The Orb of Xoriat

Epilogue

Keiftal looked up, his eyes alight with joy. “Teron, my boy, I’m so very glad to see you!” he said, rising slowly and painfully from his cot. “When that d’Sivis left after you, I feared for the worst.”

Teron smiled shyly. “I can take care of myself, master,” he said.

“I know that, but I feared you’d not be able to protect both yourself and the Thrane Sphere. But I am glad that you did. Tell me, my boy, where is it now?”

“I don’t know,” said Teron, but as the alarm rose on Keiftal’s face, he added, “It’s gone, Keiftal, and we need not worry about it for a long, long time. The Fields took it, and they will be loathe to yield it up again.”

Keiftal began to sway slightly, and Teron gently led him back to his cot.

“Master Keiftal,” said Teron, “I have something to tell you. I, well, I probably shouldn’t tell you until you’re healed, but I will not restrain the truth.”

“What is it, my boy?”

“When I was in the Crying Fields, I chanced upon some Thrane military scouting reports. I took them from the command tent, but they faded just as I feared they would. But I knew you’d want to know what was in them.”

“What did they say, my boy?”

“I didn’t have time to read the whole of them, but the gist is this: When the Thranes used their Sphere, the prelate and his troops were just ten miles away. Waiting.”

Keiftal gaped. “Our reinforcements, the promised help, just ten miles away?” He moaned, then raised his eyes to the sky. “Oh, Dol Arrah, why could they not have arrived earlier?”

“They did,” said Teron. “There were several reports. The prelate and his reinforcements were encamped ten miles away for almost two weeks. But he never moved his troops in a position to assist in our battle. In fact, it looked like he avoided contact with the Thrane army when they tried to engage him.”

“He swore!” spat Keiftal, disbelieving. “He swore to help us! If they had come as promised—”

Then the aging monk reconsidered this news for a while. “That was probably for the best, in the long run,” he said softly. “That is, if his troops had been here, there would have been that many more lives claimed by the Thrane Sphere.” He looked up at Teron but couldn’t keep his gaze.

“That does not change the fact that he broke his vow,” said Teron. “Nor the fact that he wanted the Thranes to destroy us utterly.”

“But why would he want that?” asked Keiftal.

Teron walked over to the window and opened the curtain. He looked out on the Crying Fields with his arms crossed, then he turned back to Keiftal. “Because he didn’t have the courage to do it himself.”

Teron snorted once, smiling wryly. He turned and walked to the door, gripping Keiftal’s shoulder affectionately as he passed. He turned at the door and looked back at his master.

“But I refuse to die.”