"I'm glad you found the time to speak with me, Irson," the man said, extending a strong, tanned hand toward the Tanae.

"How could I refuse?" Irson wondered if he should invite his guest to take a seat – in certain countries it would be construed as tactless coming from an immortal creature to a mortal one, an allusion of sorts to the latter's decrepitude.

"When I found out what happened to your father... His life shouldn't have ended like it did," said the guest, balling his fists painfully.

"It took me a long time to accept his decision... his death, Uncle Restes. I know what you're going through right now."

Irson had gone through it all himself many years ago, when, upon returning home after a long stint at the Lindorg Academy of Magic, he didn't recognize his parents. Just as a bottle of perfume loses its scent when the owners forget to close it before leaving, so had carefree joy escaped, evaporated from his home. No longer was his father playing his silly-looking, knotted pipe while wearing a tall snake-charmer's hat – an old friend's wedding present – over his fire-red mane; nor was his mother playing along by climbing into a wide basket and performing one of those hypnotic, exotic dances she had learned from her years studying at Tialianna's Temple. Throughout his childhood it was only these performances that reminded Irson that his parents were of different races, that Irson Sr. was a mortal man, while Ilshiyarris was a High Tanae, the forever-young daughter one of Serpent's Eye's oldest priest bloodlines. They looked the same age...

But now, with her soft ivory skin, her hair, light and thin as spider silk, and her supple agile body, Ilshiyarris could easily be taken for her husband's late daughter. A daughter who loved most deeply him who would inevitably leave her...

Irson could barely recognize the infinitely dear features of his father under the webs of wrinkles. At first he even thought that he had caught some alien virus or mishandled some new spell. And then, after realizing the truth of the situation, cursed himself for allowing Irson Sr. to persuade him to attend Lindorg, thereby fulfilling his own unfulfilled childhood dream. How could he have not realized that these three decades might become his father's last? Irson would have given up the world to correct his mistake, to spend those precious years here, at the Northern Bridge, with those he truly loved, and not in the company of stuck-up, soulless sorcerers! In a fit of fury he tried to burn, break, grind to dust his cursed Lindorgite staff, as if it was the leech that had sucked all the joy from his life. But, of course, he had failed.

His mother – so pale that the pearly scales on her cheeks and forehead melted into her skin – spoke in perpetual whisper, so low that it might seem to an outsider that she feared disturbing someone or being overheard. He found it unbearable to live in this abode of quiet sorrow and slowly waning life. Being immortal, he just couldn't understand why his father wanted to leave this world so soon, especially since the option of escaping old age and death was right there for the taking. Even if the family savings and Ilshiyarris' contacts in Naeria[1] weren't enough to persuade one of the body manufacturers to defy Veindor and make an immortal body for a mortal, nothing prevented them from finding a willing craftsman somewhere in the outer reaches of Enhiarg, maybe even outside its borders where the Merciful's influence wasn't nearly as ubiquitous. And yet, his parent's weren't doing anything...

"I see you've moved nearly all their furniture here," said Restes, brushing his finger along a commode, its surface covered with incrustations of tiny pearl-white snakes coiling around orange solar disks. His parents would sometimes jest that the snakes were their family crest.

"Yes," said Irson with unexpected heaviness, startled that the memories would weigh on him so. It was as if he had dove into a deceptively shallow lake for a carelessly dropped key, and before he knew it he was swimming in perilous murky depths, with the cold thickness of the water pressing on him from all sides, and the seaweed trying to bind his hands and feet. "Mother decided to sell the house with all the furnishings. I couldn't stand the thought of losing it all."

"So typically Tanae. It's good that you didn't take after your mother in this respect," said Restes without looking at Irson.

"Is it, really?" hissed Irson, giving in to anger. "I thought mother would die from grief after father passed!"

"Irson, my boy, I meant no offense to her," the guest put a hand on his shoulder conciliatorily; it was all the Tanae could do not to shake it off. "The young Lady Ilshi was a wonderful wife and mother. But those who knew her well never doubted that sooner or later her nature would prevail. Or will you try to argue that life with your father somehow means more to High Priestess Ilshiyarris than an amusing episode from her past?"

"I wouldn't use the word 'amusing,'" Irson objected, then added reluctantly, "Though her emotional wounds have certainly healed."

"Exactly my point. She had veered off her Path, spent a number of years living with your father, and had returned to it. And now that she's back to seeing clearly her purpose in serving Tialianna, there's no reason for her to look back. And she probably wants the same for you. How did she react to your settling here?" Restes suddenly asked.

"Poorly. She would prefer if I followed in her footsteps. Perhaps she's right: when I was a child, I wanted to be a priest more than a mage. And studying in Lindorg only strengthened that desire..."

"But your father's death changed your attitude," Restes finished the thought with an understanding nod.

"You could say that," Irson replied evasively; he wanted to commiserate with Restes, who had just learned of an old friend's passing, but didn't intend on pouring his own heart out.

"You could. You could also speak plainly: you were hurt that your mother didn't stop Irson from committing this senseless suicide. That she didn't raise us, his friends, to stop him," Restes smashed his palm on the table, and continued before the other could object: "That she acted like a proper Tanae. "No wonder you felt afterwards that becoming Tialianna's priest would be tantamount to betraying your father, just as she had betrayed him without realizing it."

Irson swallowed a lump – Restes hit the proverbial nail on the head. He had not been brave enough to come to terms with what he had been feeling toward the servants of the Mistress of Pathmaking since his father's death. A wave of agonizing shame swept over him, though he couldn't tell whether he was ashamed before his guest who had exposed in him such dastardly thoughts, before his mother whom they slighted, before Tialianna or before himself.

"My boy, it makes me very, very happy that you didn't start arguing with me. It tells me that your mind is lucid. You're capable of understanding that your father's death is a tragedy, and not the natural way of things."

Irson stared at his guest in disbelief, but the other must have interpreted his silence as voracious attention.

"Yes, a terrible tragedy. This is precisely the way – gently and humanely – that Tialianna and Veindor dispose of those who stand in their way."

"How did my father stand in their way?"

"Think about it. What was your mother while she was with him?" asked Restes insinuatingly, then answered himself, "She was nothing."

"For us she was everything," whispered Irson, himself not knowing why.

"For you, yes. But not for Tialianna. For her she was lost. Ilshiyarris gave up on her career as a priestess when she married your father. Her husband, or rather her love for him, prevented her from becoming the creature the Mistress of Pathmaking wanted her to be. That is why she got rid of him."

Irson was about to laugh down this conspiratorial poppycock, but just then his subconscious pulled a nasty little number in drudging up a memory of a conversation with his father. Back then, unable to endure the heavy silence, he decided to straighten out the tails of all outstanding issues. He found Irson Sr. in the garden by the overgrown pond, sitting on his favorite bench of fiery marble. The old stone shone as brightly as it had in his childhood, unlike his father's faded locks... Irson Sr. rose to meet his son, as if he was expecting him. They sat there, touching shoulders, as if wishing to support one another in this difficult conversation. The silence lasted a long while – Irson just couldn't find the words to pose to his father the question gnawing at his heart.

"I'm a simple man, son," the other said softly, but firmly. "A simple man from a simple small town. All that I'd been capable of has already been done. It may not be much, but I've done all I could. Were I to continue living, my life would be empty and purposeless."

"I don't understand, unless – "

"Remember when your mother used to read you Envirze Nihu's books when you were little?" Irson's father interrupted him. "You devoured the first two in one sitting, and reread them many times afterwards. The third you read and forgot about. After the fourth you almost got into a fight. And when you started suffering through the fifth, you ran over to me and said in a horrified whisper that now you understood everything: somebody had abducted Nihu, taken over his identity and was now writing all sorts of garbage from his name. Do you remember?"

Irson nodded.

"I had explained to you then that everything was all right with Nihu. It's just that the first two books he'd written after his heart, because he had something to say and he wanted to say it. But the rest of them he forced out of himself for the sake of money, to earn a living for his family."

"But what does that have to do with – "

"Everything. I'm done writing, son. I haven't the inspiration to write yet another book about Irson Trimm Sr. Bearing this burden is worse than death. It is time for a new protagonist."

"Is it really necessary to write a book? To do something extraordinary? Whatever happened to '... and they lived happily ever after?'" Irson blurted out.

His father fell into a prolonged silence.

"I might have gave in to this temptation if Ilshi and I were both mortal," he said eventually, "but that isn't the case. Ilshiyarris must go on. I doubt she would have the strength to leave me, no matter what I turn into, no matter how contrary it may be to her nature. She would suffer because of me, lament burying her talents, but she would endure just the same... Think hard, do you really want this fate for us both?"

Irson had no answer for him then...

"You're right about one thing, Uncle Restes: my parents weren't meant to be together forever. But I think you're confusing cause with consequence. They had to part because he was mortal and she was not, but he didn't become mortal because they had to part. If my father had had... a soul of a different nature, he could have shared in my mother's destiny. She would have been a high priestess, and he a renowned mage. And they would have led a wonderful life in some Serpent's Eye."

"Not all immortal creatures commit feats of heroism every day," Restes shook his head. "Some are inclined to grow plants, teach kids to count, or be the modest mage of a small town like Northern Bridge. That was your father. He liked the life that he lived, and he didn't want to leave it. The soul of an immortal differs from mortals only in that it doesn't get sick of living. That is why it is sometimes called 'indefatigable'; upon finding its calling, it does not grow weary of the daily grind, no matter what it may be: repairing shoes or ruling a kingdom."

"'For such a soul, the Infinite's wonders never stop. It can find them in things big and small, the known and the unknown. Everything it does is art, not routine,'" Irson quoted absently.

"Moreover, it wasn't just your mother that was lost for Tialianna thanks to your father's efforts, but you as well," Restes pressed on.

"Me?"

"Of course. Who had persuaded you to attend Lindorg, where your soul miraculously escaped the rot of magic? Aye, your father sure did a number on Tiana in his twilight years, that's for sure."

"Are you talking about the Den?"

"Bingo."

"Father wasn't trying to spite anyone. He simply wanted to distract me from thoughts of his nigh demise."

The world in which Irson had lived for many years was on the brink of collapse, and before heading off on a long journey to his next life, his father wanted to help him build a new one. Back in his youth, before Irson Sr. met his future wife, he had gotten the whimsical idea to open a special tavern. He had long noted that many of his buddies with an inborn immunity to inebriation would still very much enjoy an opportunity to unwind in precisely such a prosaic manner. Irson had killed a ton of time concocting mixtures that might overcome their pesky tolerance to intoxication. Until he finally succeeded.

It would be inaccurate to say that Irson Jr. found his father's idea interesting; rather, he grabbed on to it like a lifeline. The very next day after the initial conversation the pair was already working hard on making their plan a reality. With jubilation in his heart, Irson watched his father argue animatedly with supplies. He hoped that Irson Sr. would recapture his love of life. Of course, his hopes were held in vain: if love for Lady Ilshiyarris wasn't enough to bring his father back to life, what chance did a pile of wood and stone, bound with magic, stand of becoming an anchor that would keep him in this world? Irson understood all that, and yet he kept hoping.

It wasn't long until a circular two-story building with a sign that read "Serpent's Den" appeared near the city of the Southern Bridge. Irson was fond of his new trade. The extensive knowledge he'd received at Lindorg concerning the brewing of potions and elixirs was being put to good use, and before long he was creating and experimenting with original recipes. It seemed to him that life was gradually getting back to normal, to what it was before his departure for Lindorg. And yet... A year later his father was gone just the same.

"Listen, Uncle Restes, even if you're right, Tiana still couldn't have gotten rid of anyone in that manner. She and Veindor choose the Path, realm, incarnation and lifetime for every creature based on their soul. Were they to force someone to age prematurely, it would be noticed by lots of creatures. Whenever an indefatigable soul gets stuffed into a mortal body, it's immediately obvious."

"Look at me," Restes asked quietly. "Look at me like a Tanae. What do you see?"

"That your soul is fatigable. You should have grown old... and probably died a while ago."

"That's right. But, as you can see, I'm alive. And I assure you, I'm nowhere near weary of living," the guest assured Irson, straightening out his broad shoulders. "The thing is, you're looking at me now through the prism of your Serpent's spirit. On the one hand, it enables you to form a picture about the nature of my soul; on the other, Tialianna can use that same prism to distort your perception to suit her purposes."

"But it wasn't like that with dad, Uncle Restes. I saw that he was... exhausted," said Irson reluctantly.

"Irson, with all due respect to your father, he was rather a suggestible person. When we were maybe five or six, he heard our neighbor, whose cherry tree had been stripped clean the night prior, yell that the thieves would rue stealing his cherries yet: that, allegedly, he'd forked up the coin for a protective spell, and the cherries would soon begin burning the thieves' stomachs from the inside, and wouldn't stop until they confessed. 'Just you wait, those cherries will burn holes through your bellies, and come pouring at your feet like hot coals!' he howled, shaking a broken twig."

"And you two were the thieves, I take it?" Irson couldn't resist a smile at the mental image of his father as a ginger-headed scamp, hopping from branch to branch.

"Naturally. By morning your father's stomach was hurting so bad he was begging me to come clean to his neighbor. Even though the story about the magic spell was obviously bogus."

"Sure, but he was six."

"True. Irson had grown much wiser with the years. But the ramblings of some backcountry geezer cannot be likened to sermons pushed by Veindor's and Tialianna's priests. Irson was besieged by a finely honed, centuries-old propaganda machine. He never had a chance."

"What about my mom? If my father's fate was altered forcibly as you say, how could she have not noticed it?"

"Like you, she knew that Irson was mortal. But imagine the guts it must take to see how many years the person you love has got left: one hundred, two or four? She was sure that fate had given them plenty of time – your father was too dynamic a creature, brimming with life. I can only imagine what a blow his demise must have been for her."

"You're right, she didn't expect it," Irson agreed. He was feeling ill at ease: on the face of it, Restes' theory seemed totally plausible, and yet something about it was clearly off. A tempestuous force was stirring, rising inside the Tanae's soul, and he couldn't say whether it was relief, indignation, rage or joy. Only that it was about the erupt to the surface. To become Tanae is to betray one's father...

Now imagine all the other wives, fathers, sons and daughters out there, unaware that their loved ones are about to be burned like extra cards by a sharper. I'm offering you a chance to fight, to try and put an end to it all. To be among those who have saved me from death... And who could have saved your father."

"Sounds like a noble goal," Irson said after a pause. "But answer me this: what do you think Tialianna and Veindor are after?"

"They want to control our fates without anyone interfering. To be puppet masters, and us their puppets," Restes wrinkled his nose.

"So you think they want – "

________________________

[1] Naeria – the central part of Enhiarg, girded by Aenejan Mountains. The dwelling place of the Nae and the gods of this world.