Heir of Iron

Chapter 11: Navran

Gocam studied Navran for a moment then asked again, "Why are you here?"

"We fled Majasravi with the Red Men on our heels and Taleg's blood still wet in the streets, and Mandhi said that Ternas was the best place for us. The children of the Heir always come to Ternas when their time is near, she said. And her father knows you, or something."

"That is why Mandhi sent you. You are not Mandhi. Why are you here?"

"Are you going to ask me riddles all night?"

"I'll keep asking you questions until you give me true answers."

"These are true answers!" His voice echoed off the walls of the cave, filling the space with a cacophonous echo. He closed his mouth and shrank back from the noise. Silence slowly crept back into the cave.

Gocam did not respond, but watched Navran with still black eyes.

"I don't want to be the Heir of Manjur," Navran whispered finally. "We traveled for a month attempting to reach this desolate place, and every day I could only think of how little I want to be the Heir. I'll bring ruin to the Uluriya. Tell me how to avoid it."

Gocam's pressed his hands together and leaned forward slightly. "So we finally come close to the truth. You fear being the Heir. But that isn't all. A shadow entered the cavern with you. Tell me where it came from."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"So quickly you return to telling me lies." He smiled slightly as he said it.

"Well if you already know, then why the hell am I talking to you?" Navran pushed himself to his feet and stomped to the entrance of the cave. The wind snarled through the low entrance, slashing at his ankles with its cold. A few flakes of snow drifted into the light.

"I can see many things, Navran, child of Manjur, but I cannot see everything. And yet, what's most important is not what I see, but what you confess."

"What am I supposed to confess?"

"How you came to be here, and why."

"I told you---"

"You told me why Mandhi sent you, and what you fear. You haven't told me how you came to be here."

"How? How? I climbed the goat-pissed mountain. How else would I get here?"

"If you just wanted to flee Mandhi and the burden of being Heir, you had many chances even before you came to Ternas. But you did not flee. And you climbed the long path to my hermitage."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice." Gocam stirred, like bones rustling out of a grave, and he stood. He was small and frail, smaller even than Mandhi, and his head seemed too large for his emaciated body. "Your choices right now are to confess and be healed, or to leave."

"I have nothing to confess."

Gocam stared at him with a black, unflinching stare.

Navran turned away. "Then I guess I'll leave."

He ducked beneath the low stone of the overhang and into the newborn snowstorm. Above him, the last light of the sun was dying in the roil of stone-gray clouds, and the air was choked with whirling flakes. The thin cloak around his shoulders rattled like a leaf. His clothes were meant for the heat of the lowlands, and they were useless against the mountain chill. He had to find shelter. No time to go back down to the valley, but if he found a sheltered nook somewhere... He had to start now, before the light faded entirely.