Ordinarily Vasen preferred to prepare his mind and spirit in solitude. But he remembered the Oracle’s admonition-“Things change, Vasen.”
“Please do. I was just walking, too. And the company of a brother in the faith would be welcome.”
Orsin hesitated, an awkward smile hanging from his lips.
“Something wrong?” Vasen asked.
“Not wrong, but. . I should tell you that I’m not a worshiper of Amaunator.”
Given the context, the words struck Vasen as so unlikely that he thought he might have misheard.
“What? You’re not?”
Orsin shook his bald head. “I’m not.”
Now that he thought about it, Vasen did not recall seeing Orsin at dawn worship, or at any of the Oracle’s sermons, or at anything else associated with the faith. Concern pulled shadows from Vasen’s skin. He tensed.
“Then what. .”
Orsin held his hands loose at his side. Perhaps he read the concern in Vasen’s face. “I’m not an enemy.”
“All right,” Vasen said, still coiled, eyes narrowed. “But are you a friend?”
Orsin smiled. The expression seemed to come easy to him. “I was, once. I’d like to be again.”
“What does that mean?” Vasen asked.
“I ask myself the same thing often,” Orsin said.
Vasen’s faith allowed him to see into a man’s soul, and he saw no ill intent in Orsin. Besides, the man would have been magically interrogated in the Dalelands before being brought to the vale. And had he been hostile, the spirits of the pass would have barred his passage. Still, Vasen could not imagine anyone other than a follower of Amaunator risking the Sembian countryside to come to the abbey.
“I’m. . at a loss,” Vasen said. “I’ll need to tell the Oracle.”
“Oh, he knows.”
“He knows?”
Orsin smiled, shrugged. “He does.”
“I’m confused. Why are you here, then?”
Orsin’s milky eyes were unreadable. “That, too, is something I often ask myself. The answer, usually, is happenstance. I just follow the wind.”
Vasen could not quite make sense of either the reply or the man. He could tell Orsin was not giving him the entire truth, yet he sensed no lie in Orsin’s words.
“You’re a strange man, Orsin.”
“Would it surprise you to know that I’ve heard that before?” Orsin chuckled. “Does this change your answer? May I still walk with you?”
“Oh, I insist you walk with me now.”
“Very good, then,” Orsin said, and used his staff to scribe a line in the dirt before their feet.
“I hesitate to ask,” Vasen said. “What’s that you just did?”
He wondered if perhaps the man were mentally unsound.
“Lines mark borders, a beginning. This is before,” Orsin said, and used his staff to point to one side of the line. Then he pointed to the other side. “This is after. I hope there’s a friendship on this side.”
The words, so guileless, touched Vasen.
“Then I do, too,” Vasen said, and together they stepped over the line. Orsin’s steps were so light on the undergrowth that they made almost no sound.
“Where are you from?” Vasen asked him. He made a note to ask Byrne and Eldris about Orsin. In particular, he wanted to know how Orsin had slipped through the interrogation they performed on all would-be pilgrims. A non-worshiper getting through suggested a problem. The battles being fought in the Dales could not be an excuse for carelessness.
“I’m from the east, Telflammar,” Orsin said. “Do you know it?”
Vasen shook his head. It was just an exotic name he’d heard from time to time, although perhaps coming from Telflammar explained Orsin’s exotic appearance.
“It’s very far from here,” Orsin said, looking off in the distance. “It was. . changed in the Spellplague.”
“What wasn’t?”
“True, true,” Orsin said. “And you? Where are you from?”
Vasen made a gesture that took in the vale. “I’m from here.”
“Sembia?”
“Not Sembia, no. Sembia belongs to the Shadovar. I was born in this vale, and it belongs to us.”
“Us,” Orsin said. “You’re. . not Shadovar?”
Vasen had heard the question often from pilgrims and it no longer offended him. “No. I’m. . something else.”
“Something else, but. . akin to shadows, yes?”
Vasen held up a hand. “Listen. Do you hear that?”
Orsin looked puzzled. He cocked his head. “The water?”
Vasen nodded. “The cascades. They’re the first thing I hear when I lead pilgrims to the vale or return from taking them home. Hearing them, I know I’m home.”
“You walk much but never far.”
Vasen liked that. “Yes. Never far. Are you interrogating me, Orsin of Telflammar?”
“So it seems,” the man said with a grin. “You’ve spent your entire life here?”
“Since the day I was born. Only the Oracle has been here longer. All the others, even the abbot, rotate in and out. The gloom is not for everyone.”
“No, but it calls those it calls,” Orsin said. “And nothing lasts forever.”
Orsin’s words reminded Vasen of the Oracle’s words earlier. His expression must have turned somber. Orsin picked up on it.
“I’m sorry. Did I speak out of turn? I meant that the darkness couldn’t last forever.”
Vasen waved off the apology. “No need for sorry. Your words just put me in mind of words someone else said to me recently.”
“I see.”
“And if anything can last forever, I fear it’s this darkness.”
“I think not,” Orsin said.
Vasen smiled. “You’re sure you’re not a worshiper of the Dawnfather?”
“Very good,” Orsin said with a chuckle. “Very good.” The end of Orsin’s staff put little divots in the earth as they walked. “Where are we walking?”
“I’m just following the wind, same as you.”
They came to the river’s edge. The burbling water, shallow and fast moving, cut a groove in the valley’s floor. Trees jutted at odd angles from the steeply sloped bank. Round rocks like cairn stones lined the bank. Vasen felt a chill, and it reminded him of the dream of his father.
Directly across the river stood another pair of pilgrims-a middle-aged man with a scarred face who held the hand of a plump, long-haired woman, probably his wife.
Vasen held a hand aloft in greeting and called, “The light warm and keep you.”
The pilgrims stared at him for a moment, finally raised their hands in a tentative wave, and mumbled an echo of his blessing. They hurried on without another word.
“My appearance makes some uncomfortable,” he said, pointing a finger at his eyes, which he knew glowed yellow in dim light.
“My appearance does the same,” Orsin said. He looked in the direction the pilgrims had gone. “Seems unfair, since they owe their safety to you.”
“Fairness does not enter into it,” Vasen said. “It’s my honor to serve.”
“And true service often demands solitude.”
Vasen heard something forlorn in Orsin’s tone, an echo of his own feelings. “You speak as one who knows that firsthand.”
Orsin nodded. “I do.”
“Well, neither of us walks alone today, yeah?”
“Very good. Not alone. Not today.”
Abruptly, Vasen made a decision that surprised him. “Come on. I’ll show you a place.”
Orsin’s eyebrows rose in a question but his tongue did not utter it.
Vasen followed the bank of the river for a time. Ahead, through the thinning pines, he saw the cracked, pale face of the eastern wall of the vale, and above it, crags like teeth. The shadows of the mountains fell across the forest, darkening the already dim air further. Vasen felt the deepening darkness draw around him like a blanket, thick and comfortable.
He turned right, leaving the river behind. The ground sloped upward, and the pines, older and taller than elsewhere in the vale, towered over them. The scrub overgrew the walking path.
“Few come this way,” Orsin observed.
“I usually come here alone,” Vasen said. He’d always felt drawn to it.
“Thank you for letting me accompany you, then.”