Will McDermott - Judgment

The nantuko directed Kamahl to a huge, circular doorway that led inside the heart tree. The interior was dark beyond the pool of light near the doorway. Kamahl looked at his guide, raised his eyebrows, and motioned at the tree with his thumb.

"Thriss is in there?" he asked.

"You will find what you seek inside the heart," said the druid.

"Great," sighed Kamahl. "More riddles." He stepped through the doorway and entered the heart of the forest.

Inside, Kamahl found himself in a circular chamber, roughly twenty feet from side to side at its widest point and twenty feet high. Both the floor and the ceiling were curved as well, making him feel like he was standing on the lip of a huge bowl. The room itself was featureless, save for the grain of the wood running vertically through the walls and the curved lines on the floor and ceiling, which showed the growth of the tree through what must have been hundreds of years.

"Hello?" called Kamahl, but there was no answer. Kamahl produced a small ball of flame in his open palm. It sputtered a little bit before flaring to life, and the barbarian realized it was the first fire magic he'd used since he'd left the mountains with Balthor. "I must be out of practice," he said to himself.

In the flickering light, Kamahl could see no one else in the room, but there was an opening off to the left. Heading across the room, Kamahl had to bend forward and pump his legs like he used to when hiking in the mountains to maneuver on the steep side of the bowl. On the other side of the circular doorway, the barbarian found an empty room much like the last one with nothing but a doorway back and to the right that led farther into the tree.

Kamahl inched his way down into the bowl of the room and clambered back up the other side to the next doorway to find yet another bowl-shaped room.

The barbarian hiked through room after room, meandering back and forth through the tree, and each room was slightly higher than the last. This wasn't a maze, it was a corridor cut out one chamber at a time that was zigzagging its way up into the tree.

It took Kamahl nearly an hour to traverse the winding corridor through the heart tree. Finally, a warm, green glow emanated from the room beyond. Kamahl extinguished his red and yellow flame and trudged up to the doorway to peer into the chamber of Thriss.

The room was huge, nearly a hundred feet across, encompassing almost the entire width of the heart tree. But special care had been taken to ensure nutrients could flow up and down the tree through the room. Natural wooden pillars dotted the chamber as if the room had been carved out around them. A foot across, the pillars seemed to hold up the ceiling, which towered overhead.

The living pillars were moist and warm. In fact, the entire room was warm. The light came from lichen growing on the walls and ceiling that pulsed with a green glow from within. Kamahl could better see the rings of the tree on the floor in this grand room, and the circles seemed to beckon him into the center.

In the middle of the room he found Thriss, the guardian spirit of the forest, and for the briefest moment, Kamahl was terrified. Thriss was a huge mantis, easily fifteen feet tall, complete with' the razor-sharp ridges on his arms and legs, each of which was longer than the blade on Kamahl's two-handed sword.

"Thriss, guardian of the forest," started the barbarian, "I have come to… I have come to…" But Kamahl wasn't sure why he had come. Up until this point, the journey had been all he had. That and those damn druid riddles.

"You have come to find your heart," boomed Thriss, lifting his head and spreading his arms wide. "The heart of the forest champion."

Kamahl shook his head. "No, I don't think so," said the barbarian. "I have learned much about life and the forest and magic from this journey, and I believe I am finally at peace with myself and with the Mirari. But I am no champion. I have come here only to bury the orb and be done with the eternal quest for power that surrounds the accursed thing. I have come here to lay it to rest, so that I may go make peace with my sister."

"You are wrong," said Thriss in the tone a father reserves for a child who must be taught life's lessons. "The orb is not cursed. It is but a tool, and its true purpose and power lies beyond what any who have touched it can imagine."

"What do you mean?" asked Kamahl. "What do you know of the Mirari? It is not of the forest. That much even 1 can tell."

"I have been observing the orb since before Chainer discovered it," said Thriss, bringing his arms up to his face again as if praying. "It is of this world but comes from beyond this world. It seeks knowledge not power, for it has no need of power. It is alive but has no thought, no purpose beyond the search for knowledge."

"But what of the visions it gives?" asked Kamahl. "And how can you say it isn't cursed after all the devastation it's caused on Otaria?"

Thriss dropped his arms and stared into Kamahl's eyes. "Who caused the devastation?" he asked. "The tool or the mage who used the tool? Did the orb create the visions or merely reflect what was already in the heart of those who gazed into it?"

Kamahl considered the guardian's questions and thought he was beginning to understand, but he didn't like the implications.

"Are you saying," he proposed, "that all those people- Kirtar, the mer emperor, Chainer, even me-that we're all evil, and the orb is just reflecting that and amplifying it? I can believe that about Kirtar and the emperor, though 1 did not know him. But I watched as that thing drove Chainer to his doom and then nearly lived through the same horror myself. Maybe the Mirari is just too powerful for mere mages to control. It controls us instead."

"Do you not control your sword, your horse, your magic?" asked Thriss. "Yes, the Mirari has power. But it is not powerful itself. Only the will of its owner gives the orb any true power- the power to destroy or the power to create. However, each and every one of you has good and evil inside, and evil is drawn to power, magnified by power. By rejecting that power, you have shown that the good in you is stronger than the evil. That is why you have been chosen. That is what gives you the heart of the champion."

"I have been a champion all my life," said Kamahl. "It has brought me glory but nothing else. In the end, my pursuit of power and glory has brought me nothing but pain and sorrow. If you want a champion, take the orb and give it to Seton. He has a fine heart."

Kamahl drew his sword and dropped it at the feet of the guardian, who picked it up and swung it expertly back and forth. The huge weapon looked like a dirk in the giant creature's claws.

"A true champion does not seek power or glory," said Thriss as he held the sword out in front of him and gazed into the orb. "A true champion uses his power to benefit people not to impress them. A true champion gathers power to protect the land not to destroy it."

Thriss handed the sword back to Kamahl and stared deep into the barbarian's eyes again. Kamahl felt as if the guardian was probing his mind and his spirit.

"Come back tomorrow," said Thriss finally, "and I will begin to teach you how to use your power to bring peace to your mind, how to find glory in the world around you, and even how to control the orb, so it can never control you again."

Kamahl considered the guardian's words. He had come all this way to find answers, and he owed it to Jeska and Balthor to find those answers.

"I will stay a while," he said. "But tomorrow's lesson better be more than riddles."

"I think you will like tomorrow's lesson," said Thriss. "Tomorrow I will teach you how to listen to the trees."

When Kamahl came out of the heart tree, his nantuko guide was waiting for him. "Have you been here the whole time?" asked the barbarian.