Chapter 18: Why Do You Think Men Fight?

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, but I fear the answer would only sadden me." The old man smiled. "So, rather, I would ask: why are you sleeping in this blizzard without a fire?"

Sethlzaar frowned. "I already told you. The wood was wet."

"Oh well, it's a good thing I ran into you then. I've been told luck tends to favor me."

Sethlzaar doubted luck had any hand in it.

The man took out a piece of dried meat from his cloak. He offered it casually. "Are you hungry?"

Sethlzaar's stomach growled at the invitation. But his brain, understanding there was a reason it was called a test, and why it was done individually, shook his head.

The man shook his head too. "Just like last time," he said blandly. "Still pulling crazy stunts. First, a misty forest. Now, a raging blizzard." He cocked his head to the side questioningly. "Is it worth it?"

Sethlzaar understood the question to be rhetorical as the man continued. "I understand you are a seminarian, however little. But why all the suffering and the stress?"

"We need to know how to survive."

Sethlzaar hated how the man's words coaxed him into talking. He understood he had no strength and needed to conserve as much as he could. But he found it a task too great to remain silent. It was as if silence in the presence of the man was the equivalent of speaking in the presence of others.

He flexed his fingers over the flame. The numbness faded with the heat. It was a nice feeling.

"But why you?" the man asked.

Sethlzaar looked up from the fire. "Someone has to."

"For what reason? To fight? For war?" The man took another bite of his meat. His body moved like the old, but he chewed like the young.  After a while, he asked, "Why do you think men fight, child?"

"Because of anger, hate... love. To defend the credence.... To protect what is theirs?"

"Are you asking or telling me?"

Sethlzaar frowned. "I'm telling you."

"You're right, but the question is not why, but why." The man took another bite. "Love. Anger. Hate. These are secondary, and surmountable to being unimportant. Men fight because there is something they want that will not be given to them. So they take it. The avenger wants the life of whoever has wronged him, and his enemy wants to stay alive."

Sethlzaar found the concept annoying. "So why don't we just stay on our own?"

The old man let out a small chuckle. "Because humans are too many. And they always want. You would think the evil stems from emotions, but not all of it does." He took his last bite, licked his fingers, and continued. "Sometimes men take what they take not because they want it or need it, but simply for the challenge of acquiring it. Sometimes a man just wants the conquest, to know if it is a feat he can attain." His nose wrinkled in thought. He blinked. "It's rarely ever if it's a feat they should attain."

Sethlzaar understood what the man meant. Sometimes he stole food from the kitchen or fruits from the garden not because he was hungry or wanted to save it for a later time but simply because he wanted to know if he could get away with it. Once, he had stolen a berry while a priest spoke to him. With the understanding, came a shame for the question asked.

It had been dodged, and Sethlzaar had allowed it, but now he wanted an answer.

"Why are you here?" he asked, hoping his tone helped the man understand there would be no further conversation without an answer.

"Back to that, I see." The man adjusted a bundled up sack. He laid himself on the ground and rested his head on it. The task was carried out with as much sluggishness as Sethlzaar remembered him for. "You can say I am a wanderer," he said, "I have been everywhere, but I still go."

Sethlzaar had once thought the Realm the world, but Fen's tales of its exploits taught him otherwise. The few tales he'd heard from the priests taught him that such a feat as the man claimed was impossible.

Why would he lie now? he wondered.

"I have been to a place where class is determined by the color of one's skin..." the man continued in a slow voice, as if he counted his words, weighed them before speaking them. "A place where the people's credence believes there is but only one God who has such power over men that he can bend their hearts if he wills. A place where the women are worshipped as divine. As well as a place where a child's life is decided from the moment of their birth. Soldiers to the battlefields. Priests to the shrines. Abominations to the graves."

"There is no other god but Truth," Sethlzaar said.

The man laughed. "Funny how that is the only thing you picked from all I said..." He looked away, spoke to the shelter. "And believing that, and the idea that when one dies he crosses over to another life that has nothing to do with this one makes more sense?"

Sethlzaar paused, surprised. "You do not believe in the credence?"

"Do not get me wrong, child, I have nothing against the credence. But tell me, what is the fate of those who do not believe in the credence."

"They are taught the way of the true credence," Sethlzaar replied promptly.

"And if they don't accept it?"

"They are..." he hesitated. He knew the answer. It was not new to him but he found himself not so at ease saying it. "...Put to the sword," he finished.

This was to be his future. The duty of a priest of Truth.

"You have heard of the touched, correct?" the old man asked, moving past their conversation as though it had been a normal one.

He's a wanderer, maybe it is for him, Sethlzaar contrived to convince himself before giving his answer. "Yes. Those whose hearts are twisted by the malice of the dead from seeking to communicate with those on the other side, refusing them their union with Truth, and Ayla the return of her gifts."

"I see you know your credence," the man complimented.

"Everyone knows of the touched."

Sethlzaar found no pride in it. The touched was something every child knew about. It spoke naught of his knowledge of the credence.

The man grinned. "Then you must also know of the war of the lost."

Serhlzaar hesitated. "No."

The war of the lost was a tale of the origin of the touched according to the credence. But it was not one so easily heard. Children spoke about it and so did adults. But it was obvious that the stories carried about were either incomplete or heavily manipulated for the sake of making it interesting, or child friendly.

Even so, Sethlzaar had never heard the tale. Even Alsipin never spoke of it. When asked about it once, he had simply replied, "My people do not tell tales without the truth and its entirety."

"Then let me grace you with a story to send you to sleep, child. For it is one of dazzling knowledge. And we do need our sleep." The old man adjusted comfortably. "Millennia past," he began, "there lived a king. His rule was unquestioned, and his ways precise. He ruled a great people and coveted that which was not his until one day the slaves of his people rose from their oppression and fought back, led by one man. Skilled with the sword and the axe, he led the slaves out of the kingdom, seeking refuge wherever they could.

"The king, ordering their capture, sent out legions to conquer them. But when the slaves were found, they had allied themselves with others and easily triumphed over the king's men. The king, angered by the challenge of his authority, waged war on the slaves and all who allied with them. It lasted for years. The slaves gathered more allies after each battle. The king, so foolish in his power, refused offers from other tribes. He claimed they were all his to begin with. Soon, found himself in a war waged against the world upon Ayla.

"As the tides of war turned against him, he and his people sought to reach beyond life in search of powers to attain victory. And power they got. A power evident in the blue of their eyes as it shone in the dark.

"The war lasted briefly before his castle was stormed and taken. In the last fight within the throne room the king's massive throne was crushed, and the king defeated. In his defeat he brought down hundreds of men single handedly." There was a smile in the man's voice as he ended the last sentence.

"The king and his people are said to be the first of the touched," the man went on, "their malice spreading across Ayla with their deaths, gripping the hearts of men who seek to communicate with the dead."

"Was the king killed in the last fight?" Sethlzaar asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

"No," the man answered as Sethlzaar's eyes grew heavy with sleep. "He lived out the rest of his days a jester in the courts of kings and lords. And thus, is the tale of the war of the lost and the origin of the touched...."

Sethlzaar wasn't sure he heard the man's next words accurately. But the complete disgust in his tone was unmistakable.

".... Or so it is so inaccurately told."