sums at the village school, but that was all.
“Is that where you learned about God?” Jesse asked.
Parvel laughed. “No. In fact, quite the opposite. My tutor was adamantly opposed to any mention of God, even the watered-down talk of the priests. He was also a most miserable man. I decided I did not want to believe as he did, because I did not want to be like him.”
“But how do you know so much about God, then?” Jesse asked.
“I made it my goal to find out all I could,” Parvel said. “Somehow, I knew that what I heard from the priests couldn’t be the truth, or at least not the whole truth. I started a private collection of texts from the Holy Scriptures. Just fragments, you understand. I have yet to find a complete copy.”
“Because it’s so old?”
“It is old, yes. Preserved from an age no one now remembers. But, more importantly, the king doesn’t appreciate the God of the Scriptures. He and his court subscribe to a very different kind of religion.”
Instantly, Jesse remembered the dragon sculpture he had seen in Chancellor Doran’s parlor. Even thinking about it gave him a sick feeling, like someone was twisting his stomach inside of him.
“I have found many scraps with fire damage on the edges,” Parvel said, shaking his head angrily. “I believe they burn all copies of it, Jesse. The most important book in all of history. Can you believe it?”
“I believe it,” Jesse said flatly. “We’re here in the rain outside a swamp because the king is trying to kill us. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s willing to burn a few books.”
“In any case, God rewards an earnest search for truth. As it says in the Scriptures, ‘God did this so that people would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.’ I read those words, and ones like them. And I believed.”
Jesse turned around, wincing as the rough bark of the tree scraped his neck. He looked toward the camp, where he could dimly see Silas and Rae’s sleeping forms. “What about people who don’t want to believe?”
“You can only choose for yourself, not for others,” Parvel said, shrugging.
He keeps speaking in vague, intellectual terms, like this is a debate in his study at home.
“But what about Rae and Silas?” Jesse asked, getting right to the heart of the matter. “They don’t want to listen to anything about God. Silas especially. Rae seems to tolerate it, as if belief in God is a harmless myth. But Silas….”
“Yes, Rae and Silas,” Parvel said. He didn’t sound upset at all. Instead, he frowned thoughtfully, like Rae and Silas were logic puzzles his tutor would have him solve. “Rae thinks she doesn’t need God, that she can do without Him even if He does exist. Silas, on the other hand, doesn’t trust God. He doesn’t believe that He’s good. Besides, he wants revenge for his father’s death, and he knows that if God exists, He wouldn’t approve of revenge.”
That was frustrating to Jesse. “What would it take to change their minds? What more can we do?”
“Let me tell you a story,” Parvel said, instead of answering. Jesse knew from experience, though, that the story would be the answer.
“Long ago, there was a messenger in the court of King Marias who was sent to the city of Lidia to announce that an army of Westlunders was planning to attack it.”
“Who were the Westlunders?” Jesse asked. Parvel often forgot that not everyone was as familiar with history as he was.
“A powerful tribe from the western side of the mountains,” Parvel said. “Some even said they were giants. In any case, after hearing the report of the impending attack, the sovereign of Lidia refused to prepare for war. He left the city defenseless and sent the messenger away in disgrace.”
“Foolish,” Jesse said. “What kind of ruler was he?”
“He believed the city walls were strong enough to withstand any attack,” Parvel said, shrugging. “He trusted that faulty belief more than he trusted the messenger. The messenger tried again to gain audience with the sovereign, but he was denied. Three days later, the Westlund army attacked Lidia and put it under siege. After a few months, the city fell and was destroyed.”
Jesse didn’t try to picture that scene. He had never seen warfare up close, not living in the tiny village of Mir. The war on the Northern Waste was weeks of travel away from District One, and very little news came to them from the battlefield.
“Tell me, Jesse, was it the messenger’s fault that the city fell?”
“No,” Jesse said immediately. “He did his duty. Even more by going back after he was thrown out of the sovereign’s court.”
“And that is what you must always remember as a messenger of the truth of God,” Parvel said. “You cannot make people accept the truth. You can only present it and pray that God will change their hearts.”
Jesse thought about that. “But there’s one difference from your story. After the second try, the messenger left. I will get thrown out of the court a hundred times if I need to. I will not give up on Rae and Silas.”
“That’s the spirit, Jesse.” Parvel clapped him on the back, probably harder than he meant to. He often underestimated his own strength. “When they are ready to listen, we will be there.”
Jesse nodded. “If we make it out of the swamps alive.”
“The Swamps of the Vanished,” Parvel mused, stroking his chin. “I wonder what the Westlunders would think of that? It’s quite possible they marched across this very ground.”
“You mean—” Jesse started.
“Yes. There was once a city in these swamps…Lidia, the very one that fell to the Westlunder army. That was the last Amarias ever heard from these parts. The Lidians simply disappeared.”
“Others too, from what I’ve heard,” Jesse added.
Parvel raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And what, exactly, have you heard?”
“Just a few stories,” Jesse said quickly, “told by boastful travelers and traders at my aunt and uncle’s inn after a bit too much to drink. Probably just lies and exaggerations.”
The truth was, he was trying to forget the stories he had heard. None of them ended well. They were tales of noxious bogs, “where just a whiff could poison your blood,” not to mention the strange creatures, including dragons. There were men who claimed that they were the only survivors of an expedition to the other side of the swamps, telling how the others in their group disappeared overnight, with most of their possessions left behind.
And they told of giants, ones with matted, greasy hair and fists the size of horse carts. Evil smiles, too, ones that glowed in the darkness of the swamp. The Westlunders, though Jesse had never heard anyone call them by such a polite name.
“They say the giants of the swamp will jump across Amarias in three steps and snatch children from their beds as they go,” Parvel said, swooping down and picking Jesse up on the last words.
Jesse
