Vanity

Tale of Mytha

The land the traveller walked through was a grey scar of desolation. The hills were pitted with quarries as if some great cat had raked its claws across the earth. The mines had fallen into disuse. There were neither trees nor flowers, only slate grey stone as far as the eye could see.

The shambling feet of Hollows echoed through the mine tunnels. The traveller thought better of journeying near those caves and sought higher ground. As he climbed a dusty crag he spotted a flash of orange atop the hill. Fire. Curious, he ventured toward it.

The hill was crowned by a large boulder looming like an arched forefinger. Beneath it was a dismal campfire with a skinned rat spitted over it. A solitary man with a greasy grey beard crouched over his meal. He looked up at the traveller's approach and his hand slid to the sword at his hip.

The traveller held his hands apart with palms turned outward. "Greetings and well met, friend. I come in peace, wishing only to share your campfire."

The man grunted and eyed him up and down. "Well, you don't look like bandit or Hollow." With another grunt he released his sword hilt and gestured to the fire. "Well, then, sit and share such as I have to offer."

The traveller sat cross-legged across from the man and eyed the roasting rat. The man caught his expression. "It's all you'll find edible around these parts, you know. The rats are tough against poison."

"Poison? Ah, you mean the fumes?" The traveller nodded to one of the old quarries. Swirling at its bottom was a sickly green fog. The traveller had endured the stench for many miles.

"Aye, the poison of Harvest Valley. Not many travel these parts anymore. At least, not many who are sane."

He caught the traveller's arched eyebrow and scowled. "Not that I've lost my marbles, mind you. My companion, on the other hand…Talked me into taking a shortcut through the valley. Bah!" He spat on the ground.

"Where is your companion?"

"Dead. And here I am, within spitting distance of cursed Earthen Peak."

The traveller followed his gaze to a spot about two miles away. A lonely stone keep rose above the rocks, covered in ever-spinning windmills.

"So, that is Earthen Peak."

"You know of it?"

"I've heard of its formidable reputation."

"Well earned, I assure you. As my dearly departed friend can attest to." The man picked up the spit and inspected his meal. "About done, I'd say. Heads or tails?"

"It wouldn't agree with me," the traveller replied and pulled out a flask from beneath his cloak. Uncorking it released a faint luminescence as he poured a golden liquid down his throat.

The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Estus. So, you are Undead."

The traveller smacked his lips as he replaced the flask. "I am."

For a long moment the two stared at each other, waiting for one to make a move. The traveller calculated he could pull his dagger and be on his feet before the other had his sword half-drawn. Not that it mattered. The man may kill him, but he wouldn't stay dead. That's why he wasn't afraid of travelling the Hollow-ridden ruins of Harvest Valley, nor of the imperious visage of Earthen Peak. He was merely curious. An Undead could afford to be curious.

The man sniffed and took a bite. "Well," he said through bits of rat, "I won't hold it against you. This ain't no bonfire you're sitting at, though."

"It will suffice for now," the traveller smiled. "Besides, you seem to be almost as well-traveled as I am."

"Traveled enough to let you know that this is a foul place to be in. It's not just the poison and the Hollows. These badlands belong to the Baneful Queen. Death to all intruders, that's the order of the land."

"The Baneful Queen?"

"Aye, lad! You know of Earthen Peak, don't you know of its ruler?"

"Stories, rumors. An immortal sorceress, I've been told."

"Immortal as sin. She goes around without a head on her body. Holds it in her hand instead. And she's got quite the retinue in that tower. Women from the far desert who know fifty ways to gut a man. That's how my friend took his flying leap into the afterlife. Got too close to Earthen Peak, thinking he could maybe pick up a trinket or two. I was smart enough to keep out. Saw them toss his body over the wall less than an hour after he went in."

"A dismal fate. But why does the queen hate strangers so?"

"Besides the fact that most of them are idiot robbers? She's crazy. Can't stand people to look at her face. Even her servants have to wear veils or else she'll lop off their heads."

The traveller mulled over this gruesome chestnut. "Madness has its causes. Perhaps some great tragedy or ill fate befell her."

"There's nothing tragic about Queen Mytha. She brought it all on herself. Simple pride and vanity, that's all it was."

"You sound like you know the story well."

The man smiled smugly. "I've been around a long time, lad. You learn a few things."

"Well, why don't you tell me, then? I'm always happy to learn from an old master."

The man smirked and settled into a more comfortable position with his back against the boulder. He flicked a speck of meat off his beard and began.

Mytha was a princess, of course. She came from Jugo, the desert kingdom. A vile place, they say, filled with cutthroats, brigands and beasts fit to make a dire wolf whimper. But its rulers had wealth and a long reach. That power caught the eye of the Old Iron King himself. You know of the Iron King, don't you? The legendary tyrant who built an empire of metal and fire. The tale of his depravities would take days to tell. Fortunately, his part in Mytha's story is short.

It was near the end of the king's reign when he got the idea into his head to marry his son off to a princess of Jugo. He was old and fat and none too sane, but he had enough wits left to realize that Jugo was a very good friend to have. Especially if you wanted a friend with a grand smile, a full money pouch, and a very sharp knife at the ready. So he sent ambassadors to the desert to make his case. And what would you know but the king of Jugo agreed!

To Mytha, the whole arrangement was an annoyance. She was a haughty one. At home, her servants catered to every whim with such fervor she made a game of giving them impossible tasks just to see how well they did. Her days were all spent basking in scented baths or parading her entourage through the capital letting everyone gawk at her. And, of course, playing host to an impressive array of suitors. Being married off like this to a foreign prince, far from her fawning crowd was quite unfulfilling. There was no triumph just having a lover handed to her. She wanted to savor his unrequited desire before deigning to accept his proposal.

When she finally arrived at the Iron King's castle, her opinion only slightly improved. The Iron King's castle was one big chunk of metal shaped into such a jagged mess of spikes and ridges and twisting halls it was a wonder the whole thing didn't just topple over. Well, eventually it did, but that's another story. Anyhow, the princess wasn't impressed.

She wasn't fazed by the Iron King's pomp, either. The king was a loud, boisterous man with a wicked temper and little patience. His false smiles didn't fool Mytha, who saw only a fat man looking to keep a Jugan dagger from sticking in his belly. The lady assassins of Jugo were legendary for their skill and tenacity, their powerful fire sorceries, and the seeming randomness of their murders. Small wonder a king would seek to protect himself from such ferocity. And maybe get a hand in Jugo's equally legendary coffers.

Things took quite the unexpected turn for the vain princess when she met the king's son. He was a very different creature from his father: Athletic and graceful, even-tempered and soft-spoken. An angel compared to his hulking goblin of a father. Mytha was smitten immediately. The prince, on the other hand, regarded her with calculating eyes, taking in her appearance and entourage with indifference.

The king and prince showed her all the majesty of the kingdom, its formidable armies, its forges of iron and steel, its cavernous mines within Harvest Valley. Yes, the very land we sit in now was once part of the Iron King's realm. Harvest Valley was the jewel in the crown, the foundation of his war engine. Iron and copper were mined here and smelted into weapons and armor. And here, too, lay the ancient keep of Earthen Peak. It was the king's great gift to Mytha, a wedding present of sorts. The newly married prince and princess dwelt within the tower overlooking the grey mines. For the prince was the newly appointed prefect of the valley. All its riches fell to him to govern.

Earthen Peak had been in the land for as long as anyone could remember. Its builders were long forgotten. It had stood when the valley was still green and verdant, before the Iron King dug out the earth for its wealth and covered the hills in windmills used to grind the rock taken out of the mines. Mytha hated it at first sight, just as much as she had fallen so deeply in love with the prince at first glance.

The prince took to his duties wholeheartedly. The mines had fallen into poor shape when he first arrived. Restless laborers entertained notions of rebellion while their lazy overseers turned a blind eye. After stern reprimands and a few executions, though, the prince increased production by threefold and Harvest Valley was abuzz again with the heavy footsteps of slaves and the cracking of their masters' whips. The prince's obligations kept him away from Mytha for many days at a time and she found herself quite alone in old Earthen Peak. But she eagerly awaited the days when her husband returned to her. Then she had him all to herself.

Alas, the prince's reserved nature was no match for Mytha's mad passions. Mytha had brought men to their knees with ecstasy with mere words, but the prince was unmoved by her seductive voice and witty wiles. And when partaking in more intimate pleasures he remained aloof. Mytha was aghast. Here was a man who she truly desired, whose physical beauty was matched by a sharp mind and an articulate tongue. Here was her equal, and yet he saw her with…indifference. Hatred, now that Mytha could deal with. That was just another passion to her. She was a creature of passion. But this cold indifference exasperated her. His daily interactions with the princess, from mealtimes to lovemaking, was conducted with the same measured temperance.

And a thought caught hold in Mytha's mind that terrified her. The thought that here was a man who did not desire her.

She arrived at a simple solution to this predicament. She would convince her prince to love her.

One day, she summoned her chief handmaiden and commanded her to order a list of the most expensive perfumes and cosmetics from across the continent. Mytha was keen as a viper on arousing her husband's subdued passion. She would make him beg every night to be with her, only to be denied until madness seized him. Such was her way.

And so, during a long week with the prince away from Earthen Peak, a trove of precious spices, herbs, perfumes, creams, incenses, powders, ointments, oils, silks, and jewelry arrived at the castle by crate and sack and barrel. Mytha cloistered herself within her boudoir and subjugated herself to such treatments as would make a barber's head spin. She caked her face in powders and makeups from Carim and donned a dress of red-dyed silk from Lordran. Her new bangles and earrings were Carthusian gold. She soaked her skin in precious oils and scented the bedsheets with incense from her homeland.

When the prince returned after his long week's duties he found her draped across their bed with predatory intent. But her animalistic passion did nothing for him. He grunted and partook of his husbandly duties with the same listlessness as always. He regarded her with the same polite indifference as the day they had first spoken, the ever-so refined chill of a man who dutifully fulfilled his obligations. What feelings he had for her he kept in check, as became a hard-working monarch-in-training. But to Mytha, who had glutted herself on passions all her life, she could only see a man who felt nothing for her.

She veiled her fury in pretty smiles as he departed in the morning.

He did not love her. This was now a certainty in her mind. But she would make him love her. No man had thwarted her before, nor would she allow any to. She studied long-forgotten techniques of beautification practiced by civilizations a thousand years dead. New ideas entered her mind and fueled her obsession. And with every failure to entice her husband, her vanity flared ever brighter and her rage burned all the hotter.

Yes, vanity and rage. That's what it really was, you know. Not that she could tell. Emotions clouded her senses. In truth, the prince was always just another toy for the princess to play with. But he refused to play her game and this perplexed her. Madness took such deep root in her heart it stifled every other thought. She would sacrifice all on the altar of her vanity to make him love her.

As glib it may sound, that is just what Mytha did. Beauty is a strange thing, random from culture to culture, and some nations' standards of prettiness are measured in degrees of pain. Mytha would never subject herself to mutilation of the flesh, but mutilation of soul and mind were another matter.

In some kingdoms it was customary for noblewomen to imbibe small amounts of poison every day, believing it would prolong their youthful appearance. Tripe and lies, I say, but perhaps if a woman believed it hard enough, it came true. Who can say? All I know is that Mytha took this logic one step further. If a little poison could slow your aging, great heaping gallons of it must make you stay young forever!

Oh, yes, she mastered the arts of poisonous alchemy. She consumed toxins the likes of which would kill any lesser woman. She bathed in the green, noxious stuff. And she lived. How did she live? Perhaps it was magic, spells weaved by her sorcerous handmaidens. Or perhaps it was sorcery and alchemy of her own doing. Her skill in magic was no small thing, it is said, and her knowledge of poisons became something utterly unrivaled.

At any rate, she changed. She became beautiful, like she wanted, but it was the beauty of a statue. Artificial, not quite right. Something uncanny and vaguely foreboding. Perhaps the poisons didn't so much improve her beauty as they drew out something that was hidden deep inside her, some unseen truth now being laid bare for the world to see.

What happened next is the thing that broke her mind utterly. You see, until now, Mytha had been fixated on her own looks as the one barrier between her and the prince's love. But then, one day, while leaning over the balcony on the highest turret of Earthen Peak, she spied her husband below. Yes, and he was walking with a woman. A stranger. A pretty one, to boot. And he was smiling. Smiling! Can you imagine? He had never smiled at Mytha, not once. She summoned one of her sorceresses to track down that stranger and find our her name and position. And they did. She was some minor noblewoman of the kingdom, not even one of great status. But the prince was smitten with her. Oh, he never did betray Mytha in the flesh, but in mind and spirit his faithfulness was taken by another.

It's odd that Mytha didn't kill either of them at that moment. She certainly could have if she wanted to. Perhaps some part of her actually loved the prince. That one bit of decency still left in her. Or maybe she needed them alive so she could keep hating them, keep the reason for her vanity alive. Who can say?

She became a virtual recluse after that unpleasant revelation. She refused to see her husband. She became as cold to him as he was to her, only that coldness burned white-hot. Oh, yes, such are the strange passions of love that they so easily turn to hate. Hatred is just the opposite of love, yes? Mytha could never come to terms with the fact that she was well and truly rejected. Hatred turned to self-loathing. She, the most beautiful of all women, had been turned away by her own husband. She wasn't beautiful enough, she believed. And so she turned to her poisons and soaked in them, drank them, injected them and breathed them in. Her servants fled for fear of their lives as toxins clouded her chambers. And she changed.

The poisons catalyzed some vile metamorphosis, some abomination of alchemy. Her legs fused into a serpent's tail. Gleaming scales covered her skin. She had always been a viper. Now the whole world could see it.

As for the prince? He died. Made the whole thing pointless, really. It was his father's folly that did it. The Old Iron King finally fell victim to his own greed when his attempts to turn his whole kingdom into iron buried it. His keep sunk into a sea of molten iron and magma and took him and his son with it. A demon had something to do with it, I think. Something the king summoned and couldn't put down. But that's neither here nor there. The prince was dead and Mytha was all alone in Earthen Peak, and she was a queen now. But all she had left were her loyal handmaidens. Even a monstrous mistress was still their mistress, after all. It helped that they had gone Undead by this time.

But Mytha refused to let them show their faces. She had plunged headlong into lunacy and believed that she was hideously ugly now. And seeing any woman's face she thought was prettier than hers…off with the offending head! So the sorceresses took to wearing veils to conceal their faces. The more fanatical ones even scarred themselves in the vilest ways so as not to rival their queen's appearance.

She was addicted to poisons, too. She transformed the whole of Earthen Peak into one great brewing vat to sustain her youth. The fumes flowed out of the castle and into Harvest Valley below, killing hundreds. All the survivors fled, the sane ones, anyway. Plenty of Hollows still roam the old mines, unaware that their king is dead, their queen is crazy and so are they. And she kills any man and woman bold enough to enter Earthen Peak. Everyone is an enemy now, come to judge her beauty.

They say that at last her madness reached its fever pitch and in a single night Mytha smashed every mirror in the castle and finally, unable to bear her own face any longer, grabbed her head with both hands and tore it clean off.

The mournful winds blowing through the valley were drowned out by raucous laughter. The old man scowled at the traveller.

'Thank that's funny, do you? Think I'm a two-bit minstrel singing bawdy songs?"

The traveller rubbed his eyes. "No, no. But truly? How does one tear one's own head off? Unscrew it like a cork? Pry it off like a nail? That seems to me to be the real mystery of the Baneful Queen."

"Bah! You scoff, but I tell you that's the story. She didn't die, neither. She's still prowling her old lair, one hand clutching her living head. The poisons keep her alive. She's an inhuman beast, a mockery of all that's living and decent in the world."

"An excellent story, with a chilling moral to be sure."

"Who said anything about morals? It's the story of how a bloody snake woman came to be haunting that castle yonder."

"Fair enough. Although I confess it does leave me with one question."

The old man cocked his head to look at the traveller with one glaring eye. "Oh, does it now? Perhaps you want to know what the color of her eye shadow is, eh? What she has for breakfast?"

"Nothing so droll. It is an honest question. The puppets. How did they come to be in Earthen Peak?"

The man scratched his beard in deep thought. "Puppets? Oh, those things with the knives and sabers that guard the castle? The ones with no heads? I imagine they were creations of the Iron King or the prince, perhaps."

The traveller smirked knowingly, pulled out his flask, and took another swig of Estus. "Not quite, my friend."

"Methinks, stranger, that you know more about this tale than you let on."

"I confess, I too have travelled the land for a long time." His face sobered. "A long time." He capped his flask and stuck it back in his coat. "But, yes, I do know something of the Baneful Queen. I know the old tales of the forbidden love between the Prince of Alken and the Princess of Venn. Shards of truth may be found in them, waiting to be revealed."

"Alken and Venn?" the man snorted. "Fairy tales!"

"Are they?" the traveller replied.

"And what do Alken and Venn have to do with Mytha?" the man challenged.

"I'll tell you."

There are few still alive who remember the ancient realms of Alken and Venn. Alken was a land of thick forests and rich, arable land. It's wealth was in its soil. Venn was a coastal kingdom of rocky cliffs and deep bays that drew its riches from the sea. Legend has it they were both founded by the same man, though who he was and what other deeds he accomplished are lost to time. So too is the reason why the kingdoms hated each other so much.

Both kingdoms have long since vanished, for reasons that this tale will elucidate. What remains of their legacy are decayed ruins, artifacts, and one singular tale of romance. For between a Prince of Alken and a Princess of Venn there sprung a forbidden love that cast aside the virulence of their families' rivalry. Like all the greatest romances, it ends in tragedy.

For a time the Prince and Princess kept their love secret. They rendezvoused in secluded glades and remote copses, far from the eyes of stern parents. But their love could not bear to be suppressed and erupted in a spectacular display of covenanted devotion. For the Prince and Princess commissioned the construction of two towers, each containing bells of remarkable beauty. The Prince's tower, dedicated to his fair lady, housed the bell of Venn. The Princess's tower, in honor of her beloved, was gifted the bell of Alken. And they were guarded forevermore by eternal watchdogs, guardian puppets created through the old knowledge.

For Venn and Alken were the homeland of the forgotten art of puppetry. Scholars from long ago discovered the means of imbuing wood and metal with life and will. Obedient creatures to the very last. Ah, but I see you shuffling. Impatient to hear the point? Very well, let me hasten my tale.

It was inevitable, of course, that the lovers' families discovered these two monuments to their enemies and swiftly arrived at the truth. It was a foolhardy act the two lovers had committed, a pyrrhic victory for love. The Prince and Princess would never consummate that love, for they would be torn apart. The Princess vanished into the shadow of the ages. What became of her? Some say her father had her shipped off to some faraway foreign king. The more cynical attest that her father killed her in a blind rage. It doesn't matter, because it is the Prince who holds our interest. He was married off to an Alkenite lady named Mytha.

Yes, Mytha, a most beautiful woman, indeed, the most beautiful in Alken. Perhaps the prince should've been pleased with his new bride. She was clever and alluring, refined in speech and poise and not lacking in material wealth. But the Prince had eyes only for his lost love. A shame, for Mytha was quite taken with the Prince. He was a charming fellow and quite debonair when the fancy took him. He treated Mytha quite well, but he did not love her. Mytha knew this, and grew jealous of her untouchable rival. She had the right to the fullness of her husband's affections. Why must she compete with a woman so distant from their home?

To win her Prince's love, Mytha turned to alchemy and filled her veins with the vilest toxins. It is as you said, my friend. Poisons can enhance one's beauty. A dangerous practice, but to no avail upon Mytha's spouse. She took slight at her failure and grew lonely in the castle, trapped in a loveless marriage. She used Alkenite puppetry to create her own servants to cater to her whims, and, perhaps, to sate her need for adoration. But she found subservient automatons to be a poor substitute for human love and fell into a deep melancholy.

Time passed, and melancholy turned to bitterness, and bitterness to hatred. For it is true that love breeds the strongest hate. She hated the Prince whose love she once desired. And if she could not have his love, she would have her vengeance.

How the Prince died is not known, save that it was by poison. Tainted food, a poisoned drink, a pinprick? However the means, the Prince died an agonizing death. The crime was swiftly discovered, for Mytha's dabbling in poisoncraft was well known. She was seized by the Prince's grieving father and sent to the executioner's block. A swing of the blade and that beautiful head was lopped clean off.

But then, in a terrible instant, the headless body rose, reached into the basket and pulled out the head. The pale face laughed triumphantly and the abomination walked away unopposed, for all present were terrified by the sight. The creature walked back to its home in Earthen Peak and never again left the keep's walls.

It was the poison that kept her body alive. And the poison, combined with her own hatred and ire, transformed her into a terrible beast. Perhaps it was the alchemical mixtures that catalyzed her transformation. I, however, believe there is another explanation. It is written that one's deepest desires and vices ever seek physical manifestation. Mytha utterly gave herself over to vanity and treachery, and so she achieved a form most suiting her: the venomous snake, whose glistening scales and lithe figure do but conceal its lethal nature. Poisoned in mind, so too did she become poisoned in body.

Mytha filled Earthen Peak with vile poisons to sustain her youth and feed her hunger. Her metamorphosis drove out all sane men from the castle until she was left alone with only her mindless Mannikins for company. Their unblinking faces unnerved her and she tore off their heads so she would no longer endure the judgment of their gaze. And all around her the old kingdoms fell into ruin.

Alken and Venn fell when the Old Iron King and his armies devoured them piece by piece. What was left of Venn fell into decay and its inhabitants fled or turned Hollow. Alken's castle was seized by the Iron King and became the center of his new realm. Only Earthen Peak remained untouched, for no warrior had the courage to face the Baneful Queen.

But the Iron King was a greedy one. He desired the iron ore in Harvest Valley. And he was crafty. He recognized the need within Mytha's heart and cut a bargain with her. He would provide her with an endless source of ingredients for her toxic brews if she tolerated the presence of his laborers as they stripped the land bare. Mytha had no interest in the affairs of the outside world and so she agreed to this bargain…for a time.

The Iron King had not reckoned with Mytha's madness. While he kept his eye on the wily queen, all was well. But Mytha's very nature had become that of the snake, and as soon as his gaze wandered, she betrayed him as she had her Prince. She lured the king's overseers to her castle with false promises of unmatched pleasures and delights. Their deaths were rumored to be quite cruel. Then she unleashed the great miasma into the canyons and mining tunnels and killed everyone within.

Had the Iron King learned of this treachery, his wrath would have been terrible and all-consuming. But he never did, for soon after the valley massacre the King was consumed within his own fortress by the demonic forces he had unleashed. The Iron Kingdom had fallen. Only the Baneful Queen remained.

The traveller leaned back as he finished his tale and watched the old man carefully. "So, then, what think you of that version of the tale?"

"Hrrm. In your tale, the queen is a victim of happenstance. An innocent turned murderer by the whims of fate. And where is the supposed moral in that little story?"

The traveller shrugged. "No one compelled her to murder the Prince. Fate is cruel, to be sure, but we must endure its tide with dignity, or else be broken."

"So, Mytha was just too weak, then? Or was the Prince just a pig who denied her the affection that she needed? In both tales it is Mytha's husband who drives her to such extremes with his refusal to show love."

"That is true. Yet Mytha is a very different person in each tale, isn't she? You say she was a vain Jugan princess whose mind was broken by the thought that there existed a man she could not control. My tale speaks of an Alkenite princess driven mad by the prospect of a life without love."

"Which is the true story, I wonder?"

"Neither. Both." The traveller smiled. "Perhaps it is simply too great a task to undertake, unveiling the fog of history. What is the truth of the matter? I do not know. You do not know. Nobody may ever know for certain."

"Ha, your story certainly didn't know why there are Jugan sorceresses roaming Earthen Peak. My tale accounts for that. And they can't both be true."

The traveller laughed. "You've got me there."

"Perhaps the assassins of Jugo were attracted to an Alkenite who idealized their art. Or perhaps the Jugan Mytha found the puppets and turned them to her purposes."

"Good explanations, although neither tell why Grave Wardens have also been sighted in Earthen Peak."

"What the devil is a Grave Warden?"

"Hmm, that's a story for another time, I think." The traveller rose and stretched. "It is time to move on. Dangerous to linger in a place such as this."

"Aye, that is true," the man nodded and broke up the campfire. "Still, it's a bit of an itch, isn't it?"

"What is?"

He nodded his head toward the castle. "Mytha. Who is she really? Don't you wonder?"

"I have a many questions about many things in this world. Monsters, men, ruins, all riddles without answers. It's part of the reason why I began my travels."

"What have you found out so far, seeker of answers?"

"Very little. Indeed, I thus far have discovered only one answer that satisfies."

The old man hoisted his pack over his shoulders and secured his sword to his belt. "And what's that?"

"That it doesn't matter. There are questions that will never be answered. And if those answers were found, it does not alter the fact that the ruins still lie buried, the monsters still prowl. What is, is."

"Ha! Little comfort, that. Sounds like you just gave up."

"No. But to chase after all answers as if sating one's curiosity will itself offer contentment, it's like chasing after the wind. Look at us, two men debating over where the Baneful Queen arose from. We do not know, and if we discovered the truth, there she still is, poisoning the valley. And we don't know, and still there she is."

"You sell the truth short. Truth can change things, show us a clear path. We need truth."

"If you can find it and recognize it for what it is."

The traveller gave a curt nod to his companion and began the long march to the verdant lands of the south. The old man regarded the dying embers of the campfire for a brief moment. He gave the ashes one final kick and followed the traveller.