The Last Talisman (40 page)

“Yes,” said the voice.

It was him. At long last.

“After hating me all these years, don't you want to see me?” the Tyrant asked.

Nihal continued forward, and the figure on the throne began to resolve itself. The figure was miniscule, too small to be a man. A dwarf, perhaps? It rose to its feet and took a few steps forward until it stood directly in the line of light coming in through a windowpane behind the throne. Nihal's blood froze. Her sword trembled in her hands.

Standing before her was a frighteningly beautiful child, twelve years old, at most. He wore a long, black cloak with a wide collar and a blue eye sewn into the chest—a sorcerer's cloak. His eyes beamed emerald green and his hair was an intense blue, curly. A few loose ringlets tumbled down over his forehead. Two pointed ears arose from beneath his night-black mantle.

“Aster, where are you?” Nihal asked, her voice quaking with fear, not daring to look beyond the child.

“I'm right here. I am Aster,” the young sorcerer replied.

“What have you done to this child, you monster?” Nihal shouted.

The boy frowned. “But Nihal, haven't you always felt lonely? Haven't you always suffered at the thought that you're the last remaining survivor of your people? You should be happy to see me. …” He smiled. “You're not alone anymore, Nihal. I too am a half-elf.”

Nihal backed away, petrified. It couldn't be. “Aster is an old man. He's been in power for forty years.”

“I am older than I seem, Nihal. I'm very old, and very tired, in truth.”

“It's not possible!”

“It was the father of the woman I loved who made me the way I am. He was a powerful sorcerer, and when he discovered our love, he locked me in this curse. Until the day I die, I will remain a child.”

Nihal continued backing away, horrified. It seemed like a nightmare, all of it. Aster went on staring at her with his astonished, innocent eyes.

“In truth, I understand. For all these years, you've hated me, and now you must reconcile the image in your mind with the child standing before you. And yet, this is the reality.”

Nihal ceased backing up and raised her sword, as if at any moment Aster might attack her. She felt lost, perplexed.

Aster continued pacing toward her. The closer he came, the more Nihal felt racked with terror. She forced herself to look her enemy in the eye. But what she saw were her own eyes, none of the hatred or wickedness she expected to find there. Aster held her in his gaze, with a look of serenity, of concern, almost. Yes, he was a half-elf, beyond doubt.

Nihal had never seen another of her people in real life, but she could sense her deep affinity with the child. They were alike, just like the figures depicted on the piece of parchment Sennar had given her so long ago, just like the creatures carved into the bas-reliefs of Seferdi. She began to tremble.

“What is it about me that terrifies you so? That I'm a child? Or that I'm a half-elf?” Aster asked.

“How could you … your own people,” Nihal murmured. “Your own brothers, and you massacred them.”

Aster smiled. “I had no choice,” he said calmly. “When I began constructing this empire you see before you, when I began my mission, an old man prophesied that you would one day stand in my way. He did not say that it would be you, only that it would be a half-elf like myself that would foil my plans. The mission with which I was charged was far too great, far too important, to allow myself to be tripped up by anyone, of any race. And so I sent my creatures, the Fammin, whom I'd only just created, to the Land of Days to exterminate my people.” Aster's cold, detached voice echoed through the immense room.

“This can't be true.”

“But it is, Nihal. And I did it because of you. If you'd never gotten it in your head to come all this way, to enter my palace, to seek revenge, the half-elves would still roam their land. Sure, they'd be subject to my rule, but they'd be alive.

Nihal began backing away again, as the Tyrant's last words resounded in her head. She'd always known it. She'd always felt herself a curse upon the world, a harbinger of death and misfortune. So many lives had been lost on her account: her people, Livon, Fen, Laio, Raven … all dead because of her.

“Don't torment yourself over it,” said Aster. “In the end, they'd have died all the same. The half-elves, your friends, the free, the enslaved. Everyone.”

“You're a monster!” Nihal shouted, her back against the wall.

“Of course,” said Aster. “Though no more than anyone else. No more than you or your soldiers. No more than any other living, breathing creature that walks this wretched earth. Are they not all out there butchering one another? Are they not all in front of my palace, right this moment, slaying one another mercilessly and delighting in the act?

“It's freedom we're fighting for,” Nihal answered.

“No, you merely delude yourselves into thinking that,” the Tyrant countered. “But you must have figured that out by now. You know as well as I do that peace has never once graced this world, that the fifty years of rule under Nammen that you and your rebels can't stop praising were merely fifty years of war: silent, yet no less bloody. And you know that it was men who tore down Seferdi. You know it all, and yet you refuse to see.”

“You're wrong. I see it all just fine. I've seen the monsters in your laboratory. I've seen Malerba. I've seen the corpses hanging in Seferdi. I've seen the Fammin, forced to fight against their will. And you are the creator of all this horror. You are Evil itself! You are Hatred!” Nihal shouted in a single breath.

“You would know, an expert in hatred,” Aster cried, and cast her such a searing, penetrating glance she was forced to avert her eyes. “You slaughtered hundreds of Fammin without even asking yourself if it were just and you did it for the pleasure of killing. You basked in the glorious feeling of your enemy's blood as it trickled down your arms. You felt a surge of power each time you thrust your blade into a man or into a dwarf. Lives—discarded at the point of your black sword. And don't come here trying to tell me you weren't cruel. It won't bring an ounce of relief to any of the victims you slaughtered.”

Nihal felt his words sink into the depths of her soul, and in their wake rose the haunting ghosts of her past, each and every one of them, all that she thought she'd buried in her heart. In furious droves, they came alive. It was true. She'd delighted at the blood of others; she'd killed for the joy of killing. “You're no better than me!” she howled, her nerves frayed.

“Of course not. But then what are you doing here? Do you think you have the right to judge me? To punish me? Nihal, we live in a world of unpardonable sinners. We are all monsters,” Aster said calmly, “each and every one of us.”

Nihal was seething with rage. Why wouldn't he snap, why wouldn't he lose his temper, why wouldn't he flare with hate? How could hate not be at the bottom of such evil? Could it come from such cold rationality? His metal indifference, his childish eyes, so insistently pure—no matter how hard she strained, Nihal couldn't bring herself to understand, to hate this being in front of her deep down.

Aster began pacing up and down the room, and Nihal followed his movements as if enchanted. The sun, behind the window, had settled in to its final descent.

“I've seen dozens of these so-called heroes of the Free Lands, and they all say the same thing: ‘We fight for the freedom of this world, to bring hope.'” I don't doubt that you all believe in what you say, but it's nothing other than a pathetic attempt to excuse your vile actions.”

“A life of peace and liberty is the highest aim a living being can aspire to,” said Nihal.

Aster burst into laughter. “Oh, what poetry! I'd never have expected it from someone whose only gift in writing couplets is with the blade of her sword.” He went on pacing up and down the room, only to snap his head around suddenly. “A reassuring excuse, nothing else. Vain illusions, fancies that blow away in the lightest breeze. And yet you fools cling to them as if they were eternal truths, as if there were nothing more certain in this world than the instinctive good will of all creatures. No. I'm afraid the only certainty is hatred. An evil wind stirs this world, poisoning souls and corrupting hearts. Wickedness breeds like a parasite in all things, infecting the earth. All is filled with hatred, with the desire to destroy. Hate alone is the world's irrefutable truth.”

“I've known people with pure hearts,” Nihal cried in desperation. “People who helped me when I was alone. People who have dedicated their lives to doing good.”

“Only because they haven't yet had the chance to behave otherwise. All cognizant creatures on this world are good and kind-hearted, until the hate buried within them finds its way to the surface.” He halted, riveting her in his gaze. “Even Laio, your dear squire, without an ounce of fight in his bones, found a way to kill in the end.”

“Don't you dare stain his memory!” Nihal shouted.

“That's not my intention,” Aster replied, his tone unshakably serene. “I'm only showing you that all good is ephemeral, all evil eternal. I suffered many years to come to grips with this truth, but in the end I accepted it.” Aster was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again it seemed to cost him a great effort. “Nihal, for so long I believed what you now believe. I'm not a pure half-elf. My mother was a half-elf, my father a man. In those years, mixed marriages were still thought to bring shame on a community, and the women who defiled themselves with such a choice were fated to lead miserable lives. My mother struggled for so long to keep her love for my father hidden, but when I was born, the truth could no longer be concealed. There are no half-elves with green ears, Nihal. By the order of our village leader, my father was sentenced to death and my mother branded with the symbol of a harlot. Before I reached the age of three, my talent for sorcery became clear. Perhaps it came as an effect of my mixed blood, but by then I was already reciting spells and speaking with animals, without ever having trained.

“In those days, sorcerers were despised in the Land of Days. The king had ordered that all be sent into exile, for fear of their power. And so I was condemned, immediately, and without trial. It was the perfect occasion for them to scrub away two stains on their precious society: a bastard and a whore. They banished us to the eternal dark of the Land of Night.

“We were poor and unwanted, no matter where we went—me for the way I looked and my abnormal gifts in magic, she for the mark on her forehead. Mine was a solitary childhood, and in that solitude the ideal crept into my mind and enflamed my soul. With everything in me, I believed this world could be made perfect, that all could live in peace and health, free of suffering, and I wanted to be a part of that transformation. My mother found a sorcerer willing to take me on as a student, and so began my training. In truth, there wasn't much my master could teach me that I didn't already know, but he served as a worthy guide. Two years later, my mother died, in one of the many battles between the warlords of the Land of Night.

“At fourteen years old, I became a sorcerer. No one before had ever been inducted at such a young age. I can still see the terror and astonishment on the faces of all those who examined me that day. They admired me and feared me at once. I then asked my teacher to place me in the apprenticeship of a councilor. My mother had spoken of them often, and in my imagination I saw them as stern, respectable men with long beards, closed up in a room to discuss the fate of the world. I wanted to be one of them. For two years, I studied without pause. Night and day, hunched over books, traveling to distant libraries, greedy for every speck of human knowledge. I slept only rarely, driving myself beyond exhaustion in the name of mastering spells. It was then, poring over one book after another, that I came across the obscure passages describing the history and government of the elves. I discovered that they'd succeeded in unifying the Overworld under one grand principality with one sovereign ruler.

“It was a revelation. Eight kingdoms were too many, eight kings superfluous. The world needed one ruler, one wise leader, to guide and mold the souls of men for the benefit of all. Sacrificing his own will, he would come to control the entire world, restoring justice to the lands. Don't assume I saw myself as that man. I never felt myself wise enough. But the more I considered it, the more I was convinced that this was the sole solution, the sole possibility of bringing peace back to our world.

“I entered the Council at sixteen years of age—again, the youngest ever to do so. As soon as I began my work as councilor, I realized that the reality was far different than I'd imagined, though I'm assuming you know that already, as the Council has hardly changed since then. There were those who fought for the common good, but the majority of the councilors were petty men, clinging tooth and nail to their power, power they'd gained by deception in the first place. I was disappointed, but I didn't give up. I revealed my idea of a sole, sovereign ruler, attracting the hate of nearly every member on the Council. They told me I was a fool, that what I desired was a tyrannical ruler who bent the wills of the people to his own, but what they really feared was losing their power.

“Around that time, I met Reis. She was the daughter of one of the most powerful members of the Council, Oren of the Land of Rocks. The moment I saw her, I knew I'd love her eternally. She was angelic, elegant. Before her, all other beauty paled. For me, Reis came as a reawakening to life. At first, we shared only our passion for sorcery, but soon we became lovers. Only with great patience did she eventually speak with her father. Oren's immediate response was that never, never in his life would he grant his daughter to a self-important bastard child like me, to a half-blood with freakish powers and a head full of dangerous fantasies. He forbade Reis from seeing me, though his command wasn't enough. Without his knowing, we continued our relationship, meeting in secret, in the most unlikely of places and at the strangest of times. Then it all came crashing down.