Pershal hummed quietly to himself. He had grown more accustomed to humming over the past few months and now rarely noticed he was doing it. From time to time he thought he could hear other humming voices, as though from a long distance away, but whenever he tried to focus on them they would suddenly become absent. No matter. Either he would hear them clearly someday or he would not. In the mean time he had other work to do.

The stone structure Pershal now resided in was, perhaps, once a castle. Though it could have just as likely once been a stony hill. Oshea had formed this structure herself and governed all its walls, floors, ceilings, windows, and doors. “It is my domain,” she’d explained the day they’d met. As such the very forms it took could changed from day to day, or even moment to moment, according to Oshea’s Will. At first Pershal found the place to be incomprehensible, an ever shifting maze that relied on the whims of a master who could be absent for weeks on end and yet still order her domain, small though it may seem, from afar. How or why exactly she maintained such fine control over her domain was beyond Pershal. He was only barely beginning to understand the simplest aspects, though his ignorance was hardly Oshea’s fault. She was often eager to share her knowledge with him, even though most of it was far beyond his grasp.

Oshea was patient, however, and so she did not mind when he asked her question after question whenever the opportunity presented itself. So far he’d learned to hum, which according to her was a great accomplishment on his part.

“If you can hum, you can learn,” Oshea had told him, but then dampened his hopes by adding, “though learning is not the same as doing. That requires great Will on your part and no amount of teaching or learning can produce that. You must build it up yourself.”

And so Pershal hummed. The hum was suppose to be the physical manifestation of his inner Truth, or something like that. Oshea had used a lot of other words and told him stories of other people to illustrate her point but, as was often the case, he found it difficult to follow. She often did that, used stories of other people and places to try and show him what she was talking about. Sometimes it made sense. How, for example, was humming manifesting his Truth? What could he or anyone else tell about him just from the way he hummed? And yet, in those brief moments when he thought he could hear other humming voices, he thought he caught glimpses of things they were connected to. That didn’t mean he understood much of it. For example, he often thought of Falling, or Heaviness when he heard those other hums. Sometimes he thought of colors, textures, or tastes.

Oshea insisted that an objects Truth was not a great whole, but neither was it simply isolated components.

“It’s a tapestry, my friend,” she told him, “and each piece is a thread within it. To truly alter the tapestry you must first comprehend all it’s pieces, and then Willfully remove and then replace the pieces you seek to change. If done correctly, you will have a new, different tapestry.”

“What if it’s done wrong?” Pershal had asked her on more than one occasion.

“Then you will have a rent tapestry and that ruined form will become it’s Truth,” was her most common reply, sometimes followed by, “and such rents are not easily mended.” Though once she had said instead, “and woe to any who bend their Will’s to rending for such Curses mirrored in their Truths will be…” but she’d seemed to catch herself as though she hadn’t intended to say any of that to Pershal and refused to explain it any further.

Oshea had her secrets, and probably for good reason. Pershal had first been trained as a soldier and he well knew the importance of information. Sometimes it was far better to withhold some things, though that was of little comfort to the lowly soldier. What terrible knowledge did the commanders know? Were they to be used as a feint? A distraction to be used and then abandoned to the enemy while the real assault was carried out somewhere else? Was the enemy so vast that all hope of victory would be lost if they knew the truth?

Pershal could still remember how it felt to be there, so uncertain, wondering if this battle would be his last. And yet he’d always survived, always lived to fight again, and again, and again. It seemed there was always another battle to fight, another war to wage. He couldn’t complain too much, though. He’d been lucky. He’d never been seriously wounded, he’d never been part of the companies who were selected to go off on those doomed missions, and the few times when his company had been forced to retreat, he’d always made it out without being captured.

The last few months were certainly a change of pace. As a soldier he’d rarely slept in anything finer than a soldiers cot or bedroll, and he’d eaten nothing but military rations for longer than he cared to admit. Here, Oshea had given him his own room with a bed, a writing desk, and some other basic furniture. The food here wasn’t extravagant or exotic, but it was fresh and decently varied. When Oshea was there, Pershal assisted her studies by fetching her books from the library, organizing her notes, keeping her inkwells filled, and reminding her to eat. It was during those in-between moments that Pershal got to ask her his questions, and some times she would set aside time to teach him. That said, he was not her apprentice and Oshea was often quick to remind him of that if he pressed his questions while she was busy.

When Oshea was gone, Pershal busied himself with his own studies, as well as maintaining Oshea’s domain. Sometimes she would leave him with a task to perform, usually finding specific books and setting them aside for her to study upon her return, or else binding new, blank, tomes for her to fill with whatever knowledge she hoped to gain. Once or twice Pershal tried to read some of the books he’d been instructed to set aside but they were always either so far advanced that he could not comprehend their meaning, or else in some unknown language that he couldn’t decipher.

This morning, Pershal was cleaning the kitchen. He hummed as always as he swept the floor and wiped down the counters. The hearth was due to be emptied and so he laid out the burlap cloth he used to gather up the ashes. As he lifted the small shovel up out of the ashes to deposit the first load onto the burlap, he spotted a piece of a paper right where his shovel had just been. He hastily laid down the shovel of ash and then picked up the page. He recognized at once the untidy scrawl of Oshea’s handwriting. She sometimes sent him messages while she was away. They would simply turn up wherever he happened to be inside the house. This form of long distance communication had surprised him at first but he’d quickly gotten use to it. The page was clean, no ash stuck to it at all, and he began to read.

My friend, forgive my initial descriptions of Will and Truth, but you have me before I left for an explanation of what has happened in the North. I now have learned that Truth but I feel that in order to properly give it to you, I must first lay this foundation. From there I will tell you all I can of Cahr Nathos and the ruinous state it has fallen into.

As I’ve said before, Truth governs all, from the smallest grains of sand, to the mightiest of the stars. It orders the winds, the beasts, and plants. Nothing is without a Truth, and for those who come to learn those Truths, if their Will is strong enough, they may overwrite them with new Truths.

There are two fundamental laws governing Will and its use. The first is that exerting one’s Will over Truth, whether within or without themselves, inevitably has the effect of strengthening the users Will. As their Will increases, their very nature, their Truth, will in turn be molded by it. In extreme examples, the Will becomes so powerful that nearly all else of the individual is swallowed up until their very person can barely be defined by anything more than their Will.

The second governing law is that there are only two manners in which one may channel their Will. There are those who are so adamant in their own confidence that they are the conduit through which they focus their Will. The other is that the individual may focus their Will through their confidences in someone or something else. Examples of this are the Southern Wanderers who believe so strongly in Justice, in Equality, and in the general Balance of all things, that they channel their Will through those elements. I imagine you may wonder at how such intangible objects may be a focus for someone’s Will, but I assure you that those, and countless other similarly intangible things have a powerful Truth all their own. In fact, some people may become so powerful in their Will and in their Truth, that others may similarly channel their Will through them in a similar manner.

It is this rare focusing of others Will through a single person that has wrought ruin upon the North. Now hum to me your Truth so I may know you from where I am, and I in turn will give you the Truth of what transpired there.

Pershal had indeed asked Oshea about Cahr Nathos when she’d mentioned she was going North, but he hadn’t expected such a response. He also wasn’t sure what she meant by “hum your Truth so I may know you from where I am,” or even how to do that. He was already humming, he’d been humming the whole time, but nothing had yet happened. Something else was nagging at him. Oshea had warned him about declaring his Truth to anyone.

“If they know your Truth,” she’d warned, “they can change it.”

But what was there that he had to hide from Oshea, or to fear from her? Presumably, she could have done any number of things to his Truth if she wanted and yet she had not.

This thought comforted him in humming his Truth for Oshea, but that did nothing to help him understand how exactly he was suppose to hum it for her in the first place. He glanced back at the page in his hand and was surprised to see that her previous writing had been replaced with a single sentence.

You must Will it.

Pershal felt like a fresh recruit all over again, being told by his commander that he must push through the enemy lines. It was an easy order to give, and looking back it was a simple enough order to obey, but to one so inexperienced it seemed a daunting task. Still, Pershal tried to Will his hum to declare his Truth to Oshea. He had little to go off of, as far as how exactly he was to do it besides just sheer willpower. He tried to focus on himself, how he thought of and viewed himself. He focused on Oshea, Willing for her to hear his hum and know his Truth.

As he hummed he began to become aware of…of a resistance. Much like how it feels to wade through water, forcing your legs forward against the water with each step, so too he felt as though there was something resisting his hum. It was not a heavy resistance though, and as he pushed against it he knew he was advancing, drawing closer to his goal. Soon he could hear someone else humming and he was surprised to realize he recognized the sound. Oshea was humming to him, though her hum was not her Truth. It was a beacon to guide him to her.

Like reaching hands grasping towards one another, their hums met and Oshea’s hum grew suddenly vast and encompassing. It enveloped itself around Pershal and for the first time he became truly aware of how vulnerable he was to her. He could feel his Truth, naked and indefensible before Oshea and yet she made no threatening motions toward his Truth. Instead she simply carried his Truth to her. In this state, Pershal understood that she was not changing his Truth, but rather she was, somehow, obscuring the Truth of where he was for a brief moment so that he could be with her, and then allow his Truth to be revealed once again and he would be returned to her domain.

“Sit and be still,” Oshea instructed the moment Pershal’s surroundings solidified. “If you move much more than a few feet in any direction you will be sent back to my domain rather abruptly and…uncomfortably.”

Pershal obeyed. They were outside in the foothills of the Rorous Mountains overlooking Cahr Nathos. Fires smoldered and smoke rose thick in places, nearly as far as the eye could see. The wind blew from over the Rorous Mountains, however, and so the air where they were was clear and fresh.

“I will now tell you the Truth of Cahr Nathos,” Oshea stated, “And then you may ask questions.”

Thus she began to tell Pershal all that had befallen that once glorious realm.