He waited an hour, till he was certain Nieroda would not return to the Mulenex clay. Satisfied, he finally strode from the wreckage of the great hall. The lone weapon he took was the blade he had obtained from Nieroda. He believed it free of any taint of control. The others, Sword and Shield, he left for whomever wanted them.
He did wish there were a way of disposing of them permanently. That was impossible. Even were they dumped into the ocean's deeps, the Great Old Ones would find ways to bring them back to willing hands.
He hefted the Nieroda blade. It was an almost-Daubendiek. It might be of use to the Lady Mead. Or to the Contessa in her struggle to salvage the corpse of An-derle.
Could he bring the two women together? To scavenge a new, happier reality from the ruins of the old?
It seemed a goal worthy of his new life and blade. Perhaps, when faced by a champion as feared and deadly as he, the greedy, power-hungry Mulenexes could be cowed into building a world immune to such as Suchara.
Gathrid did not begin wondering about Theis Rogala till almost two months had passed. He was in Guder-muth, bound for Ventimiglia. Kacalief was not far away. He planned to stop and see what the Mindak had done for Loida and his sister. Curiosity began plaguing him when he passed the place where he and the dwarf had emerged from the caverns.
He strode to the nearest hilltop, slowly surveyed the naked landscape. He saw nothing. But the very fact that the dwarf had not entered his mind for so long seemed suggestive.
Was Suchara toying with him still? Was her agent stalking him with a hungry blade? Had he thought of the dwarf only because her attention had lapsed momentarily?
He finally shrugged, walked on. It did not matter. If the encounter was to come, it would come. He would not evade it. He would be prepared.
He went over the details with Ahlert, Count Cuneo and other wise and captive souls. A Theis so brazen as to bring the traditional dagger would be one surprised and short-lived dwarf.
Only a handful of the strongest minds had survived the passage through the realm of the Great Old Ones. He missed the others. His interior world had been his refuge from loneliness. As they had been for Tureck Aarant so long ago.
Funny. The best friend he had ever had was a man who had been dead a thousand years. A man who had died twice. He missed Tureck dearly.
The missing souls had left him much of their accumulated experience. He had learned to draw upon it as though it were his own. He had the knowledge to become an Ahlert or Eldracher had he the wish.
He felt as old as the time-worn hills of the Savard.
His birthday was approaching. He had overlooked his seventeenth in the chaos of the previous autumn. His eighteenth now approached more swiftly than seemed possible.
He had grown physically as well as mentally. He had confidence in himself. Reassurances would be pleasant, but he no longer needed outside support or direction. He could be his own creature and survive. In a few years he might fit the popular image of a hero.
He had been an introvert all his life. He remained one, but the impact of his adventures had shattered his fear of the world. He felt better about Gathrid of Kacalief. His shift in feelings about himself he saw clearly cast on the inside landscape of himself.
He had become a man.
His changes in attitude toward externals were more elusive and less satisfying. Mainly, he cared less.
The world's agonies no longer pained him. He had little sympathy for its self-torment. It had become an irritation.
Yet his idealism had not vanished. He just seemed unable to apply it in any direct, specific fashion.
Grass and brambles infested Kacalief's remains. Bones still lay heaped in monumental piles round the castle hill.
Rusty weapons and armor could be found everywhere in the weedy fields.
A handful of stubborn, enterprising peasants had begun reclaiming the land. It was blood-enriched earth where plows more often turned on broken swords than stones. The peasants were collecting the iron in hopes of someday selling it.
Gathrid abandoned his eastward journey for a time. Some of the peasants remembered him from his youth. They were not thrilled with his return. They knew too much of his tale.
For days he prowled the ruins or sat staring at the mausoleum on the flank of the hill. He tried to wish back the dead.
They were gone from his mind as well as his world. He could find them only in his heart, in faint, sad echoes of feelings that once had been.
Sometimes he considered searching for Loida's people. They would want to know what had become of her. He never got around to going.
He was sitting in the tall green grass, sword across his lap, sucking a sweet stalk and staring at the mausoleum, when he heard the soft brush of grass against stealthy legs. He listened carefully as the sound crept up behind him.
"Come on up and take a seat, Theis."
He had not turned. The sound died. Nothing happened for several seconds. Then the dwarf moved up briskly and settled himself. "You're learning."
"Yes. I am." The dwarf had healed as quickly as ever, except for his eyes. He remained blind. "And I've been expecting you."
They stared at the gray stone mausoleum for a long while. The Mindak's artisans had told the story of each girl in skillful bas-relief.
"Why?" Rogala asked.
"The dagger. It was time."
"Suchara has lost you already."
"I left, Theis. She didn't let me go. No more, I think, than she'd ever let you go. Her pride will compel her to try something."
"You think she still rules me? I'm free, Gathrid."
"I don't hear your conviction, Theis. If you're free, what're you doing here with me?"
"Where else have I got to go? What else, whom else, do I know? They left me no options when they took my eyes. It's go with you or become a beggar. The Esquire has his pride too."
"Uhm." That sounded as though it contained a grain of truth. Long life was a curse upon Rogala. It made him a time traveler marooned far from home. He had nothing in this world but his fragile association with the youth he was supposed to kill once Suchara had tired of him.
Was there anyone else with a use for the blind dwarf?
Perhaps someone who would use him as Ahlert had used the Toal.
"How did it begin, Theis? What are the Great Old Ones? Where did they come from?"
"I don't know."
"Really, Theis? Pardon me if I have trouble believing you. You've always known more than you were willing to tell."
"Gathrid, I'm a tired old man. Rehashing the past, and my ignorance, won't do any of us any good."
"I want to understand, Theis. I've been a part of something. On a grand scale. I want to know what. I want to know what it means. And on a smaller scale, I'd like to unravel the mystery called Theis Rogala. You puzzle me more than the Great Old Ones."
Rogala's sightless eyes scanned the ruined land. He did not say a word.
"Who are you, Theis? What are you? Why do you live on and on? Even Nieroda has to change flesh.
Where were you born? When? Were you born at all? What's your real connection with Suchara?''
"That's all long ago and far away, Gathrid. None of it . matters anymore."
"It matters to me. Tell me about Suchara. Is she real? Is she a goddess? Why does she torment humanity so?"
"Peace, I say!"
"No, Theis. Not anymore. Peace is dead. I've lost everything I value. I've had my life shaped and warped in a direction I would've rejected had I been able. I've seen my whole world destroyed. I want to know why!"
"It can't be changed."
"Tell me."
"Damnit! Aarant was stubborn and nosy, but he wasn't half the pest you are. Let it lie, I say."
"Start with Suchara."
Rogala sighed. "You win. Yes. She's real. She does exist. She was a human woman once. One member of a family which delved deeper than even Nieroda. Farther and deeper than Nieroda could imagine, even as Queen of Sommerlath. And they went too far. They tempted fate too much. They outlasted most researchers, but they finally stumbled into the trap that takes them all. Now they lie caught in an endless sleep, hidden away somewhere. Sometimes they dream the shaping dreams. They touch the world with their minds. The world responds. They don't know that what they touch is real. They think they're playing on a game board with the scale of a world. After all, it isn't the world in which they fell asleep."