XII. GUDENNY

Daumar Gudenny’s grandmother, people said, had been a witch who took a mountain spirit as her consort. He did not know if it was true or not; by the time he was born, his grandmother’s powers had diminished and all she could do was babble when he and his mother visited. But he certainly felt different from the few children in the logging outpost where he grew up, and those differences increased with age. He could scamper up mountainsides like a chamois, walk fearlessly to the tips of treacherous overhangs; sometimes, he could understand the harsh verses of falcons’ battle hymns and the words ravens used in their riddles. By the time of his first beard, he was fatherless, solitary, joyful, and bold.

One night he took shelter in a cave far from home. The night was dark and still, the cave still darker. The darkness was alluring and called to him from the mountain’s heart.

::Do not go further, Daumar Gudenny:: said a spirit.

::This is Bitter Grandfather Mountain:: said another.

::An evil spirit is calling you:: said a third.

But Gudenny did not mind the spirits, and he went as far as he could in the darkness until he grew tired and curled up on the cold cave floor. There he slept for several days, and when he emerged from the mountain he found that something had stolen the color from things, that his ears rang, that lungfuls of fresh mountain air no longer exhilarated him. No spirits spoke to him, and the birds kept their distance. One day, he called to an owl he saw perched above him at twilight. “The spirits and you birds shun me. The world looks gray and dull,” he said. “Why?”

“You walk in two worlds at once, a false world and a real one. You are half flesh and half imaginary. You are wicked and do not know yourself.”

“I am real. You are the imaginary one,” responded Gudenny angrily. “You are wicked!” 

The owl laughed and flew away.

Soon, Gudenny left home for good, not even saying goodbye to his mother, and went west, away from Rashemen and its spirits. It may be that he ended up in Thar because the land had few spirits and was already lusterless, because the way he saw it and the way others did were similar. He found his way to a meager, unscrupulous, and sometimes cruel existence in Melvaunt and on its outskirts. Bandits, hired thugs, pirates, and slavers would have welcomed his help, but he had always preferred solitude. And he had a reason beyond preference, a mysterious commitment.

For not every spirit of Rashemen had abandoned Gudenny. One had followed him. He did not know it was there, but it was. It contrived situations to direct the wanderer’s steps. It placed him where the path it wanted him to take would look like an opportunity. It made him believe that, some day, he would be a king, and that all he needed to do was find the way to the tomb of Vorbyx, First King of Thar.