"What are you doing here?" Ezril asked. There was a touch of venom in his voice and he didn’t bother masking it. There was also worry for himself.

"I could ask you the same thing, but I fear the answer would only sadden me," the old man replied with a smile. "So, rather, I would ask: why are you sleeping in this blizzard without a fire?"

Ezril frowned. "I already told you. The wood was wet."

"Oh. Well, it's a good thing I ran into you then. I’ve been told luck tends to favor me.”

Ezril doubted luck had any hand in their meeting.

The man took out a piece of dried meat from his cloak. He offered it casually. "Are you hungry?"

Ezril's stomach growled at the invitation. But his brain, understanding there was a reason it was called a test, and why it was done individually, shook his head.

The man shook his head, too. "Just like last time," he said blandly. "Still pulling crazy stunts. First, a misty forest. Now, a raging blizzard.” He cocked his head to the side questioningly. “Is it worth it?"

Ezril understood the question to be rhetorical as the man continued. "I understand you are a seminarian, however little. But why all the suffering and the stress?"

"We need to know how to survive."

Ezril hated how the man's words coaxed him into talking. He understood he had no strength and needed to conserve as much as of it as he could. But he found it a task too great to remain silent. It was as if silence in the presence of the old man was the equivalent of speaking in the presence of Urden.

Ezril flexed his fingers over the fire. The numbness faded with the heat. It was a nice feeling.

"But why you?" the old man asked.

Ezril looked up from the fire. "Because someone has to."

"For what reason? To fight? For war?" The old man took another bite of his meat. His body moved like the old, but he chewed like the young. After a while, he asked, "Why do you think men fight, child?"

"Because of anger, hate... love. To defend the Credo…. To protect what is theirs?"

"Are you asking or telling me?"

Ezril frowned. "I'm telling you."

"You’re right, but the question is not why but why." The man took another bite of his meat. "Love. Anger. Hate. These are secondary, and surmountable to being unimportant. Men fight because there is something they want that will not be given to them. So they take it. The avenger wants the life of whoever has wronged him, and his enemy wants to stay alive."

Ezril found the concept annoying. "So why don't we just stay on our own?"

The old man let out a small chuckle. "Because humans are too many. And they always want. You would think the evil stems from emotions, but not all of it does." He took his last bite, licked his fingers, and continued. "Sometimes men take what they take not because they want it or need it, but simply for the challenge of acquiring it. Sometimes a man just wants the conquest, to know it was a feat he could attain." His nose wrinkled in thought. “It’s rarely ever if it’s a feat they should attain.”

Ezril understood what the man meant. Sometimes he stole food from the kitchen or fruits from the garden not because he was hungry or wanted to save it for a later time but simply because he wanted to know if he could get away with it. Once, he had stolen a berry while a priest spoke to him. With the understanding, came a shame for the question asked.

It had been dodged, and Ezril had allowed it, but now he wanted an answer.

"Why are you here?" he asked, hoping his tone helped the man understand that there would be no further conversation without an answer.

"Back to that, I see." The man adjusted a bundled up sack. He laid himself on the ground and rested his head on it. The task was carried out with as much sluggishness as Ezril remembered him for. "You can say I am a wanderer,” he said, “I have been everywhere, but I still go."

Ezril had once thought the kingdom the world, but Tolin’s tales of its exploits taught him otherwise. The few more tales he’d heard from the priests taught him that such a feat as the man claimed was impossible. No one wandered Vayla.

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Why would he lie now? he wondered.

"I have been to a place where class is determined by the color of one's skin…" the man continued in a slow voice, as if he counted his words, weighed them before speaking them. "A place where the people's Credo believes there is but only one God who has such power over men that he can bend their hearts if he wills it. A place where the women are worshipped as divine. As well as a place where a child's life is decided from the moment of their birth. Soldiers to the battlefields. Priests to the shrines. Abominations to the graves."

"There is no other god but Truth," Ezril said, surprising himself.

The man laughed. "Funny how that is the only thing you picked from all I said…” he looked away, spoke to the shelter. “And believing that, and the idea that when one dies he crosses over to another life that has nothing to do with this one to stand at Truth’s side makes more sense?"

Ezril paused, surprised. "You do not believe in the Credo?"

The Credo taught that when a child of Vayla dies, their souls ascend into a new world where they live in peace and forever harmony in her embrace. For the Hallowed, it believed Truth would take them with him and they would stand guards forever in his realm.

"Do not get me wrong, child,” the old man said. “I have nothing against the Credo. But tell me, if your belief is so grand, what is the fate of those who do not believe in the Credo?"

"They are taught the way of the true Credo," Ezril replied promptly, picking from an ingrained knowledge of the sermon taught at every mass he attended every single day in the seminary.

"And if they don't accept it?" the old man asked.

"Then they are..." Ezril hesitated. He knew the answer. It was not new to him, but he found himself not so at ease saying it. "…Put to the sword," he finished.

This was to be his future, he knew. The duty of a priest of Truth. To kill not only those who would draw on nin to cast magic and wound Vayla but those who would refuse to accept the teachings of Truth.

"You have heard of the Tainted, correct?" the old man asked, moving past their conversation as though it had been a normal one.

He's a wanderer, maybe it is for him, Ezril convinced himself before giving his answer. "Yes,” he said. “Those whose souls are stained by the abuse of nin and their hearts twisted from standing on the realm of the kinds of creation allowed only to Vayla. Those who refuse uniting with Truth and continue to burn Vayla of her lifeblood."

"I see you know your Credo," the old man complimented.

"Everyone knows of the Tainted." Ezril found no pride in it. The Tainted was something every child knew about. It spoke naught of his knowledge of the Credo.

The old man grinned. "Then you must also know of the war of the Scorned."

There was a silent pause before Ezril replied.

"No," Ezril admitted in shame.

The war of the Scorned was a tale of the origin of the Tainted, according to the Credo. But it was not one so easily heard. Children spoke about it and so did adults. But it was obvious that the stories carried about were either incomplete or heavily manipulated for the sake of making it interesting, or child friendly.

Even so, Ezril had never heard the tale. Even Unkuti never spoke of it. When asked about it once, he had simply replied, "My people do not tell tales without the truth and its entirety."

"Then let me grace you with a story to send you to sleep, child. For it is one of dazzling knowledge. And we do need our sleep.” The old man adjusted so that he was comfortable. “Millennia past," he began, "there lived a king. His rule was unquestioned, and his ways precise. He ruled a great people and coveted that which was not his, until one day the slaves of his people rose from their oppression and fought back, led by one man. Skilled with the sword and the axe, he led the slaves out of the kingdom, seeking refuge wherever they could.

“The king, ordering their capture, sent out legions to conquer them. But when the slaves were found, they had allied themselves with others and easily triumphed over the king's men. The king, angered by the challenge of his authority, waged war on the slaves and all who allied with them. It lasted for years. The slaves gathered more allies after each battle, growing in number. It made them difficult to subdue The king, so foolish in his power, refused offers from other tribes. He claimed they were all his to begin with and should present their assistance without him having to request of it or make payments. Soon, he found himself in a war waged against the world upon Vayla.

“As the tides of war turned against him, he and his people sought to reach beyond life in search of powers to attain victory. And power they got. A power evident in the greying of their eyes that shone in the dark. It is said that they learned this by associating with strange creatures. Beasts that walked like men, deformed men with ears a bit too long, men as high as my waist and no higher who bent metal as if it were rubber. It is said that they associated with the Scorned.

“These creatures taught them how to draw the precious life of Vayla’s nin and use it for tasks unfitting of any human. In this way they tainted their souls. Despite their association and the powers gained, the war lasted briefly before the king’s castle was stormed and taken. In the last fight within the throne room the king's massive throne was crushed, and the king defeated. In his defeat he brought down hundreds of men single handedly." There was a smile in the man's voice as he ended the sentence. “It is said that he called down shadow fire—the very life of Vayla—to decimate the throne room as it held secrets he wanted no one else to learn.”

"The king and his people are said to be the first of the Tainted," the man went on, after a moment. "It is said that their malice continues to spread across Vayla with their deaths, poisoning her nin and gripping the hearts of men who use too much of it, seeking to become what they are not."

"Was the king killed in the last fight?" Ezril asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

"No,” the old man answered as Ezril’s eyes grew heavy with sleep. “He lived out the rest of his days as a jester in the courts of kings and lords. And thus, is the tale of the war of the Scorned and the origin of the Tainted…."

After a brief moment, the man spoke again. Ezril wasn’t sure he heard the man's words accurately as he succumbed to sleep. But the complete disgust in his tone was unmistakable when he said them.

".... Or so it is so inaccurately told."