"I've never looked into a mirror," Vell said. He remembered a time that a foreign merchant in Grunwald presented a mirror to Gundar as a token of his generosity. Gundar accepted it in gratitude but refused to look into it, and later turned it over to Keirkrad to be destroyed as an affront to Uthgar.
"Vanity is one of civilization's primary flaws," Kellin admitted.
"Mirrors don't always reflect the whole truth," Lanaal cautioned Vell. "They can mislead. I spent my early life looking into mirrors and seeing an elf staring back."
"I will look into the pool alone," said Vell. Acknowledging each of the ladies with a nod, he walked into the cave, to the pools within.
When he was out of earshot, the two women stood alone together for the first time, silently assessing each other.
"In some ways, you are more a mystery than Vell," Lanaal said. "I can't understand what compels you to keep the company of barbarians who disdain your very existence."
"The Thunderbeast chose me," Kellin answered.
"It called you, perhaps, but you chose to answer. Uthgar is not your god—what is his summons to you? When you set out from the halls of learning, did you truly feel a personal interest in this particular barbarian tribe?"
"Yes... no..." Kellin rubbed her eyes. "My father..."
"Memory," Lanaal said, as if the word contained all the answers, and she spread her arms wide to indicate their setting. "It can be clear or faulty. It can tell the truth or deceive."
Taking a deep breath, Kellin walked to the nearest pool and gazed down into the water. And what she saw made her flush with embarrassment, and feel rage in her bones.
* * * * *
The caves had a light of their own, shimmering out from those strange pools. It cast eerie rippling shadows over the low cave ceiling, though Vell could not see any movement in the water itself. This was the kind of mystical place that alternately repelled and attracted the average Uthgardt—repelled him because of unknown magic, yet attracted him for the warm intimacy of the mystery, and the feeling of being wrapped in history. Vell bent over the nearest pool and found himself staring into his reflection.
So that's what I look like, he thought. He was not so different from any other Thunderbeast, and even his brown eyes did not distinguish him. All faded, and only his eyes remained as the water shimmered and he was looking into another time. It was another face, but somehow he knew it was his, or rather, that of an ancestor who remained tied to him from the spirit world. The sun was shining brightly behind him onto a spectacular white city, and he was garbed in robes of gold marked with ornate symbols.
A wizard. He was descended from a wizard.
The vision told him something else. This scene was surely not one of Ruathym, the rocky isle that was the home of Uthgar's mortal line. More likely, it was an image of his ancestry from his other line, stretching back to the Empire of Magic. Often he wondered if his brown eyes marked a stronger concentration of that blood. Most Uthgardt tribes denied that history, the Thunderbeasts included; it was a matter of shame to believe that they were spawned by those decadent magicians.
Vell leaned closer. The wizard melted away, and his eyes were set instead into the sunken sockets of a great lizard, one of the Thunderbeasts or behemoths that the tribe used in their art, or occasionally to tattoo upon themselves. It was the creature Vell had become. There was no human intelligence in those eyes—this was an animal, nothing more. It looked closely at him, as if staring through time back at Vell.
It turned and lumbered through a thick forest. The great beast planted a foot next to an oak sapling, struggling to grow within the dense underbrush. Vell realized with a shock that this must be Grandfather Tree. He knew it. While all of the other trees that stood around it, much greater trees, had died and gone, it remained. What force blessed it with such permanence? Before his eyes, it sprouted higher and higher, spreading its limbs wider and wider until they blocked the sky.
Now ripples disturbed the pool, each beginning at the center and bringing with it a new image. The scenes passed with such speed that Vell could not inspect each one closely. He saw images of heated battles, of a wide-shouldered man with coal-black hair. The dark-haired warrior wielded a greataxe and hacked at a shaggy demon on a mountainside. Then came a scene of that same axe cutting the neck of a behemoth on a vast green hill, but in the hands of a warrior with yellow hair and a bright yellow beard.
The axe! Vell recognized it immediately. It had been the weapon of the chiefs of the Thunderbeasts, both Gundar and Sungar. Sungar had disposed of it some years ago after he learned it contained arcane magic. Vell did not know what to make of this—he was not in the Fallen Lands when it happened—though many took this as a signal that Sungar was an unfit leader.
"Tell me more," Vell said to no one. As if on cue, a new image unfolded—one he knew well. It was Morgur's Mound on Runemeet. Vell saw himself, the bones of the beast hovering above him. He saw his lips move, and though he had no memory of the event, he knew the words: "Find the living."
Another ripple, and the axe appeared again. It was in a different hand, an inhuman hand—the hand of one of the huge goblinoid beasts, a hobgoblin, decked out in armor. The pool revealed a purple-robed man and four other men, humans all, together with a small human woman dressed in tight black leather. He knew her. The man and the beast in him both knew her.
Vell clenched his fists in anger. He wanted to jump into the pool. Perhaps it would transport him there and let him crush the woman who had kidnapped Sungar, and who had eluded him on a hippogriff's wings. But he remembered Tylvis's words of caution and held his ground.
The party of seven was walking along the banks of a river with forest all around. More water, he thought, as he saw the pristine flow rippling in the sunlight. He recognized the high mountains towering over them as the ones Kellin had named the Star Mounts.
For a long time he stood there, staring at the water which now showed nothing, not even his own reflection. He wondered if he would ever see himself again.
When he stepped outside the cave, Kellin started like a child caught in a forbidden act. She was in conversation with Lanaal, but they both silenced at the sight of him.
"Vell," Kellin said, trying to appear calm, though her eyes were red and her cheeks stained. "Did you see anything?"
"Yes," he said, walking over to her. "So did you."
"No, I..."
He stopped near her. "Tell me," he said.
"It helped explain why I'm here," she said, casting her eyes to the ground. "My compulsion to help your tribe."
"What do you mean?"
"She's atoning," Lanaal supplied. Her hand stroked Kellin's shoulder. "Atoning for a wrong she didn't know of until now."
Vell shook his head, not understanding.
"I saw Morgur's Mound in my vision," Kellin said, her throat becoming dry. "And my father. He read a counter-spell that cut through the magic protecting the place, and he took a piece of the dinosaur bone." She looked up into Vell's eyes. "He lied when he said he bought it in Baldur's Gate. He stole it. He was a—" she choked, "—a vandal and a desecrator."
"But you're not," Vell said.
"But my father..."
"Apparently the blood of mages flows in my veins, but I am no mage," Vell said.
Kellin looked into his brown eyes.
"Sometimes ancestry is something to be overcome, not embraced," Vell continued. "All the same, I don't recommend you tell Keirkrad about this."
"I should say not!" cried Kellin. She wrapped her long arms around him, something he didn't expect. He could feel the warm trickle of tears onto his shoulder. "Tylvis was right," she said. "The Fountains of Memory can show you things you don't want to know." Forcing a smile, she asked, "But what did you find?"