The Edge of Chaos (17 page)

“Yes,” Slanya said.

“I remember the smell vividly. I remember that it was the end of summer and the harvest had gone into full swing. Everyone was happy. Harvesttime was a good time for the village.”

Slanya remained silent, listening attentively from across the waning fire. Her pale skin reflected red in the light of the campfire, and her fine features seemed frail against the violence of the storm. Slanya sat crosslegged with her hands resting in her lap, her sideknot hanging delicately by her ear with the end just touching her shoulder.

Duvan had wanted to tell someone this story-the true events of what had happened—for years. And he had tried a few times, but people never understood. People never wanted to understand.

Slanya seemed different in that regard. And perhaps his story could help her to realize that cynicism and mistrust was the only way to make it through life. She was far too trusting, especially of Gregor, who Duvan thought was vastly overestimating the efficacy of his precious elixir. Gregor was playing with Slanya’s life and lying about it.

Duvan shook his head. There was nothing for it but to leap into the telling. Duvan had to just take the plunge if he was going to go there at all.

And with a deep, bracing breath, he did.

“I woke up Talfani—she could sleep through anything.” Duvan gave a weak laugh, remembering. “Papa came in and told us to stay put until he returned for us. And if I had known that he would never come back, that I’d never see him again, I would’ve hugged him and begged him to stay with us.

“We waited for over a day for our father to return, waited until we were so hungry we had to have food. He had left me in charge. I was the elder, you see, by just a quarter hour. Talfani hated that. So I slipped out when she was asleep to go find food.” Duvan paused. The fear and loss threatened to pour over him. He took a deep breath.

“Everything was destroyed,” he went on. “Everyone was dead or had disappeared. The entire village brought down to rubble, except for the part of our house that was the bedroom I shared with Talfani. Deep ruts cut into the ground from where the blue fire had plowed under buildings and bodies. Nobody else had survived. All that I’d known was gone.

“I found food and returned to find—”

Duvan’s voice broke, and he fought back the tide of emotion. He took a breath.

“Talfani had grown pale and sickly. She died over the next few days. I had a chance to say good-bye to her, but her slow, lingering death was agony for both of us. And when she passed, I had nothing left for myself. I just lay down next to her and hoped death would also come for me.”

Duvan stopped pacing and stared into the red depths of the fire. “And I might’ve had the opportunity to meet your death god if a group of Wildhome elves who often came to trade with us hadn’t been wandering near. They found me, cleaned me up, and took me to their settlement in southern Chondalwood.

“You’d think that living with elves would be wonderful, full of merriment and joy. The wood elves are remarkable and

noble, fair and fey. But they are also extremely secretive and insular. For years, after I recovered from the physical trauma of what had happened, my life was good.

“I had everything I could want except my father and sister back. The elves took me in, not as one of their own, but as a guest outsider—n Tel’Quessir. I participated in their customs and rituals. I learned their ways, but I was teased mercilessly by my peers. There were things I couldn’t do. But it was a life of luxury compared to my previous one. I often felt guilty for having survived encountering spellplague and ending up in an easier lifestyle.

“They taught me a great deal. How to climb. How to hide in shadows. How to move quickly through the forest and leave almost no trace. How to fight. I was not automatically adept at any of these things, but I wanted to fit, so I learned the skills as best I could, until I felt I had succeeded.”

Slanya’s gaze was riveted on Duvan as he spoke. Her face was somber in the firelight, as she waited for him to continue.

“If I had been paying attention to such things,” Duvan went on, “I would have noticed that I was never allowed to go on any trips outside of Wildhome, except on the rare circumstance that the chieftain went abroad. And even though I was a ward of the clerics of Silvanus, I was required to go with the chieftain whenever he traveled.

“I was not at all sure why at the time, but they considered me good luck.”

Duvan looked away from the fire. Their mote was still caught in a tightening spiral, moving toward a hurricane of spellplague. They were closing in on the storm’s outer arms. Perhaps their path would miss the center completely. Perhaps they’d veer wide and slingshot back around. Only time would reveal that. Duvan predicted he’d know the answer in less than an hour.

“So when I was thirteen,” he said, looking back to the fire, “the elven clerics of Silvanus, with the consent of the chieftain

agreed that I would be invited to become a full adult member of their society. This was something I had been hoping for. I immediately accepted and was prepared for the flame-etch ceremony.

“The clerics created the symbol of a tree on my chest—nature and harmony with the trees and all that— representing Silvanus. They used metallic inks, blended with some materials that were supposed to attract the blue fire on the edges of the Plaguewrought Land, to etch the symbol on my chest.

“They spent days teaching me how to approach the spellplague pockets. I needed to get close for the etching to work, but not so close that the spellplague would kill me.

“On the morning of the ceremony, I walked naked to the Plaguewrought Land border, searching for the white gauze. I found it easily and danced toward it, eager to have my scar and join the Wildhome elves as one of their own—or as close to one of their own as a n Tel’Quessir could ever be.

“But the edge of the changelands wouldn’t reach out and burn the symbol of Silvanus into my chest as it should have. So 1 pressed in a little farther, toward bluer fire. And just then, a wave of intense spellplague pulsed along the border veil as it sometimes did.”

Duvan took a breath, remembering the event like it had happened yesterday. “They screamed at me to run out. To dodge and flee. But I wanted to join them so badly. I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong, why my etching hadn’t activated. All I could feel was my gut grown heavy and liquid.

“And then the surging wave of blue fire washed over me and blotted out the world. And in its wake …”

Duvan remembered the young elves and the elders yelling at him to run away. The fire would kill him or change him into a monster. He remembered feeling…

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing had changed. My gut slowly

returned to normal. My chest etching remained untouched by the spellplague, and I emerged unharmed.

“After that my life took a completely different course. A more treacherous and sinister course.”

****** g ***

Slanya stared silently into the fire. Her own history of chaos flickered on the edges of her memory. Elusive.

She looked up, watching Duvan carefully as he paused in telling his story. He had packed and repacked their backpacks, had organized the firewood, and he kept looking out over the edge of the mote at the swirling vortex ahead. Now he paced, having nothing more to occupy his attention while he considered how to continue.

After a minute, Duvan went on, “They were surprised that I emerged from the Plaguewrought Land whole and untouched. And soon after, it became apparent that some of the elves were afraid of me. I was already a social outcast because of my race, but now I was alien.

“Boys and girls died during the fire-etching rituals. Not all, of course, but a goodly number. The rest were marked by the changelands—etched. Nobody came away untouched. It had never happened before.

“I found myself shunned. Friends I had worked so hard to make avoided me. Everyone whispered about me as I passed. They didn’t know what to do with me. And then Rhiazzshar came to me and made everything right. She was a young priestess of Silvanus—very beautiful, very kind. She befriended me and held me while I cried in her arms. I was desperate for some affection, and she was very comforting.

“Rhiazzshar told me that the others were afraid of me, that they didn’t understand why the changelands had had no effect. She wanted to know if I knew. But of course I

had no idea. She said that we had to find out why so that we could convince the others that I was no threat. Then I would be accepted, perhaps even regarded as a hero.

“I asked her how I could do that, and she suggested I start by seeing what my limits were. How long can I resist the Plaguewrought Land? Is it just avoiding me, or am I impervious to it?

“I considered what she said, but I was afraid to try any of that. She held me and said it was all right.”

The emotion in Duvan’s voice tore at Slanya’s heart. Rhiazzshar had clearly meant something to him. She also realized that Duvan was revealing a great secret about himself. His ability to avoid the effects of the changelands wasn’t luck at all, and it was only partially rooted in knowledge. If what he had told her was true, Duvan was resistant to spellplague.

Around them, the sound of the storm had grown—a keening, scratchy wail, like an orchestra of sand rubbed on tin, punctuated by the booms of earth cracking apart and smashing together. It was close now, and Slanya needed to not think about it. So far, this mote had been drifting through a patch of calm, but it felt like it could pass into the storm at any moment.

“I fell in love with Rhiazzshar. She was my coming-of-age, really. After my failed fire-etching ceremony, she and I spent all our free time together, mostly isolated from the others. And the elders allowed it, which I suppose should have given me warning signs. But I was blissfully in love.

“Finally, one day, lying in bed after making love together, she convinced me to go back through the border veil. To be fair, I wanted to know what the limits of my ability were. But I wouldn’t have gone without her encouragement.

“At first I just went in for a minute, and then it was two, then five, until I was remaining inside the border of the changelands for an hour or longer, just coming out when

I got so tired I couldn’t see clearly. And while the blue fire didn’t seem to be able to touch me, exposure to it made me exhausted.

“Every time when I would come out of the Plaguewrought Land, Rhiazzshar would hold me, caress me, and make love with me. We got into a cycle, and eventually I started to suspect she was manipulating me. I didn’t see it for such a long time. A woman like that can blind a man. Plus she was my only friend, and if she wasn’t really my friend, then I had no one. That prospect was too terrible to believe.

“I had to know for sure. So I decided to stop going in. I hadn’t tested the full limits of my spellplague resistance, but I knew enough to be content for a while. Rhiazzshar wasn’t happy with that decision. At first she tried to persuade me to keep learning more about my abilities, and when I refused, she tried harder. Her methods of persuasion were very enjoyable.” Duvan laughed wryly. “But when it became clear to her that I wasn’t going to keep testing myself, she changed. She told me that she wished it hadn’t come to this, that our pleasant fantasy could have continued indefinitely. But the safety of Wildhome and the Chondalwood was paramount. They needed to understand my ability fully. They needed to make sure I was no threat, and to find out how they could use me to protect them.

“At first I was hurt. Betrayed. But I didn’t fully comprehend the extent of the betrayal until later. My life changed completely yet again. Rhiazzshar kept coming to see me, but we were no longer lovers. I learned that she had been keeping a record of my excursions in the changelands—a log of my exposure.

“The experiments continued every tenday or so. They put me in a cage and pushed it across the border then left it there—longer and longer each time, until I was inside the cage swallowed by the Plaguewrought Land for three days.”

Duvan gritted his teeth in firelight. “Rhiazzshar said she

was sorry. She said she still loved me, but that she loved her people more. She came to me several times. And at first I just wanted company, I needed caring, and so I accepted her. But over time, I hardened and grew jaded, cynical, and solitary. She never offered again.

“About a year later, I think, a burst of blue fire destroyed part of the cage. I had learned how to control my ability, just a little. Some things near me are protected, and with practice I had learned how to extend or shrink the area within limits. I shrank it as much as I could and huddled in a corner of the cage, and when the wave of spellplague came near me, it vaporized the opposite side of the cage.

“I walked out and into the heart of the Plaguewrought Land, straight into the hell that you’ve now seen with your own eyes.” He gestured toward the center of the storm vortex that they drifted toward.

Slanya wiped away a tear and felt the urge to reach out to him, to offer some comfort, but she didn’t know how. The fire had died down, but Duvan stoked it with more wood. Slanya was glad; the air was chilly this far up.

“That journey across the changelands was a nightmare. I was alone. I was weak. I was confronted with an unknown chaos. Once again, I didn’t care if I lived or died. Quite frankly, I expected to perish.”

Duvan paced at the edge of the halo of firelight. “But an unexpected thing started to happen; I started to feel the faintest stirrings of hope. I had escaped my long captivity. Perhaps I could remain free. Perhaps I could reinvent myself. I had no idea how I would accomplish that, and it seemed so distant, so remote, that it was nigh impossible. But that dim ray was still there and growing stronger each day I survived.

“Several times I nearly fell through the perforated fabric of the world and into the Underdark. Ultimately, however, I made it across. I was scraped up from a number of falls,

and bruised from many a battle with the changelands, but otherwise whole.”

Duvan gave a wry laugh. “After I passed out of the Plaguewrought Land, I was starving and weak, so parched that I nearly died of thirst. And ironically, it was a group of feral elves who found me. They gave me food and water. They had been searching for me, so they could take me back to Wildhome.”