After several minutes, the pressure to act pressing down hard, he raised a trembling hand and knocked.
"Enter," a voice called from within, almost too weak to hear.
Tal turned the handle and pressed inside. The tower was much the same as before: the same books crowding the shelves, the same werelights dimly illuminating the space. But the man who sat at the desk was changed. Kaleras the Impervious had looked advanced in years before, but he hadn't truly seemed old. Now, though, his every movement was slow and calculated, as if afraid any sudden motion might break him.
The warlock turned slowly around to peer at him with hooded eyes. "I'd heard you had arrived. And your mission?"
"Accomplished. I came to return you something." He approached and held out his hand.
Kaleras didn't move to take it but peered up at him, the light catching in his deep brown eyes. "Did it help?"
"Yes."
Still, the warlock didn't take it. Just as Tal began to wonder, Kaleras slowly raised his hand to his. He didn't meet Tal's eyes as he held open his hand, and Tal dropped the band of dull metal in it, not sure if he was disappointed or relieved.
They both withdrew. Kaleras didn't put on the ring but kept it clutched in his hand, eyes set on the wall. Tal's pulse fluttered in his throat, and he clenched his jaw. If a job needs doing, do it quick, he told himself.
"I didn't come here just to give you the ring back. After all, it belongs more to me than you."
"And it belongs more to the Hoarseer Queen than either of us," Kaleras murmured, eyes flickering up to meet his.
Tal smiled briefly at that. "Whichever thief has first claim, I wanted to say that…"
But the words faltered in his mouth. He wanted to say them, tried to — but in a sudden torrent, his childhood swept over him again. His mother, bent over her fletching, working by moonlight because they couldn't afford even tallow candles, then rising before the sun to clean other folk's clothes. The town's children, their faces twisted and mocking, shouting "whore's bastard" at him over and over, shoving him down into the ditches at the side of the road, while his one friend stood by, watching, helpless.
He clenched his fists, his missing finger spreading pain up his left arm. The pangs of the past never really fade, he mused bitterly. And all the more when you cling to them.
He swallowed the soft, conciliatory words he'd meant to say, the words that might have brought an estranged father and son together after four decades of resentment, and forced out in their place a bitter, twisted smile.
"Well, Father, I must be off to Gladelyl."
Kaleras was looking at him with an intensity that bordered on anger as if he knew what Tal had denied him. His lips mouthed the word Tal had named him with like he rehearsed a particularly difficult incantation. But all he murmured was, "Leaving again?"
"Yes. Perhaps we will see each other again." Tal shrugged. "Perhaps not."
The warlock's face twisted — in pain or revulsion, Tal couldn't tell. "Listen, Tal. I know your mother meant much to you. That much is clear, for you to take your name from hers. But Talania wouldn't—"
"Don't pretend to know what my mother would or wouldn't." The words came out harsh and biting. "Don't pretend to know her. You gave her one night and a bastard, that's all — let's forget the rest."
Tal looked aside. The hush filling the room was thick, choking — he had to speak. "The boy needs guidance and training. You saw the shadow that falls over him; it has only tightened its clutches since our second visit to the ruins. Only the mages of the Chromatic Towers could hope to get him through this now."
Risking a glimpse at the warlock, he found his barb had gone unnoticed. Kaleras' gaze hadn't shifted, but he stared at him with an expression he'd never seen on the warlock's face, nor wished ever to see again.
He looked aside again. "Before I go, I'll need back the thing I entrusted to you before I left."
A pause. "The pages?" Kaleras asked softly. "Copied from a fell book? I saw the language they were written in, Tal. What are you reading in the Darktongue?"
"Never mind that. I trust you still have them?"
"I do. But, my condition being what it is, you'll have to gather them yourself."
Tal turned and ascended the stairs. It only took a moment of shuffling through his bedside drawers before he found the stack of poorly bound parchment and returned downstairs. The warlock looked as if he hadn't shifted, staring at the wall as if scrying into the future. Or, more likely, into the past, he thought.
Kaleras glanced over as he approached. "Good luck to you. The boy will need it, as will you if you stick by him."
"Perhaps. But that's the difference between you and me, isn't it? I will stick by him, no matter the danger, no matter the cost. No matter that we share no blood."
Not waiting to see the aged warlock's reaction, Tal turned and, the copied pages of A Fable of Song and Blood clutched to his chest, exited the door.
As he stepped out, he saw Kaleras had two more visitors. Who knew the old warlock was so sought after.
Stranger still was who his visitors were. A young man with a shaved pate and wearing brown robes stood next to a middle-aged monk with even less hair. Of the Order of Ataraxis, Tal noted, seeing the eight-pointed star on the dark, iron medallions hanging from their necks, the only ornamentation allowed to the monks.
"Lord Tal!" the younger one said with a nervous smile. "If you could spare a moment…?"
Tal repressed a sigh and shifted his stack of parchment so that his body blocked it partially from sight, then plastered on a pleasant smile. "I'm no lord, but I can spare you two moments if you wish."
"My apologies, L — Mister Tal." The young man quickly gestured at the older monk. "I am Brother Nat, and this is Brother Causticus. If you have the time, my brother wishes to speak with you."
Tal nodded respectfully to the older monk as he looked him up and down. "Well met, Brother Causticus."
The monk didn't answer him but narrowed his eyes, looking every bit as hostile as one of Falcon's former lovers when they caught up to the bard. A deep admirer of mine, indeed.
"A thousand apologies again, Mister Tal," the young monk rushed to say. "Brother Causticus has taken a vow of silence. Since he took it twenty-six years ago, he has not spoken a word but to the Whispering Gods."
"I see." A Mute, he thought. That will make conversation rather difficult. "How can I help you then?"
The young monk glanced nervously at Causticus, but the older monk just continued to stare unblinkingly at Tal. "Mister Tal, Brother Causticus has dedicated his life to uncovering the facts behind fables. His past work has delved into many of the oldest myths and folktales across the Westreach and beyond and exposed the truths, and the lies, of them all."
Tal nodded, suspecting where this was heading, but content to let the lad fumble his way there.
"Of late, he has turned to modern legends, those formed within our era and particularly within Brother Causticus' own life. So, Mister Tal, you must see how you would be of particular interest to him."
"How's that?"
The young monk was starting to grow flustered, his movements nervous and erratic. "You're the Devil Killer!" he blurted. "The Red Reaver! You're the man who escaped detection from the Circle for years, who has battled the Servants of Night and won!"