214 KelThor Citadel (2/2)

Ven'thur sighed, the sudden excitement at returning home dimming down rapidly. ”Yes, that is true.

When the citadel was burned down two hundred years ago, nearly nothing was spared from the flames. A thousand years of history all written and bound in tomes meant to last an eternity – all gone. I should say the only comparable well of knowledge left now are the tablets of the Serpi, but those, they are unwilling to share with outsiders.”

Ven'thur paused, red points of light shining in his eye sockets. ”Perhaps, it would have been better for us to be just as reclusive with the knowledge. Sharing it with mortals bred fear in their minds, and their irrational little heads lashed out against us.”

”Your distrust of mortal minds is becoming that much more understandable to me,” said Li.

Ven'thur laughed. ”Ah, do not take my words too seriously, good seer, for they would taste sour to you when you yourself are trying so hard to make the mortals better than what they are.”

”You have no faith in them?” said Li, knowing that Ven'thur was with Li not to share his goal of an eternal garden, but for the mere pleasure of working with a higher existence and learning from it.

”Faith? Hm, faith? Such a strange word. So irrational, is it not? Have faith, the mortals say when they cannot understand the world around them. Have faith, they say as they urge each other to slaughter the other in droves or burn down knowledge.” Ven'thur began to float forwards, between the towering bookcases, and Li followed.

”But humans good,” said Tia. ”Papa says so.”

”I did not say they were evil, my dear,” said Ven'thur. ”Merely gullible, their wits dimmed and clouded with superstition as the years pass by them. They have no ideation of what is good or what is evil or what those concepts even truly mean, for it may be that one demagogue arises that convinces them that wrong is right and right is wrong, and they will lap it up so very easily.

Oh, dear me, I am rambling. What I should say is that mortals are blank slates, easily influenced, colored by the higher forces around them. To that end, I should say your dear father is quite the artist, shaping and coloring them in a way that turns them away from their wanton self-destructiveness.”

”Confused,” said Tia, not grasping what Ven'thur was saying. ”Bone man words too big.”

”He's saying that humans can get easily tempted,” said Li. ”And I agree, Ven'thur. I know very well how destructively short-sighted mortal lifespans can become.”

He distinctively remembered his past world. At how narrow minds and greedy wills had exploited and doomed the entire world into a soulless husk not worth living in. ”But their malleability is also why I believe I can turn them against their worse tendencies.”

”And to that goal, I raise the highest of toasts,” said Ven'thur, raising his skeletal hand in a mock cheer. ”There is no sarcasm in my words, good seer, I do assure you, if you are ever worried. It is simply the way my words flow sometimes. I do find your goals truly admirable, and I am quite the eager spectator to see whether it all comes into fruition.”

”Spectator? You, by now, are an active participant. Even now, that you are helping me is sign of that.”

”I am no nihilist, despite the tendency for long lived bookworms to resort to such philosophy,” said Ven'thur.

”You should know that by spending time within your heart, resurrecting myself through your energies, that I have some concept of what you are. Of where you hail from, of visions of a world choked with smoke and bereft of life. Preventing that, too, would be quite favorable for me.”

”Then you know I am part of the alien forces that you abhor, do you not?” said Li. ”The same as the heroes and the elven machines.”

”It would be hypocritical of me to abhor you for that, for after all, my existence, too, is of foreign origin to this world,” said Ven'thur. ”I merely am of ill opinion against the heroes and elves for their appearance has only furthered the chaos in this world.

You, good seer, however, look to be a beacon of order.”

”Order,” repeated Li, knowing the word was so very familiar to him. ”Yes, that is what I seek to become.”

”And order is a scholar's favorite dish,” said Ven'thur. ”For the delicate process of study is impossible in a time of chaos.

Now come, good seer and majestic little dragon, follow me to the heart of Kel'thor, for there, I may yet present to you a largely untarnished shade of its magnificence where I may attune you to the infinity of the cosmos.”