Truth, by Ian Vassilaros

Klevor could hear the sounds of sparring across the hall. He grimaced, knowing that he alone of all the instructors would be welcome in that room right now, but he did not relish the coming inevitable confrontation. I would trade latrine duty with the initiates to avoid this, he thought to himself, and then his grimace deepened. That was harsh, Klevor. Tynan is suffering a great deal, and he needs your love, not your judgment. Images of his young ward laughing, smiling, and learning washed through his mind and heart, and he softened somewhat. If I walk in defensive, I’ve already lost him.

The wind – always cold no matter where one was on Aengril, but especially bitter here in the upper north – swept around him. Though he wore nothing but a light shirt and trousers, he did not feel it. He had gotten used to this immunity and so rarely noticed it anymore, but tonight, sensing what lay ahead, he found himself grateful again for this blessing from Jaryk. He silently thanked his Lord as he approached the training room.

He stood in the doorway, watching his student practice hitting the straw men with his wooden sword. After a while, he spoke.

“I thought I’d find you down here, Tynan.”

Tynan didn’t say anything aside from grunting briefly as he launched another assault on the dummy. Klevor shook his head, stepped into room, and sat down on one of the hard wooden stools scattered about the floor. Drops of sweat fell off of Tynan’s forehead as he danced about, dodging an imaginary attack by the dummy. The older man observed the concentration on Tynan’s face. In others, it might be a virtue, but Klevor had known him long enough to know that he only got that look when he was truly angry.

After a time, Klevor said, “I’m sorry for what happened today.”

Tynan whacked the dummy a couple more times before wiping the sweat off his face and pointing an accusing finger at his teacher. “Are you? Are you truly sorry?” He shook his head angrily and went back to fighting.

Klevor rubbed his bald head with a thick hand. Father of Winter, grant me patience, understanding, and guidance. If I say the wrong thing here… He didn’t finish his prayer with words; the images flashing through his mind of the possible terrible conclusions to this conversation communicated his desires clearly enough. He remained silent for a time, watching as Tynan’s attacks slowly changed in intensity from anger to despair and grief. It was a subtle shift, but Klevor had been fighting – and watching others fight – for a long time; he had seen many warriors make that shift and then lose whatever battle they were waging soon after. Oh, Tynan. You cannot win this fight with anger, he thought, feeling his own grief start to surface. It had been a long, difficult path, and he had invested a lot into it.

Finally, Tynan stopped, standing with shoulders drooped, soaked with sweat. He stood for several long minutes, his face in shadow. Though Klevor could not see Tynan’s eyes, he knew they were filled with tears, but he also knew that Tynan would be angrily blinking them back.

Suddenly, Tynan dropped his practice sword and shield, lifted his fists to the heavens, and let out a cry of anger mixed with frustration. The wordless shout filled the room, echoing out to the hallways and even reaching some of the rooms in the center of the monastery. Those that heard it knew where it was coming from and to stay away from its source. Klevor was the only one brave enough to talk to Tynan when he was in one of his moods.

When the sound faded from his throat, he whirled to face his mentor. “Why?” he shouted. “Why have I been rejected three times? Three times!” He panted with fury, the storm in his eyes raging with the power of buried anguish.

Klevor shook his head and motioned to the chair next to him. “Sit.”

”I will not sit!” he shouted again, then picked up his practice sword and flung it at the far wall with all his strength. It struck the wall and then clattered to the ground loudly. Breathing deeply, he said in a quieter voice, the words clipped and angry, “I will not sit. I will not be treated like a callow initiate. I want answers. Real answers. Not the metaphysical crap that you feed to the gullible younglings.” He gritted his teeth, his voice rising with each word. “Why. Have I been. Rejected!” He spat that word out like it was a curse. “Three times!” The last word was another shout that resonated through the room. “Three times, Klevor!”

Klevor abruptly stood, towering over Tynan. “If you want your answers, you will sit next to me and listen to what I have to say!” He thrust his arm towards one of the stools, pointing. “Now sit!”

Tynan blanched slightly – Klevor rarely raised his voice. His brows furrowed, he slumped onto the stool, glaring at his teacher.

With complete calm, Klevor nodded towards him and said, “Thank you.” He took his own seat and said nothing for a time. When he sensed the Tynan getting edgy, he asked quietly, “Tynan, why are you here?” Tynan opened his mouth to retort angrily, but Klevor held up his hand, and he lapsed back into a sullen silence.

Klevor continued. “Tynan, those that seek the favor of Jaryk come here for training. Not all are accepted by Him. Usually, those that are not received as paladins in the first two tries accept that they are not cut out for the life of a paladin and they leave, seeking some other way to serve him. Many fine priests have come from this holy place, having first sought the life of a paladin, but seeing that they have a different calling than the one they came here seeking.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of his stool for a moment before continuing. “And then there’s you, Tynan. You’re a good person with a kind heart, but after three times requesting the paladinic calling and three times not receiving them from Our Lord, you’re still here. It’s as if you want to force yourself down the throats of all those around you. I know you want to fight the evil that made you an orphan, but you don’t have to be a paladin to do it. Sign up as a soldier or guard on the frontier, or find some other way to take your gifts in combat and use them for the greater good. So I ask – why are you here?”

Tynan sat for a while before responding. Klevor watched the struggle on his face, but he sighed as he watched Tynan’s typical angry response to challenges come to the front. Tynan clenched his fists and said, “I watched them, Klevor. I watched them slaughter my family. They left me alive, to die! I saw it in their faces. They knew what they were doing, they knew I would die without any help. There was no reason for it! Just to be cruel to another living thing!” He jumped up and began pacing. “Never again, Klevor, never.”

Klevor watched almost helplessly at the young man he had helped raise and teach. Lord, how do I reach this boy? How can I help him find his path in life? He sighed again. “Tynan, you still haven’t answered my question, though. I know your past, we’ve talked about it before. Why are you here? Why will becoming a paladin help you triumph over your past? Is it possible that you are searching for answers in the wrong places?”

“How can I possibly be searching for my answers in the wrong places, Klevor? How many times have you told me that being a paladin is the highest, noblest calling in all of Aengril? You and Grellish and Jaelreth and Lydia and The Bear… all of you, and all the rest. Haven’t you found your answers here?” He continued pacing, his anger pouring nervous energy into his fatigued limbs.

Klevor’s gaze followed Tynan’s pacing for a few laps before answering. “Tynan, remember how we had all you initiates grow a set of flowers in the courtyard garden? You are trying to force your answers. It’s as if you are pulling on the tender stems of your flowers, shouting at it to grow faster, but when you do that, you damage your plant. It grows best when you take an indirect role. You give it sunlight, water, and fertilizer, and then you leave it alone to grow by itself.”

He gestured towards the door, with the courtyard outside. “Remember how Heirina wanted to grow keelar blossoms? We allowed her to try, but she discovered that no matter how hard she tried, they wouldn’t grow. And why not? Because they don’t grow here. The climate is all wrong. Tynan, you are like those keelar blossoms. This is a good environment for many types of people, but I think you do not belong here, at least not right now. It’s not your climate. You are a keelar blossom trying to grow like the greathlin fern. So go find your climate, be who you really are.”

Tynan shook his head forcefully. “No! I will not accept that. I will be a paladin. It is what I really want.”

Klevor felt the urge to throttle his charge rise up, but he forced himself to recall how he and Lydia had found the not-even-six-year-old boy, terrified and huddling in the corner of a blood-stained room, and the memory cleared his heart of frustration again. He took a deep breath. “Why, Tynan, why? Why do you really want it? Look beneath the surface reasons, the reasons I gave you. You have your own reasons to want this. Do you even know what they are? Or are you afraid of them?”

Tynan, eyes flashing, spun around to face Klevor. “I am not afraid! I fear no orc, shifter, or bandit! I will fight them all and send them back to the hell they belong to!”

Klevor stood and grabbed Tynan by the shoulders. “By the gods, Tynan! Do you realize that you have dodged my question three times? It is a simple question, and yet you dance around it like any changeling around the truth! Answer me! Why are you on this path?”

Tynan blurted out, “Because I want to make them pay! I want to hurt evil like it hurt me!” He stopped suddenly, mouth open in shock at what he had just said. Klevor gently turned, put his arm around Tynan’s shoulders, and guided him back to his stool. He allowed the silence to deepen between them as Tynan grappled with the truth that he had never allowed himself to see.

They sat for a long time, the torches guttering lower and lower as the night snuck up on them. Klevor heard a voice and turned towards the door as an initiate poked his head in. “Brother Klevor, you are need-“ Klevor shushed him and waved him away. The initiate scurried off, but the interruption seemed to break Tynan’s train of thought.

He roused himself and spoke slowly, as if from a great distance. “Klevor, what do I do?” His eyes met his teacher’s, and Klevor saw an openness there that had never been present before.

Thank you, Lord. The large man gently put his hand on Tynan’s shoulder. “You have been wanting to be a paladin for all the wrong reasons. Hate and vengeance are not our tools, but I know you better than this. These cannot be the sole reasons you want to follow our path. Why else?”

Then the tears came, and this time, Tynan did not try and blink them away. He buried his head in Klevor’s broad chest and wracking sobs shook his body. The older man’s compassion guided his arms to hold the grieving boy in a tight grip for a long time. Finally, Tynan pulled away, and through stuttering sobs, he said, “I j-just w-w-want to be like y-you.” He put his head in his hands and wept again, less violently this time. When he had pulled himself together, he looked up, red-rimmed eyes swollen and utterly vulnerable.

Klevor felt the tears come to his own eyes as he grieved for this wounded soul he had fought with, taught, trained, and loved. “Oh, my boy.” They wept together then, the grizzled old paladin and his adoptive son. The tears seemed to clear away some of anger, though Klevor was wise enough to know that Tynan’s rage ran too deep to disappear in one moment of honesty. They stood and hugged, then they both sat again.

“Tynan, the reason why Jaryk has not granted you paladin powers is because you have the wrong motives. Your anger could easily lead you down the path of the blackguard. You have heard us speak of Yorith? He was a fine paladin, a good man, but his pride got in the way. Little by little, he removed himself from our company, and as you know, he has become an utterly evil man. What you don’t know is that Yorith was my own son. No one who knows that secret speaks it, but I have had my own motives in training you, as if somehow, succeeding with you would make up for my own past failure.” He was quiet for a moment, and Tynan remained silent as well, absorbing this new fact gifted to him. “Tynan, I fear for you. Only one who is a paladin first can become a blackguard, and if you never become a paladin, then that path is barred to you as well. As they say, the higher you climb, the further you can fall. And you are in danger.”

“Klevor, I swear to you that I won’t fall! I will make a good paladin! I will make you proud!” Tynan’s vow filled the space between them, but Klevor shook his head slowly. The exuberance of youth often failed to accept its own weakness, accept the fact that good men and women could and did fall. The path of evil was a very subtle one, and he knew that Tynan’s anger blinded him to the poison he carried within.

Seeing some of the anger creeping back into Tynan’s eyes, Klevor added quickly, “I do not mean that you will not make a fine paladin, my boy. I shake my head because you foolhardily believe that there is no way you could fall. Yorith believed the same thing.” He leaned forward. “Listen to me – I still pray to Jaryk that I will have the strength to not fall. I look at my weaknesses and failings and wonder that I haven’t fallen already. If you truly want this path, then let this truth sink deep into your heart – the moment you believe yourself immune from falling is the moment that you are already down that path. The only way I can see for you to become a paladin and not fall will be for you to cling to that truth with every fiber of your being.”

He leaned forward intently, warming up to the subject. “Humility is the single greatest trait of any paladin. The path of pride is the path of damnation. Though when we are proud, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are not proud. Yorith fell into that trap – perversely believing in his virtue while simultaneously discarding it.”

Klevor’s stomach abruptly rumbled loudly, breaking the seriousness of the moment. Startled, they both started to laugh. He stood up. “Come, Tynan, let’s go eat some supper, and we’ll continue your training. Perhaps you will become the first paladin accepted after four tries.” Tynan stood slowly, his head spinning. He had a lot to think about. They walked out of the training room towards the mess hall, both lost in their own thoughts.

#

One year later, Tynan knelt before the high priest of Jaryk, Telor, like he had the previous three years. If Telor was surprised to see the same initiate in front of him that he had seen for three years running, he showed no sign of it in his face.

It had been a hard year. After their talk, he and Klevor had worked together closely to prepare him for the annual visit of the high priest and the acceptance ritual that determined an initiate’s worthiness to join the ranks of the holy paladins of Jaryk. He still had no answers to many of his questions, and it frustrated him to no end, but he had found some sort of peace, an acceptance of his lot. After a particularly loud and long argument, he had agreed that if Jaryk did not accept him the fourth time, he would seek a new life elsewhere. He did not know where he would go, but he would keep his promise.

Klevor watched from his accustomed spot, behind the high priest, as befitted the head of this paladin training monastery. He still worried. Tynan had much anger and pride left in him, yet he did show a different spirit this past year as he prepared for the ritual. He knew that he could not control Tynan – ultimately, he had to make his own choices, and the path of blackguard beckoned stronger to him than any of his other trainees since his own son. If Jaryk accepted him, then he would rejoice and bury his concerns deep in his heart, where only Jaryk Himself could hear them. If he needed to have strong words for Tynan in the future, he would say them, but he hoped that day would not come.

Telor placed his hands on Tynan’s head and said his prayer. “O Lord of Winter, this humble petitioner has come asking to join your holy ranks as a paladin, to be an example to those around him, to defend the innocent and helpless, and in all ways to show the righteousness of your power to the world, to stand as a witness in all times and all places of humility and strength. Wilt thou accept his petition?”

It felt as though everyone in the entire courtyard held their collective breaths. Everyone knew of Tynan, and many doubted that he would ever be accepted, though there were a few like Klevor who saw his potential as well. If he were accepted, everyone would feel a deep chill settle, frost would gather and touch the petitioner, and there would be a flash of cold light. There would be no doubt. If he were not accepted, then nothing.

A wind suddenly blew through the open air of the courtyard and whipped around the figures of Tynan and Telor. The temperature dropped far below freezing, though all attendees were seemingly covered with a protective aura. They could feel the cold, yet it could not hurt them. Frost formed on all the surfaces, stone, wood, and metal, though it touched no flesh. As the wind curled around the two figures, snow began to fall, but only on them, and in a moment both the high priest and the petitioner disappeared to the sight of everyone else as the snow fell so thickly in that narrow area that no sight could penetrate it. The wind howled and in it, all present could hear the holy chanting of otherworldly beings. A few, including Klevor, even saw two glowing figures on either side of the snowy pillar lifting their coldfire swords to the heavens. The noise and wind and snow reached a peak, then suddenly the snow burst away from the two figures, the wind gentled to a chill breeze, a flash of light, so bright that it should have blinded everyone there, exploded into the now silent air, and a voice that was kind, yet deep and cold, echoed in the ears of all.

YES.

A light snow began to fall. Tynan stood slowly. He had seen…things. He never spoke of what he saw while he was covered in snow, but he felt different. His anger was still there – a fire that burned in his heart – but he could feel the presence of Jaryk with him like he never had before. He turned to face the crowd and saw many with their mouths open in shock. He felt the cool hands of Telor grab his arm and raise it, as the high priest proclaimed, “Behold, the newest member of Jaryk’s holy army!” Dead silence met him as he ritually shed all outer clothing save a light shirt and trousers in front of the high priest to show his faith in his newfound immunity to the cold. He turned and walked off the dais between two columns of young recruits with blades drawn in formal respect, an honor guard whose members had not expected to form for this angry young man. He looked straight ahead, never wavering.

Through it all, one thought ran across his mind over and over, exulting in the achievement of his goal. I am a paladin!

And in the deep recesses of his soul, a voice spoke. Not a loud or harsh voice, but a quiet one, one that pierced his soul to the center and caused his heart to burn with love. This is not the end of your path, my son. You have only just begun.

As gratitude welled up within him, he prayed, What would you have me do, Lord?

The response came immediately. Bring Yorith back to Me.

Tynan stumbled.