SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM "The Stones of Snamuh"

By - Tom E. Sechrist Jr., http://www2.1starnet.com/tsechrist/default.html, copyright 2001

CrossroadsPub.Com, http://www.crossroadspub.com/

PROLOGUE

Kalihm felt weariness like never before. It seemed to soak his very being, every fiber and nuance. The journey had been long and treacherous. Of the original party of six, he was the only one left, the others having fallen to one pitfall or another along the way.

The howling winds of the mountaintops assaulted him without rest, whipping up swirling snow flurries intent on blinding and disorienting him. Kalihm took a moment to sag against an ice-covered tree in order to collect his bearings and frozen wits. Even though his hands were numb, he could feel the tiny remnants of his strength being pulled from him by the ice of the tree.

As his eyes took in the frozen, barren waste all around him he found questions within himself. What madness had brought him here? Why in the world would anyone venture to the Wastelands? Nothing lived here; not bird, insect, animal and certainly not a man who, in all likely hood, never existed in the first place. He had lost his wife, craft, and all that ever mattered to him because of this quest, this insane search for the one man who could help him. Much to his anguish, Kalihm had no answers for these questions.

It was inconceivable that the man could still live after all this time. If he did, he would be an old man who would be of little help to him. However something inside would not let him stop. With a weary sigh, Kalihm pushed off from the tree, hugged his furs tighter about him and staggered onward, his mind growing as numb as his body.

Tiny icicles clung to his eyelashes, beard and mustache. The frost that covered his body creaked and groaned as he moved, threatening to freeze so that he would not be able to move any longer. He refused to stop, refused to give into the demands of his body and the elements that continued to batter him. He had come so far, risked so much and lost so much that he dared not stop now. To stop now would make it meaningless when it was all that he had left that even came close to giving him a reason for living.

Five souls had believed as he had. They had trusted him to lead them through this impossible journey and return them safely to their homes and families. He had totally and completely failed them. Their bodies littered the trail to this point. He owed it to those five souls to complete this impossible quest, even if it meant his own death as some sort of atonement for his error in judgment.

His feet trudged through the ankle deep snow, not even lifting clear of it anymore, but merely dragging through its’ surface. A treacherous stone somewhere beneath the blanket of snow served to undermine his determination and sent him crashing into the snow.

Kalihm tried to get up and regain his footing, but the exhaustion was too complete. After several failed attempts he simply stopped trying, his mind and body having finally reached the outer limits of their endurance.

So this would be where he died. With a chuckle he realized that no one would ever find him here, at least not for a very long time. He found himself wondering what the people who would find him would think. What would they speculate about a person who was so far from civilization? What kind of corpse would they find and what story would it tell them? Would they see him as a noble explorer, a brave soul in search of a new frontier?

Or perhaps they would they look at his frozen, mummified remains and laugh amongst themselves at the foolish person who would venture so far alone. A smile cracked his frozen features and his voice sounded a tiny laugh for he realized that it made no difference what they thought, it sure as hell would not matter to him when or if he was found.

A sound caught his attention above the howling wind and he rolled his face from the snow to look for the source. The vicious wind whipped and tossed snow in a curtain of frost that was almost impossible to see through.

Somehow, though, through the swirling mists he saw a silhouette and even with his mind frozen beyond all rational thought he recognized the form. How could he not? He had gazed upon that form for most of his life. He had felt the yearnings it had stirred within him, had felt the pleasures it had given him. It had brought him comfort and a sense of peace for as long as he could remember.

"Cassandra?" his weak voice called out. The silhouette did not respond, but kept moving closer to him. As it drew closer he could see that the form wore no protection against these harsh elements. There were no thick furs, not so much as a cloak to protect the silken skin from the razor sharp teeth of the wind. She was nude, her skin as pink and healthy as he had remembered it. Her limbs, still as long and graceful as ever, showed no tell tale signs of trembling from the bitter cold. She drew closer, her face coming into focus and he smiled as a tear pooled in the corner of his eye and fell, freezing to his cheek.

"Cassandra, my love. Is it really you?" he asked, not at all surprised at how small and raspy his voice sounded.

The form simply smiled and knelt down in the snow beside him, her hand reaching out to brush through the frozen bangs of his hair that hung out from his cap. Her hazel eyes danced along his features just as he remembered they used to. There was so much love in her eyes. Love that he had feared he would never see again and he could not stop the stream of tears that fell and froze, adding another layer of ice to his already frozen face.

"My love, you’ve come for me. I love you. I have always loved you," He said, hoping his weakened voice carried enough volume for her to hear him above the wind.

She smiled down at him and nodded. She then gently rolled him over to his back and continued to smile into his face, stroking it with a tenderness that had only been in his dreams for too long. Her delicate hands began unfastening the closures of his furs and he felt a spike of panic pierce him. What was she doing? The furs were the only things keeping him alive; to remove them would surely finish him.

"Cassandra? What are you doing?" he asked.

"My dear Kalihm," she said and the silk of her voice eased his fears. Like the tenderness of her touch, the loving tones of her voice had been only a specter of his dreams since their separation. "My body aches for you, I must feel you now. To remind me that I am alive, to remind you that you are alive. To share the love we have always known and rejoice in it," Her voice mixed and mingled with the howling wind until he was unsure if she truly spoke or if it was the wind playing a vicious trick on him.

To have her body yield to him again, like it used to. To have her desire him as he had always desired her. It had been so long since they had last joined in love and he had never forgotten how his heart, body and soul yearned for it. His eyelids were heavy, sleep beckoned for him, but to have Cassandra here now, wanting him, desiring him again was enough to help him ward off sleep.

He felt his furs opening, felt the blast of cold bite harder into his body. "It has been so long, my love. Yes. Yes, let us join again and feel alive together," He whispered, knowing that there was no way she could hear his weak voice above the cry of the wind, yet knowing she heard every word. He felt her surprisingly warm hands slip inside his shirt to lovingly stroke his chest. Despite the numbness that seemed to prevail through his entire body, he could feel her hands upon him and his heart cried out in joy.

Then suddenly her hands stopped moving, and then the warmth of her hand upon his bare chest vanished. He looked down to find that his furs were undisturbed. He glanced up quickly to find nothing. She was gone, if she had ever truly been there at all.

"NO!" he cried out to the Fates. Not even the Fates could be so cruel as to play a trick on him like this, not when it was what his soul craved almost more than anything else. What manner of beast would tease him like this? To bring him his hearts desire only to whisk it away from him so suddenly. Despair took over and more tears flooded his eyes. He closed his eyes to force the tears from them and they froze his lids shut. He did not care. He was ready to die, the last of his determination gone with the image of his life’s love.

To hell with the man of the myths, to hell with what he had hoped the man could help him with, and to hell with himself. With bitter resolution Kalihm relaxed in the snow and prepared to die. He forced his mind to Cassandra and locked it there. He wished to perish with her being all he thought of.

"I love you Cassandra. I always have and I always will. I’m sorry I failed you as a husband. I’m sorry for so many things. May you find happiness and may you find it in yourself to, someday, truly understand what drove me. Why I did the things I did. My love is yours and yours alone, forever. I love you."

His voice trailed off and his mind let go of the last edges of consciousness. As his mind spiraled downward into the black abyss he felt no fear. This was the fate he deserved. This was the ending that was fitting for him and he opened his arms, ready to embrace it. It pleased him that his death would go unknown to Cassandra. That she would only assume he had given up and moved on.

Just before his mind broke the inky black surface of the abyss he smiled, "I love you Cassandra."

Kalihm had heard many tales of the afterlife, what it was supposed to be like when the mortal soul perished on earth. But the sensations that greeted him were nothing like what he had expected. He felt warmth, a welcomed sensation after the weeks of bone numbing cold. However the warmth came from furs piled upon him and that struck him as odd. Why would one need furs in the afterlife? He had heard that the afterlife was a place where such things were no longer necessary.

The whispering crackle of a fire pricked his ears and he again found himself puzzled. A fire for warmth in the afterlife? What was going on? Why was he feeling things he remembered feeling while he was alive? Why did his body feel no different than before? In fact, his body felt worse now than he had ever remembered it feeling. His muscles ached, his bones throbbed and his limbs seemed to burn with a pain he had never felt before. This was not at all what he had expected once he had crossed over.

With tremendous effort he forced his eyes open and the blurry dark image that greeted him made him fear that he had been blinded. Images swirled and danced so close to the center floor of focus, yet never entered and spun away. He blinked several times, but the muddy pool refused to coalesce into focus. Squeezing his eyes shut he forced himself to try to understand what had happened to him.

He felt as though the Fates had conspired to cheat him once again. All through his life the Fates had tricked and teased him with possibilities, only to dash them away upon his getting so close to realizing them. His craft, his love, his very life seemed to be nothing but a plaything for the Fates to amuse themselves with. Now, even in death, they continued to taunt and torture him. With a soft moan he felt despair rise up within him. An eternity of his being nothing but a plaything of the Fates.

"I am afraid that you blame the Fates for far more than they are responsible for, Kalihm," a voice near by said.

The voice was not any that Kalihm recognized. It was old, very old indeed. Yet in the fragile cracking of the voice, he could hear the power and authority that resided there. He tried to open his eyes and move his head so that he could look upon the source. His eyes registered the same swirling soup of nothingness and his head would not obey the commands of his mind.

"Save your strength. You are far too weak to try to move," came the voice again. How had the voice known that he was trying to look upon its’ owner? How had the voice known what his thoughts had been?

"W-where am I?" Kalihm managed to ask, surprised by how coarse his voice sounded.

"You are safe for the moment. Do not concern yourself with details. Simply rest and heal," replied the voice,

"But I am afraid I must disappoint you. You are not in the afterlife. You are still very much alive."

"Why should that disappoint me? Is it not the desire of every man to live?"

A harsh cackling laugh erupted from the direction the voice had come. The laugh lapsed into a ragged lung-tearing cough that made Kalihm’s own lungs ache and burn. Whoever owned the voice was not well, had not been so in a long time.

"I have said something that has amused you?" Kalihm asked weakly.

"What man would not want to live?" asked the voice after the hacking coughing had subsided. "As I recall, you sought out death. Did you not?"

"I do not wish to die," Kalihm stated boldly, but knew that the statement sounded as hollow to the old voice as it had to him.

"Indeed?" was the only reply. Kalihm felt as if the old man had looked into his mind and had seen his resolution to die. The sounds of shuffled movements came and Kalihm tried to track the source and direction of the movements, but his brain was still not working correctly and he could not focus on it.

"Tell me, Kalihm, what brings a man who so dearly loves life to the Wastelands?"

"How do you know my name?" he asked.

"Why do you insist on wasting time with meaningless questions? It is enough that I know your name. Is it so important that you know how I know it?" the ancient voice shot back with irritation.

"I suppose it does not matter. I came here on a quest," Kalihm answered feeling a shudder pass through his body as more and more warmth soaked into his chilled body, both displacing the chill and awakening a new pain somewhere within him.

"A quest? A quest?" the voice asked as if the owner turned the word over and over in his own mind with fond reverence, "Now there is a term I have not heard in a long time. A quest. What is it that brings you on this quest?"

"I search for a man," Kalihm replied.

"A man? He must be some special kind of man for you to risk the life you claim to treasure so dearly."

Kalihm only nodded wearily.

"Well? Does this man have a name?" the old man asked with irritated impatience.

Kalihm paused. Did he dare speak that name again? That name had cost him so much, but since he had come this far, he felt he might as well continue.

"Daimion Devenshire."

Silence. A silence so intense that the whispering crackle of the fire seemed to grow into a roar within it. The silence lasted so long that Kalihm feared that the old voice had been yet another trick of his faltering sanity. Finally the faint stirring of robes sounded and a ragged breath drew in slowly.

"Daimion Devenshire?" the old voice asked. Kalihm did not know why, but for some reason he felt his heart race. There was something in the old voice that told him the owner knew something of the man he sought.

"Yes, Daimion Devenshire. Do you know of him?" Kalihm asked.

Again the all-consuming silence returned. What was it within the utterance of that name that inspired such a silence?

"He is a myth," The voice finally returned. However, the falseness, the lack of conviction in the tone told Kalihm that the old man was playing down his knowledge.

"So I have heard. Yet there is proof that he did exist once."

"It does not matter. I have not heard that name in a very long time and I think it best that the world leave him as a myth."

"But I have come so far. Lost so much in the search for him. If you know something, I beg of you to tell me," Kalihm pleaded.

"You have done what you have done of your own free will. No one asked you to begin this quest, nor jeopardize all that you hold dear for it. The mess of your life is of your own doing," the voice replied, irritation and anger tinting its edges.

"Devenshire did exist. I know it. I feel it. He is the only one who can help me, to restore to me what I have lost and what I have searched for all my life," Kalihm said.

A faint ancient chuckle echoed off the walls, "Then, my wayward friend, you are indeed a lost soul. Devenshire can not help anyone anymore."

In that one sentence Kalihm felt his entire world begin to spin. The old man had all but confirmed that Devenshire had existed at one time or another within the old man’s lifetime. His heart raced as he realized that all had not been in vain. The sacrifices he had made, the friends he had lost and the turmoil of his soul had not been for nothing. Devenshire had been a real person, he had existed.

"Then he did exist. He had lived at one time," Kalihm said with conviction.

"Yes, he did live once, a very long time ago," the old man replied slowly, almost reluctantly.

"Did you know him?" Kalihm asked, forcing his exhausted limbs to move against their will. He managed to push, pull and struggle until he was in a seated position on the furs, his frost damaged eyes slowly starting to clear. He could just make out the outline of the old man as he sat next to the fire. Kalihm could not make out any specific details of his face, but at least now he could see something of the old man.

"I knew him. He and I were very close, had fought many battles together." The man paused for a moment, then shook his head in exasperation,

"But that time has passed. Time moves on, my friend. One era must eventually pass and make room for another era. Those who cannot let go of one will have the hardest time living in the other. The era of fantasy is passing. The world is turning in on itself and is thinking of little else. There is no longer any need for beings like Devenshire. The world no longer believes in magic, in mighty warriors, powerful wizards, fair maidens, vicious dragons or any creature of might and magic," the man slowly shook his head and slumped forward as if recalling the passing of the era drained him,

"No one believes in other realms, in other worlds or that one can cross from one to the other. No, Devenshire and beings like him are nothing more than fairy tales now, as soon will be the time they lived in."

"There are those of us who still believe." Kalihm argued.

The ancient head shook slowly again, "Not enough to warrant keeping the relics of the old time around. All will be as it should be in the fullness of time. Devenshire and the time he lived in will be embraced as a fond memory and then forgotten. Perhaps it is as it should be."

"But the world needs to remember Devenshire and the time he lived in. They need the lessons he can teach, the wisdom of his life," Kalihm replied urgently.

"The wisdom of his life?" the man chuckled, "The myths that have grown around Devenshire have clouded the image of the true man. Let me tell you something: Daimion Devenshire was not a god. He was not some celestial being with awe-inspiring powers. He was a mortal man. Granted he had a few mystical powers, but for the most part he was flesh and blood mortal man. Capable of making just a bloody a mess of his life as you or I."

"Perhaps. But we can all learn from the way he lived, the great deeds he did. The legends are replete with the many fantastic and noble deeds Devenshire performed in his life. There are no such men alive in this time with the gallantry, the power and the wisdom that Devenshire possessed," Kalihm argued.

The man regarded Kalihm for a handful of moments before turning his gray eyes to the crackling fire. For a moment Kalihm thought the old man in some form of trance for his eyes seemed to be looking at something far beyond the burning logs. As if he was reliving something in the past.

Kalihm took the moment to consider his surroundings now that his eyesight was improving. The ancient man lived in an enormous cave. The room he was now in served as the living quarters with several pieces of hand carved furniture. A couch, a couple of high backed chairs and tables graced the room. Kalihm admired the craftsmanship that had gone into the work of the furniture. He got the impression that the hands that had carved the furniture were not those of the antiquated man seated by the fire. There was something in the curves and markings of the furniture that spoke to Kalihm of a gentler touch, a greater life span of personality than even that of the man’s.

Various paintings graced the walls of the high ceiling cave. Above the rock hewn mantle of the fireplace hung an ancient oil portrait of a woman. She was breath taking in beauty and for a moment Kalihm felt that he could have even forgotten his precious Cassandra in the arms of the woman in the painting. The woman had golden blond hair that seemed to serve as a frame for her delicate, yet strong features. She looked very pale, but Kalihm could not be sure if that was how she truly had appeared, or if it were the effects of time on the patina of the oils in the painting. As beautiful as the woman was, her nearly mesmerizing eyes told a different story. Her eyes spoke of a deep inner pain and loneliness; of a very long time of not knowing even the simplest of pleasures that so many others took for granted.

Across the room another painting graced a wall and it, too, was of a beautiful woman. The painting did not appear to be as old as the one over the mantle, but it did tell of the incredible passage of time since the last brush stroke had been completed. This woman was very beautiful as well, but in a different way from the woman over the mantle. Kalihm would have been hard pressed to say which woman was more beautiful.

The woman in the second portrait had a thick mane of red hair with piercing green eyes that seemed to bespeak of a wisdom and insight few eyes could hold. Although her smile was only slight in the portrait, Kalihm found in her eyes that this woman was of a fun loving spirit, that she found delight in almost any situation she found herself in. Like the woman in the painting over the mantle, there was something about her that bespoke of an incredible inner strength, a force of will that was something to be reckoned with.

There was something else. Something in both paintings that took Kalihm several moments to pin down. It was the looks in the eyes, the carriage of the head and shoulders, something different. Then he realized what it was. Kalihm had never met a woman with the same air about them as these two women had. The caliber of women represented in these two very old portraits simply did not exist in this time. There were incredibly beautiful women in this time, but none who carried themselves with the absolute air of self-assuredness that these two women did. It was another indication of how time changes and people change with it.

"It has never ceased to amaze me how a few noble deeds can be transformed into feats that no mortal man could ever accomplish," the aged man finally said, drawing in from his reverie.

Kalihm tore his eyes from the woman in the second portrait so that he could focus on what the man was saying. He doubted that he could look upon either woman and hear the man at the same time.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I have heard of the many great deeds that Devenshire was supposed to have accomplished," the man said shaking his head, half smiling, half frowning as he continued to gaze into the fire, "Very little of what the legends say of him is true, you know."

"I know how history can defuse and dilute the truth surrounding great men," replied Kalihm, "However, if only a small fraction of what I have heard about Devenshire is true, then he was a great man with a great deal to offer not only his time, but mine as well."

Again the old man chuckled, "I fear that the truth about Devenshire would leave you with a very shattered image that would look nothing like the mental image you have of him now. That is why I say that it is better that the world continue thinking of him as a legend and a myth. I am sure Daimion would much rather be remembered the way you remember him rather than the way I remember him."

Kalihm looked down at the furs and took a moment to consider this. He had always known that the stories surrounding Devenshire had to be exaggerated somewhat, but to hear the man speak, Devenshire was nothing like what the legends said, and who would know better than a person who had actually known him? Kalihm had to honestly ask himself if he were prepared to learn that his hero was actually as flawed as the man would have him believe.

"I see the hesitation in you, Kalihm. Are you not prepared to learn that Daimion was just as human, just a flawed as you or I?" the old man asked.

"Devenshire and those like him were great individuals. True, the stories about them may be exaggerated somewhat, but the core of their stories serves to remind all of us of the kind of people we should all be," Kalihm replied evenly, defiance flashing in his eyes.

The man laughed again which sparked another series of deep coughs. Kalihm tried not to make a sour face at the sounds of the fluids gurgling deep in the old man’s lungs as he coughed. As the ragged coughing reached its’ pinnacle, the man retrieved a cloth from within the folds of his robes and dabbed at the red stain that had suddenly appeared to mar the white of his thick beard.

"Tell me, my impressionable young friend, what do the stories of Devenshire lead you to believe of him?" he asked after he had managed to subdue the coughing fit.

"That Devenshire was a brave man, a great warrior, and holder of great magical powers." Kalihm replied proudly, almost daring the man with his eyes to discount that impression. Much to his dismay, the man took his dare.

One snow white, puffed eyebrow arched up over the other one as the gray eyes looked deep into Kalihm’s and a grin spread across the craggy features.

"A brave man? I will go along with that. Daimion was, indeed, a very brave man. A great warrior? He could hold his own in just about any fight, be it with fists, swords or staffs. Great mystical powers?" he shook his head, "Daimion had studied the Mystic Arts for some time in his youth, but he tired of the intense and time consuming discipline that mastering the Mystic Arts required. He was not, by any means, a great mage. He was capable of some basic magic, no more."

"But he was, without a doubt, the shaper of the time he lived in." Kalihm said proudly in defense of his idol.

Again the aged man laughed and looked up at the ceiling of the cave, "Do you hear this Daimion? A shaper of the time you lived in. Have you ever heard of such?" After several moments of careful yet merry laughter and shaking of his head the man looked back at Kalihm,

"Let me tell you something about this great shaper of time: He drank too much on occasion, had a short temper and had too fond an eye for the ladies. He was known to go off on tangents at the slightest whim and for no other reason than it suited his fancy at the time. I would have to say that time was the shaper of the man, not the reverse."

"Be that as it may, Devenshire lived his life on his terms. He went as he pleased, he did as he pleased and if people liked it or not did not matter to him," Kalihm argued.

"Tis true. Daimion answered to no one. He did as he pleased and the Fates be damned if they did not like it," the man answered fondly. "It also got him into more trouble than not on occasion."

"That is what I seek to learn from him. How to be so bold, so brash. To take the world and bend it to my will, to force from it the pleasures that it so greedily keeps locked up within itself. To be able to take what I can and be able to forget the things I cannot and not care in either case," Kalihm replied.

"Those are lessons that can be and should be taught by a father, a mother or even an older sibling. The teachers and philosophers of your village should be able to teach you of the things you speak of," the man said turning his attention back to the fire.

Kalihm chuckled bitterly at the statement, "Teachers? Philosophers? They are brigands who can only teach you based on the number of gold coins you can place in front of them. Most of what they have to teach is meaningless dribble! My father despised children, even his own, and took great pains to make sure that each of his children knew this. My mother? She was a good mother and a loving wife, but she lacked the strength of will to stand up to my father, so she was just as subdued as her children. As for siblings? I was the oldest of my parents nine children."

The man turned to look at Kalihm and saw the conviction in his face that matched the conviction in his voice. Had the world, indeed, turned so far in on itself that the basics of life were no longer taught?

As if sensing the mans’ questions Kalihm spoke, "You have been up here a very long time. You have no idea of how the world is now. Each person looks out for themselves with little thought of the other person."

With a weary sigh the man nodded, "Tis what happens with the passage of one era to the next. I have lived in the old era and have seen the roots of the new one take hold. But the basic human spirit will always live on, no matter how it is disguised. We all must take solace in that fact and face live as it is dealt to us."

Kalihm shook his head slowly, "You do not understand. There are those who cannot do as you say. There are those who have learned of the old ways and yearn for them, who feel as if they cannot survive in this world without them. I am one such person. I feel as if I were born in a time in which I did not belong."

The man smiled warmly, "I do understand such a feeling, Kalihm. There were many in my time that yearned for the time before. Each era has those who wish they had lived in the time before them. So they learn as much as they can of the time before them and, in some small way, ensure that it will continue. To serve as a reminder of how things used to be."

Kalihm looked up at the old man and smiled slightly, "Exactly. That is why I seek Devenshire, to ensure that his time is not forgotten. To bring his life back to my world so that it is not forgotten."

"I have already told you, Devenshire is dead. He died many seasons ago. So return to your village, win back your fair Cassandra and get on with your life. Find a way to reconcile your past with your future and live a happy life."

Kalihm sadly shook his head as his eyes began to moisten, "I can not win her back. The love she once held for me now belongs to another. I cannot go back, there is nothing for me back there."

"Then perhaps there is a message there. Everything happens for a reason, Kalihm. Perhaps it is destined for you to find another. I know the pain you are in now. I have felt it on more than one occasion, yet I survived just as you will. The pain may never totally ease, but it will heal."

Kalihm’s shake of the head while he spoke did not go unnoticed, "Right now the wound is fresh and still bleeds, so you can not conceive of it ever not hurting. But the wound will heal and the pain will ease, trust me on that."

Kalihm regarded the old man with as skeptical a look as he ever remembered seeing. Then he could see the cogs of the young mans mind change directions and his eyes almost sparkled with a new hope,

"If Devenshire is no more, then perhaps I may look at his chronicles."

"Chronicles? Devenshire made no chronicles," The man answered with genuine confusion.

"Impossible! The legends speak of them! They exist as surely as Devenshire did!" Kalihm all but shouted.

"I knew Daimion for the better part of his life and if he ever made any chronicles, I do not know of them," the man answered.

Kalihm felt his old companion despair return to dominate his soul. Once again he had come so close to realizing his dream only to have it dashed from his hands to shatter unrealized upon the cold stone floor. If Devenshire had made no permanent record of his life then there was nothing. It had all been for naught. The sacrifices he had made, the friends and loved ones he had lost, all of it had been for nothing.

First his head ducked, then his shoulders slumped and he felt incredibly tired, as if the last flickering remnants of his will had been extinguished. When he spoke, his voice was so dead that the man briefly thought that perhaps Kalihm had died moments before and his words were simply those of a corpse that had not stopped moving yet,

"Then I have traveled this far for nothing. Have sacrificed my entire existence for nothing. All I have endured and forced those around me to endure, the friends who believed as I did, believed strongly enough that they risked their lives to accompany me on this quest have died for nothing," Kalihm simply stared down into the furs beneath him, his eyes not truly seeing anything, "My life has been for nothing."

The old man watched Kalihm for several moments. The despair was as complete as any he had ever seen in his long life. Whatever weakness plagued Kalihm, the lack of strength in his convictions was not one of them. He had truly believed in the legend of Devenshire and had believed that he would either find the man or, at the very least, his chronicles at the end of his journey. Any other alternative had simply not ever occurred to him to consider.

As the man studied Kalihm another truth became evident; he would never leave this mountaintop alive. So complete and total was his destitution that the elderly man doubted he would live through the week. The man was touched, more so than he had been in many seasons and he actually felt pity for Kalihm. Regardless of how foolish he had been to abandon everything in order to search for a man who was not the legend he had heard of, Kalihm had honestly expected to find what he had searched for.

"I am sorry, Kalihm," was all he could say.

"What does it matter now? Devenshire was my last hope. He was the only one who could teach me what I needed to know and help restore to me what I have lost," Kalihm replied, his tone growing more lifeless with each passing word.

The man watched Kalihm for a few more moments and then, when he could bare the sadness within the young man no more, he turned his gaze to the fire. He tried to convince himself that Kalihm’s troubles where of his own design, that he was not obligated to help this practical stranger in any way more than he already had.

Yet his thoughts rang false in his mind and he felt as though he were being watched. He slowly raised his ancient eyes to the portrait above the mantle and the woman’s eyes that suddenly seem to bore into him. Then his attention was pulled to the other portrait above a hand carved armoire. The piercing green eyes gave him no quarter and seemed to chastise him as harshly as the eyes in the first portrait.

"I have done all I am obligated to do by common courtesy!" the man thought to the two portraits.

"Would Daimion turn his back on such a tortured soul?" the eyes in the portraits seemed to ask of him.

"I am NOT Daimion Devenshire! I owe this man nothing more than shelter from the storm and time to regain his strength for his journey home!" the old man mentally screamed back at the women.

"Give him what he seeks, what he needs. If you value Daimion’s memory and that part of him that lives on in all who remember him, give Kalihm what he seeks."

"What would you have me do? Tell him of Devenshire? Destroy his lofty impression of him? It all happened a very long time ago and I can not remember enough to relay a very accurate story,"the aged man argued back.

"What of your lofty words that the past should be remembered? To be carried on to remind the present and the future of how they came to be? Stop making excuses and keep Daimion’s memory alive. You are the only one left who can. The true Daimion Devenshire will die with you. This is your chance to let this faltering new world see not only Daimion, but also the time we all lived in as it truly was. If you let Daimion die with the past, then you condemn all of us to the same fate of being forgotten."

The man fixed each portrait with an appropriate glare of irritation as he considered the thoughts. With an irritated sigh he rose slowly and, with shuffling steps, crossed the room to the beautiful hand carved oak desk to retrieve a pad of parchment, an ink well and a quill. Then he crossed to the pallet of furs and dropped the items in front of Kalihm.

Kalihm regarded the items and looked up at the man with an obvious question in his eyes.

"Do you feel well enough to write?" the man asked, not even trying to hide the edge of irritation in his voice.

"Write what?" Kalihm asked.

"The Devenshire Chronicles. What else?"

Kalihm’s eyes flew open wide as he looked from the man to the parchment and back. "Me? Write the Devenshire Chronicles? I...I am not sure.... I am not sure that I am worthy."

The old man rolled his eyes as he shook his head. "Stop being so damned melodramatic about it! I will tell Devenshire’s story and you will write it. I would do it myself, but my eyes are weak and my hand trembles too badly. Do you want the story or not?"

Kalihm slowly took up the parchment and writing equipment. He stared at the pages of parchment for a handful of seconds before looking back up to the man, "I will write it as you relay it to me. I swear I will not embellish it in anyway with my own thoughts. The story I take with me from this place will be as pure as you tell it."

The man stared deep into Kalihm’s eyes with an intensity that almost made the younger person look away. Kalihm held his gaze as if to let the ancient one see that he had meant every word. Finally the man nodded once before he turned and shuffled his way towards his seat next to the fire.

"That is all I ask. There are enough fluffed up stories about Daimion as it is. Wherever he is, I am sure his head has swelled to three times its’ size with the myths about him. He may not like the truth about him being told, but he will get over it."

The older man eased his creaking bones down into the thick padding of a high backed chair and regarded the flames of the fire yet again, as if consulting them for some mystical purpose. It was several moments before he spoke and when he did, Kalihm got the impression that the man’s mind was many miles and many years away. Even some of the age seemed to melt from his voice as he began speaking.

"I suppose the best place to start are with my earliest memories of him. No one knows where Devenshire came from. Some say from another realm, others say from another time. But one thing was sure: to some he was a gift from the heavens, to others he was the spawn of hell itself."

Kalihm wrote, the words spreading across the parchment and into his soul. This is what he had traveled halfway around the world for, what he had risked his entire past, present and future on.

So the past conversed with the future and the story of one man, tied directly to both, began taking shape between them. Reminding one of a life he had all but forgotten and teaching another of times that were soon to be no more...save for the words scribbled on a piece of parchment. Yet when the story is told, both will be changed.