Chapter Ten - The Audience

Tam's eyes had opened with a jolt as if he himself were transfixed by the arrow he had heard hit... no, he had heard Phamh'rir tell of. The scene was painted so vividly and fresh upon his mind that he found it difficult to readjust himself to the waking world, where Mh'repha and Phamh'rir were still sitting on chairs next to him, one of them seeming to share his feelings of shock and the other still looking grim with the burden of remembrance. He himself seemed to have dozed off in a chair, and the tale that Phamh'rir told him had etched itself into his mind in the form of a dream, or rather a vision. Tam's eyes looked anew at the soldier - or even spy? - whose mind had seemed closed to matters other than reason and the pursuit of his own plans. How did such a man tell a story like this - a story that seemed less to consist of the words and sentences that told it, and more of images that rolled before the listener's mind, and sounds that were as real to the ear as the voice that told of them? Tam realized that there was more about Phamh'rir than he had thought, and - judging from Mh'repha's expression - it was more than she had known about him, as well.

The tale had been so impressive - not just to the listeners, but to Phamh'rir himself as well, as he recounted it from his memory - that a stunned silence filled the room for a long while that none of them dared disturb.

Phamh'rir, himself the storyteller, and thus the first to break free from its binding power, was also the first to break the silence in the room.

"I ran as fast as my feet would carry me, although I did not know where I was running. I could not see, for I was blinded both by the darkness, by the wild panic of having murderers at my trail, and by the tears that I was freely shedding at seeing Zadal slain. It was long before I stopped running, but when I regained my senses the next morning, I found I was at the house of my parents, where I had run to on the previous night before collapsing with the exhaustion and the shock." He paused.

"Did you ever find out who had killed him?" Tam asked, stunned, when the pause had grown long enough, and he sensed Phamh'rir was not going to continue.

"That I did, lad. It was a hunter of the Graywraith clan - the most skilled archers of all the tribes nearby, surpassing even us of the Claw. And the ones who have honed their stealth more than any of us. They are named the mh'iphraithe, the grey wraiths, for their renowned ability to pass unseen and unheard by all, by the other clans of the Nephilim and even by each other. When they wish to be seen, looking upon them is like looking upon a person out of place, someone who simply appears in the midst of the landscape without a trace where he came from. When they do not care to hide themselves, they seem like a shadow that moves where it should not, flowing and shifting and seeming more an illusion to a tired eye than a real sight. When they do not wish to be seen, they simply are not. You may be standing before one of their hunters, and you can only see her because she blots out the sunlight, or she obstructs your path. If she was not, you would simply look past her."

Tam shuddered, feeling chilled all of a sudden. A cold breeze blew through the window, and the room was once again shrouded in silence. With difficulty, Tam spoke again.

"The guards outside..."

"No, indeed, they aren't. Though in their training we borrow heavily on the training methods of the mh'iphraithe, in so far as we know and understand them. They themselves are not of our people."

"Not of the Nephilim?" Tam did not understand. "But they look like you... what sets them apart?"

"You will have noticed their tall, muscular stature and their feral eyes, by which you can recognize them. They cannot learn speech and understand only the simplest commands; when employed as guards, we make use of a mind-bonding magic that allows us to command them telepathically." And, since Tam looked fairly surprised at hearing of such advanced magic controlled by the Nephilim, Mh'repha added: "Using a potion, of course." She smiled.

"The guards you have seen might give you an idea, but the Greywraiths themselves are a hundred times more stealthy and cunning."

"Then it was they who plotted Zadal's murder?"

"Oh, no. It is very doubtful they plotted it themselves, for they had little to gain by it - as little as did everyone else. It is more likely that the hunter had been paid for her work, for the Greywraiths often work as assassins, using their skills of slaying for profit." Phamh'rir growled in anger.

"If you found out who had killed him, then was she caught and punished?"

Phamh'rir snorted. "What do you think? The next day, it turned out that a hunting party of the Greywraiths had been out hunting for boar. They were all witnesses, and the one who had shot the arrow was among them. They swore that they had not seen Zadal, and that the hunter had shot at the noise they believed to come from a boar they had already been trailing for hours. It was only when they drew closer that they saw they had slain the Vahnatai sage, and were appropriately dismayed. The hunting party were publicly reprimanded and shamed for their poor skill of huntsmanship and their lack of caution, and the slayer had her bow broken - the height of dishonour - but nobody would have believed them to have intended his murder, and nobody therefore attempted to find out who had hired them." He grew bitter. "I was young, and am old now, and my memory grows faint. But this thing stands out clearly from the mists of the past, that I stood in the Halls of Justice, and I said I had talked to Zadal only seconds before he died, and he had seemed to know he was being hunted, and that no boar had broken the silence for a hundred miles around. My ears are sharp as knives, and they parted the night like the fine blade of silversteel parts a blade of grass, but they heard nothing in that night save the blowing of the wind and the sound of the arrow and the string as Zadal was killed. The Greywraiths may walk unheard by mortal ears, but the boar does not, and may it be ten times their quarry and have eluded them for half a day. That story, too, sounded incredible. A Greywraith does not need to hunt a beast for even a span of ten minutes, but she comes within bowshot of it, and the beast will not breathe another three times. And yet, they did not believe me, and claimed that if I had ever met Zadal - which I had likely only made up - then I had imagined or dreamt the events that I recounted to them. We had diplomatic relations to keep intact with the Greywraith clan, and that is why we never tried to find out who had ordered the sage's death.
"All that remained of the riddles surrounding his life and death were three things: First, his study, which was neatly ordered, with all notes and papers gone - they were not found on his body, so it is likely they were destroyed, either by himself, or by others breaking into his study, or by his murderers acting upon orders. There was nothing in his study that suggested he knew of his impending death, although they found a great many manuscripts for various treatises he had written on the history of the Nephilim race - nothing that suggested their creation by the Vahnatai or another race - and a large collection of books, both ones he had acquired from us and those he had brought with him from his long travels. Secondly, a copy of the one book he had written that had been bound and widely spread among the elders of our clans, which was found on his body when he died. It is that which leads me to believe he was not stripped of any papers he was carrying, but of course one cannot be sure of that. There was an odd note that had been scribbled in the cover of the book in his own hand; two lines of a poem:

"Rephna sathosha nish', yapheshis ramh'
Barh amh'rosh serina avalash-amh'

Tam mentally translated.

The night came rising fast, the day was gone
We wept in terror for the vanished sun.

"A poem?" He asked. "What is the rest of it?"

"I do not know, and nor did anyone else when they found it. He might have composed it himself, or he might have found it during his travels, in archives so ancient and well hidden that our people never looked upon them. Perhaps these two lines are all he ever wrote of the poem, if he did compose it."

"Curious lines. Could they have hinted at the evening on which he lost his life?"

"Perhaps they did, or perhaps they did not. But the rest of the poem, if it exists, was never found, and nor has the meaning of these two lines. They remain as much a riddle as the rest of the circumstances of his murder.

"And finally, of course, the third thing that remained of him was the strange item that he had given to me before he was killed - the tool that he had explained was used for carving gems, and that was engraved with the line sten gho vah'na'tai ten na pen mehd, 'praise be to the Vahnatai, who shape life and stone'."

"What happened to it?" Tam was quite eager to see it.

In response, Phamh'rir reached into the pocket of his cloak. "I kept it." As he pulled the strange, glittering metal piece out of his pocket, and Tam looked on in awe, he continued: "I brought it today when I went to meet you, for I hoped that you might shed additional light on its nature." He handed the item to Tam, who slowly turned it over in his hand, closely examining the shining metal structure.

Tam shook his head. "Even if I could tell you anything at all, I could not know about it what Zadal himself could not." He examined it a bit longer, his eyes looking for a long time on the reflective surfaces, lost in thought.

"But I can tell you this: It seems to be made of mithral, the strongest and most durable metal available to our metalworkers. That alone makes it valuable, and if it is as old as Zadal believed it to be, then it must have been a priceless artefact in its own time. I can see it is magically forged, for even after what could be centuries, even millennia, traces of forging magic remain on it. That is odd, because they should be far overshadowed and blotted out by the stronger traces of its use: Long use in the vicinity of crystals being carved, and the energy it is regularly charged with, should have made it impossible to notice any remaining trace of the magic used in its forging. Yet I sense next to no traces that would speak of carved crystals. If it was used, it was used rarely and only for the most basic of work. But why would such a valuable item be used so little, or so mundanely?" He wondered for a while. "It could have been decorative, or ceremonial..."

Mh'repha was doubtful. "Tools used solely as decorations or symbols? It seems to be constructed very precisely. The ceremonial mortar and pestle that we sometimes use are clearly recognizable as symbolic, but this object appears to be built for use."

"So it is, for I have never heard of a ceremonial set of crystal-carving tools. The process itself is almost ritualistic, but all the tools are quite real." Tam turned the object over in his hands. "But there is one thing that we can take for granted about this tripod, as did Zadal: Wherever it was found, it indicates that Vahnatai had been there, for the design is uniquely recognizable, as are the symbols Zadal managed to decipher."

Phamh'rir hesitated, then asked another question. "Can you read them?"

Tam glanced at the runes and shook his head. "No, I have no idea how to translate or even pronounce them. They look similar to our modern Novah writing, but I would need to know much more about the old symbols that Zadal studied before I could translate this engraving." Phamh'rir raised his brows, but said nothing and instead extended his hand to take back the item.

Tam weighed it in his fingers a last time, and returned the tool to Phamh'rir, who put it back in his pocket. "Thank you."

Phamh'rir, in turn, stood up, quite unexpectedly. Mh'repha and Tam looked up to him in surprise.

"That concludes our interview, I believe."

"You are already done?" Tam asked.

"I have learned what I came here to find out, if that is what you mean. I need to get back swiftly to make my report, and there would be no point in delaying further. Fare both of you well."

Tam waited as Phamh'rir stood up from his chair and walked to the door; then he asked: "Phamh'rir, did you show this thing to anyone else?"

Phamh'rir hesitated, his hand on the door handle. "No, I have not, in all this time. I will not mention it in the report either - I took it along on my own prerogative and to get my own curiosity satisfied." He turned toward the door, then stopped and seemed to remember something.

With only the barest hesitation, he extended the claws of two fingers on his right hand, and reached into the keyhole. Two seconds later, there was a soft, but distinctly audible click. "Farewell." Phamh'rir opened the now unlocked door and strode out confidently, closing it carefully behind him.

---

It was not over. Mh'repha, even after Tam assured her he had not been exhausted by the long questioning - if indeed it could be called that - told him she would on no account still teach him on that day and thus further strain him. Instead, she made him drink a particularly vile brew she had concocted, and told him to sleep and get ready for the next day that would likely prove a strain. She did not explain further. Tam, though he had initially protested he did not need to sleep, since it was still before midday, found himself proven wrong (though perhaps it was partly due to the effect of the potion she had given him), for Mh'repha was not yet out of the room when his eyes fell shut and he fell into a deep, but yet dream-tossed sleep.

---

It was a whisper in the void. A zephyr, barely a breeze, that moves between the long blades of grass almost without bending them. The sun is descending, the night beginning. Clouds are rolling across a storm-tossed sky, but down here, the air is completely still. Where the sun shines above the horizon, the clouds are drenched scarlet, bleeding down towards the earth in long streams of red. The Vahnatai elder looks upon the evening sky and turns back: "Ten and ten and ten again were the years, and they did not see the answer." His face is sorrowful, and his voice laden with regret. The arrow that has pierced him is sticking out of his chest in a strange mockery of life.
He turns away to face the sunset. "I tried to tell them, which was my mistake. Can I blame them? For what? For would not our reaction be likewise, were an alien being to visit us and tell them that all our lives, we have been living an existence that was begun on their whim, to their own ends? That our myths are theirs, our beliefs either imitated from theirs or indoctrinated by them? That our past belongs to them, as do our dreams? How could I expect them to understand, let alone believe?
"Remember this, young Aidra. The curiosity that yet burns in your mind can save the world, or break it. Know when to question, when to answer, and when to be silent, for the shortest path to knowledge is the furthest path from wisdom. Remember this." He walks toward the fading crimson glow and is suddenly gone, leaving me standing alone on the silent plain, while the sun descends. The tripod he placed in my hand feels smooth and cool to the touch, and its weight is reassuring. It is tangible and solid, and it is flawless and shining, like the physical incarnation of a proof. But there are archers moving in the shadows, and arrows that pierce the lights of truth. I draw my cloak tightly about myself, hoping to avoid the slayers, and feel afraid.

---

Tam awoke from his sleep knowing something was wrong. For one thing, the light outside was the cold grey light of a winter dawn, indicating that he had slept for half a day and a night. He had felt far too awake to sleep that long.

The second thing that was off was the Nephil sitting in his room.

"A pleasant morning." The Nephil immediately addressed Tam in his own language, but he did not speak very fast, and it was easy for Tam to understand him. Yet Tam took his time replying, for he was feeling disoriented both by the long sleep and the sudden arrival of yet another visitor, this time without Mh'repha being present. The Nephil seemed to take this as an indicator that Tam had not understood him, for he fumbled a bit and then repeated his greeting, a lot more slowly and a lot more clearly, as if speaking to one slow of wit. But evidently, he did not know a word of Novah, which he might otherwise have tried.

Tam, realizing that ignoring the strange man was not going to make him go away, replied. "A good day. Who are you?" He did not make a secret of the fact that he would very much prefer to be left alone right now, and while his greeting was quite a polite way of saying hello to a stranger who you awake to find sitting at your bedside, he rather stressed the last question.

"You can call me Ninoamh'row," the stranger replied, annoying Tam further as he woke further and could think more clearly. Why do they always say that? 'You can call me...'? What if I don't want to call them that, what if I want to call them annoying bastards who deliberately shroud themselves in vagueness so as to seem mysteriously enigmatic? He dismissed the angry thought again. Still, his irritation was faintly audible when he answered.

"Why are you in here? How did you get in? Where is Mh'repha?"

"So many questions, and so little time. But you shall get them answered. I am here because you are here, and I am to tell you that you need to get up and come to meet our chief. I got in by passing through the door over there, which I did by pressing down its handle and pushing the door open on its hinges using a gentle application of force, upon which I let go of the handle again, repeating the same process to close the door once I had passed through. Finally, Mh'repha has gone ahead to the chief already, but she asked to let you sleep until you woke by yourself, which took some time." That he continued to speak in a deliberately slow voice only made the long speech more irritating.

"You can talk normally, Ninoamh'row, I can hear you clearly," Tam kept his impatience under control.

"That is good, for if I were to continue speaking that slowly, I might be sitting here tomorrow." Then why not shut the hell up? Tam kept himself from retorting.

"I am not sure if I have the strength to walk far yet," Tam warned, as he rose and sat upright on the edge of the bed, now facing the talkative Nephil who was sitting on the chair Mh'repha was commonly occupying, and who was still eyeing him curiously.

"Mh'repha said that you would, if we let you sleep for a while."

Tam pushed himself off with his feet and was surprised to find he had no trouble standing, and his legs supported him with minimal effort. Perhaps the potion Mh'repha had given him was lending him additional strength. Why didn't she give it to me a bit earlier then? he wondered, but realized in the next moment it was just as well she hadn't, giving him more time to learn the language and to read the books that he had been given.

"I think I can be ready in five minutes." Ninoamh'row looked at him but said nothing.

"I will be ready to go in five minutes," Tam repeated, making a gesture suggesting Ninoamh'row to leave the room. But the Nephil remained seated.

"Before we leave to meet your esteemed chief," Tam said, rolling his eyes in exasperation, "I will require a change of clothes, for I do not wish to meet important persons in my sleeping gown, as that could leave an impression of impoliteness and a certain lassitude and carelessness that is wisely not displayed to persons who expect request be shown to them. However," and here he paused, "among my people we are used to change our clothes in private, because the process of changing said clothes usually includes a certain point at which we are covered by a minimum of clothing, and we are brought up with social inhibitions against letting ourselves be seen by other people, especially strangers, in that fashion. I now intend to get dressed in proper clothes, and therefore I would appreciate if you used your great skill with doors and went out of this room for a few minutes." He spoke very slowly, very patiently, and very clearly.

"Oh! You want me to leave; why not just say so?" Ninoamh'row shook his head. "Heavens, but your people have a long-winded way of talking." He quickly left the room, carefully opening the door and closing it behind him.

This is going to be a fun day, Tam mentally sighed as he changed.

---

A few minutes later, as he threw the rough but warm cloak around his shoulders, he looked around the room. Something about it had definitely changed, something that he had failed to notice earlier when he woke up, but which had troubled him all this time. As he looked around again, more awake this time, he realized at least one thing: The bookshelf had disappeared for mysterious reasons, along with its contents. Tam could not imagine why the cooks had been removed; surely they were not required with such pressing need? But maybe they had been lent by one of the elders in order to allow Tam to inform himself to at least an extent about his hosts while he was recovering - a thoughtful gesture.

The other difference failed to occur to him until Ninoamh'row reentered the room three minutes later, evidently beginning to grow impatient - without knocking, of course. Tam, who had finished dressing himself a while ago, decided not to mind.

"Are you finished?" Ninoamh'row enquired politely.

"I think so, yes," Tam replied.

"It may be none of my business," from the way you say that, it probably isn't, Tam thought, "but do you not think you should be taking your weapon?"

"My..." Tam was speechless for a second. "What weapon?"

"Your sword, over there." Ninoamh'row pointed at the table in the foot of Tam's bed, where, sure enough, his waveblade was lying. It was secured within its sheath, cleaned and apparently none the worse for wear after his long journey. He had finally found out what else had been odd about the room when he woke; the table had been drawn up to the window and apparently his remaining possessions had been placed on it. It was not much.

A small number of gemstones, colored like pieces of cheap glass, but shining with the light of enchantment, was lying beside the blade, as was a pouch that Tam recognized as his purse. Finally, there was a small set of what could only be his carving tools! Had he really taken them with him when he left his room in the Oriath dormitory, and carried them on the entire journey here? He held back his laughter for a second, then realized there was no reason to, and laughed. Was it not like him to take tools for carving crystals on a journey into the wilderness, miles from any living habitation, let alone a Vahnatai city, let alone a place where one could obtain gemstones - and leave without even a week's rations? I should be thankful I did so, I suppose, Tam thought, remembering that if the circumstances of his hasty departure had been but a little bit different, he would never have found the Claw.

He hesitated for a moment, realizing the reasoning he was suddenly following, even catching himself at it, in a way. Was he glad that the chances had turned out as they did? Amazed, he realized he was! He was glad he had never arrived at Mehdav, he was glad the storm had shaken his sense of direction, he was glad he had walked northwest until hunger nearly claimed him, and he was glad that he had ended up as a guest to the Nephilim. For a moment, he reveled in the thought of finally being satisfied with one of the turns his life had recently taken, a rare enough occurrence in the last months.

Ninoamh'row, sensing Tam was lost in thought, but not realizing the reason, spoke to explain the presence of the items. "It is the equipment that you were carrying on you when our hunters discovered you. They were put into safe-keeping for the time when you would have use for them again. Mh'repha had it all brought here this morning, and suggested you should take it with you before leaving."

"Why would she suggest that?" Tam was feeling apprehensive. First the potion to rapidly restore his strength, her sudden absence this morning, then the audience with the chief that she had apparently had not protested against, in spite of her doing the very same when Phamh'rir had wished to question him, then the now the bit about taking his waveblade and his equipment. There was something feeling very, very wrong about it.

Nonetheless, Tam went over to the table and lifted up the long blade with both hands, by the handle and the sheathed tip. The sheath was soft and flexible, and strengthened with surrounding rings of metal at regular intervals - it needed to be flexible to adapt to the blade's curving shape, and to allow it to be drawn quickly despite the wavy form. He weighed the sword in his hands for a few seconds and examined the blade that was slightly longer than his own torso, as was customary. As he hefted the blade and secured the sheath to his girdle, feeling once again the half reassuring, half unsettling weight of steel at his side, he realized what that implied. At Mh'repha's advice, he was not merely taking back the equipment that had been kept for him; he was arming himself. I will find the reason soon enough. He hoped finding the reason would not involve combat, for with a sinking feeling he remembered that his skill with the blade were even less advanced than those with carving crystals, and the weeks in which had been resting in his bed without exercise could not have improved his constitution and stamina. He would not be worth his dead weight in a battle.

He gathered up the crystals and stuffed them into the pocket of his cloak, and then tied the pouch of gold to his belt - wondering for a moment if the metal had any worth among the people he was with now - and turned around to face the door in front of which Ninoamh'row was standing.

"Very well then," he said, smiling. "Take Me To Your Leader."

"That I shall!" Ninoamh'row replied, not getting the reference of course, but then there was no way for him to know it. But as they left, Tam wondered for a moment if the behavior of the strange Nephil was indeed due to inanity or merely the cultural shock and uncertainty of how to deal with a stranger. With sudden dismay, he also wondered if Ninoamh'row had gotten the same impression of him. But such conceptions could be cleared up later, and for now, as Tam walked a half step behind Ninoamh'row, who was leading the way, he was glad to be able to walk on his own legs without trouble, and that the floor no longer seemed to waver beneath him as it had on the previous day.

Along the corridor they went, and through the curtain, and walking up the long stairs, and finally out of a low wooden door that was set into the stone, and Tam gasped! For there in front of him was air, and the ground beneath him was even further than it had been in front of the window of his room, which lay several floors lower. For a moment, he felt nauseous, but there was a pier in front of the door, a walkway constructed of wood, with railings on either side, leading alongside the rocky mountain wall itself.

Tam took a few steps behind Ninoamh'row and was stunned anew at the view. For here he was standing near the top of the vast cliff face itself, and he could see for many leagues around to the horizon. A freezing cold wind whipped past the cliff and tore at his robe, but the sky was clear and the morning sun was burning down upon him. He tucked his hands inside the sleeves of his robe and followed the Nephil as he walked along the wooden walkway toward a distant doorway, at a low but distinctly perceptible slope. They were going up even further.

They arrived at the great wooden double doors, which were rough but richly decorated and finely engraved with many an artistic carving. Their imposing size and luxurious appearance suggested only one thing: The hall that lay behind them must be significant indeed.

Tam approached the gate, but was held back by Ninoamh'row.

"Careful!" Even as he watched, the great doors slowly, ponderously, swung outward over the platform they were standing on. If Tam had been near them, he might have been swept off the walkway and fallen to meet his end hundreds of feet down. A dangerous construction. But Tam did not think of it further, for as the door opened, he could see inside the long hall. It was as if a palace had been set into the cliff wall itself, for the long hall with the high ceiling was carved out of the stone but decked with wooden plates to give it a less uncomfortable appearance.

The central corridor of the hall was indicated by two rows of tall stone columns that were probably more intended as decoration than to support the ceiling that consisted of many meters of solid rock.

And down the hall, there was a wooden throne, a tall but simple chair that even at this distance looked spartanic and uncomfortable. On it was sitting a lean Nephil with dark grey fur, who looked venerable and strong at the same time. Ninoamh'row entered the hall first, and beckoned to Tam to follow him, which he did. As he walked down the long hall, Tam also noticed Mh'repha, who was sitting on another chair drawn up to face the Chief's throne. They had evidently been talking already, and just waited for his arrival.

And indeed, the Chief of the Claw now raised his head and turned to face the two who had entered. He was the first to notice Tam, since Mh'repha had her back turned to the entrance. Ninoamh'row opened his mouth to announce Tam's arrival, but the chief waved his hand and nodded to him, which appeared to be a signal. Ninoamh'row bowed and turned around, exiting the hall again and leaving Tam alone with the chief and Mh'repha, who had now turned around. Tam met her gaze and she smiled, but there was a look in her eyes that made him uncomfortable. Then the chief spoke.

"Greetings, Tam. I am Sophromh' of the Claw. Mh'repha has told me much about you already. Please sit down," he indicated a vacant chair next to Mh'repha's seat, "for we urgently need to talk." And Tam sat down in the wooden chair and waited, wondering what the leader of the Claw so urgently needed to tell the first of the Vahnatai who had come to visit them for years.

The greater was his surprise when he learned just what it was that Sophromh' had to tell.

FINIS

 5614 words.