Sentinelspire - Mark Sehestedt [125]
"Beautiful," said Chereth. "Perfect. The very image and heart of that for which our Order strives. Men, elves, dwarves, and all thinking peoples will survive, will even thrive in time. But the stink of civilization will be pushed back for hundreds of generations. The wild will recover. We shall breathe free air again."
Lewan looked on the half-elf, the horror of what he meant beginning to dawn on him. "You mean that you are going to going to cause this? All those people-"
"Dead, yes," said Chereth. He hung his head, but Lewan did not sense any real sadness or regret in the gesture. "So it must be, much to my sorrow. To save the body from infection, sometimes one must cut off a limb."
"But all those innocent people…"
"People die every day, my son," said Chereth. "Innocent and guilty alike. This, too, is part of the Balance. You yourself have been used by people who profit from murder. That is the world that people have made. But it was not always so. Before the rise of cities, of rivers of sewage and sludge… people lived as one with the wild, giving and taking in equal measure. Today, we have a world of rot, and you know that the only way to save a tree from rot is to prune the sick limbs."
"One who tends the trees must prune, yes," said Berun. "But you aren't talking about trimming a few rotten branches. You are talking about burning the whole wood! And what good to us if we prune ourselves? If what Lewan saw is true, we will not be around to see your vision fulfilled."
"Oh, but we will!" said Chereth. "You know full well that we stand in the midst of a fortress riddled with portals to points across all of Faerыn-and beyond. Once I wake the mountain at last, we will go elsewhere. I have prepared a place for us. I have not sat idle these years, but I have even taken many of the animals from this world and sent them there so that we may bring them with us when we return. Return as-"
"Conquerors?" said Berun.
"No," said Chereth. "As teachers. Guides. We will lead by example, not force."
"Destroying civilization," said Berun. "That isn't force?"
Chereth scowled. "Of course it is. A necessary force. Necessary to cleanse the world, to establish paradise."
Lewan had no idea what to say. He sensed the wrongness-more, the vileness-of what Chereth planned. But he could find no reason or argument to refute it.
"Murder," Chereth continued, "greed, blind ambition… destroying innocent lives. Were the both of you not orphaned by the greed of those more powerful than you? Filth, corruption, the sacrilege of undeath holding sway over entire regions-it must end, my sons. We must end it."
"Vengeance," said Berun, and an odd expression lit his face, almost like epiphany. "AH this talk of justice, of cleansing, it all comes down to simple vengeance. Vengeance in the Tower of the Sun."
Chereth scowled at his odd choice of words. "No, my son," he said. "Vengeance is hurting one who has wronged you."
"And civilization-the stink of cities and their sewage, as you put it-has not wronged us? Has not wronged the wild we love and swore to defend?"
"No, my son!" Genuine distress clouded the old half-elf’s features. "The desire for vengeance, for retribution… those are the desires of lesser men. I speak of the Balance, of righting the scales so long wronged by"-his lip curled round the word -"civilization. We must be above such petty concerns." "But Sauk said… I was told-"
"Lies!" said Chereth, and his face flushed with anger. "That murdering bitch and her half-orc lackey told you nothing but lies. Ask your beloved disciple.