Lawrence Watt-Evans - Relics of War

“Sardiron of the Waters. It’s north of here. The Council of Barons meets there.”

Tesk looked politely blank. “Council of Barons?”

Garander sighed. “Some of the commanders of the old army don’t accept the authority of the overlords of Ethshar,” he said. “They each claimed a piece of land, and they call themselves barons, and they have a council where they meet to decide what to do.”

“And what do the overlords of Ethshar say about this?” Tesk asked. Garander thought he heard a note of concern in the stranger’s voice.

“They say the Northern taint in these lands has driven these men mad, and it’s not worth fighting over, and they’ll come to their senses in time. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I’ve never seen any of the overlords myself.”

“No, of course not.”

“Have you ever seen an overlord?” Ishta asked Tesk.

He smiled. “No, I have not. I live in the forest; what would one of the mighty rulers of Ethshar be doing in such a place?”

Garander smiled in return. Although he still had no idea what the man was doing here, he was starting to like Tesk.

They chatted for a few more minutes, and Garander grew steadily more comfortable with the stranger. His speech was awkward, but he seemed pleasant and calm. At last, though, Garander said, “We should be getting back, before our parents miss us. They’ll want us to help with supper.”

Ishta opened her mouth to protest, but Tesk said, “Yes. You should. But I will see you again?”

Garander nodded, and Ishta said, “Of course!”

They turned and headed back toward the farm. Garander glanced over his shoulder to see Tesk standing there, watching them go-but then the stranger moved, so fast that Garander thought he must be imagining it, and leapt for a tree branch. A moment later he had climbed up and vanished among the treetops.

Garander looked down at his sister, who had missed the whole thing.

“How did you find him?” he asked.

“The first time? I don’t know. He was crouching on the ground looking for something, and I asked what it was he wanted.”

“What was it?”

“He wouldn’t say. He said it wasn’t important.”

“When was that?”

She turned up an empty palm. “Maybe a month ago?”

“How often have you been out here, then?”

She gave Garander a disgusted look. “I’ve been playing in the woods since I was a baby!” she said.

That was true-and their parents had been trying to put an end to it ever since they first noticed. Warnings about dragons and bears and mizagars had not deterred her; neither had spankings, withheld meals, or anything else. Garander did not really understand why she was so determined; he had never been so obsessed with the forest. He kept hoping she would outgrow it.

“I meant, how often have you been meeting Tesk?”

“Oh. I don’t know, maybe five or six times, counting today.”

“So what do you know about him that he didn’t mention today?”

She turned up her palm again. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think he’s a halfwit, the way he talks, and he says he doesn’t remember anything about his family, or where he grew up, or anything.”

“He seems smart enough to me,” Garander remarked.

“But he doesn’t know anything!” Ishta said. “He looks smart, and everything, but he doesn’t know anything!”

Garander considered that for a pace or two. He suspected that this Tesk knew plenty of things he did not admit to, and there was probably a reason for that. “I’m not sure it’s safe, talking to him,” he said. He spoke mildly; he did not want to antagonize his sister now that they were finally speaking to one another freely again.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Ishta replied. “He’s not a bear , or anything.”

“No, he’s not a bear, or a mizagar or a dragon, but he’s a man, and men can be dangerous.”

“He’s a nice man,” Ishta insisted. “He talks to me like a real person, and he’s interested in everything, not just in farming like you and Father, or clothes like Shella, or food like Mother.”

“I’m interested in other things!” Garander protested.

“Well, yeah,” Ishta conceded. “But I was mad at you about my talisman.”

“So what do you talk about?”

Ishta looked down at her feet as they walked. “Oh, trees, and sunlight, and dragons, and throwing rocks, and the neighbors, and, you know, stuff.”

Garander nodded. “Sounds nice,” he said.

“I told you he was,” Ishta said, raising her head.

Garander did not argue-for one thing, they had reached the edge of the forest, and he did not want to answer any awkward questions should one of their parents overhear their conversation. Neither of them spoke again until they reached the house.

That night Garander lay awake in his bed, staring at the dark beams overhead and thinking about what he had seen and heard.

Tesk did seem pleasant enough, but why was he there, in the woods? Why was he dressed all in black? Why did he move and speak so strangely?

That clothing was unlike anything Garander had ever seen before. So were the tools Tesk carried, whatever they were. Those weren’t anything he found in the woods, and Garander didn’t see how Tesk could have made them without a workshop of some sort. They were much too finished for anything made by hand out of materials found in the forest.

In fact, they looked downright magical.

Tesk did not admit to remembering any family, or any origins. If he was lying, then he was hiding something. If he was telling the truth, then something very strange had happened to him at some point. After all, he must have had parents once-parents, or a creator.

Tesk’s tools, his clothing, his way of moving-they all smacked of magic. It was possible he had been created by magic. He might be something a magician had made in the shape of a man, or something a magician had turned into a man-a snake, perhaps, from the way he moved. Garander didn’t know enough about magic to say with any certainty what sort of magician could have done such a thing; he thought a wizard probably could and a witch probably couldn’t, but sorcerers and theurgists and demonologists, well, he just didn’t know. Tesk could be a clay statue brought to life, a creature conjured out of thin air, a transformed beast…

Or a ghost. Maybe he could survive in the woods because he was already dead, and didn’t know it. That would explain why he wasn’t worried about finding enough food, and his missing memories fit with some of the ghost stories Garander had heard.

But he had certainly looked solid enough, even in bright daylight. That didn’t seem very ghostly.

And of course, he might just be a human being, despite the strangeness.

But if he was human, why was he living in the forest? Why did he talk so oddly? Where did he get those clothes, and the things he carried? Why wouldn’t he say where he had come from?

Garander tried to find some way of avoiding the obvious conclusion, but he couldn’t. Tesk was living in territory that had belonged to the Northern Empire right up to the very end of the Great War, in an area where that talisman Ishta had found proved Northerners had been active. He spoke like someone whose first language was something very unlike Ethsharitic. He wouldn’t say who he really was or where he was from.

However unlikely it seemed after so long, he might be a Northerner. He might have somehow survived the war, and hidden out in the forest ever since. Yes, the gods had blasted the Empire out of existence, and the armies of Ethshar had wiped out the remnants of the Northern military, but that didn’t mean every single Northerner had died. Garander had never heard of any Northern survivors, but that didn’t mean much; he was a farmer’s son on the edge of civilization, not anyone who heard all the latest gossip. For all he knew, hordes of captured Northerners had been paraded through the streets of Sardiron, or sold into slavery in Ethshar.