LI
From Pearmol, Thalo rode northwards for two days. Though he tried to sleep on the night he left, and again on the second night, the darkness would not avail him, and twice he lay restless beneath the stars. Then, as noon approached on the second day, Thalo crossed Fegennas at one of the lower fords and thereby came into Eylavol, a land where he was not only a wanderer, but an outlaw. He took a moment to sit beside the river and look back over the southern bank.
‘All sorrows come from the south,’ he said, ‘and all woes from the north.’
Then he climbed atop Ondayo and rode onward.
In the evening, he came at last to a valley he knew very well indeed. That was Klagenn. He slid out of his saddle and walked Ondayo through the trees, following the river until they came to the clearing above the waterfall. Two stones yet lay atop two graves, that of his birth parents, and that of Asfoa.
‘You are still here,’ he said. ‘But then, where else would you be?’
‘Who are you talking to?’ said a voice behind him. It belonged to a young girl he did not recognise, half-hidden in the nearby shrubbery.
‘No one.’
‘You look ill. Are you ill?’
Thalo did not answer her, for another girl appeared from the bushes. She was a few years older, barely a young woman. When she saw Thalo, she seized the younger girl’s arm and pulled her back.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
Thalo said, ‘I have no name. Know me only as a wanderer, a luckless man cursed to walk the wilds, deprived of my people and all worldly pleasures.’
‘What a bore!’ said the younger girl, and she scampered away.
‘How rude of her!’ said the older girl. ‘I would apologise on her behalf, but I would need your name.’
Thalo said nothing.
‘Everyone has a name. Here, I am Brala. My little sister is called Klata, but you ought to forget about her because she is a git.’ Brala and Klata have already been introduced—they were the daughters of Gaymono and Broyndea. Brala went on, ‘Are you lost? You can come back home with me. We should be able to put you up if you want. You look like you could do with a bench and a bowl.’
‘No,’ said Thalo. ‘Go home.’
Brala asked again, and Thalo replied just the same.
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and she left him there.
Once she had gone, Thalo knelt before Asfoa’s burial stone, unsheathed his sword, seldom-stayed Sleme, and laid it flat atop her grave.
‘I did it,’ he said. ‘You told me to seek my fame, my glory, and I did. I did it for you.’ He kissed the stone. ‘But it was not without cost. What now is left for me? Nothing. It is fitting that your grave should likewise be mine.’
Then he picked up the sword, and only a moment later, it fell back to the ground, and Thalo beside it. But he was not dead—not yet. No, as he lifted the blade, as he prepared to face his final, greatest foe, the prior days’ weariness set upon him all at once, and he fell asleep before he could strike.
And as he slept, he was visited once more by an unhappy dream. There he was at the foxes’ dinner table, set beautifully in Bleygo’s barrow, the glittering platter empty, but the foxes were not in their seats. Instead, they all cowered in the shadows.
‘Such cowards!’ said Awldano. He was there. ‘I am much the braver, and very good-looking.’
Then Dragon-Bleygo came roaring into the barrow, and the foxes yelped.
‘Wherever is my meal?’ said Bleygo.
‘How for!’ said the old fox.
‘Not good enough!’
Awldano arose and said, ‘I am good enough, and very good-looking.’ He took off his clothes, climbed atop the table, and lay upon the platter. ‘I can be your meal.’
Thalo smiled.
‘You will do,’ said Bleygo, and he picked Awldano up and swallowed him whole. At once, his eyes shone with light, and he was seized by a spirited jig. ‘More than do! Delectable! Most delectable! Let us drink!’
Bleygo spat up Awldano’s blood, and everyone had a cupful.
‘How for!’ said the old fox.
Thalo took a hearty swig and said, ‘Yummy!’
And that was that.
Thalo awoke shortly thereafter to a sharp knock upon his head. Above him stood Meola, the stars behind her. Since returning to Klagenn, she had taken to living quietly with her family, doing all she could to put her grudges out of her mind. That had proven difficult, however, for her last days with Thrandeo were more fruitful than they had at first seemed, and not in the way she expected. A few months after coming home, she gave birth to a baby boy, whom she named Gayravo, and who always reminded her of the trials of her past. Her elder son, Kolbeo, had also left home amid a bitter row with his mother, and in his place, she had taken in Brala and Klata, who had previously lived with their mother’s relatives.
So it was that when the girls spoke one night of a queer tramp loitering in the woods, Meola was there to hear them.
‘Whereabouts?’ said Meola.
‘Just above the waterfall,’ said Brala.
‘And what did he look like?’
‘Death,’ said Klata, ‘and he smelt the same.’
‘Quite right,’ said Brala. ‘All short and gaunt-like, as if he stopped growing before he started. I offered him hospitality, but he refused.’
‘If he wants to starve, let him starve.’
Meola shook her head and left without another word. Brala asked if she was going to meet him, or to shoo him away, but Meola said only, ‘Stay here.’
Thus did Meola come to the woods to find Thalo sleeping atop his mother’s grave, his sword beside him. She kicked his head and said, ‘What nerve you must have! Have you come to surrender yourself at last? Or are you here for a second, no, a fourth helping of murder?’
Without standing up, Thalo said, ‘I am here to die.’
‘We can sort that out.’
Meola picked up Sleme. Thalo did not try to stop her. She felt the sword’s weight in her hand, pointed it at him, curled up on the floor, and held it there, and held it there, and held it further. Looking down the blade, the edge glinting in the moonlight, she saw him anew, a small and pathetic figure.
‘How long I awaited this day,’ she said. ‘How much I gave, but for what? For you?’ She lowered the sword. ‘I will waste no more time on you. You are the killer here. If you want to die, do it yourself.’
Then Meola dropped the sword and went back down the valley. As she left, she found Brala and Klata skulking in the bushes, having followed her up.
‘Who is he?’ said Brala.
‘No one,’ said Meola, and she took them home.
Thalo stayed on the floor for a while longer, but he could not lull himself back to sleep, and neither could he pry his eyes from Sleme. Not until he had lain there for a good long while did he find the strength to arise once more and sheathe the sword.
Before leaving, he went down to the pool beneath the waterfall to wash. He took off his clothes, waded into the water, and said, ‘Klage, my father, will you have me?’
Then he ducked his head under the water, but only a moment later, someone grabbed his arms and pulled him up.
‘Not yet!’ they said.
And as Thalo came up, he saw Asfoa before him. His words utterly failed him, but his eyes did not. That was Asfoa, until he realised otherwise.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Your eyes were never so golden.’
With a sigh, Asfoa became Knale, naked in the pool, still clutching Thalo, holding him tight.
‘Why is no one ever as pretty as me?’ he said.
‘Why?’ said Thalo. He shook his head. ‘How?’
‘How what?’
Before Thalo could fully comprehend much of anything, Knale pulled him closer and put a kiss upon his lips. Thalo was much too weak to resist. He stood helpless against such ancient beauty, such elfin wiles, and was utterly taken in by his charms. Then they began their business, but as Thalo’s joy overcame him, a very strange thing happened. Knale leant forward and whispered into his ear, ‘How what? How for.’
At once, Thalo’s joy fell away. He turned to Knale behind him, but there he saw Asfoa once more, on him, in him.
‘Mother?’ he said.
‘Mother is dead,’ said Asfoa.
Then she pulled away and pushed Thalo beneath the water. He scrambled up and out of the pool, but as he fell snorting upon the bank, neither Knale nor Asfoa were anywhere to be seen. He awaited any sign that they might still lurk there, but none came. He would not stay there a moment longer. He dried off, got himself dressed, and returned to Ondayo to make away.
Now Thalo went back southwards.
‘One last sanctuary may yet await me,’ he said.
Thus, he came in time to Alvennawl, the closest thing he had known to a home since setting his own ablaze. As he approached the farm, one of the lads happened to see him coming and rushed up to the house to raise the alarm.
‘Yonnago!’ he said. ‘Thalo is coming!’
‘Him!’ said Omvedho. ‘I shall see the bummer off.’
‘Hold on,’ said Yonnago. ‘I want to know his cause for coming first. He may only be passing by.’
‘That man is little more than a scoundrel! He stole your shield!’
‘Omvedho man! I gave it to him, and I will not say it again. The problem was not his taking Yamveke, but what he did with it. I will at least let him speak on the matter.’
Yonnago picked up a nearby axe, hung it on his belt, and then went outside to meet his visitor. His fellows gathered around him, and together they waited in silence as Thalo rode up and got off Ondayo.
‘Yonnago,’ said Thalo. ‘It has been a while.’
‘That it has,’ said Yonnago. He stood with his axe-hip facing Thalo, his hand resting upon the weapon’s head. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I have nowhere else to go.’
‘Do you expect to be welcome here?’
‘I did.’ Thalo kept his eye on Yonnago’s axe. ‘I now see otherwise.’
‘Tell me why you gave Yamveke away, my only treasure.’
‘You gave it to me.’
‘I gave it to you, not Karvalo. I trusted you to look after it, and you threw it away at the first opportunity.’
Thalo said nothing.
‘Well?’ said Omvedho. ‘Speak!’
Thalo shook his head and said, ‘If you are going to use that axe, Yonnago, hurry up and use it. Kill me.’ He knelt down, drew his sword, and threw it aside. ‘I will make it easy for you.’
Yonnago was stumped. He looked around his fellows, all equally baffled by Thalo’s willingness to submit, and after a moment, he moved the axe around to his back.
‘I am not going to kill you,’ he said. ‘Do you want a bench?’
‘Yonnago,’ said Omvedho, ‘why would you offer him that after what he did to you—what he did to Kyale?’
‘I will not turn away a man in need, and I have seen few as needful as this one. If that displeases you, you are welcome to leave, though I would rather you did not.’
Omvedho grumbled his concession and went inside.
‘So, Thalo, do you want a bench?’
Thalo said he did, and so it was. He picked up his sword and went inside with Yonnago, while Ondayo was put up in the barn. After getting the farmboys back to work, Yonnago dished him up some stew and told him to eat.
‘And tell me,’ said Yonnago, ‘why do you have nowhere else to go? Did you not make off to Pearmol?’
Thalo said, ‘I am no longer welcome there.’
‘You and me both! What happened?’
‘A killing.’
‘Oh dear.’ Yonnago nodded towards Thalo’s stew. ‘Here, we can put such grim talk aside for now and have something nice to eat instead.’
Thalo did not touch the stew. ‘He deserved it.’
‘If you say so. Eat up.’
‘I should have killed Karvalo too. I had many chances, but I was too weak—too afraid.’
‘That would not have ended well for you.’
‘Karvalo would be dead. Whatever happened to me, that would be enough. There is nothing else left for me.’
‘No. There is always more. Whatever you might have lost, there is always more.’ Yonnago nudged the bowl of stew towards him. ‘Start with this.’
Thalo thanked him and ate the stew. That was the first proper meal he had eaten for some days, and it was good, even though it made him very gassy.
Thalo ended up staying at Alvennawl for about a month. He helped with all the household chores, although Yonnago eased him into it, for he was in very poor shape when he first arrived. During that time, Thalo told him about what had happened at Pearmol, and then at Samnew, and then everything with the dragon, though he did not mention his outlawry—he was still within Karvalo’s domain, after all. Yonnago listened to every word with a willing ear, but Thalo nonetheless remained ever unsettled, and particularly at night.
One evening, he suffered yet another of his frightful dreams. There were the silver-sheened foxes at their dinner table, set neatly in the twin trolls’ grave. Thalo sat proudly at the head of the table, his back to the river, and before him lay Klovo and Fowdho upon a glittering platter, each devoid of his head.
‘Eat up!’ said Thalo, and the foxes all arose and danced around the table.
‘Thennelo!’ they chanted. ‘Thennelo! Thennelo!’
‘How for!’ said the old fox at the other end.
Thalo looked to him, and the old fox’s belly cut itself open from the inside. Out crawled Fox-Knale. He joined the others’ merriment and danced along the table, over the trolls, until he stood half smiling and half snarling before Thalo, bile dripping from his fangs.
‘How for,’ he whispered, and he pushed Thalo backwards into the river.
Thalo lay in the water, letting it fill his mouth, his lungs, until it turned to blood, and Thalo awoke with a cough.
‘Shut up,’ said Omvedho, but he went straight back to sleep.
Not so Thalo. He tried, but after a little while, he gave up, put his sword on his belt, and stole out of the house. He went down the slope to the river, and then followed it to the site of the trolls’ grave. He had considered going there every day since he arrived at Alvennawl, but he had thus far resisted the urge. Now it proved too great. He knelt above the grave and drew his sword.
‘I am Thalo Thennelo,’ he said, ‘the bane of trolls twice-over!’ He stabbed the sword into the earth. ‘But what trolls remain? What is left for me?’