Here she was, leading them down that path. Threatening to destroy everything that her father was determined to document and help preserve.
She almost jumped when Thanar approached her.
"I didn't mean to disturb you," he said.
"It's all right," she answered. "I was just doing some deep thinking."
Thanar cast a glance up at the leafy expanse above them. "This place can have that effect."
"It must be hard to know you have to leave it so soon."
Thanar ran a hand over his bearded face. "It's better we leave soon. The tree has its own magic. There is a danger that we all might wish to linger in its shade and never accomplish our mission."
"I feel its pull," admitted Kellin. "It's not evil, nor good. It just is. That's its appeal—it doesn't need to be understood. It exists so far from civilization's works, apart from even the Tree Ghosts. No matter how much they revere it, it would exist without them. There's a seductiveness in its simplicity. I could get lost in it if I let myself. Such a pleasant fate, to remain here forever, thinking..."
"Contemplation may turn to sloth," Thanar said. "And we cannot allow ourselves to lose time."
"Where is Vell?" asked Kellin, changing the subject.
"I believe the elf maid has taken him into the forest to explore his shapeshifting powers. Does that make you jealous?" She was taken aback at the bluntness of his question. "It is best you acknowledge such feelings..."
Kellin cut him off. "Another matter best explored at a later time. Tell me, Thanar. I sense you don't despise me the way the others do." She found it perplexing that he had left Grunwald because he thought his people had become too decadent, yet he was the most tolerant of her—the city-dwelling member of their group.
"Why should I despise my sister?" asked Thanar. He turned to the tree's great trunk. "We may be from different branches, but we are linked nevertheless. All living things are. From the deepest root to the highest bough, we are all one tree."
"I like that," Kellin answered, lowering her head. "I wish everyone thought that way. Some sages follow your line of wisdom. They think all life originated in one place and continues in what some call the Endless March—changing, adapting, and improving—in much the same way that farmers improve their livestock through breeding."
"I've heard of such thinking," Thanar said. "Do you believe it?"
Kellin shrugged. "It's not my area. It makes sense to me, though. And it cuts to the heart of what you said: that all of life may have a common origin and therefore be linked."
"I need no sage to tell me that. I feel it." He asked, "What god do you revere?"
"Principally," she said, "I worship Oghma. Why?"
"The Binder of What Is Known," he said, repeating one of the titles of the Lord of Knowledge. Kellin was faintly surprised Thanar knew of it, that he even knew of Oghma. She supposed it made sense for him to know of a god so opposite to his world view. "Tell me, why should the world be bound? Is not everything dead once it's bound? Once it is written in books or scrolls, it no longer lives in nature."
"I'd rather think that it will live forever if it's written," Kellin answered.
"And our tribe?" Thanar probed. "If we are destroyed, will we live forever in your father's books, or those you will write in the future?"
"You will be remembered," said Kellin, "by anyone who cares to remember you."
Thanar caught a fallen leaf. It was dry and withered, and he crushed it in his fingers.
"Perhaps that's better than nothing," he said.
"You're not like the others," Kellin pressed. "I understand you lived apart from the Thunderbeasts for many years. Do you consider yourself a member of the tribe?"
"Still the sage." Thanar smiled mysteriously. "Do you mean to put my answer in a book?"
"I can't promise I won't," said Kellin, smiling back. She felt much more comfortable with him.
"I spent many years away from it, truly," said Thanar. "But I was born a Thunderbeast and a Thunderbeast I remain. Even if the rest of the tribe withered and died, and I spent a lifetime in the Spine of the World, never seeing another human or speaking another word aloud, a Thunderbeast I would stay."
"Yet in the past you sought to distance yourself from your tribe."
"Others have done worse. Thluna's closest friend left the tribe to join the Black Lions, a matter which weighs heavily on him. The Black Lions' way holds much appeal for the young Uthgardt, it seems. I wonder, in Garstak's soul, does he still think of himself as a Thunderbeast? As for myself, after all this is over—and assuming I still live—I may choose to leave them behind for good. I hold that my tribe is something I carry around inside my heart."
"I'm worried about Vell," Kellin admitted. "He doesn't feel much connection to his tribe. Not now."
"Not ever," corrected Thanar. "He was one of the silent. You have seen them—Hengin, Grallah, Ilskar, and Draf—our warrior companions who follow their chief's orders absolutely and who seldom speak. I would wager that in their depths, they do not identify with their tribe as they feel they should, and that this is a matter of private shame. Many generations have pressed on in such anguish."
"What worries me," said Kellin," is that Vell doesn't have anything else solid to hold on to."
"He'll have his own choices to make," said Thanar. "We must have faith that he'll make them properly."
Kellin looked up at the vast Canvas of Grandfather Tree's leaves and was lost again in its beauty and majesty. "Do you think it would be all right to stay here a bit longer?" she asked.
Thanar smiled. "I don't think it will do any harm," he said, and together they lingered and marveled at the tree's everlasting dignity, undiminished by the nagging hollowness they felt in their hearts.
* * * * *
Vell flinched as the scales took him. Like an arrow to his brain, the change came, and he could feel all of his flesh awaken with thick natural armor, making his limbs heavy.
What scared him most was how natural it felt.
Two trolls were bearing down on him, their green flesh stretched taut over jagged bones. The woods were bright here, the trees spaced far apart and the sun shining brightly above. This was the reason Lanaal had lured the trolls here, where the space was open enough to accommodate even a behemoth.
Lanaal was here, Vell knew, perched somewhere in the trees above, watching and waiting. Within his blood frenzy, his eyes were clouded over with the insensibility of rage, but he could still hear a sharp, shrill bird call—Lanaal goading him forward, daring him to call on his full transformation. But he held back, even as one of the trolls wrapped its huge hands around his neck and twisted.
Vell clapped his hands on the troll's forearm and squeezed tight, ripping the arm free of his scaled neck. He kicked the troll's left knee then the other, sending it tumbling backward onto the leaf-covered forest floor. Before it could recover, he jumped onto it with all of his weight, landing with both feet on the troll's chest. Troll bones snapped under his impact, and he watched its hideous face as the shock hit home, it eyes bugging out and its mouth spewing forth a plume of thick green liquid that splashed over its face.