Chapter 3

There were only four of them now, well, he knew that there had to be more somewhere, but the grubs were extremely stealthy, he could find no signs of them. It was him, Foil, and Pup, and then Sztra too of course, slowly walking, taking a rest from the riding he and Pup did on Foil. They were having a quite enjoyable discussion, too. Using his newfound language skills took some patience, but Roland found that he now, at times, could understand Sztra even before his actual words.

"I think I'm going to miss this." He told Sztra. "The way we speak I mean, it's more revealing than any kind of speech I've met before. It makes it very hard to deceive, and the nuances of your language is incredible." Sztra sort of smiled with his whole body. "It's true that we have a little in way of deceiving amongst us, my friend, but we also find ourselves stuck into old rituals and behaviors that's very hard to break because of it."

Foil seemed to understand what Sztra meant, but Pup and Roland definitely didn't. "Sorry, Sztra, you've lost me here?" said Roland. "No, my newfound friend, you're here beside me. You're not lost." Answered Sztra, now sounding slightly confused. 'Shit', thought Roland, sayings that were comfortably normal sounding to him, with a clear meaning, seemed to loose all coherence when here. "I meant, ah." He had to think back to remember what it all was about before he could continue. "Why would your language hinder you from change?" Sztra stopped. "Think about it, Roland. A language that won't allow lies. And when you thought it over, please tell me what exactly a lie is?"

Roland thought about it for some time and then hesitantly suggested. "A lie, to me, is when someone knowingly bends the truth to suit hidden needs?" Sztra seemed quite pleased with the answer. "Not bad, Roland, but let's say that I have an idea that will change this whole war. It involves some things that crave, as you see it, unpleasant measures, and short time goals forcing you to reevaluate your beliefs. Let's say that I presented my ideas to you. Would you agree to them?" Roland shook his head. "Don't think so, Sztra, you would have a hard time convincing me first." Pup proudly and defiantly chimed in. "Me too, you big beast." Roland smiled as he heard her, loyal to the bone she was, his little friend.

"That is as it should be." answered Sztra. "But with us, it might not even come to a discussion, as we would find the whole idea a lie. As what we build on is seen as the unchanging truth, new ideas contradicting our beliefs have a hard time setting root, and take a long time changing. And that I see as a direct result of our language's rigidity and inability to allow the slightest doubt to penetrate. Not that I hold to lies, but I believe there to be hidden costs to whatever path one choose, however righteously one tries to differentiate between lies and truth."

"On the whole, I still find your language refreshingly true, Sztra." Said Roland, as he had thought his words over some more. "You might be right in that every language forms a slightly different way of thinking, I've noticed the same myself, but as I prefer truths before lies this language suits my thinking. Also, I think your problem is resting more in your traditions than your language, your folk will need to differ between tradition and truths, that's all. Tradition is our anchor with the past, ideas our wings to a greater vista."

Sztra started to wheeze in a laughing way, his whole body convulsing on the ground, forcing them all to back away a little. "You do know that we're not alone, don't you?" Sztra asked, as he once got himself under control again. Roland looked around but could still see no one, all the same he expected Sztra to be correct. "And?" he asked.

"Know man, every word you spill here falls on fertile ground, you're our chosen one, and our bards will remember each syllable and each sentence. We have no written language as above. Instead we have our bards. There is already a lot of controversy and discussion going on in our ranks, unknowingly initiated by the discussions we've had."

Roland started to feel a little cold as he considered Sztra's wider implications. "Do you warn me that I should watch my tongue better then?" he asked. "No, Roland, I've heard no lies coming from you yet. Your initiation at oaths cavern makes us all sure of that. Talk freely all you want, if some truths may be found bitter, it's still better to weather them now than to hide them in fear and folly. And if what you say not always will be wise, so much the better. Perfection is no ideal meant for mortals"

Foil, who had listened in pleased silence to them talking, remarked musingly. "Sir's, allow me to express my pleasure on being in the company of such gracious philosophers." Pup looked enchantingly pleased hearing that. "Yes." said Foil gracefully, noticing her flattered expression. "All of you are indeed champions of truths, from the smallest to the largest, and the problem Sztra alludes to is well known to my species, too. Tradition is a very strong bound for any species, and more so for us long-lived species, as the changes comes even slower." 'Who would have thought this, ' thought Roland, hearing him.

'Here I am, walking between a philosophical dragon and a wise, even if slightly slimy grub, having a discussion about what 'truth' may be, with a lovely midget adoringly listening to my every word. And I'm awake! At least I think I am? Better watch my steps, though.' "You know, Foil, Listening to you and Sztra exchanging views may make my head swell. You better be careful that I won't take to the sky like an overwrought balloon." "Balloon, sir?" asked Pup, confused. "Me and my big mouth." Muttered Roland to himself, before proceeding with explaining the idea of balloons, now and then interrupted by such questioning exclamations as "plastic Sir?" "Helium, Sir?" ad infinitum.

In the end there was only silence, as the others mulled over Roland's outlandish notions of inanimate objects taking to flight. "A strange sort of species." Remarked Foil at length. "And you say they can think by their, what was it? Cromputers too?" "No, computers, Foil, and I wouldn't call it thinking. More like following very complex instructions step by step. And please, Sir, aeroplanes are not a species and neither are balloons" "A whole new field of magic indeed." Said the grub most enthusiastically. "Our sages will have a whole new dimension to explore here, and you said you wanted to ward your words, did you? Nah, Sir, speak freely I say."

Still, thinking of what Earth had been like as he remembered it, Roland found himself at a crossroad of sorts, no matter how fascinating his experiences seemed to be to the species living here, he wasn't sure he wanted to introduce the consequences of his knowledge. But then again, intelligence versus wisdom, was it? Or were they the same?

"I'm sorry my dear Foil, and you too, Sir Sztra. Whilst I agree to you both being of a philosophical bend, let me offer a hypothetical situation. Assume that you know some things that could be of importance, lifting up the living standard. Let us also assume that the consequences could, if wrongly handled or shortsightedly wrought, become devastating, and that you already had born witness too such things. Would you then freely introduce such knowledge?"

Foil was the first to answer. "Sir, no mortal has the lone responsibility of a world on his shoulders. That said I have to admit to understand what you mean. And to be honest, I don't know the answer to that one." Sztra, who had listened most thoughtfully, now found it time to contribute. "Roland, what Sir Foil said makes good sense to me, no one can be held responsible for ideas, they grow as they will in bounds and leaps. But if knowing that they once lead to devastation, or seeing how they might, I would urge great caution in presenting them myself. So you might be right there, however distasteful I may find that thought."

Roland nodded. "Yes, Sires, that is my thoughts too. However rustic and hard living this may seem to me, used as I was to other ways, I know there are worse alternatives, and I would not freely be the one introducing them to you." They walked for a while, each one pondering in silence the weight of ideas and their consequences. "Yes." said the dragon, after pondering it over for a while. "the question is one of the manipulation of ideas here it seems, not the ideas in themselves."

Roland smiled at Foil. "So right you are. Where I come from, we refer to it as ethics. The questioning about if you find yourself able to do something will make it right or even necessary to do it, we humans are short-lived and curious. More often than not our only excuse seems to be 'because I can'. That is a strength as well as a curse, I think, too often we rush into things without considering the consequences. Mostly the consequences are possible to handle, but as I left there were some we still hadn't solved. And some new, too, even more difficult to solve, I fear." The dragon seemed interested at that. "Would you care to expand on it Sir?" he asked.

Roland thought it over and decided that this kind of knowledge would to them be as magic was to him. Almost impossible to understand. "Let's see, Sires, we invented a new sort of power some sixty years ago. It works very well, but its residues are extremely poisonous and invisible to the eye. We still haven't been able to solve the problems of how to contain its wastes. Everybody likes the idea of keeping warm, but no one wants the wastes near them, as they will travel with the groundwater and air. To that one might add that some of those residuals will stay harmful for hundreds of thousand of years."

Sztra pondered over it for a while, and then answered. "That seems a solution that we won't want Roland. Do you have more examples." Roland thought it over, surprised over how well he remembered his realm, and yet unable to remember himself. "Well Sztra, there is also the problem with our planet getting warmer. Our industries are much larger than any I've seen here. We have whole towns built around just a few industries, containing hundreds of thousands of workers, and there are many such towns, mostly using a source similar to your oil." He stopped trying to judge their reaction, finding them all listening with interest.

"That oil consists of what we call organic compounds, carbons and hydrogen. They are used for our machines, as well as for warming our houses. Lately we have found that their residues rises to stay a man-time or more in the atmosphere, and that they collect more warmth there reflecting it back to us. We had a strong debate going on about what to do. Our industries want to keep to the beaten path, as well as those afraid of losing their livelihood, and just try to clean the residues away. Others say that those residues have to be stopped at the root, demanding that we change our sources of energy before we turn our world into a desert."

"A whole world into a desert?" said Foil. "How can that be possible?" "We are a wasteful species." admitted Roland ruefully. "We have become so used to getting it our way, whatever mistakes we might do. Before, they didn't seemed to matter, as we always thought ourselves able to correct them before it was too late. But lately some have started to suspect that we are doing all too many mistakes at the same time. We have killed so much of our water-life, our trees, land and wild-life. The few animals left seems mostly for our entertainment, or for other needs. And as all living worlds are the same, I guess they all have their own periods of cooling as well as warming." Here he became more slow-spoken as he tried to formulate his worries as clearly as he could.

"But when they go to the extremes, some species die and new one comes. Our geologists and researchers of the past say that this warming already has happened twice on our Earth. The last time some forty million years ago, birthing and allowing what has became our species to reign. Perhaps it's time again to change species, but this time I fear that the blame will rest solely on us, not on our Earth, and I strongly fear that no species I know of will survive if it happens, as they are too few in number these days. Maybe some insects have a chance, but I doubt it."

"Was that what you meant by problems yet to come" asked Pup, interested against her own will, normally she couldn't care less for those mundane coming and goings. But this thing abut killing a whole planet impressed as well as scared her a little. She wanted this realm to exist the next time she visited it, too. "Don't they know that all living things are bound together?" "Yes, Pup, and no. I suspect you do include the whole planet as a living thing, don't you? We don't.

There is a thing called genetics, though, that is about how all biological life is built. We have started to solve that code, and the smallest things building to it. That might allow us to create new beings, maybe even stretch our lifetime as long as you. But it has a steep price, and it brings with it a lot of new difficult questions, as if it is only the nobles that should be entitled. And on our world, Pup, we use money as our rule decreeing nobleness."

"How quaint" Pup remarked, wrinkling her pert nose in distaste. Seeing her expression, Roland found that he couldn't keep from smiling as he continued. "One of those countries has even gone as far as to allow humans to take out permanent rights on that code, called patents. As if those people copying nature were the ones inventing it. And where such kind of thinking will lead in the end I don't know. But it seems as a new kind of thralldom to me, where someone will own your smallest constituents and manipulate them as they please." "That sounds like the darkest magic." Foil muttered. "Not even the foulest magicians would dare make that sort of claim, and if they did all other would stand against them."

Sztra, who had listened in deep concentration, seemed to wake up again. "Another dark dream of yours, Roland. But you are right. Ethics is a most important subject, and one worthy of exploring. Those other ideals I suspect to be caused by the brief time you have been given. As you said yourself, yours is a most curious species and impatient to a fault. But ethics is an idea worthy of merit. So thank you, we have found two new approaches already, and three to avoid." They walked and talked some more, but now of lighter subjects, each one secretly thinking and wondering where it all would end with that world.

The small band of dwarves riding with Sir Avery and Mari were likewise occupied with their own thoughts as they were making their way to Lokgard. Mari, who felt quite lonely riding for the first time without her Roland, tried to occupy herself with remembering their first meeting. And Avery tried his best to lift her mood by offering her small tidbits from the Emperor's court. "And then, Mari, the Emperor fell off the beast once more to the merriment of those watching. You should have seen his face blooming purple as he stood there staring at it. 'Take the foul beast away, Richard. The damned Northerners can keep their gifts, and horns too.' He shouted. And that was the last we heard of that idea of using elks as cavalry." He chuckled to himself as he seemed to remember the Emperor's wrath.

"Don't think our Emperor to be just another empty headed bucket, though." He assured her. "He may be somewhat of a scatterbrain at times, prone to wild and excessive ideas, but on the whole I have found him quite solid, my dear." Mari smiled at him. "He sounds interesting, Sir, so, where is he now? " Sir Avery, who seemed a little taken back by her question, gave her a wry smile. "Well Mari, at the Capital perhaps? It's somewhat of a secret I'm afraid. The less that know his whereabouts, the more difficult the foe will have in deciding where to strike."

Mari nodded thoughtfully as she listened. "Yes, I can see his reasons for it, Sir." She answered. "but doesn't the Empire need to know that he is still here?" Avery smiled. "Ah, but they know, don't they Mari? The Emperor will always represent the bulwark between anarchy and the law, and that you know as well as I." Mari smiled back. "Yes, Avery, without a law there is nothing. And I think you're right in describing the Emperor as a lasting representative of our law, as long as he upholds it, that is." "Don't you worry, Mari. The Emperor might be quite willful at times, but he's no idiot. He will uphold our laws and justice as founded through our traditions. He knows as well as we, that he is only the Emperor through the acceptance of his folk."

Mari studied him with new interest as she listened. She knew that Richard thought him some kind of spy, but herself she wasn't as sure on that. He reminded her more of those professors she had meet at the university, very polite, and frightfully accomplished in the art of diplomacy. And it made sense, she decided, what better policy than to send Agor's best diplomats to negotiate a pact with Lokgard. "You are truly a man of wit, Sir Avery." she said, as she pushed her unruly hair back from her eyes again. "As you a lady of grace, my dear Mari." Answered he. Thank god she had Roland, she thought, and not for the first time.

That silvery tongue of his must have felled more than his share of fair maidens, she suspected, secretly amused at the highly polished quality of his answer. Sir Avery, on his hand, found himself regretting he couldn't be more open with her. He had found himself accumulating a great respect for her mental powers, and would have found it a relief to indulge himself in revealing some of his true intentions and plans, but he had to keep them to himself. A pity you're spoken for, Mari, he thought, as he surreptitiously watched her comb back her brown hair falling in deep golden tresses around her shoulders. Anyway, as he sourly reminded himself, he wasn't free to choose as he might, above all he had a duty to perform.

"Sometimes, Mari, I wonder how it would be if it had been different. To have been born a commoner, free to make one's own choices, for good or bad, as you and Roland." He said, for once losing his bantering tone. "I've always grown up in one mould, and this war is the nearest I've ever came to making my own choices. I know it sounds bad, but it seems still the truth." She leaned over to put a friendly hand at his arm. "Well, Avery, methinks you will grow used to it soon enough. And with that tongue of yours, there will be an abundance of maidens waiting at your pleasure, I'm sure." He had to smile at that, acknowledging her riposte, she was right, but then again? "I wish it was that simple, Mari, the more noble your heritage seems to others, the more difficult you will find it to know the true nature of their interest. At least it seems so to me."

"Nah Sir, friendship and love will always find a way, trust in that. Your problem is one shared by all, and no simple answer exists to it. But when trusting to love and friendship, you will at least keep your mind open." Sir Avery smiled again, a more relaxed and younger smile, it seemed to Mari. "I would like to believe you, Mari, but I'm not sure. Some I know would frankly accuse me of naivete." "Well, sir, to me it's your thoughts that shape your world. If love and friendship bespeaks naivete to those folks, the worse they'll be for it, methinks." She saw how Avery seemed to lose himself in his own somber thoughts hearing her response.

The path they were taking kept climbing upwards, and the air seemed both cooler as well as less humid to her. The Keepers guiding them had a very limited vocabulary and mostly said as little as possible, but it seemed as if they were only days away from getting out of the tunnels now. The dwarves and their Belten ponies had made an uneasy truce with the keepers, and D'am was discussing the mines that had existed there before with the Keeper who led their party. He had some knowledge of the old trade speech used between the Keepers and the dwarves, and so had the Keeper, so they could understand each other fairly well. "So would it be possible to open the mines then, Keeper?"

The keeper slithered beside him silently for a while and then answered. "That would need to be a decision for our whole council, dwarf. We will not allow our territory to be invaded by dwarves again, at that time we had no thoughts about what differed one area from another, but we learnt a lot from that encounter." D'am, who understood the Keepers hesitance, kept his silence as the Keeper thought some more. "We will have to see what comes out of this war, first." The keeper said at last. "We are not used to that concept. Defense we know, dire need too, but war and making pacts forcing us to leave our ancestral land are new concepts to us."

D'am nodded wisely as he started to look for his pipe. "Aye, This war is strange to us all. Mostly we dwarves prefer treaties before wars, but with this foe no such possibilities exist. He is here to rape the land and introduce chaos, so for us there was no choice." D'am thought that the Keeper seemed more alert now, for some reason. "For us there were, dwarf." The Keeper suddenly announced in a slightly colder tone. "Know that there have been emissaries here before you, some of them offering us fairer deals than you, too, with lots of prey. But they all failed their initiation at the throne. Your Roland is the one we choose, but there are still those that doubt amongst us, that you will be true to your oaths. That Roland will, we do not doubt, though."

D'am thought about his words for some time before answering. "Roland's oath will hold us all, and we will enforce it, have no fear on that. I promise you that on my ancestors' bones." The keeper slithered beside him silently, listening. She trusted in him telling what he thought to be the truth, but she wasn't sure for how long it would hold. That was the problem with those short-lived species, they got exchanged so quickly and often, and what one generation promised the next would refuse. The dwarves were at least moderately long-lived, but mankind? "We might hold you to that oath later, dwarf, to remind them humans that oaths are meant for keeping." She remarked almost discourteously, as they followed the tunnels winding path upward. "Their memory is all to short when it suits them."

"War can do that to people." Remarked D'am coolly. "The choices made are more often than not forced upon you, and the promises made hard to keep. Not to demean your kin, Keeper, but you have a rather unsavory reputation amongst us above." "As you have amongst us, dwarf." Reminded the Keeper shortly. "This time though, we expect oaths taken to be kept." At that the dwarf nodded solemnly. "As I said, Keeper. Me and my kin will uphold and defend our oaths made, and so will Roland, Sir Avery, and the rest, to our best knowledge and understanding. To give promises stronger than that? I don't know how?"

As Captain Lance woke up it wasn't to the usual shaking of his men telling him to "Get up you lazy sod, ah, captain. It's your turn. Sir." No, this time it was the smell of fresh coffee that woke him, a smell he soon had given up on after arriving at the stronghold. He knew that coffee mostly was seen as an outlandish and expensive innovation in this territory, even though he had found it much to his liking. He had learnt to like it as a mercenary working for one of the Wizards of Trellheim long ago. And here was that heavenly smell again, and scones too. This time he couldn't help smiling as he knocked on the door to the combined living room-kitchen. Coming in, he found himself fast becoming a participant to Katherine the great holding court over her most loyal subjects, Lilah and Captain Alverian Lance, now promoted to Alvy. After drinking his coffee he just sat there staring at her. "Where ever did you get that coffee from, Katherine?"

She blushed a little as she noticed his awed expression. "We, my old man and me." She stopped again trying to collect herself. "I mean, my late husband, We were growing it up there. There exist warm wellsprings, and geysers, too, to the south, that's why there still are a lot of free lands over there. People up there don't like to be too near them, but they makes for a very warm climate if you know how to isolate and keep the heat. It was mostly as an experiment at first, but it seemed to pay off, even if the other farmers grumbled about it and our outlandish ways. But with George gone they just wanted us gone, I think they wanted the land for themselves." As the captain listened to the rest of her sad story, he swore to himself that there would be a reckoning with those bastards.

He doubted that she ever would want to go back to the farming there, but at the very least she should have gotten a honest offer for her homestead. "So you took the coffee with you, then?" He asked, giving her an affable smile. "Good on you, girl. When I have some time over, you and me will make them a visit, Katherine, and if they use your land as you suspect, they will pay." She smiled hesitantly. "I would like that, captain, they treated us as dirt, the men expecting me to throw myself at them, and their women looking at me as if I was..."

She stopped abruptly, instead looking at her daughter who by now almost seemed ready to cry. "Never mind, love." She said as she went over to lift the girl up in her lap. "It's all over now, we are safe." The captain looked at them, at Katherine slowly combing her daughter's hair, comforting her while promising himself that there indeed would be a reckoning coming. "You are safe, Katherine, and so are you too, Lilah. We are together in this remember? And furthermore, ladies, wherever else could I find coffee as good as this?" he asked, genially lifting his mug to the light. Lilah smiled cautiously as she heard him praise the coffee.

"I was the one grinding it." she said, satisfied. "Mum said I'm the best." Lance nodded at that. "I think your mum was right, love, I'm afraid I will have to insist on you being the one grinding in the future, too, Lilah. Would that be okay with you?" Lilah, who now seemed as if she was ready to burst with pride, gave her mother a pleading look "Mumm." She almost whined. Katherine seemed to capitulate. "Oh, well Lilah, if you let me help, too." Lilah nodded, her pigtails flying and her smile growing. The captain couldn't help noticing the same phenomena happening to her mother, and in fact, himself, unbeknownst, he too, slowly was becoming a grinning fool, and it was at that precise moment Magnus walked in on the domestic scene.

He stopped in disbelief, seeing but not believing what was unfolding in front of his very eyes. He had came firmly prepared to wake Lance, but this? He stood still as if rooted to the floor, for once his friend seemed almost human, he thought, quietly bemused. At first he hadn't even been sure that it was the captain, as the man he saw was laughing silently, his whole body filled with mirth. It was first as Lance noticed him standing in the door gaping, that he recognized his old captain again. Captain Lance stared at him icily, the silent glee gone quicker than any black cloud could enfold a sun. "Hrrm, Ladies, allow me to introduce my corporal, Magnus Landsdottir. Magnus, those ladies are Katherine and Lilah, our newest recruits. Now, would you like some coffee, Corporal?" Magnus stared again. "Coffee, Sir? Recruits??"

Magnus felt as if he had stepped right through some weird mirror, finding no familiar landmarks, but he found himself quickly enough, though. "Ah, then you, young lady, you must be our new sergeant?" Saluting Lilah crisply. "And you, my Lady? No please, don't tell. Our Supreme Commander, naturally. Ma'am." Saluting again. Then he turned back to the captain, probing carefully but firmly. "Did we by any chance mention coffee? Sir? Coffee, was it?" Katherine, who already had anticipated his question, put a filled mug on the table. "Of course, Corporal, would you do us the honor. It's the sergeant's grinding, and we were just discussing its quality. We are in dire need of a connoisseur to make our final judgement" Magnus sat down as he noticed the newly baked scones he too started to get that same silly smile as his captain, begging Katherine with his eyes.

She smiled in silent acquiescence, as she pushed the bowl of scones and butter over to him. Magnus could hear a low growl from the other side of the table, as the captain watched his last scones disappearing in the corporal's mouth, glutting himself. "Beware that you don't burst, corporal." he muttered darkly as he watched. "Gluttony is after all one of the nine sins." But Katherine hushed him as she watched Lilah's expression, enthralled beyond compare, as the corporal made the scones disappear as by magic. "I baked them, too." She said proudly. When the corporal had finished his coffee, he leant backwards in the chair relaxing. "Well, the scones were very good, Lilah, Sergeant, I mean. But the coffee, ahh, the coffee..."

Lilah almost started jumping, waiting for the verdict to come. The corporal judiciously studied his empty mug for a moment. "I'm not sure, Lilah, I feel I had to little to make a sound judgement here. Do you think?" Lilah ran over to the coffeepot and held it up for the corporal, who smiled gratefully. "Thank you, sweets, I wouldn't mind another mug, now that you ask." She poured the last of the coffee, accompanied by another low grumbling noise from the captain watching his corporal's insubordinate behavior. The corporal smiled benignly at him and said delicately. "To your health, Sir, and yours too, ladies." And emptied the mug with a satisfied sigh. "Perfect, absolutely perfect, Lilah. From now on your grind, I say..."