The man who stands before them appears hearty and hale, whether through manual labor or some other exercise they do not know, about late middle-age, his light brown hair flecked with gray tied back in a long braid and with a tidy beard ornamenting his jawline and chin. His sea-colored eyes sparkle as he takes them in with his gaze, the curiosity behind it almost unnerving in its unabashed intensity. Even with over a thousand years separating their peoples from one another, they can see in the contours of his face his ancient Telméric ancestry, though it is different too, changed after a millennium of developing apart, more narrow, with higher and more prominent cheekbones. If, for lack of a better analogy, the Telmérins tend to look akin to bears, the Vælírians tend to compare more easily to wolves, though each is both more fierce and more gentle than their animal images, and far more subtle and true than any animals is the difference between man and man, woman and woman, for a living human being is immeasurably more than any beast can ever be.

“Greetings,” says Hældáris, seeking to break the awkwardness of the silence.

“Hail, and well met,” the man says in response, with a wave of his hand. “I heard of your ‘plight,’ and my interest was aroused.”

“It seems that everyone heard of our plight,” sighs Aeyósha, remembering the commotion caused by the innkeeper. “But what interest do you have in us?”

“I assume that you are seeking lodging for the night, and would appreciate a meal on top of it?”

“That is correct,” Hældáris admits, warmed to the man’s demeanor and his apparent care, though still cautious.

“Then allow me to treat you in my own home,” the man offers. “It is not far from here, only on the edge of town.”

“What do you gain from such an arrangement?” Aeyósha inquires, more suspicious than his friend.

“I offer it primarily for your benefit. Rarely do we have travelers arrive in such dire straits, and from so far away. However, if anything for myself, I hope to gain some information, and perhaps to impart some.” From the tone of his voice and his bearing, the man seems to all appearances to be telling nothing but the truth, and with good intent as well. “You are welcome to refuse my offer. It is given freely. But it may be a boon for you if you were to accept,” and, pausing to look around as if to insure that no one is eavesdropping on their conversation, he concludes, “I hail from Vælaróma and I might know something that could be of assistance to you in your quest.”

“Did you know anything of our coming?” asks Hældáris.

“Nothing whatsoever,” replies the man, “for it has been long since I was occupied with matters of state. Please, I would say no more here.”

“May we at least have the name of the man who offers us shelter in his home?” Aeyósha asks.

“I could ask a similar question,” replies the man, “though I can guess at least one name. As for me, you shall have my name, I assure you, once we are indoors.”

After sharing a glance, Aeyósha and Hældáris both nod and allow the stranger to lead them through the town to his home. It does indeed sit at the edge of Ûlfaeng, one of the last houses along the northwestern border before the slope of the hill rises again to the surrounding farmsteads, forest, and pastureland. There are a few outlying houses built even into the slope of the hill, yet these tend to be abodes—if appearances are any indication—of the wealthier and more well-to-do citizens. The house of the man who leads them, on the other hand, is surprisingly small, hardly more than a thatch-roofed and waddle-daubed workshop or barn for animals which has been repurposed, though as they step through the door they realize that its interior is homely nonetheless, furnished and decorated with nobility of spirit if not with nobility of class. The stranger places two woven chairs before a clay hearth and gestures for his guests to sit while he himself kindles a flame in the hearth and tends it until it grows to a blazing fire. Then he situates himself facing his guests, sitting not on a chair but on a bundle of firewood, for there are no other chairs in the small dwelling.

“My name,” he says at last, “is Îsáric Stendä, first son of Leif, though my father has since passed, as well as my younger brother, and I alone carry on the Stendä family name. I was at one time a soldier in the army of the Vælírian Empire, though that was long ago, when I was young. When the uprising swelled to a boil in our land I sided with the rebels and broke my oath, and then pledged myself to the new government that established itself in the wake of the Emperor’s death. But eventually I learned, as many in our land are now doing, that new is not always better. For while what has replaced the tyranny of the Empire is different than its forbear, and in many respects more just, it carries great evils of its own, and an injustice of a more insidious kind for its being more subtle. Hence I am as you see me now, a man of no station, and indeed a man of no identity. For here in Ûlfaeng I am called Bairn, son of Ólfa, though never have I met a man who has gone by either name.”

“Greetings, Îsáric son of Leif,” replies Hældáris. “My name, as you seem to have guessed, is Hældáris Illómiel, and this is my companion and friend Aeyósha Hasilómë.”

“So you are Telméric indeed,” Îsáric says with a gentle smile. “Of this I have no doubt. If anything, your accent gives you away more clearly than a bird’s call gives away its kind. Nor do I have much doubt that you are who you say you are. Too many times have I trusted duplicitous men, and too many times suffered the consequences. I have gained a ‘nose’ for it, you might say. And I smell nothing of the sort in either of you.”

“With that we are pleased,” says Aeyósha, with a surprisingly nuanced and fluent use of the Vælírian language considering his earlier comments regarding the paucity of his practice, “for we have weathered much in coming to this place, and, did you doubt us, we would feel little inclination to try and convince you otherwise. But if you are a man of no loyalties, how in turn do you expect to gain our trust?”

Îsáric nods to this question knowingly, as if he has both expected it and understands it. “You are right to ask. For I have betrayed professed loyalty a number of times, and this is something that should never be done unless the one who receives one’s fealty has himself first fallen from the rightness of his state. Then one must at times betray the trust of a man to remain faithful to the cause for which he once stood. Indeed, one must stand against this very man in order to remain faithful to his trust, even when he has broken it. For then it is not the betrayal of an oath but standing for its truth in the face of one who has already betrayed it. So it is that in times of conflict and darkness it is often the little people, the humble and hidden, who remain faithful to the truth when the mighty themselves scorn and reject it. But I regret that I too have been one of the great and the blind, and only now, far too late in my life, have I begun to see and to act differently.”

“In what way do you serve the truth and the good of your people now, Îsáric?” Hældáris asks, and there is no accusation in the question, but only empathy and curiosity.

“The story of what has led me to take up abode at the very fringes of Vælíria, in the town of Ûlfaeng, shall have to wait for another time, but suffice it to say that I had no choice but either to seek refuge or to lose my life. And so here I came, and here I have sought—under a different name—to rekindle the true spirit and ideals of our people. I have also simply sought to be of benefit to the citizens of this place, whether that be distributing my wealth to those who need it more than I or serving upon the council of elders or simply in my words and relations with the people of this town.” In saying these last words Îsáric unintentionally lowers his gaze, as if abashed to speak openly of such things. He seems too aware of his own frailty and his countless infidelities to give even the slightest hint of casting himself in a positive light. This becomes even more apparent when, looking up again, he concludes, “I regret that it is little in comparison with the evil which I have myself either accomplished or allowed during my lifetime.”

Glancing again at the austerity of the one-room dwelling, Aeyósha asks, “What were you doing in the inn of The White Rider? Usually such establishments are only for travelers and wayfarers, and not for citizens of the town.”

“Aye, that too is a good question, but one with a simple answer. The proprietor, a man by the name of Hédrin, whom you have met, is a friend of mine. Though, as you know, he has a prickly side, he can also be generous with those to whom he takes a liking. And so the simplest answer to your question is that he allows me a free meal every evening in exchange for ‘keeping the peace’ in the inn during the twilight hours. Though I suspect this last is but a pretense; it is his way of avoiding shaming me or making me feel indebted to him for his gift.”

“So should you not be ‘keeping the peace’ now?” Aeyósha asks.

“As soon as I saw the two of you depart from the inn,” replies Îsáric, “I spoke with Hédrin and requested leave to follow you. He gave it willingly.”

“You acted quite promptly,” remarks Hældáris. “What moved you so strongly to speak to us?”

“You must understand how significant it is to hear word that the son of the king-father of Telmérion is present in our own lands? Indeed, to see the selfsame man standing before you. And it is particularly significant for myself, being one who has long awaited and hoped for a renewal in our own lands, and among our own people, as has happened in these last thirty-five years among you, our ancestral people.”

“Do you truly think of us, the Telmérins, as your ancestral people?” asks Aeyósha incredulously.

“Aye, that we do,” says Îsáric. “Or some of us do, at least. Perhaps indeed even more than we should, though I would say the point is debatable. In my estimation, nearly everything we have of value as a culture and a nation comes from our heritage in the land of Telmérion. And most of these very things we have willingly and thoroughly betrayed, and even desecrated. Perhaps only from an outside intervention can healing come for us. That is my thought and the judgment of my heart, the fruit of long and painful experience.”

“Be that as it may,” replies Hældáris, “while I do not deny that much of what you say may be true, I cannot believe that nothing good or of value has developed and grown over the many centuries of your people’s existence. Nor do I believe that your culture does not bear within itself a capacity for self-reform, for inner renewal.”

“I do not deny that either,” agrees Îsáric. “Perhaps I spoke too strongly or with too little nuance. All true transformation and rebirth comes from within, after all. Or rather it is the growth within of a gift that is received from without. Thus it comes about not merely by improving upon what is one’s own—not in the narrow and deadly sense of the word ‘mine’— but rather through fidelity to the truth, which is just as equally one’s own as well as the truth of everyone. It is what is done within us, interiorly, by what is nonetheless greater than us. And my point is that we Vælírians, as a people, have largely severed ourselves from the wellsprings of this truth, from the heritage of beauty that was once rightly ours. And just as the soil of the earth or the womb of a woman cannot bring forth new life except through the gift of seed from the outside, so it is now for our culture. Only an unexpected gift from without, an act of grace, can save us.”

“How mysterious a circumstance,” Aeyósha says, obviously surprised and touched by the words that Îsáric speaks, “that we encountered you of all people, and so soon after coming to Ûlfaeng. I did not expect to find a man like you, and even less upon our first encounter.”

“I could say the same,” Îsáric affirms. “Indeed, I could have waited ages for the fulfillment of my hope and never found its answer. But here it was practically poured into my lap.”

“I would not say that we are your hope,” Hældáris corrects, “and I am even more uncomfortable with being thought of as an ‘answer.’ Nonetheless, I can wholeheartedly affirm that we are driven by the same purpose that is dear to your own heart. We wish for the healing and renewal of your people, and that is why we have come.”

“I sensed as much,” says Îsáric. “Why else would the king send his own son to a land that only a generation before had waged war against his people?”

“We come in response to a plea for aid,” Aeyósha explains, “though this does not mean that our desire is not true, nor our intentions toward your people abiding and complete. They are; but we would not have known enough about the need had we not first heard of it in the manner that we did.”

“And even now,” Hældáris continues, picking up his friend’s train of thought, “we know very little. We will gladly tell you more about ourselves and the purpose of our journey, but we are also deeply desirous of hearing all that you could tell us of your people and your land.”

“Then let us do that,” Îsáric concludes. “However, first let us begin the preparations for supper, for I imagine you are quite famished.” Upon receiving their confirmation of this fact, he rises to his feet and, with their assistance, prepares a large pot of stew, filled with potatoes, vegetables, and barley grain, which he hangs on a wrought iron hook over the fire. And so Hældáris and Aeyósha relate their tale to the pleasing smell of cooking food, though at the most grievous moments that they have to relate, all senses are forgotten in the vivid memory of pain and bereavement. When they have finished, Îsáric says, “I am sorry for the loss that you have suffered. Indeed I could not have imagined a worse fate for you than the one that you have endured.” He sighs after saying this, and it is evident by the look upon his face that his sorrow and compassion are genuine. Then he continues, “And yet it seems almost a miracle to me that the two of you have survived. Your words about this great sea serpent are terrifying, and I can hardly imagine the horror of the beast itself. An entire ship splintered to fragments and a whole host of men and sailors cast into the sea… Forgive me, I do not mean to linger more on what you have already had to revisit for my sake. I must say, though, that my hope is that your survival, as unlikely as it was, may indeed prove a harbinger of hope and light for our people.”

“To be honest,” retorts Hældáris, “I do not see how my presence, even as the king’s son, could be of any more significance for your people than that of any other man.”

“Neither do I,” says Îsáric, “though there may perhaps be something you can do that no other can. Regardless, I take it as a sign for myself, at least, a sign that the time of hiding has ended and the time of action has come. For hearing word from you about the message sent to Telmérion is enough to direct my course and to show me a path forward, even if only the very first step.”

“What do you mean?”

“In order to answer that question, it shall be necessary for me to tell you more about my story. That is what was expected, though, was it not? After your account I was to give my own.” Îsáric then pauses and leans forward to stir the stew. “Yet it appears,” he says, “that our meal is prepared. Let me grab some dishes and serve you. You shall eat while I relate to you what I have to say.” And so he does. “First you must understand that I grew up in close contact with the forces of the old Empire, for my father was one of the legal deputies of Emperor Maríndas. He did not have counselors, you see, or if they were called by that name they little functioned as such, for he listened to the counsel of no man. My father was rather an executor of his will; I experienced firsthand, therefore, the corruption that stood at the fountainhead of our society and that led it on a path of destruction. For if we flourished and spread as an empire, even traveling to other lands to take them under the sway of our ever-growing power, internally we rotted and decayed even as we drew breath. I therefore knew a great deal that led me to join the rebellion when it burst into flame, though at this point my father had died and I was a grown man.”

“But did you not say,” interjects Aeyósha, “that you were once a soldier of the Empire? Why did you choose this station if you saw the evil firsthand?”

“That is a good and just question. First of all I chose it, in the folly of my youth, because it was expected of me,” replies Îsáric. “It is also often a long road from the recognition of an evil with one’s mind to the true rejection of it in one’s heart and life. So it was for me. Perhaps we shall speak more of such a time later, but what is important now, I think, is to explain to you the sickness of our Empire before the rebellion, for the sickness that spreads among us now is surprisingly similar, even if on the surface it appears far different. Rare is the man who finds in his hands absolute power who is not corrupted by it—or rather, any man who believes he has absolute power to fashion either his own fate or that of others is embracing a lie, and this lie shall corrupt him. So believed the Emperor and his ancestors all the way back to the Empire’s founding; and so, sadly, believed the ‘reformers’ and ‘architects’ of our culture after the destruction of the Empire. So in a sense it was inevitable that we would come to this point, facing the same evil under a different guise.”

“What is this evil of which you speak? What are its contours?” asks Hældáris. “Do you speak only of the false use of authority, of a government that becomes the use of power rather than the custodianship of love?”

“The way that you ask your question already illustrates the depth of your understanding,” Îsáric says. “But to answer your question: that is certainly a trait of this sickness and of the pain it brings to our people, a consequence of the hubris that makes our leaders blind and deaf to the desires and fears, the hopes and dreams, of the people, of the little ones who are truly great, and for whose sake alone any man can rightfully accept the authority to govern and to guide. But the roots of this evil lie not only in the abuse of authority or in a government that serves its own interests rather than that of the people. No, the roots go deeper, both in the history of Vælíria and in the contours of our culture. For, you see, we have long undergone another ‘rebellion’ of sorts—a kind of revolution—not in the realm of statecraft, but in the realm of thought and belief. But for that you shall need a bit of background.

“For you probably know only that the Vælírians have long worshiped the same deities as you—minus one—the six divines: Nerethion, Hiliána, Meléngthar, Telmoth, Mornwyn, and Toroäs. Yet these are but figureheads and symbols for most; long years have passed since they have been a vital force in the lives of the people or a true conviction in their hearts. An allegorical, political function alone do they now serve; in other words, they have become hardly more than a tool of propaganda in the hands of the ruling elite. Under the guise of this religiosity, now emptied of all meaning, a new order grew up among our people—and from the top downward, from those who considered themselves ‘enlightened,’ and granted a new form of knowledge inaccessible to the previous centuries, which were seen as blind, superstitious, and incapable of the rational thought necessary for true freedom and for the realization of human potential. There were, however, two different ‘strands’ of this revolution, if one may express it so. First there was the irreligious one, which in all of its desire to throw off the mantle of religious conviction—of man’s innate longing for the transcendent, for the discovery of his origin and his destination, and the establishment of a relationship with the author and sustainer of his life—became in large part defined precisely by its insistent rejection of such conviction. It sought the death of the gods and the liberation of man. This was the new religion of the elites, of the rich, powerful, and influential, but it had little standing, at least at first, among the ordinary classes, among the workers and the poor. Thus the second form also grew up, though I know not whether it did so spontaneously among the people as a response to the void that the ‘death’ of the gods left in its wake, or whether it was implanted from above. Either way, however, it introduced a popular and widespread alternative to the traditional religious belief, one that focused not upon adoration and worship, nor upon the pursuit of the beauty and goodness that lie at the foundation of this world and of our own lives, the wellspring of happiness, but rather upon the pursuit and attainment of power.

“For man is religious of his very nature. This I believe. He is so radically filled with longing for the divine, for an establishment of communion with the invisible realm—for the Beauty and Goodness whose face is beyond our seeing and yet whose glimpses we see at every moment from our earliest days to our last—that when man supplants the object of this longing he necessarily replaces it with another. Even the man who presumes to live ‘beyond the death of the gods,’ in the realm in which the human person at last is the sole arbiter of his own destiny, will find himself living constantly against the very gods whom he has rejected. But if they have been supplanted, indeed if they had never truly existed but in the naïve minds of the populace, then why does he feel it necessary to be continually waging war against them? Yet so it was for many years, even as this war was not enough to truly eradicate the longing for the divine from the hearts of the people. And this is why an alternative was offered in its stead. If people needed to lean upon the crutch of belief, then they should have a belief that served the purposes of the nation, and not a useless belief ordained toward invisible realities.

“So rather than worshiping the Anaíon whom we share with you, the Telmérins, the faith in whom we brought with us over the sea from our fatherland, the worship of the anári was instead introduced. I see it in your faces. You are surprised. How could you never have known or even have suspected this? How could the Empire of Vælíria have appeared so similar to your own nation in this regard when it had in fact replaced its very heart with another? But was not the difference in fact obvious? Look only at the radical divergence between the actions and the values of the two cultures. The actions of Vælíria over the last few centuries could not be further different than those of Telmérion. We became an imperialistic superpower, spreading our tentacles as far as they would reach and taking control of the peoples of other nations. And if we did not then spread our views and beliefs along with the firm hand of our rule, this was not because of a respect for the cultures of the peoples whom we subjugated, but because we thought of them as less than ourselves, undeserving of such a condescension. After all, if one believes himself to have been touched by the truth, to have found the truth, how can he not also yearn to share and communicate this truth to his fellow man? So this was for us neither a matter of sharing the truth with others nor of respecting their freedom, wishing not to crush out what is uniquely their own; after all, the revelation of the truth, when it is given freely in a spirit of authentic dialogue—of both listening and speaking—never hinders the uniqueness of individuals or of a people, but rather enriches precisely this uniqueness. Rather, we as a nation refrained from revealing our own ‘interior reform’ to others because it was to be a tool of dominance over them. We had succeeded in replacing truth with power. Our new truth was power and nothing but power, and we believed our supposed knowledge to be right because it gave us strength over others. At the appropriate time, of course, all would be brought to heel, all would understand and share in our ‘illumination,’ in the wisdom of our people.

“That at least was the intention with which the conquests began, being both ideological as well as political—motivated, in other words, both by national and intellectual pride as well as by the desire for wealth, gain, and power. But things changed as the years passed and emperors died and handed on the rule to others. Our people began to decay from within, particularly those of higher standing. And eventually hardly anything remained but the empty shell of lost belief—belief in anything at all, and not only in the divines. What we as a nation came to seek, at least the mightier of us, was an increase in power, wealth, and political well-being—a life that would endure without needing to look beyond itself to any other source, at least one that was transcendent or spiritual in nature. At the same time, however, the ‘new’ form of spiritual belief that had been introduced took yet deeper root among the populace, particularly among the uneducated or the poor, though it was also espoused by some of the elite for reasons of their own—or perhaps even from real conviction. And the surprising thing was that the anári, rarely acknowledged in truth or even in name, became a real source of power, of effectiveness, thus offering a promising bridge from supposed private, irrelevant belief to actual productivity in this world. Cult became something almost exclusively functional, ordained toward specific results, and rarely did those who related to the anári have any sense of who or what these entities might in fact be, or an interest to pursue deeper devotion or commitment. There existed, however, strands that were more extreme or radical in their pursuits, and often these were given greater power as well. For, beyond what one would expect, it became apparent that, if the old gods had been incapable of answering prayer and intervening in human life (or did not wish to do so in open, tangible ways), the new gods nonetheless actually brought results. How then could we ignore that these were beings of true power? Thus the religious impulse came to birth again among many in the very context of the widespread loss of belief; and yet it came in ‘backwards,’ you might say, centered upon man’s pursuit of power over nature and all the mysterious forces in his life, rather than centered upon the journey of man beyond the narrow limits of his selfishness and fear and toward the beauty of the life and love that call him.”

Here Îsáric falls silent as if reflecting on the import of his words, as well as allowing them to resound in the minds and hearts of his hearers. Aeyósha is the first one to speak and break the silence, asking a question, “These anári of which you speak, what are they?”

“We do not rightly know.”

“But you said that they have power? In what way? For in Telmérion we are well acquainted with the experience of divine power, whether it be of the creatures of light or of darkness. However, we would say in this regard not ‘divine’ power but ‘anaïc’ power, or ‘draïc’ power, for we have learned to distinguish the Anaíon and Draíon, the pure spirits of light and darkness, from the One who alone is deserving of the title of divinity. For we recognize him alone as divine and deserving of worship, even if toward the Anaíon we have deep reverence and devotion. Nonetheless, despite the hiddenness of the gods and the subtlety of their presence, our history is interwoven with the experience and the intervention of these supernatural beings, and its most dramatic expression has marked even our most recent history. The light has come to us as a whisper that has grown into a song, confronting and at last surpassing the darkness which for countless ages has been oppressing our people as a cacophony of shouted noise.”

“You speak quite poetically, but I believe I understand what you say,” says Îsáric. “We too have been acquainted, at least, with the loudness and violence of the Draíon, and with their horrid creations. Regarding the other thing of which you spoke, this sole divine, I would hear more sometime. But to respond to your question, I say: I myself have not had direct acquaintance with these anári, so it is difficult for me to say precisely in what their power consists or its manner of operating. But my personal supposition is that they are hardly more than a cloak for the Draíon, a pleasing guise. For as you have indicated, even the intervention of the ones you called divines, or gods, whom our shared tradition has named the Anaíon, has about it something of subtlety, of delicacy, which the work of the evil beings does not. And the anári are more the latter than the former.”

“That is an apt description,” says Aeyósha. “It often seems that the forces of evil are stronger than the forces of good, not only in the powers at work beyond the heart of man but even in the heart of man itself. And so it is in the intervention of our beloved Anaíon, and their nemeses, the Draíon, in our world: the good beings always work with such, to use your term, subtlety, for they profoundly respect the freedom of man and seek to uphold it, to affirm it, to perfect it, and not to either replace it or to turn it into something it is not. But the beings espoused to evil have no qualms about this, and they are more than willing to use force and violence—and to incite it—to achieve their goals.”

“Precisely,” agrees Îsáric. “Who are these beings called the anári, and in what manner do they exercise and bestow power? I believe the latter reveals the former.”

Having heard this summary, Hældáris then speaks, changing the trajectory of the conversation by directing it back to its earlier course. “You have spoken to us of the political and religious dimensions of the development of your nation. But how does this relate precisely to your own experience of the evils of the Empire? And even more, how does it relate to the tendencies of today which you discern to be so unjust?”

“That also is a good question, and an appropriate avenue to continue our converse,” says Îsáric. “In fact that is where I have intended to lead all along. It was important, though, that you understood the context—the wide view—of what I am now to relate. One other fact is also important to keep in mind, namely that by the time I was born the Empire was already old, having existed for close to four hundred years. And earthly things, unless they discover an interior principle of renewal beyond themselves, grow old with age. No, I do not say that to be humorous. It is the simple truth. Unless renewal comes from beyond man, man and all his works are destined for death and dissolution. And if he insists on their ceaseless endurance regardless, in the exact form in which he has found them, they become dealers of death, bound to his own false desire for immortality, for a timelessness in the midst of time which neither understands or accepts the journey that all time implies, looking as it does both within itself and beyond itself to something timeless, which alone can be the measure of time and the source of its renewal and its lasting youthfulness and truth. In other words, things of this world, including the works of man, shall endure forever to the degree that within them lives something timeless and eternal.

“The desire for a static, self-enclosed timelessness, for power and control, marked the institution of the Empire and the exercise of the Imperial power, centered almost exclusively in one man who claimed nigh absolute authority. Yes, we had a senate composed of the various harési and the college of the dómës, but they could little exercise any effective authority apart from the Emperor himself. They were for all practical purposes merely an extension of his own authority, whom he could with a simple veto oppose and whose deliberations held little weight without his blessing. Now I do not deny that every social organization for its endurance and its unity calls for a central authority, but this authority must be one of custodianship, a witness to the one truth and goodness that unites all persons, and a custodianship exercised in brotherhood with all men, the great and the small, whether they be senators, collegians, or the common man who has never left his family homestead. Your father, the king of Telmérion, is to me a beautiful witness of such authentic authority in custodianship and conciliation, in obedience to the truth and brotherhood with all. Such is the case, at least, if all that I have learned even at such a great distance, not having visited your nation myself, is true.

“But I digress now and fail to make my point. And the point is this: that we, the people of Vælíria, had for many years all but entirely lost our heart. After the colonization of our land and the establishment of the various city-states, each independent and yet existing in a cooperation with the others, we remained for the most part at peace. For almost seven hundred years the people of Væliria flourished and grew, building settlements—be they farmsteads or villages, houses of the dómës or hovels of the poor—and spreading across the land. But over time the different city-states grew and expanded both in wealth and in influence, and even those that were content to remain with their inherited lands and resources still had to contend with their greedy and power-hungry neighbors. And among these one in particular grew to prominence over the years, that of Vælaróma, situated centermost upon the land in a rich and fertile basin between the mountains, with abundant farmland as well as woodland, with rocky slopes and deep caves for mining ore and gems, and also, in its furthest borders on the east, access to the sea. Vælaróma, because of its location and its expanse, thus became a nearly unavoidable stop on the roads of trade between the different states.

“Yet its prominence and its growth were due not only to this, but to the ambition of its kings, who exercised all their power and skill to increase the wealth and the rule of their estate. Even so, it was a ruler from another kingdom who eventually usurped the rule not only of the clan-lands of Vælaróma but of the entire continent. He assumed the throne of Vælaróma and, not without conflict and bloodshed, brought into existence the Empire. I assume you are educated in the history of this genesis and it is not necessary for me to recount it here.” Receiving silent nods and affirmations from his two interlocutors, Îsáric continues. “This Empire brought a unification to the lands that we have come to call by the single name of Vælíria. Many indeed accepted this unification, perhaps most, though the form of this unity was a betrayal of the very spirit and heritage that was ours, and which we carried in our hearts from our first home of Telmérion. It was a unity of a nature as different from the unity safeguarded and fostered by the king of Telmérion as fire is from water. It burned what did not seem to belong rather than affirmed it—corrected, purified, and healed if necessary—and integrated it into the harmony that all men desire. But the process of the dying out of our heritage was so gradual, and done under the promises and indeed the experience of such growing wealth and national power, that we hardly noticed it occurring.

“And great was the shock that I received whenever, in my youth, I began to read the documents of the past, not only those recounting the birth and growth of the Empire and its power—and its conquests in other lands—but also the years before, the earliest beginnings of our nation in this land. And yes, I read even further back with voracious appetite any words that I could find. I became fascinated with our origins, with the ancient history of our still-united people in the land of Telmérion. And I began to see and to feel the folly of the Empire, and its betrayal. I began to yearn for something new, for a rediscovery, a renewal, a rebirth. But long did it take for the knowledge in my mind and the desire in my heart to impel me to effective action. I was actually stirred to it from without, finally breaking my inability to do anything about what I believed, when the rebellion was kindled into flame. And thus I threw myself wholeheartedly into it, supported it, and acted with such enthusiasm that I now regret many of my actions during that time. For in my longing to create a new order of life for our people, to bring about our restoration, I did what no man should do: I judged that the end justifies the means. I believed that if the cause is just, then any means to its attainment is just. And such is folly. Such a way of acting not only corrupts the heart that commits it, but also dooms the effort to failure at its very start.

“And I see it now; indeed many of us see it now. You yourself have received word from the haléndi—some of them at least—that our ‘new society’ is already beginning to degenerate again into tyranny. For we did not build on adequate foundations. We did not build upon the truth, upon faith, upon the brotherhood of all men and women. We built rather upon our own enthusiastic belief in ourselves, in our ability to establish a republic that would be its own safeguard, forgetting that the only true safeguard of man and his communities is the truth. And now the very ones who claimed to wield power for the common good, to represent the interests of the people in throwing off the yoke of the age-long Empire and establishing a new form of governance, now these very people are taking power to themselves beyond their allotted place. I already witnessed this when I was in Vælaróma, and I opposed it. And such opposition nearly cost me my life.

“I am glad, therefore, to learn that others also of high rank oppose those who seek to fashion our nation according to their own imaginings, driven by what madness I do not know. Your message, however, also comes to me as an accusation, an accusation telling me that I have remained idle and safe in hiding for too long, and that action is again required of me. Until now I have heard the reports of battle and bloodshed spreading from the capital like tendrils reaching from a poisoned tree spreading through the entire woods, and I have done nothing. I suppose I thought my initial opposition was enough, and that having stated my resistance I had done all that was required of me. Now I see what a foolish and self-serving thought that was. For if men from across the ocean, men living in a land of peace—indeed the son of the king himself—come to our land at their own peril in hopes of aiding us, what excuse have I to remain in the narrow security I have created for myself? Yet even in resisting this evil, I would wish to avoid war at all costs and to seek a peaceful solution to this matter. Such too seemed to be the aid that the haléndi were requesting of you, was it not?”

“That was the impression that I received,” replies Hældáris, and Aeyósha nods in agreement. “Nonetheless they left their request open, saying that if this failed other avenues were to be considered. Armed resistance was not excluded from these. But it seemed to us clear that they wished, if their words were honest, to find another solution to the ills of this land than open war. That also is obviously our wish as well, and the prime reason we have come. And regardless, any armed might that we might have hoped to bring has perished in the ocean—or at least one of the three ships that set forth from Telmérion, and we know not what happened to the other two.”

“I for my part trust the men who speak of such things and do not doubt their intentions. Nonetheless, war threatens us whether we would wish it or not, and all we can do is respond to it as best we can,” says Îsaric sadly. And then, as if becoming aware of himself and of his surroundings for the first time, he adds, “But it is late, and you have traveled far, and we have spoken much. Let us therefore retire for the night. On the morrow we can continue our converse in whatever still needs to be addressed, though my heart already longs for action. But let us deliberate first, let us listen and look, that such actions may be guided aright.”