Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(124)
Hoid reached into his robes and pulled out a handful of something else. He began to drop it before him—small green leaves from the fronds of a fern.
“Paradise, they called it,” Hoid whispered. “A paradise hidden between the mountains, a land with pleasant rains that never grew cold, a land where succulent food grew spontaneously.” He threw the handful of leaves into the air, and in the center of them puffed a burst of colorful dust, like a tiny flameless firework. Deep reds and blues mixed in the air, blowing around him.
“A land of color,” he said. “Because of the Tears of Edgli, the striking flowers of such brilliance that could yield dyes that would hold fast in any cloth.”
Siri had never really thought about how Hallandren would look to people who came across the Inner Sea. She’d heard stories from the ramblemen who came into Idris, and they spoke of distant places. In other lands, one found parries and steppes, mountains and deserts. But not jungles. Hallandren was unique.
“The First Returned was born during this time,” Hoid said, sprinkling a handful of silver glitter into the air before him. “Aboard a ship that was sailing the coast. Returned can now be found in all parts of the world, but the first one—the man whom you call Vo, but we name only by his title—was born here, in the waters of this very bay. He declared the Five Visions. He died a week later.
“The men of his ship founded a kingdom upon these beaches, then called Hanald. Before their arrival, all that had existed in these jungles was the people of Pahn Kahl, more a mere collection of fishing villages than a true kingdom.”
The glitter ran out, and Hoid began to drop a powdery brown dirt from his other hand as he reached into another pocket. “Now, you may wonder why I must travel back so far. Should I not speak of the Manywar, of the shattering of kingdoms, of the Five Scholars, of Kalad the Usurper and his phantom army, which some say still hides in these jungles, waiting?
“Those are the events we focus upon, the ones men know the best. To speak only of them, however, is to ignore the history of three hundred years that led up to them. Would there have been a Manywar without knowledge of the Returned? It was a Returned, after all, who predicted the war and prompted Strifelover to attack the kingdoms across the mountains.”
“Strifelover?” Siri interrupted.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Hoid said, switching to a black dust. “Strifelover. Another name for Kalad the Usurper.”
“That sounds like the name of a Returned.”
Hoid nodded. “Indeed,” he said. “Kalad was Returned, as was Peacegiver, the man who overthrew him and founded Hallandren. We haven’t arrived at that part yet. We are still back in Hanald, the outpost-become-kingdom founded by the men of the First Returned’s crew. They were the ones who chose the First Returned’s wife as their queen, then used the Tears of Edgli to create fantastic dyes which sold for untold riches across the world. This soon became a bustling center of trade.”
He removed a handful of flower petals and began to let them fall before him. “The Tears of Edgli. The source of Hallandren wealth. Such small things, so easy to grow here. And yet, this is the only soil where they will live. In other parts of the world, dyes are very difficult to produce. Expensive. Some scholars say that the Manywar was fought over these flower petals, that the kingdoms of Kuth and Huth were destroyed by little drips of color.”
The petals fell to the floor.
“But only some of the scholars say that, storyteller?” Lightsong said. Siri turned, having almost forgotten that he was with her. “What do the rest say? Why was the Manywar fought in their opinions?”
The storyteller fell silent for a moment. And then he pulled out two handfuls and began to release dust of a half-dozen different colors. “Breath, Your Grace. Most agree that the Manywar was not only about petals squeezed dry, but a much greater prize. People squeezed dry.
“You know, perhaps, that the royal family was growing increasingly interested in the process by which Breath could be used to bring objects to life. Awakening, it was then first being called. It was a fresh and poorly understood art, then. It still is, in many ways. The workings of the souls of men—their power to animate ordinary objects and the dead to life—is something discovered barely four centuries ago. A short time, by the accounting of gods.”
“Unlike a court proceeding,” Lightsong mumbled, glancing over at the priests who were still talking about sanitation. “Those seem to last an eternity, according to the accounting of this god.”
The storyteller didn’t break stride at the interruption. “Breath,” he said. “The years leading up to the Manywar, those were the days of the Five Scholars and the discovery of new Commands. To some, this was a time of great enlightenment and learning. Others call them the darkest days of men, for it was then we learned to best exploit one another.”
He began to drop two handfuls of dust, one bright yellow, the other black. Siri watched, amused. He seemed to be slanting what he said toward her, careful not to offend her Idris sensibilities. What did she really know of Breath? She’d rarely even seen any Awakeners in the court. Even when she did, she didn’t really care. The monks had spoken against such things, but, well, she had paid about as much attention to them as she had to her tutors.
“One of the Five Scholars made a discovery,” Hoid continued, dropping a handful of white scraps, small torn pieces of paper with writing on them. “Commands. Methods. The means by which a Lifeless could be created from a single Breath.