigen paused his beard combing. “Usually the polite response to a sneeze is an offering of blessing. You raised dust, therefore I sneezed. You’ve returned for a reason?”

“We had more questions.”

“I see. Then ask them. I haven’t all day.”

Dale wanted to know what on Earth could possibly compete for his time, but she held her tongue. “Alton—the Deyer—and I felt there was much you might tell us.”

“As I’ve said before, I have no idea of how he might pass into the tower, and the guardians want nothing to do with him.”

“We believe there are other things you might be able to tell us,” Dale said, “beginning with very basic information. Over the centuries, a lot of history about the wall has been lost. The more we can find out about it, the better we might understand how to fix it, and we believe there is much we can learn from you.”

Merdigen eyed her with a skeptical gaze. “Tell me what you do know, then we shall see.”

“We know that the wall was built over generations, toward the end of the Long War, to contain Blackveil Forest, to prevent it from spreading out into the world, and that Mornhavon the Black, his spirit or whatever, was also contained behind the wall. We’re aware there are…presences in the wall—guardians—that keep it bound together with song.” Dale frowned realizing how odd it sounded when spoken aloud. She tried to remember if there was more she and Alton had discussed. “Oh, and then there’s you. You’re a sort of tower guardian who can speak with the presences in the wall. That’s all we know.”

“That’s it?”

Dale nodded.

“Seems it’s true you’ve lost a good deal of knowledge.” Merdigen set his comb on the table and it evaporated into nothingness. “One of the greatest works of humankind is the wall, yet its creation is all but a mystery. And still, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Why is that?”

“Tell me, Dale Littlepage, what you know of the days following the end of the Long War.”

Dale thought hard. “There was sickness, the Scourge, which passed among the people. Many who survived the war died of disease, and it was a long time before the country could rebuild to become what it is now. Otherwise there was peace.”

“The Scourge a sickness? I suppose it could be called that.” Merdigen shook his head. “And peace? It depends on how you define peace. The end of fighting Mornhavon? Yes. Tranquility among the people? Hardly. Though I was not present in the world for all that occurred, I will tell you what you are missing, Dale Littlepage, and you may conclude for yourself whether or not it is useful.”

Dale nodded, intrigued now that the peevish Merdigen had quieted, become so serious.

“The Long War encompassed many long years indeed, but my order, which lived aloof from our fellow Sacoridians high up in the Wingsong Mountains, refused to participate in it. We did not believe in using our powers to kill. Even as Mornhavon’s forces committed unspeakable crimes against our people, we remained solid in our determination not to participate.” His expression became downcast. “Whether we were wrong or right not to defend our homeland, we didn’t believe we had been gifted with powers to be used in violence. They were too great a weapon.

“Unfortunately, Mornhavon’s mages did not share our reverence for life as they lay waste to one village after another.” Merdigen looked down at his knees, his expression one of sorrow. “On our side, there were other great mages who felt that using their powers against the enemy was not murder, but the preservation of Sacoridian life. Even a few among my order abandoned the mountains to join the fight, though a core group of us held out.

“There came a time when, after many years of fighting had elapsed, the people proclaimed that one of their valiant leaders must be high king of the land. His name was Jonaeus, and he sent to us a messenger.”

“A Green Rider?” Dale asked.

“What? No, of course not. The Green Riders were too busy on the field of battle. He sent an eagle.”

“An eagle?”

“A great gray eagle, a denizen of the mountains. They had befriended us over the years, but they also helped in the efforts to repel Mornhavon.”

Then Dale remembered the tale of how a gray eagle had once helped Karigan defeat a creature from Blackveil. It was, until now, the only instance she heard of the eagles helping anyone, but perhaps in the far distant past they’d not been so aloof.

“The eagle came to us from the king,” Merdigen continued, “who said that if we did not join in the war effort, we would be cast into deeper exile than we had ever known, sent away where Mornhavon could never find us and use us as weapons of his own.” He sighed deeply. “We refused to fight, of course, but promised to help with reconstruction after the war.”

Dale shifted in her uncomfortable chair. “So what happened?”

“We were dispersed and sent into exile, carried off by the great eagles. Where each of us went, no one knew. I was deposited on some nameless rock of an island in the Northern Sea Archipelago, far from civilization. The king isolated us so that if Mornhavon’s forces found one of us, he would not find all. As it turns out, we were hidden well enough that we were never discovered. My only visitors were the eagles who brought news and meager supplies. Not even the occasional ship on the horizon dared approach the island, for the currents and reefs about it were deadly.

“Many, many years passed while I lived alone on the accursed island. Island of Sorrows I called it, for my loneliness and hardscrabble life.” Merdigen thrust his hands out, palms up, and above them formed a picture in the air of a rocky island, its shore lashed by greenish blue waves with terns skimming their crests and gulls wheeling above. A figure with a snarled beard and wearing tattered robes picked his way among the rocks, turning over the smaller ones, and peering into tide pools. “I tried to survive day-to-day through the storms of all seasons, gleaning what sustenance I could from land and sea to supplement the scanty and all too infrequent supplies sent by the king.”

The figure in the vision suddenly squatted down and seized something from a pool. He lifted it up to the light. It was a crab snapping its claws at the air. Then the vision dripped away like a painting splashed with water. Merdigen shook his head.

“It was some years after Mornhavon was defeated that the eagles carried us to the king’s keep on the hill in what is now Sacor City. In those days it was not much of a city. The streets were little more than muddy cow paths and the people lived in dilapidated huts with vermin underfoot. The population looked starved and beaten, and I realized their lives had been more wretched than mine on my island. There were few elders among them and I remember thinking there were only children left, children who appeared older than their years with their wizened gaunt faces; children bearing their own pale weak babes. Children missing limbs. Children who were the veterans of many battles.”

Merdigen fell into silence, seemingly lost in memory. No sounds of the outside world intruded on the tower, and for all Dale knew, riveted as she was by his story, the outside world no longer existed.

“I will never forget how they stared at me,” Merdigen said, “me with my wrinkles and white hair. Me who evaded battle. They said nothing, just stared at me with their haunted eyes.”

Dale tried to imagine Sacor City as Merdigen described it but found she could not. All she could see were the well-made streets brimming with shoppers and travelers and the good neighborhoods with flowers growing in the window boxes of well-kept houses and shops. How fortunate she was to live in the time she did.

“We had been summoned to the king,” Merdigen continued, “but before we heard him speak, my companions of the order and I could not help but rejoice to be together again. A family we had been, then separated for so many years.

“The king looked weary beyond all reason, and little did we know at the time how many concerns lay upon his shoulders. We, perhaps, did not care for we were back together again, and jubilant.

“‘You offered to help in reconstruction after the war,’ the king said. ‘That is true,’ I replied. ‘We will help in any way we can.’ ‘Do not be so eager to offer,’ said he, ’until you have heard me out.’ He told us of the great wall being constructed along the border of Blackveil Forest and its purpose. Major portions had already been completed.”

Merdigen flung his arms wide as if to illustrate the expanse of the wall. “The entire thing was an engineering marvel, and Clan Deyer was at the height of its powers. The king then told us it was not only the expertise of the Deyers who made the wall what it is, but the sacrifices of thousands. Thousands who possessed magical abilities.”

“Sacrifices?”

“Mages who shed their corporeal forms to join with the wall, to bind it together with their collective powers. Their spirits and their powers merged with the wall, and exist within it to keep it strong. They are not precisely dead, nor are they precisely alive. They exist within the wall and sing with one voice. We were told their sacrifice had been voluntary.”

The air in the tower seemed to constrict, then ease like a mournful sigh.

Dale drew her shortcoat closer about her. How could so many be willing to…to become part of the wall? She could think of no greater torture but to exist within stone for a thousand years. What must it be like? She did not want to know.

“The king then told us of the towers that had been built,” Merdigen said. “Towers to house wallkeepers who could maintain perpetual watch on the wall as well as ensure that Blackveil in no way encroached past the barrier. Ten towers that needed guardians who could communicate with the wall as well as the wallkeepers. ‘We’ve few mages left,’ the king said, ‘and none with your quality of power.’

“At the time, this did not seem too great a request especially in comparison with the sacrifices made by others. We would be among people again, and able to communicate with one another, and of course practice the art, perfect our technique. We’d also be helping our country—not by spilling blood, but by adding to its protection so the great evil would not cross the border ever again. But then the king brought in one of his counselors, a great mage by the name of Theanduris Silverwood.”

Silverwood, Silverwood, Silverwood… The name undulated against Dale’s mind in a faint, but angry, echo.

Merdigen gazed about the chamber as if looking for ghosts. “You hear that? The guardians know the name. Indeed, they know it all too well.”

Dale shuddered, but Merdigen plunged right back into his story. “Noble and silent was Theanduris Silverwood as he glided to the king’s side. He bristled with power, his robes flowing behind him. Black uniformed guards surrounded him.”

“Weapons?” Dale asked.

“They had many weapons,” Merdigen replied, looking annoyed by the interruption.

“No, I mean were the guards Weapons, er, what we call Weapons? They guard the king. Mostly.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I’ve heard them referred to as such, though back then we knew them as Black Shields, an order of warriors created after the war and new to us. We did not know at the time if they were guarding Theanduris or if they were protecting others from Theanduris. Later we discovered it was a little of both.

“Tucked beneath his arm was a leather-bound book, quite ordinary really, except that we mages, who valued knowledge above all else, and who had seen neither page nor parchment, book nor scroll for so long, stared in wonder at it. Theanduris ignored our interest and would not share its contents with us. I came to understand later that this book was the journal in which he documented the building of the wall, perhaps including notes about the spells cast for the binding. This is the book I told the Garth fellow about.”

“Ah,” Dale said. “But you never saw the actual contents?”

“Only blank pages, I’m afraid, and those on a visit during an otherwise benign conversation. Theanduris indicated what information it held, but that’s all I ever saw or heard of it.”

And this was all, Dale thought, with apprehension, they were basing their hopes on, that the book might solve the mysteries of the wall. If it could even be found.

Before Merdigen continued with his tale, a mug of frothy ale appeared in his hand. First he sipped cautiously from it, then he took great gulps. “Aaah, that’s good. Throat is getting dry with all this talking.” He took a few more swigs before setting aside the mug and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Where was I?” he muttered.

“Theanduris and his book.”

“Yes, yes. Well, Theanduris obviously did not think much of us, young whelp that he was, only a hundred years old or so.”

“Only?”

“Working the art can sometimes extend the years,” Merdigen replied. “When my companions and I were placed in exile, we were well past a hundred years old. This is why we are known for our wisdom: all those years of learning, research, and knowledge.”

“Like Eletians,” Dale said.

“No, no.” Merdigen chuckled. “The lifetimes of Eletians are without end. The same cannot be said about great mages.” As if this was nothing out of the ordinary, he went on with his tale. “And so we considered Theanduris a young whelp. His age, as well as his haughty demeanor, put us off.” Merdigen flung his hand out and from a ball of light grew the figure of a man with a beard of steel gray and wearing long white robes. He loomed over them, his expression arrogant as he gazed down at them.

“No doubt he regarded us as without honor for having chosen exile over participation in the war, though that exile had been no easy thing to endure. In truth, many a time I had considered abandoning my principles and sending a message to the king to tell him I would join the fray—just to be among human beings again—but I could not betray my beliefs.

“And so Theanduris put before us a choice: to become keepers of the towers or to return to our order’s lodge in the mountains. We should know, he added, that we’d be left to ourselves if we returned to the mountains, and should not expect the king’s protection. Well, we never had a king’s protection before, so the words meant nothing to us. Little did we understand the significance of his comment.” Merdigen frowned and the menacing image of Theanduris disappeared with a poof. “If we decided to become guardians of the towers, it would be for all time.”

“I can see what choice you made,” Dale said.

Merdigen raised a snowy eyebrow and gazed hard at her. “Can you now? Would it surprise you if I told you we chose to return home before we made our final decision? I will not forget the knowing gleam in Theanduris’ eyes when we told him of our plan to return to the mountains, and immediately I grew suspicious that there was something he was not telling us. But I let it pass, for the eagles arrived to once again carry us back to the Wingsong Mountains.

“When we arrived, we found our lodge burned to the ground. Odd and angry symbols had been scrawled on signposts and stuck around the borders of our land, along with wards against evil. The rotting carcasses of animals were hung amid the remains of our lodge. It was clear its burning had been no accident. Some among us burst into tears, remembering the vast library it once housed—all that knowledge burned to ashes. And it had long been our home.

“A few of us walked to a nearby village for help. The folk there had always been friendly to us. We purchased their goods, hired their people to do jobs around the lodge and work our land, taught their children to read, and had any number of beneficial interactions with them. Yet when we arrived, people ran into their houses and slammed their doors shut. We could not coax anyone to help us, and a man who had been a stablehand at the lodge as a boy, and who was now a man grown old, met us with a pitchfork and demanded we remove our dirty, evil selves from the village and never return. Bewildered, we walked back to the remains of our lodge where our brothers and sisters were knocking down the signposts. The carcasses were long gone, thank the heavens.

“There was nothing to do but make camp before nightfall. Nights in the mountains are chilly no matter the season. We discussed all that had come to pass, especially the attitude of the villagers. If a new lodge were to be built, we realized it would have to be done with our very own hands. We’d also have to start fresh, start collecting a new library and the equipment necessary in the practice of the art. Some of the knowledge in the library was irreplaceable, but we were determined to start again. We hoped the villagers would eventually come to accept us as they once had and develop the agreeable relationship we previously enjoyed. What we did not expect was murder in the night.”