The conversation was not going as Voran had hoped. For the first time since the hag’s village, Voran feared Tarin.
“If that is true,” countered Voran, “then how can I know whether to trust you?
“Indeed, my falcon,” Tarin said, chuckling. “You have hit on it exactly. How indeed?”
What a terrible lack of an answer, thought Voran.
The silence surrounding them deepened, until even the crackling of the bonfire faded. Gently, with no jarring effect, Voran’s heart inclined to the calm surrounding Tarin like his own breath. Unbidden came the word to his lips—Saddaí—and he whispered it, feeling the stillness reach out to him and envelop him, until the very act of questioning seemed spurious. How long they sat thus, minutes or hours, Voran never could recall. It was one of the most wondrous moments of his life.
“You begin to understand, Raven Son. Good. I hoped you would.”
“Lord Tarin, it has no words, what I experienced,” said Voran, breathless with wonder. “It was as if the most thunderous harmony and piercing silence mingled into one. Time raced and stopped altogether, all at a still point. It was as if I actually experienced truth personally, and yet I know nothing at all. How can I explain it? If the power of the sea could be contained in a drop of water, if the limitless potential of words could be expressed in a single thought. An infinite multiplicity in a single entity. Is it I who even speak? I don’t recognize my own voice.”
“What you experienced is but a splinter in the Great Tree, so to speak.”
Like a sunset, the nameless experience faded, but it left behind a twilight magic.
“What else was it like, Raven Son?” Tarin’s eagerness was child-like.
“It was like being on fire.”
Tarin slapped his knee loudly, his smile creasing every possible inch of his face.
“Yes! You asked about the sign on the sword? It is the wing of a Sirin that has undergone the baptism of flame. It is said that, to scale the Heights of Aer, one must be baptized in fire seven times…”
Tarin grew thoughtful, and his recent inspiration seemed to run out. There was much Voran did not understand, but it seemed he would have to content himself with waiting for now. Nevertheless, he decided to try one more question.
“Why do you call me Raven Son?”
Tarin, torn from his train of thought, looked irritated. “The question of your name is not mine to answer. You will know soon enough.” He stood up and began to pack. “Time we were off. Not so far now.”
“Are we so close to the weeping tree?” asked Voran.
Tarin stopped, sighed heavily, and stretched himself to his full height.
“Raven Son. You must give up all thoughts of finding Living Water. You are not ready. You need to be trained. When you are ready, we will both seek it.”
An avalanche of fury burst from Voran’s chest. “Vasyllia is on the brink. You said it yourself. Why do we dawdle? We do not have the time!”
“You do not direct the flow of events in the world, Voran. There is a greater power than you at work here. If you go now, you will be eaten alive in minutes. Have you heard nothing of what I have said? The hag’s curse still stinks on you. Do I need to remind you of the five reasons for your slavery, especially the fifth one?”
The morning sun revealed a change in the landscape. In the distance towered a line of cedars—incongruous amid the bare trees and low shrubs—standing as if sentinels over an ancient borderline.
“That is the extreme end of ancient Vasyllia,” said Tarin. He hoisted his single pack and turned toward the cedars.
They reached the treeline by midday. The cedars were even more impressive in proximity, standing so near each other that the other side was barely visible, even through the trunks. There was something shimmery on the other side, as though they looked into a pool of water, not a landscape.
“That is a doorway, yes? We are entering the Lows again?”
Tarin winked at Voran and chattered like a chickadee.
As they passed through the trees, they were plunged into complete darkness. Voran could only see Tarin’s outline in the shadows the trees cast. On the other side, to his disappointment, Voran saw nothing but a fallow, brown field. Drab elms, shorn of leaf, surrounded the field. Nestled under a particularly large elm, still within the shadow of the sentinel trees, three greyish wooden shacks slouched.
They appeared hardly standing, almost ready to fall over at a whisper of wind. Sloping thatch roofs, brown and ancient, bleary windows framed in dirty, cracked carvings—these were the only adornments, if they could be called that. They seemed to have been thrown together on a whim, not built according to plan. Voran’s heart sank at the thought of living in such a place. Tarin, on the contrary, seemed genuinely excited, and even broke into verse again.
“I know you marvel at this land,
This paradise, my palace grand.
Does not its splendor catch the eye?
Do not its many towers high,
Replete with every earthly need
Surpass all legends that you read?”
He spread his arms out like a child presenting a favorite toy to a new friend. He actually seemed to believe in his own description of this eyesore as a palace.
The inside of Tarin’s shack was as the external appearance would suggest—four walls, a rough pallet in the corner, the straw brown and pungent with neglect, a bench, a small table. On the windowsill stood several clay jars with twigs sticking out in odd assortments. Tarin diligently watered the twigs, as if they were exquisite roses. Voran half expected them to sprout on the spot, but nothing happened.
Voran’s own shack was much the same, except without the twigs, for which Tarin apologized: “You have no garden, Raven Son. You have yet to earn it.”
The brief tour completed, Tarin sighed and seemed to brace himself for something unpleasant. Walking to a sort of courtyard of mud between the three huts, he drove his staff into the soft ground. Turning to Voran, he said, “Raven Son. If you have any idea of what is good for you, you will water this tree”—he indicated the staff—“every morning, until it flowers. Today, since we’ve traveled long and you are tired, your work will be easy. Come.”
He led Voran behind the largest shack, where Voran saw a large metal tool that looked like the lower jaw of some huge animal, with rusted metal teeth pointing up. It had a harness that looked fitted for an ox. Voran’s heart sank.
