Then Tehlu grew angry, and he might have slain them all, but Perial leaped forward and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “What more can you expect?” she asked him quietly. “From men who live with demons for their neighbors? Even the best dog will bite that has been kicked enough.”
Tehlu considered her words and saw that she was wise. So he looked over his hands at Rengen, looked deep into his heart and said, “Rengen, son of Engen, you have a mistress who you pay to lie with you. Some men come to you for work and you cheat or steal from them. And though you pray loudly, you do not believe I, Tehlu, made the world and watch over all who live here.”
When Rengen heard this, he grew pale and dropped his hammer to the ground. For what Tehlu said to him was true. Tehlu looked at all the men and women there. He looked into their hearts and spoke of what he saw. All of them were wicked, so much that Rengen was among the best of them.
Then Tehlu drew a line in the dirt of the road so that it lay between himself and all those who had come. “This road is like the meandering course of a life. There are two paths to take, side by side. Each of you are already traveling that side. You must choose. Stay on your own path, or cross to mine.”
“But the road is the same, isn’t it? It still goes to the same place,” someone asked.
“Yes.”
“Where does the road lead?”
“Death. All lives end in death, excepting one. Such is the way of things.”
“Then what does it matter which side a man is on?” It was Rengen asking these questions. He was a large man, one of the few that was taller than dark-eyed Tehlu. But he was shaken by all that he had seen and heard in the past few hours. “What is on our side of the road?”
“Pain,” Tehlu said in a voice as hard and cold as stone. “Punishment.”
“And your side?”
“Pain now,” Tehlu said in the same voice. “Punishment now, for all that you have done. It cannot be avoided. But I am here too, this is my path.”
“How do I cross?”
“Regret, repent, and cross to me.”
Rengen stepped over the line to stand beside his God. Then Tehlu bent to pick up the hammer that the smith had dropped. But instead of giving it back, he struck Rengen with it as if it were a lash. Once. Twice. Thrice. And the third blow sent Rengen to his knees sobbing and crying out in pain. But after the third blow, Tehlu laid the hammer aside and knelt to look Rengen in the face. “You were the first to cross,” he said softly so only the smith could hear. “It was a brave thing, a hard thing to do. I am proud of you. You are no longer Rengen, now you are Wereth, the forger of the path.” Then
Tehlu embraced him with both arms, and his touch took much of the pain from Rengen who was now Wereth. But not all, for Tehlu spoke truly when he said that punishment cannot be avoided.
One by one they crossed, and one by one Tehlu struck them down with the hammer. But after each man or woman fell, Tehlu knelt and spoke to them, giving them new names and healing some of their hurt.
Many of the men and women had demons hiding inside them that fled screaming when the hammer touched them. These people Tehlu spoke with a while longer, but he always embraced them in the end, and they were all grateful. Some of them danced for the joy of being free of such terrible things living inside them.
In the end, seven stayed on the other side of the line. Tehlu asked them three times if they would cross, and three times they refused. After the third asking Tehlu sprang across the line and he struck each of them a great blow, driving them to the ground.
But not all were men. When Tehlu struck the fourth, there was the sound of quenching iron and the smell of burning leather. For the fourth man had not been a man at all, but a demon wearing a man’s skin. When it was revealed, Tehlu grabbed the demon and broke it in his hands, cursing its name and sending it back to the outer darkness that is the home of its kind.
The remaining three let themselves be struck down. None of them were demons, though demons fled the bodies of some who fell. After he was done, Tehlu did not speak to the six who did not cross, nor did he kneel to embrace them and ease their wounds.
The next day, Tehlu set off to finish what he had begun. He walked from town to town, offering each village he met the same choice he had given before. Always the results were the same, some crossed, some stayed, some were not men at all but demons, and those he destroyed.
But there was one demon who eluded Tehlu. Encanis, whose face was all in shadow. Encanis, whose voice was like a knife in the minds of men.
Wherever Tehlu stopped to offer men the choice of path, Encanis had been there just before, killing crops and poisoning wells. Encanis, setting men to murder one another and stealing children from their beds at night.
At the end of seven years, Tehlu’s feet had carried him all through the world. He had driven out the demons that plagued us. All but one. Encanis ran free and did the work of a thousand demons, destroying and despoiling wherever he went.
So Tehlu chased and Encanis fled. Soon Tehlu was a span of days behind the demon, then two days, then half a day. Finally he was so close he felt the chill of Encanis’ passing and could spy places where he had set his hands and feet, for they were marked with a cold, black frost.
Knowing he was pursued, Encanis came to a great city. The Lord of Demons called forth his power and the city was brought to ruin. He did this hoping Tehlu would delay so he could make his escape, but the Walking God paused only to appoint priests who cared for the people of the ruined town.
For six days Encanis fled, and six great cities he destroyed. But on the seventh day, Tehlu drew near before Encanis could bring his power to bear and the seventh city was saved. That is why seven is a lucky number, and why we celebrate on Caenin.
Encanis was now hard pressed and bent his whole thought upon escape. But on the eighth day Tehlu did not pause to sleep or eat. And thus it was that at the end of Felling Tehlu caught Encanis. He leaped on the demon and struck him with his forge hammer. Encanis fell like a stone, but Tehlu’s hammer shattered and lay in the dust of the road.
Tehlu carried the demon’s limp body all through the long night, and on the morning of the ninth day he came to the city of Atur. When men saw Tehlu carrying the demon’s senseless form, they thought Encanis dead. But Tehlu knew that such a thing was not easily done. No simple blade or blow could kill him. No cell of bars could keep him safe within.
So Tehlu carried Encanis to the smithy. He called for iron, and people brought all they owned. Though he had taken no rest nor a morsel of food, all through the ninth day Tehlu labored. While ten men worked the bellows, Tehlu forged the great iron wheel.
All night he worked, and when the first light of the tenth morning touched him, Tehlu struck the wheel one final time and it was finished. Wrought all of black iron, the wheel stood taller than a man. It had six spokes, each thicker than a hammer’s haft, and its rim was a handspan across. It weighed as much as forty men, and was cold to the touch. The sound of its name was terrible, and none could speak it.
Tehlu gathered the people who were watching and chose a priest among them. Then he set them to dig a great pit in the center of the town, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep.
With the sun rising Tehlu laid the body of the demon on the wheel. At the first touch of iron, Encanis began to stir in his sleep. But Tehlu chained him tightly to the wheel, hammering the links together, sealing them tighter than any lock.
Then Tehlu stepped back, and all saw Encanis shift again, as if disturbed by an unpleasant dream. Then he shook and came awake entirely. Encanis strained against the chains, his body arching upward as he pulled against them. Where the iron touched his skin it felt like knives and needles and nails, like the searing pain of frost, like the sting of a hundred biting flies. Encanis thrashed on the wheel and began to howl as the iron burned and bit and froze him.
To Tehlu the sound was like a sweet music. He lay down on the ground beside the wheel and slept a deep sleep, for he was very tired.
When he awoke, it was evening of the tenth day. Encanis was still bound to the wheel, but he no longer howled and fought like a trapped animal. Tehlu bent and with great effort lifted one edge of the wheel and set it leaning against a tree that grew nearby. As soon as he came close, Encanis cursed him in languages no one knew,
