Talus and the Frozen King Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    In a southern land where a vast desert met a great river, Talus had once met a tribe of people—the biggest tribe he'd ever encountered. The desert people had planted crops in vast irrigated fields and raised extraordinary stone structures towards the sky. It was like nothing Talus had seen anywhere else in the world. Its beauty had seduced him.
    The desert realm was ruled by a warrior queen called Tia. When Talus was first brought before her as an interloper, he thought she would kill him. Instead, she listened to what he had to say. She enjoyed hearing Talus's tales of other lands, and allowed him to stay. Over time, they became friends.
    Talus was especially interested in the desert people's attitude to the afterlife. They'd developed the art of preserving bodies after death: they drained blood, removed organs, wrapped skin and entombed corpses in dry desert tombs, all to maintain the body's integrity when it finally entered the next world.
    So much effort, so much belief. Yet still they had no answer to the one question that had confounded Talus for most of his life.
    Is the afterlife real?
    His curiosity on this subject fascinated Tia. Her attention flattered him. She admitted to finding him strange (most people Talus had met seemed to share that opinion) but she never judged him. Instead, she responded to his inquiries with questions of her own. Talus loved questions.
    'If there is no afterlife,' Tia said once when he'd finished articulating his doubts on the subject. 'Where do people go when they die?'
    'Perhaps nowhere,' Talus replied. 'When a tree falls, it simply lies there, slowly rotting into the ground until it is gone. Perhaps it is the same for us.'
    'There are those who would say that, just like people, trees have spirits. If that is so, then where do the tree-spirits go?'
    'Perhaps they rot too.'
    'So all men who claim they can speak with the spirits of the dead are lying? All the priests of my temple, all the shamans of all the many lands you claim to have seen, they are all frauds?'
    'No. I think priests and shamans believe in what they do—believe very strongly, in fact. But everything they do can be explained in other ways. Before they a shaman can run with the spirits he must first beat drums, or descend into holes in the ground and breathe the smoke of the fire he has set there, or he eats a certain kind of toadstool ... all these rituals are designed to bend the shaman's mind and make him see things that are not there.'
    'But what if they are there?'
    'I am not saying they are not.'
    'Then what are you saying?'
    'That I have never seen them.'
    Their discussions went on day after day. The hot sun baked their backs. In Tia's company, Talus discovered a fellowship he'd never known could exist, and a kind of peace. Tia didn't agree with everything he said. But she understood why he was saying it.
    But then war had come crashing down on Tia's realm, and everything had changed. Tia had changed, shedding the woman to become once more the warrior queen. She told Talus to leave, but he stayed, promising to advise her as the war developed. But she was strong in battle and needed no advice. Towards the end, they found themselves together at the very top of the biggest of the desert tombs. The tomb's steep sides sloped away towards the sand far below. The noise of battle surrounded them.
    'I heard a story once,' Tia said hurriedly, 'from another travelling man, not unlike you. He spoke of a place far in the north, where the world is all made of ice. There, it is said that a river of light comes down from the sky to meet the frozen sea. The light is made of spirits. In the place where it touches down, all the worlds meet. This world, the next. Perhaps many others. He said he was going there, to see what he could see.'
    'What was his name?' said Talus.
    'It does not matter. Men like him use names and cast them aside. I often wonder if he will ever find what he is looking for.'
    It was only later that