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Clea knew it was a good-humored jest, but at the suggestion, Clea felt the resurgent uncertainty at straying from her city’s rules. She laughed uncomfortably and ate a spoonful of the stew as Althala took another loud sip from her mug and sat there in silence.
“What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned?” Clea prompted her.
The inquiry catapulted the old woman into a fit of excited rambling.
“I will start with our dear war as it sets the foundation of our history!” She nearly threw the tea out of her mug as she talked; Clea dodged steaming spits of it as Althala’s arms wagged and waved. “Before the Warlord of Shambelin arrived from the north with his beasts, our country was being torn apart by power-hungry warlords, taking advantage of the chaos that erupted when cien appeared.” Althala could no longer sit in her chair. She bounced around the tent as she spoke, pulling maps and books, pointing at images and drawings in the pages that demonstrated the path of her story. She spoke of these historical characters with affinity, not heaviness, as if she knew them personally after long years of study.
“His generals and worshipers killed so swiftly and so thoroughly that we barely had proof of them. There were never any bodies, you see, but speculation about what happened to them varies widely,” she said, opening up a book that seemed to have a triangle depicting the warlord and his two generals.
Clea had no time to ask questions before Althala sped on.
“The warlords did things to each other that would make thehair on your head curl and straighten out again if I recounted them all now! Oh, a brutal game, dear! I tremble to think the same still happens out there beyond our borders! Lawless lands there, where most Veilin dare not go!” Althala’s face looked horrified as she shared the details, and yet her voice somehow still managed to convey excitement.
Clea was in awe of this woman.
Althala chattered on.
“Remnants of the last warlords’ armies joined the Warlord of Shambelin or escaped to the Wraithlands far beyond our continent. When it became clear to the rest of the world that the Warlord of Shambelin had won, humankind united under three Veilin heroes. The first, Oliver Padren, was the hero of Virday. Vanida was the hero of Ruedom.”
“Helina Hart, the hero of Loda, then took forces south to fight the warlord,” Clea concluded, watching Althala’s flurry through the tent, pleased she could offer some evidence that she wasn’t completely ignorant of the tale.
“It was the first full-scale battle in which humanity’s forces collided directly with the warlord’s. To this day, the battle is called The Battle of the Lords,” Althala stated, gesturing to more images that by then Clea could no longer follow. A stack of opened books threatened to topple over on Althala’s desk. “Loda’s history states that Helina’s forces killed the warlord and the third great Veilin, Vanida Rigalia, led forces that drove his generals off toward the coast, near Ruedom. Ever since then, the Veilin have been fighting their war against the scattered remains of that army.”
“And that’s the end?” Clea prodded skeptically.
Althala’s eager expression told her otherwise. “Not according to the Kalex.” She had an almost mischievous expression on her face as she settled at last back into her chair. “According to these Kalex, the cities had four heroes, not three, and the warlord’s army laid siege to the humans who had to build up their city’s walls. The fourth city, home of the fourth hero, fell long ago. The humans and beasts fought both day and night. The siege never ended.”
Clea had heard of the fourth city. Many considered it a myth, now calling it the lost city as no real evidence of it had been found, only suggestions of its early existence. The long pause that ensued assured Clea that Althala’s final sentence was in fact the end of the tale.
“What?” Clea blurted out. “That’s it? If it never ended, we would all be dead.”
“The humans had children and died inside the walls,” Althala replied. “The beasts wasted away outside, but from the carpet of their bones grew the forest. They say that you can see the bones of the warlord’s army in the ancient roots of a fallen tree. It’s why the forest grows dead and seeks to draw us out by the light of the sun. The forest and the beasts that dwell within it are what remains of the army.”
“And the warlord?”
“The Warlord of Shambelin.” Althala paused thoughtfully as if she’d given the idea much thought. “They talk about him less in terms of him being a single being and more a force that haunts us all. He is in many ways a religious figure. He represents their blackest feelings and they pray to him in times of great suffering.”
“They pray to him?” Clea responded in amazement.
“He sees them in their darkness because he dwells there. Life locks us in the lights of illusion. The Warlord of Shambelin seems in many ways to represent the torments of being alive, as does the forest. We are, as they would say, light locked. He promises release from this cage.”
“You mean death,” Clea whispered solemnly.
Althala looked at her withered hands as she nodded. “For the longest time, I didn’t understand that there could be more to it than fantastical legend. Our history in Loda is all reasoned out, but in the strangest way, we’ve reasoned all the truth out of it. Many don’t realize that these stories are symbolic and not to be dismissed for not being factual.”
“My mother believed the truth was in the forest,” Clea whispered, “she ventured out sometimes without cause, just to search for...something. Sometimes she didn’t even seem to know what.”
“Your mother sounds like a woman with my own heart,” Althala replied.
“Illusive in her own ways,” Clea chuckled.
Althala paused thoughtfully before she removed a sheet from a large folder on her desk and handed it to Clea. It was a map of Shambelin. Althala had drawn gray arrows all over it, but there was one red one as well, and most were concentrated in one area near the ocean.
“I don’t have much in the ways of truth,” Althala said, “but I have this to offer. I’ve tentatively recorded sightings of the warlord’s army from historical records and other Kalex legends. Those are the gray arrows. I have found only onesighting of the warlord, and it’s captured in poetry. That is the red arrow and nowhere near any of the established cities. They describe him as a creature, ‘With eyes crowned by the moon, pushing and pulling the tides with but a glance.’ It’s almost…well, mythical, which would have led to doubts of his very existence, if the generals hadn’t been so conclusively documented in their skirmishes with other warlords and our own people.”
She gestured back to the map, returning to her former topic of conversation. “The warlord is a ghost who haunts the forest, and his soldiers are among us, maybe not the trees, but their beasts. Does this not more accurately describe our situation than us living in the wake of the Veilin’s seeming victory? We’ve been teetering on a stalemate for centuries. For all we know, the Warlord of Shambelin may very well be The Decline itself under another name.”
“Do these legends suggest any ways of stopping it or suggest what’s caused it?” Clea gripped the bowl in her hand, shaken by the magnitude of Althala’s conviction and research in presenting such radical ideas.
