Jak Koke - The Edge of Chaos

“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.”

“Oh, no!” Slanya blurted out. Her chest hurt in sympathy for him. “I’m so sorry.” It had been a long time ago, but she understood that level of futility. She understood. She’d spent a long time planning to escape from her aunt, only to be caught again once she did, returned home, and punished with beatings.

Duvan stopped his pacing and glanced at her. “Thank you,” he said. “When I realized who had found me, I lost all hope. And frankly, I started looking for opportunities to end my life.” He began pacing again, like a caged beast, at the edge of the firelight.

Slanya was silent, staring at the deep orange-red glow of the coals, watching the occasional spark fly on the waves of heat up into the sky. Suicide was not anathema to her. Kelemvor wasn’t unambiguously opposed to it. Under the right conditions, a life could be ended voluntarily and by choice. Still, in her philosophy those circumstances were very narrow.

“The elf group camped on the edge of the Chondalwood for several days, waiting for me to recover a little before taking me back to the forest city.” Duvan’s voice seemed to drift out of the darkness. “However, early on the second evening someone came with a group of armed fighters-Tyrangal and her Copper Guard.

“Tyrangal had gotten news, she told me later, of a human who was resistant to the plagueland’s effects. She had spies in Wildhome apparently. And while she hadn’t been prepared to take on the entire elven city, she was perfectly willing to go up against a small reconnaissance group. The elves were charmed by her golden tongue. They were also afraid of her, so they eventually left without me.

“Tyrangal took me back to her mansion and offered me a place of distinction in her organization. She offered to continue my training: weaponry, woodcraft, mastering my spellscar. She helped me in so many ways. I had never met anyone like her.

“I stayed for several months before testing out my freedom. Tyrangal had told me that I could come and go as I wished, but she had also made the argument that she could protect me more effectively if I stayed close. Eventually I needed to make sure I really was able to leave.”

Duvan approached the fire with some more sticks. He started breaking them and setting them on the dying fire. “She let me go,” he said. “I wandered for months, mostly thieving to make my way. But I was on my own! I was anonymous and not bound to anyone. I traveled north from port to port for the better part of a half-year.

“Eventually I returned on my own, and Tyrangal welcomed me back. She said that she had a job for me, that it would be challenging and lucrative. Would I take it? Obviously, I accepted. I’ve been with her for a few years now, but I am free to make my own choices, and the benefits have been quite substantial.”

Duvan stood in silence for a while, staring into the fire, his story seemingly at an end.

Duvan’s tale had brought back cascades of memories for Slanya. Her own childhood had been filled with manipulation and horror. Aunt Ewesia had not only been strict, she used to change the rules arbitrarily and punish Slanya when she broke them.

Slanya understood what it was like to never be able to win. She had never known when she was doing something that would get her the strap or the paddle or the hot iron on the backs of her thighs. Slanya shuddered with the remembrance. How could she have forgotten about that?

“Thank you for sharing your story with me,” she said.

He gave her a solemn nod.

“Now, I can help you share your burden.”

Duvan glanced up at her. “What?”

“What you’ve been through was horrific,” Slanya said. “But you don’t have to be alone with your pain.”

“Exactly how can you help share my burden?”

Slanya sensed danger in his tone but felt she should explain. “I can sympathize with what you went through.”

The keening of the storm suddenly grew louder, and wind gusted around them. Blue The gauze of clouds above flickered blue. The storm was closing in on them.

Duvan seemed unfazed. “You think you understand what I went through by hearing me tell it?”

“No, I don’t fully understand,” Slanya said. “But I do know you better. And I feel confident that if you’d met different people after the attack on your village-if you’d met people who had nurtured you instead of exploiting you-you would have been able to trust them and they would have taken care of you.”

“And what? Losing my twin sister to a spellplague storm would’ve been easier for me? Finding out my true love was using me would have been all fine?”

Slanya knew the question was a trap, but by Kelemvor she was right in this. “No, but living with those losses and betrayals would have been less traumatic.”

Duvan’s sadness had grown into full anger now. “You think everything can be solved by order and a society based on trust, but it can’t. Some things can’t be solved.”