Chapter Fifty-Six: Secrets of the Past

“I have seen all the corners of the world I’d care to visit. There are no mysteries left that I wish to uncover, yet I cannot die, not as long as my friend suffers. The gates of Vallaheim will not take me, nor the Warden of Hellheim, for the Winds are not done with me yet.

“So I will wait. I will wait, in this quiet corner of the world where men and women still enjoy the simple things in life, until the time comes to embark upon my final adventure. And what an adventure it shall be.”

—Dagus Adem, The Adventurer’s Guide to the Continent

Tushar hadn’t been lying when he claimed to know Raginrok like the back of his hand. In a single day, the party was already so far up the mountain that Darmouth was little but an insignificant speck beneath them. They’d climbed stone steps and natural footholds in the rock, trodden lightly over the ice, taken shortcuts through cracks and crevices in the walls, gone off the track every possible opportunity they could, and the benefits had been worthwhile.

“I used to play here when I was young,” Tushar called above the howl of the wind. “I was always the bravest of the children. We used to see who could go the farthest before turning back, and I always won.”

That’s what we used to do as well, Ein thought, recalling the night he, Merrill and Evaine had found the Twisted Treeloc. It seems that children are the same no matter where in the world you go.

“How long will it take to reach the summit?” Garax asked.

“I cannot take you to the summit,” Tushar replied. “Only the place before the summit. Not even I have dared to conquer Mandara in its entirety. When you reach the upper parts of the mountain, it gets hard to breathe, and your vision grows dim. No—I can only take you to the place before the summit.” Tushar held up a single finger. “It will take a normal man two weeks—but I can make it one.”

The mountain shook, and the party threw themselves against the floor, huddling as rock and ice crumbled around them. It wasn’t snowing yet, but the air was growing colder and mistier. They’d left the trees and weeds long behind. There was only snow now, dirt and stone, and the hardiest of yellowed grasses.

“In our culture, Mandara was the greatest of the Ninety,” Tushar continued. “The Lord of the Night, or the Oathbreaker as you know him, he gave birth to the gods. They watched over us from the moon, guiding us every night as the sun did in the day.

“But Mandara, he was born on earth. He wanted to be with his eighty-nine brothers and sisters. He longed to dance among the stars with them, alongside his father. So great was his desire that he began to grow—bigger and bigger, taller and taller, closing the distance to the moon with each year.

“But when he finally reached a height that he could touch the moon, he realized that he had grown too big. The moon would not hold his weight. He had grown so tall that not even the clouds could restrain him.”

Ein peered at the mountains around them, their tips swallowed by the mist.

“Enraged, Mandara shattered the moon and brought the Eighty-nine down to the earth, where they became stranded. Thus, Nanak Tur rose—the Tomb of the Ninety—and among them Mandara, who continues to lament, cursing the earth that binds him so. As children of the earth, we unfortunately take the full brunt of his anger.”

“I’ve never heard that version before,” Garax mused. “In our culture, we believe in something else.”

“Oh? What might that be?”

Garax told Tushar The Binding of Faenrir while Aeos, Ein and Rhinne listened in silence. There were piles of collapsed rock here and there, landslides caused by falling boulders from far above that they had to traverse, and their pace slowed to a grind. Part way through, they stopped to slip on more furs, fleece tops, woollen gloves and caps.

“An interesting tale,” Tushar remarked, once the storyteller had finished his spiel. “It is certainly a possibility, that the quakes are caused by an enormous wolf at the summit. But I am faithful to my beliefs. They are all I have ever known.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Garax said. “Faith makes a man, as a friend of mine once said. It’s not about what’s right or wrong, but what we believe.”

Night fell quickly as it did in this part of the world. Before they knew it they were trudging in the dark, the mist swirling around them, their breaths shuddering frigidly from their lips. Tushar led them to a small cave where they lit a fire and sat down to eat.

“It looks like it’ll snow tomorrow,” the villager said. “Sometimes I’ve been lucky and I’ve gone the whole way without a speck of it. Other times the snowstorms take the mountain by force, turning it into a maelstrom of white.”

“Merciful Cenedria,” Aeos muttered. “As if it can get any colder.”

Tushar frowned. “This is not cold, ghost-Talam. Not anywhere near. Higher up, when we pass the clouds, it is colder.”

“It’s not that bad,” Rhinne sniffed. “I’m wearing less than you, and I’m fine.”

“You’re a dragon though,” Aeos said, and to Ein: “You’re a Kingsblade. And you…” he looked at Garax. “I don’t know what you are.”

“A storyteller,” he smirked.

“Isn’t it about time you told them?” Rhinne asked him. “I think it would be in your best interests before we confront the World-Eater.”

“Not yet,” Garax said. “Maybe later, when we’ve gone a bit further.”

“What is a dragon?” Tushar asked.

Garax peered out at the whirling darkness. “There’s a while yet before bedtime. Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll tell you some stories about what is perhaps the most revered race in the world.”

“This will be entertaining,” Rhinne snorted.

It was dawn when Ein woke, next to the cold remains of the fire. Grey light shone through the entrance to the cave, sweeping specks of snow across the ground. Garax, Rhinne and Tushar slept soundly in their bedrolls, wrapped up like human cocoons.

“Early riser, I see,” Aeos said. The white-haired Prince was fully dressed and looked to have been awake for a while, staring outside the cave at the brightening sky. Ein joined him in the cold, peering into the horizon. The sky was grey as far as the eye could see, the other mountains of Lauriel’s Spine no more than dark shapes in the fog.

“How long have you been away from your home again?” the Prince asked.

Ein took a moment to think. It had been a while, hadn’t it? The journey out of the Sleeping Twins, to Caerlon and Aldoran, and then Mor’Gravar and finally here. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost track of the days.

“A month,” he decided. “Maybe more.”

Aeos regarded him with a look of what might have been respect. “I’ve been gone for scarcely a week and I’m already homesick. How do you do it, Ein? How do you keep going? Even when my father was so determined to bring you down, when the Steel Guardians of Mor’Gravar hunted us around every corner, when the Celadons and Worgals had you outnumbered several to one. I would have given up long ago.”

“I have to save the world,” Ein answered. “To save Aedrasil, to stop Al’Ashar and the relicts, to protect Faengard. I don’t want to do it, I have to. Because I’m one of few people right now who can. Because I’m one of the few people in the world with the power to do so.” He paused. “But I’d be lying if I said that were always the case, and besides, your mother seems to think she holds the spare key to solving our problem.”

“She might,” Aeos agreed. “But then again, she might not. The prophecies of ancient civilisations should not be ignored, especially if they all say the same thing.”

Ein nodded. “I’ll tell you this, Aeos. When I left Felhaven and the Sleeping Twins with Merrill and Evaine, knowing nothing of the world save that which Garax taught me, I only wanted one thing. I wanted to bring back Alend, my father who wasn’t my father, the one who raised me and sacrificed so much so that I could enjoy my childhood. He was the one who was meant to go on this quest. If I hadn’t come with him, he would most likely be here right now, braving the snow and the cold, reminiscing of the home he’d left to save. He has the blood of kings, not me.”

Ein brought a hand to his Rhinegold pauldron. “But he’s old now. He’s not as strong as he used to be, and you can see it. Did you know that, when he first left the village, he was still recovering from a stab wound to the gut?”

Aeos shook his head.

“A Faceless did it,” Ein spat. “A friend of his, too.”

“He’s a brave man, Alend Thoren. I would not have come back to Aldoran after making an enemy of the King, not if my life depended on it.”

“And that’s the thing,” Ein continued. “That’s what took me so long to realize. It isn’t just his life we’re talking about anymore. If the relicts return, the entire world will crumble. It crumbles already. People starve in the streets where once they would be fat and rotund. Families bicker among themselves over supplies. Bandits slit throats along the Royal Road. Relicts taint the land, slaughtering innocents from villages like Darmouth. The whole of Faengard rests on our shoulders, and I think he knew that. The idealistic self that he left behind when he was a Kingsblade, I think that was what ultimately led him to follow Talberon to the capitol. And that’s the torch that he’s passed on to me.

“I want to go back to being a blacksmith’s son, and I still cling on to that hope dearly. But I will rise to the call, because I must. The Heroes of Faengard will ride again, said Morene Gylfaginor. If I don’t ride, then who will?”

Aeos shook his head. “I’m moved to tears, Ein,” he said thinly. “The throne of Faengard would be better kept by you than I.”

Ein gave a wan smile in return. “I only speak from my heart, Your Highness. If anything, Alend should be the King. It’s in his blood, after all.”

“Don’t say that in front of my father or he’ll lose his head.”

The two shared a chuckle, glancing back towards where the rest of the party slept. The sky had well brightened by now. It wouldn’t be long before they set off.

“I envy the bond you share with Alend,” Aeos said suddenly.

“The non-existent bond?”

“You know what I mean. My own father despises me. He thinks I’m not fit to rule, that I’m a disappointment to the Uldan name, and my mother isn’t much better.”

“Is this because of…?” Ein broke off, uncertain whether to continue.

“Yes. That man you saw in my memories, the night when we were bonded… that was my brother.”

“I see. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Aeos said. “He was my brother, not yours. I don’t suppose I have to spell it out for you, but he was everything my father wanted me to be. Even now he hopes I will come to my senses and become, in his eyes, a man fit to run a nation. I’d like to see his face when we return, having braved both Mor’Gravar and the Summit of the World.”

“His intentions are good,” Ein said. “I think he’s just forgotten where he came from. Who made him what he is now—the eye of his storm. I’m sure he wouldn’t be like this had he been born anything less than a King.”

“You know, for a boy who’s barely a man, you sound awfully wise.”

“I’m just repeating what a woman once said to me,” Ein smiled.

“Was she a pretty one?”

“She was. Not as pretty as your sister, though.”

They spent the remainder of their time watching the snow fall, until Garax and Rhinne and Tushar woke. Then, they continued the climb.

They climbed for three more days and nights, slogging through the thickening snow, glancing fearfully at the sky every time the mountain roared. The tremors grew more and more violent, as if Raginrok could sense how close they were to the top.

They broke through the clouds on the third day, only to find more clouds above them.

“A snowstorm,” Tushar murmured, as they looked down upon the sea of grey. And indeed, the snow had been coming down heavily the further up they travelled.

“How far from the top are we now?” Aeos asked. He rubbed his hands together and breathed into them.

“Half a day. We must be cautious now.”

They made their way slowly along the rocks, taking extra care across the slopes and the narrow gaps. Ein’s muscles were already sore from climbing; he couldn’t imagine how tired everyone else must be. He could see it in their faces—the weariness, the frustration, the weathering of resolve as the snow-winds continued to buffet them. At one point they were caught in a particularly bad tremor where a large section of the mountain gave way beside them, missing them by a matter of armlengths. Aeos and Rhinne had cried out in alarm, watching the debris as it tumbled into the roiling mist.

They spent a good part of the afternoon searching for a place to set up camp, and when they finally did, the relief on their faces was evident. The party dumped their belongings inside the cave and set about clearing a space to sit.

“I daresay we’ll be at the top before long,” Tushar spoke Ein’s thoughts, unwrapping items from his pack. He placed extra blankets and water, dried meat and cheese, even coffee on the ground before them, while Rhinne started a fire with the last of the fuel they carried. “Tomorrow morning I will leave you. Walk for an hour along the trail outside, and you will see the final pass. Through that pass lies the Summit of the World.” He slid the blanket with all the supplies forward. “I will leave behind everything I do not need. Please make the most of it.”

“Thank you for all you’ve done for us,” Garax bowed. “We wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

“Do not thank me,” Tushar shook his head. “I should thank you. You are Talam; you have saved the village once, and you will save it again. You will break Mandara and free us from its curse.”

They settled down in front of the fire, hiding behind the corpses of the relicts. Aeos sipped at his coffee, shivering, a blanket draped over his shoulders.

“You won’t get much sleep like that,” Garax said. “Coffee keeps you awake at night.”

“I doubt I’d get much sleep either way, if our journey ends tomorrow.”

Rhinne poked the fire a few times and added another log to it. “In all seriousness Aeos, you don’t look well. You’re even paler than usual.”

“It’s the mountain sickness,” Tushar spoke. “The higher we go, the stronger its effects. It would be wise to turn back now, while you still can. I can take you down the mountain with me if you’d like.”

“No,” Aeos said firmly. “I won’t turn back, not while Garax is still going. If an old man can endure it, so can I.”

“Aeos,” the old man said, shaking his head. “I’m no ordinary old man.”

“You’re right,” Ein said, turning to the storyteller. “Tomorrow, we face the World-Eater. I feel like there’s no better time than now to tell us your secrets. How old are you exactly? How do you know Faenrir? What are you?”

They stared at the man intently. Tushar tilted his head, puzzled, but saying nothing. Outside, the wind began to brush against the cave, almost whispering.

“I suppose there’s no keeping it secret any longer,” Garax sighed, looking sideways at Rhinne. “I…”

He reached for his neck and revealed a cord with a heart-shaped scale looped upon it. A Heartscale, similar in shape and size to the one Rhinne had, only it was gold instead of scarlet—like the gold of his eyes.

“I am also a dragon,” Garax said. “Older than Rhinne, much older. One of the firstborn of Alysteria, the elders who lived before the Dragonstone was taken.”

Ein’s mouth fell open. “You… you’re a dragon too?”

“No wonder you always seem unaffected by the cold,” Aeos growled. “I should have known.”

“But what were you doing all the way in Felhaven?” Ein asked. “Shouldn’t you have been living with your people, wherever they were?”

“He was not like the other dragons of his time,” Rhinne said. “The man you know as Garax, he had a wanderlust that could not be sated, not until he’d seen the whole world and more. Your storyteller, he has been around for a long time. He is renowned not only among my people but your people as well.”

“Garax was not always my name,” he nodded. “In fact, there is another name I go by, one I haven’t used in a long time. That name... is Dagus Adem.”