How well I know it. He thought of the old tome he'd lugged from Hunt's Hollow, A Fable of Song and Blood, and the secrets entombed in its yellowed pages. "It was used by the Whispering Gods to create the Bloodlines," Tal murmured. "Each with their measure of time and capacity for magic."
Falcon nodded. "I knew you, of all people, must know its tales."
"But why the Worldheart? It's one of the oldest tales, true, but surely there is little enough about it these days. If it existed at all, it must have been thousands of years ago."
"Ah, but you have not heard all that I have. Drink up, old friend. You'll want a hearty spin in your head for this story."
Tal obliged, the spicy sweetness tickling his throat.
Falcon sat up, his poise adjusting minutely, an actor preparing to give a monologue. "The Worldheart is a stone misplaced. Once, during the Age of Clamor, it rested inside the World, a font of magic that spread to all the creatures living on its surface. Yet it was not to last. During the Ancients' War, the deities we know as the Whispering Gods needed a way to overcome their antagonist, the one known now as the Night. And so they stole from the World its Heart, the source of all magic, and used it to cage their foe into the sky.
"But though their adversary was defeated, the Whispering Gods found their desperate act had reaped dire consequences. All across the World's surface, those who had depended on the World's magic began to suffer and die. The Whispering Gods searched for a way to return the Worldheart to its proper place, but it was a task beyond even divinity.
"Consumed by guilt, they sought to right their mistakes and performed one last feat with the Worldheart. The stone in hand, they enacted the Severing and thereby formed the Bloodlines we know today. Elves, with long lives and sorcery born within them, but slow to change and few seeds in their wombs. Humans, possessing shorter lives, but with ambition bred in their bones, and magic attainable by those with the drive to pursue it. Dwarves, no magic accessible to them but resistant to its allures, and long of lives and stout of heart and body. And goblins, with short lives and twisted bodies, but with clever minds, endless initiative, and the ability to forge mystical artifacts."
Tal snorted. "Why they thought creating the Bloodlines was a good idea, I'll never know."
Falcon raised an eyebrow. "They believed it the only way to secure the future of the World. And who's to question the workings of gods?"
"Everyone forced to live with their acts, I'd say."
The bard grinned. "But our story doesn't end there. After the Severing, the Whispering Gods deemed their work done and the World's future secure, and so they retreated to the sky to continue their eternal war and bring light to match the Night. They left behind the Worldheart, for though they couldn't replace it, they thought it wrong to rob Mother World of such a font of power. But long after the gods went silent, another seized the Worldheart for himself." Falcon glanced sidelong at him. "I believe you can guess who."
Tal found himself leaning toward his friend. "I can guess. But is this tale true, Falcon? These aren't the fanciful imaginings of a bored bard?"
His friend smiled back, but it lacked the wild enthusiasm it usually held. "I wish it were. But I heard this among the Gladelysh elves, from an elder who was as stiff as an old root and could claim over three centuries to his life. If anyone knows the truth of the past, it would be him."
"But it can't be true. Yuldor cannot have the Worldheart."
Falcon shrugged helplessly. "It is what he said."
"If the Prince of Devils has the Worldheart, then how are we still fighting a war against him? Why has he not used its full power to make all bow to him and his cult?"
"Ah, my friend, but you don't know Yuldor as I do." Falcon's eyes seemed almost to glow for a moment. "We've always believed Yuldor a god, like the Whispering Gods, or Jalduaen, patron spirit of the Warlocks' Circle. But I am beginning to understand that might not be true. What if instead Yuldor were a mortal, just like us, before he seized the Worldheart?"
Tal leaned back and closed his eyes. "Then he would not have almighty power even with it."
"Exactly. The Gladelysh elder told me of Yuldor before the Eternal Animus began, of Yuldor the mortal. Seven hundred years ago, Yuldor was a powerful elven sorcerer and well-renowned throughout all of Gladelyl for his power and wit. But when he delved too far into the workings of the Night, the queen of that time had no choice but to exile him from the land. Robbed of his home and society except for the four apprentices who followed him into the wilds, Yuldor vowed revenge and pursued the only artifact powerful enough to vie against the Chromatic Towers of Gladelyl: the Worldheart.
"Though there's no certainty that he ever found it, and Yuldor was never seen again, it was mere decades afterward that the monsters began to come down from the Eastern mountains, and the Nightborn warlocks we call the Extinguished began to twist the politics of the Westreach. Thus the Gladelysh guessed the truth, and decried Yuldor's name as the Enemy behind the war." Falcon shrugged. "Rumor spread like wildfire until it became all but fact, and all living within the Westreach believed Yuldor was a demon, a god risen from the Night's Pyres to plague the World, and only stopped from destroying it by the continued efforts of the Whispering Gods."
Tal breathed long and deep for a moment, sitting with the story, then took a long drink from his wine. "An intriguing tale. But it changes nothing."
Falcon cocked his head. "Why not?"
"Whatever he is, god or demon or sorcerous elf, whether he possesses the Worldheart or not, he's immortal now, and with the Soulstealers and hordes of monsters at his service. The story of his origins doesn't change that the Eternal Animus continues, and we're losing."
"But you don't see it, my friend!" The bard seized his arm in a tight grip. "If he was mortal once, why could he not be mortal again? If we could separate the Worldheart from him, would we not be able to end this ceaseless war?"
Tal wrested his arm from his grip and stood, draining his glass. "No," he said shortly. "It's a dream, Falcon. We struggle to kill the beasts he sends down from his mountains. We can't even kill the Extinguished, for they rise again after every attempt. How could we possibly hope to steal an all-powerful stone from beneath Yuldor's nose?"
Falcon stood as well, gold spinning in his eyes. "Perhaps your songs are over," he said, lips twisting into a mocking smile. "Perhaps the days of glory for Tal Harrenfel are all in the past."
"I hope they are." Tal gripped the bard's shoulder and squeezed. "It was good to talk, old friend. But I've fought too many battles with the East to harbor false hope."
Falcon captured his wrist in his hand. "We must always have hope. And why struggle on?"
"Why indeed?" he muttered.
He tried freeing himself from the bard's grasp but found Falcon's grip too tight. Tal met his gaze. "What?"
"You're hunting one of the Extinguished here, aren't you?" Though he posed it as a question, there was certainty in the minstrel's gaze, and hunger as well.
But Tal wasn't about to feed it. Though his friend might wish to hunt down old tales, he wouldn't land him in trouble for it. Not when Falcon had a daughter.