“I’m going to scout out a ways,” Gareth said, heaving a bag over his shoulder, “I would appreciate it if there was some sort of food upon my return. Falsie? Please?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the dwarf grumbled, throwing sticks onto the fire that Gareth had set.

Gareth paused to speak to Bella, who was staking the horses that they had borrowed from Zena so they could graze. They had, in their travels during the day, passed through the forest and were firmly in the outlands at the base of the mountains, and Orenda, from where she sat with Anilla by the fire stared up at those mountains until they disappeared into the canopy of stars.

“We have mountains like this at home,” Anilla said, “Much colder, of course, but it’s remarkable how alike they look.”

“I suppose if you’ve seen one gathering of rock and dirt, you’ve seen them all,” Orenda agreed.

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Falsie argued, “No two mountains are the same.”

“What is it like in your homeland?” Orenda asked Anilla, “I’ve always found it difficult to visualize. I’m from a place that never sees snow.”

“Well…” Anilla considered, “We all have to work together more, I think. There’s less, you know, to work with. There are fewer resources compared to the plenty in the rest of the world, so people are kinder, more generous with what they have. We don’t have little isolated groups like you do. We think more in terms of what is best for the tribe. It’s more communal, but we also believe that every person should do what is best for them. I didn’t meet any resistance when I decided to leave, for example. Everyone knew that once I found my dragon, I would be back.”

“It must have been terrible,” Orenda said, “To grow up without something that everyone else had.”

“It was strange,” Anilla said, “But I don’t think it was terrible. I don’t think anyone would like to be told that their life was terrible.”

Orenda felt her face heating with embarrassment and pulled her legs to her chest as she agreed, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I only meant… as a child, for a long span of my childhood, I lived at a school where everyone else had parents. I sometimes did feel as if they had something I didn’t. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling. Which is odd, because some of them, like Tolith, made me think it was… perhaps it was better to have no mother and imagine that the one you could have had would have loved you, than it was to have a real mother and know that she didn’t. But still, there was an underlying… I can’t describe it, but that’s all I meant.”

“I lost my mother too,” Falsie said, “You never knew Soko so I don’t know if my experience was better or worse. I was young, but I can remember her, sometimes. She seemed like a good woman. I don’t think she helped the Urillians knowing it would do anything bad, that it would cause any problems. I think she just made a mistake. I don’t think she was a traitor or anything like that.”

“Did you have a father?” Orenda asked him.

“Yeah, I mean, I had one. I stayed with him a lot longer. He didn’t… I guess didn’t have the stress ma did, didn’t have to live with as much… so much it made it hard to live. But he did take to those Firefist boys when they came back, and, ya know, they were wanted pirates and all that. Traitors to the crown. Not all of you get away, sometimes, when yer running from the law.”

“Oh,” Orenda said, “Was that when Garon came to take the staff?”

“Nah,” Falsie shook his head, “They come through here all the time, back in the day, before Ronnie died. Not to go up to the temple, to go through to Huriyat AlIinsan, to take folks home or whathave you. And to visit us, I suppose, not us in particular, but the dwarves. Those boys did a lot of good in their day. Real hard to tell um apart, you know, before Garon cut his hair and everything. They used to look just alike.”

“Wait,” Orenda asked, “Gareth used to go up there all the time?”

“Yeah,” Falsie shrugged.

“So then he could have taken me to safety!” Orenda snarled, “He could have taken me to Huriyat Allinsan, but instead he dropped me off at a workhouse?”

“He stopped going up there after Garon told the Emerald Knight who he was,” Falsie said, “Didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. After my daddy got arrested an with the Knight so hot on our tail, it just didn’t-”

Bella plopped down hard by the fire and stared at the kabobs Falsie was skewering. She seemed to be thinking hard on something, but it took her a long time to voice it.

“Rendy,” She said, “Gary doesn’t think you’ll be able to get that staff. I’ve heard so much about it- it’s supposed to be magic, to be able to tell a person’s soul. It’s like that sword Xandra has, or claims to have. The person who can take it is supposed to be the Chosen One. So… by Gary’s logic, the only person who can get it would already have the sword. There’s only one ‘Chosen One’- it’s right there in the name. It wouldn’t really be special if there were a bunch of chosen people.”

“Xandra doesn’t claim she has the sword,” Orenda corrected, “And neither does Gareth. They claim the Emerald Knight has the sword.”

“The Emerald Knight is just something Xandra uses,” Bella said, “Just like any weapon. Gary… thinks too much on it. He thinks it’s an actual person. He thinks a lot of things that help him sleep at night.”

“He says he saw under the armor,” Orenda said, “That he saw flesh.”

“Gary’s seen a lot of things,” Bella shrugged, “I don’t know how many of them are real or just… it’s easy to see what you want in a situation like that. He wants someone, a real someone, to blame for the atrocities he’s seen.”

“I dunno,” Falsie shrugged, “I saw that thing myself. We both did. It’s alive. It’s alive and it’s got something in there moving it and whatnot. It might not be a person, but it’s something. It’s a living thing and it’s got a soul controlling it.”

“I don’t think it was chosen by any god,” Bella argued.

“It might not be, at that,” Falsie agreed, handing out the kabobs, “But it’s alive, is all I’m sayin.”

“Well, I think the legends are wrong, about the staff, and maybe the sword too,” Bella said as she held two of the kabobs in the fire, “I think it’s more a matter of time. I think that if the need is great enough, someone could get it out. But… I don’t know how a need would have been greater than Ronnie’s. So I really don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work.”

“You know,” Orenda said, slowly turning her kabob and listening to the crackle of it cooking, “It can’t be… there are holes in the story. I think that’s what the Emerald Knight was after, when he first came here. He was taken to get the staff, and if it’s still there that means it rejected him. So he can’t be the Chosen One, and he shouldn’t have the sword. But Gareth saw him with the sword.”

“Gareth saw him with a sword,” Anilla said, “That doesn’t mean it was the same one.”

“There may have never been a sword at all,” Bella said, “It could be a legend. I mean, no one has seen it in over three centuries, resting in that rock. There’s no proof it ever existed. That temple claims to have the sacred stone it was pulled from, and I bet they make a fortune in tourism money from that claim. It may not even be a real thing.”

“But the holy texts speak of the sword,” Orenda argued.

“The holy texts that survive, that we can read,” Bella huffed, “Say a lot of things. They’re filtered through a Urillian lense and say what Urillians would like us to believe. They say, for example, that humans were not created by Thesis, but rather evolved here like any other animal. Elves were created special, and because they are special, they have the ability to rule over the domain that they were given. But that’s not true. Elves are animals, just like the rest of us. When you cut them, they bleed. They’re not made of any special god-stuff, they’re made of flesh and bone.”

“I wish I was made of flesh and bone,” Gareth huffed in aggravation as he plopped down beside her, and Orenda jumped. He had come up so silently that she hadn’t noticed him, despite his garish dress. He slid the mask up under his hat and took a bite of the kabob Bellla offered him, “Not that I’m not thankful, old friend, but I’d love to be able to cast two-handed again. But, I suppose we must be thankful for the things we have. I’ve been bitching too much lately. What are we talking about?”

“The sacred texts,” Bella explained.

“Oh, yes, load of nonsense. Was that the consensus?” He asked as he chewed. “Where’s the rum? Thank you!” He took a drink of the flash Bella passed him.

“I don’t think it’s a load of nonsense,” Orenda said. This was partially true. She had read over the sacred texts and she classified them the same way she classified other possibilities. The world would be a better place with someone watching out for her than without. Gareth had voluntarily given up that position, so she had, on the occasions where it was warranted, filled it with the existence of a god. At other times she felt so alone and forgotten, in a world that was so cruel, that it was impossible to believe Thesis existed or cared about her.

“Those things have been used by the Urillians to commit atrocities,” Gareth said as if he thought it would end the conversation, “they put elves on a pedestal that we don’t deserve, and that will hurt bigger than hell when we fall from it. Also, there just are a bunch of scientific inaccuracies that don’t add up. People cannot teleport, for example, around the planet as they were said to do during Morgani’s rebellion. And there were never three moons, Rendy, we know the planet would have behaved completely differently. It would fuck up the tides and whatnot. Elves may have once been a single, multi-elemental race, common ancestor and all that, but if that was the case, the divergence wasn’t the result of a curse from some god, it was lots of small changes over millions of years as we adjusted to our different environments, like any other creature. In that model, it makes sense that, for example, an earth elf who had a common ancestor with a fire elf, could give birth to a fire elf. In a model where that distinction was made because a god cursed us, that couldn’t happen, because an all-powerful god could not half-ass a curse. Orenda exists, there is no god, thank you for coming to my symposium, let’s eat.”

“You don’t know any of that to be true,” Orenda said.

“Rendy, I was raised by a high priest and her god-chosen soul mate. It may have been long ago, but believe me, no one can quote the sacred texts like a child who was forced, against his will, to memorize them.”

“Really?” Orenda asked, “Because you seem to have forgotten that the Urillians are twisting the sacred texts to fit their narrative. The texts say that we are to guide and shape other creatures, not to enslave them! It also says to beware false prophets who seek to do the very twisting that the Urillians have done. Do you know what I think, Gareth? I think you’re angry about the way your life has turned out, and you’re lashing out at anything. The ‘scientific’ inconsistencies that you’re talking about may not actually exist. The tides could have been different before Morgan fell, when there were three moons.”

“Oh my god, Ronnie!” Gareth snapped, “Gravity is a thing! Three moons would throw the whole planet out of whack! I don’t need your apologist bullshit! Mom was wrong about-” he caught himself, realized that his anger was disproportionate to the situation, and amended, “Your grandmother was wrong, Orenda. She dedicated her life to a god that did not exist.”

“You know,” Falsie said after he swallowed a drink from his flask, “I heard that it’s impolite to talk religion or politics at the dinner table.”

“You’re right,” Orenda sighed, “Gareth, I’m… I’m sorry. It’s just that I would like to believe that this staff exists, and that it is powered by a god, and that I’ll be able to use it to defeat the Emerald Knight. That’s all. I would like to be allowed to believe that.”

“You shouldn’t believe things that may not be true, Rendy,” Gary said, “Even demons don’t give false hope. False hope is the worst… to have it and have it dashed, or to learn that it never should have existed in the first place…”

“I don’t agree,” Orenda shook her head, “I think hope is important.”

“He wanted to name you after it,” Gareth said.