Yet now that deed seemed beyond him. Taking a man’s endowments was risky. A man might give them willingly enough, but there was always a danger. A man who gave brawn would find that his heart was suddenly too weak to beat, and might pass away within moments. A man who gave grace could not properly digest his food, or relax his lungs enough to let out a breath, so might fall prey to starvation or suffocation. A man who gave stamina to his lord could die from infection the next time an illness swept through the castle.
So a man who took another’s endowments could soon find himself poisoned by guilt. Worse than that, since a powerful Runelord was so nearly Invincible, only a fool would attack him directly. Instead, the Runelord’s Dedicates became the targets of his enemy’s wrath. If one were to slay a lord’s Dedicates, he would sever the magical link that raised the lord’s attributes, and in doing so, he would make the lord himself more human, more vulnerable to attack.
Borenson had slain Iome’s own Dedicates a week ago. The pain of it was astonishing. Good men and women had died. She’d wept bitterly about it night after night, for the Dedicates were often friends, people who had loved the kingdom and therefore sought to strengthen it so that they could better maintain her realm.
As Earth King, Gaborn sought to defend his people. He could lock his Dedicates in towers, guard them with his most powerful knights, provide the best physicians to care for them. Still it might not be enough.
Gaborn’s arguments against taking endowments were morally sound. Yet Iome had to wonder. He was the Earth King, the hope of the world. But how great a king could he be, if he left himself open to attack?
“Last week,” Iome said, “you swore to me that you would be an Oath-Bound Lord. Are you forsaking endowments completely? I can’t imagine why. You are a good man. If you take endowments only from your Chosen, I know that you will use them wisely, and prudently. You will be a better king because of it. And because you are the Earth King, you will know when your Dedicates are in danger, and be better able to preserve them.”
“Knowing that a man is in danger and rescuing him are entirely different matters,” Gaborn said heavily. “Even with all of my powers, I may not be able to protect them.”
“But what of Raj Ahten? What will happen when he does send his assassins? Surely he will!”
“If he sends assassins, then I will sense the danger, and we will flee.” Gaborn said. “But I will not fight another man ever again, unless I have no choice.”
Iome felt confused by such talk. She valued life, valued the lives of her people above all. But she couldn’t just turn her back on Raj Ahten. She’d never be able to forgive him for what he’d done. Iome’s mother and father were dead at his hands. Gaborn’s mother and father, too.
Gaborn should have been shouting for vengeance. Even now, Raj Ahten was marching on his homeland in Mystarria. All of Gaborn’s counselors had agreed that Heredon’s forces were too weak to pursue the Wolf Lord south. They lacked the warriors and force horses to do so. Raj Ahten’s troops had stolen all of the good horses in Sylvarresta’s stables when they fled. One of the first things that Gaborn did when he reached Castle Sylvarresta was to learn from the stablemasters the names of every horse that had been taken, and the names of their Dedicates. Then he’d sent the list to Duke Groverman, where the Dedicate horses were kept, and had the Dedicates slain.
It was a desperate effort to slow Raj Ahten in his flight toward Mystarria. Raj Ahten’s knights would have been forced to ride common mounts. Perhaps because of this slaughter of Dedicate horses, hordes of Knights Equitable had been able to mount ambushes that took a toll against Raj Ahten’s Invincibles.
Gaborn had bought Duke Paldane the time he’d need to set his defenses against the Wolf Lord, and might well have made it possible to run some of Raj Ahten’s forces into the ground. Gaborn’s home country of Mystarria was the largest and richest realm in all the kingdoms of Rofehavan. A full third of all the force soldiers in the north were under the command of Paldane the Huntsman.
But Iome doubted that Paldane could stop Raj Ahten’s armies. She only hoped that Paldane could somehow hold the Wolf Lord at bay until the kings of the north could combine their armies. Gaborn had sent messengers all across Rofehavan, begging for aid.
Still, Gaborn had not sent men from Heredon to help Paldane.
“Why?” Iome asked. “Why won’t you stop Raj Ahten? You don’t have to do it yourself. Many are gathering here, lords from all over Heredon. You have men who could fight, the lords of Heredon are eager for revenge! I would fight! I hesitate to ask you this, but are you afraid of him?”
Gaborn shook his head, looked at her as if hoping she would understand. “I am not afraid of him,” Gaborn said. “Yet something holds me back.
“There is something … I feel so profoundly … and I cannot express it well. Perhaps I cannot express it at all. But … I am the Earth King, and am charged with saving a seed of mankind through the dark season to come. I don’t feel that the people of Indhopal are my enemies. I cannot harm them. I will not willingly destroy men and women. Not when I fear that the reavers are my true enemies.”
“Raj Ahten is our enemy,” Iome said. “He is as bad as any reaver.”
“He is,” Gaborn admitted, “but think of this: For each four hundred men and women alive, we have but one force soldier, one protector capable of stopping a reaver. And if that one protector dies, then it is probable that four hundred people will die because of that loss.”
It was a terrifying thought, and Iome herself had worried about little else but logistics for the past seven days as she began to consider the enormity of the problem. How many warriors could Gaborn spend fighting Raj Ahten? Was even one warrior one too many?
Time and again Gaborn hinted that he thought so. With the forty thousand forcibles that Gaborn’s father had captured at Longmot, Gaborn might equip four thousand force soldiers. It was a number ten times what Iome’s father had had. Yet it would be a small force compared to what Raj Ahten could marshal.
And there was the Wolf Lord himself to contend with. Raj Ahten had thousands of endowments of his own. Gaborn had talked about using the forcibles to make himself Raj Ahten’s equal, so that he could fight the Wolf Lord man to man.
But if Gaborn did so, if he drained endowments from even several hundred men, he worried that he would be wasting resources. He did not know if he’d ever get another forcible again. Jureem had warned him that the blood-metal mines of Kartish were played out. These forty thousand forcibles were Gaborn’s best weapons against the reavers.
But suddenly Iome understood something that had eluded her. “Wait, are you saying that you don’t want to kill Raj Ahten?” Until this moment, she had thought that Gaborn would merely stay here in Heredon, hide behind the protective borders of the Dunnwood, and let the shades of his ancestors protect him from Raj Ahten. But Gaborn seemed nervous, and there was an intensity to him, a pleading demeanor, that made her realize that he needed to tell her something she would not want to hear.
Gaborn turned aside and looked at her from the corner of his eye, as if he could not bear to face her fully. “You have to understand, my love: The people of Indhopal are not my enemies. The Earth has made me its king, and Indhopal is my realm also. I must save those I can. The people of Indhopal also need a defender.”
“You can’t go to Indhopal,” Iome said. “You can’t even be thinking such a thing. Raj Ahten’s men will kill you. Besides, you’ll be needed here.”
“I agree,” Gaborn said. “Yet Raj Ahten has the most powerful army in the world, and he is the most powerful Runelord of us all. If I fight him, we may all be destroyed. If I ignore him, I surely do so at my own peril. If I try to flee him, he will catch me. I can see only one alternative.…”
“Are you saying that you would use your power to Choose him? After what he has done?” Iome could not hold back the shock and anger in her voice.
“I hope to arrange a truce,” Gaborn admitted, and she knew from his ton
e that his decision was final. “I have discussed the possibility with Jureem.”
“Raj Ahten will not grant you a truce,” Iome said with certainty. “Not unless you return the forcibles your father won with his own life. And that would not be a truce; that would be surrender!”
Gaborn nodded, stared at her evenly.
“Don’t you see it?” Iome said. “It wouldn’t even be surrender with honor, for once you give the forcibles back, Raj Ahten would use them against you. I know my cousin. I know him. He will not leave you alone. The fact that Earth has given you dominion over mankind does not mean Raj Ahten will concede the honor.”
Gaborn gritted his teeth, looked as if he would turn away. She could see the anguish in his features. She knew that he loved his people, that he sought to protect them as best he knew how, and that right now he could see no way to bring Raj Ahten down.
“Still, I must ask for a truce,” Gaborn answered. “And if a truce cannot be won, then … I must ask for honorable conditions of surrender. Only if such conditions cannot be met, will I be forced to fight.”
“There can be no surrender,” Iome said. “My father surrendered, and once he did, Raj Ahten changed the terms to fit his whim. You cannot be Raj Ahten’s Dedicate and the Earth King!”
“I fear you are right,” Gaborn said with a heavy sigh, and he came and sat on the bed next to Iome, took her hand. But it was cold comfort.
“Why can’t you just kill him and be done with it?” Iome asked.
“Raj Ahten has perhaps ten thousand force warriors in his service,” Gaborn said. “Even if I defeated him roundly, and lost half as many men, would it be worth the price? Think of it, four and a half million children, women! Could I knowingly throw away the life of even one? And who is to say that it would stop there? With so many warriors lost, would it even be possible anymore to stop the reavers?”
Gaborn paused. After a moment, he held a finger up to his lips, motioning for Iome to keep quiet, and went over to King Sylvarresta’s old writing table. He drew out a small book from the top drawer, and began pulling out papers hidden in its bindings.
He brought them to Iome and whispered, “In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Dreams, the Days are taught thus about the nature of good and evil,” Gaborn said. This surprised Iome. The teachings of the Days were hidden from Runelords. Now she knew why he whispered. The Days were right outside their doorway.
Gaborn showed her the following diagram:
The Three Domains of Man
“Every man sees himself as a lord,” Gaborn said, “and he rules over three domains: the Domain Invisible, the Domain Communal, and the Domain Visible.
“Each domain can have many parts. A man’s time, his body space, his free will, are all part of his Domain Invisible, while all of the things he owns, all of the things he can easily see, are part of his Domain Visible.
“Now, whenever someone violates our domain, we call him evil. If he seeks to take our land or our spouse, if he seeks to destroy our community or our good name, if he abuses our time or tries to deny us our free will, we will hate him for it.
“But if another enlarges your domain, you call him good. If he praises you to others, enlarging your stature in the community, you love him for it. If he gives you money or honor, you love him for it.
“Iome, there is something I feel so deeply, and I can only express it this way: the lives of all men, their fates, are all here, a part of my domain!”
He pointed to the drawing, waving vaguely toward the Domain Communal and the Domain Invisible. Iome looked up into his eyes, and she thought she understood. She’d been a Runelord all her life, had been entrusted in small ways with the affairs of state. She had accepted the hopes and dreams and fates of her people as part of her domain.
“I see,” Iome whispered.
“I know you do, in part,” Gaborn breathed, “but not in full. I feel … I feel the cataclysm approaching. The Earth is warning me. Danger is coming. Not just danger for you and for me, but for every man, woman, and child I’ve Chosen.
“I must do what I can to protect them—everything I can to protect them, even if I am doomed to failure.
“I must seek alliance with Raj Ahten.”
Iome noted the vehemence in his demeanor, and knew that he was not just stating his resolution. He was soliciting her approval.
“And where do I fit in your circles?” Iome asked, waving to the drawing in Gaborn’s lap.
“You are all of it,” Gaborn said. “Don’t you understand? This is not my bed or your bed. This is our bed.” He waved at himself. “This is not my body or your body, it is our body. Your fate is my fate, and my fate is yours. Your hopes are my hopes, and my hopes need to be yours. I don’t want walls or divisions between us. If there are any, then we are not truly married. We are not truly one.”
Iome nodded. She understood. She’d seen couples before, seen how over time they’d shared so much, become so close, that they’d picked up even one another’s oddest habits and notions.
Iome craved such union.
“You think you’re so wise,” she said, “quoting forbidden teachings. But I’ve heard something from the Room of Dreams, too.
“In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Dreams, it is said that a man is born crying. He cries to his mother for her breast. He cries to his mother when he falls. He cries for warmth and love. As he grows older, he learns to differentiate his wants. ‘I want food!’ he cries. ‘I want warmth. I want daylight to come.’ And when a mother soothes her child, her own words are but a lament: ‘I want joy for you.’
“As we learn to speak, nearly all of our utterances are merely cries better defined. Listen to every word a man speaks to you and you can learn to hear the pleas embedded beneath every notion he expresses. ‘I want love.’ ‘I want comfort.’ ‘I want freedom.’”
Iome paused for a moment, for effect, and in that profound and sudden silence, she knew that she had his full attention.
Then she voiced her plea. “Gaborn, never surrender to Raj Ahten. As you love me—as you love your life and your people—never surrender to evil.”
“So long as I have the choice,” Gaborn said, at last listening to reason.
She pushed his book to the floor and took Gaborn’s chin in her hand, kissed him firmly, and drew him down to the bed.
Two hours later, guards atop the castle wall called out in dismay and pointed to the Wye River, where it snaked among the verdant fields. The river upstream had turned red, red as blood.
But the flood of red washing downstream bore the strong mineral smells of copper and sulfur. It was only mud and silt thick enough to foul the waters, to clog the gills of fish and slowly suffocate them.
Gaborn took his wizard to investigate. Binnesman stood knee-deep in the water, experimentally dipped his hand in and tasted it, then made a sour face. “Mud from the deep earth.”
“How did it get in the river?” Gaborn wondered. He stayed on the riverbank, not liking the smell of the fouled water.
“The headwaters of the Wye,” Binnesman said, “spring up from deep underground. The mud is coming from there.”
“Could an earthquake cause this?” Gaborn asked.
“A shift in the earth could cause it,” Binnesman mused. “But I fear it didn’t. The ruins where we slew the reaver mage are near the source of the water. My guess is that reavers are tunneling there. Perhaps we didn’t kill them all.”
Because so many lords had gathered outside Castle Sylvarresta for the celebration of Hostenfest, it was not hard to gather some worthy men quickly and ride the thirty miles into the mountains. Six hours later in the early afternoon, a full five hundred warriors reached the ancient duskin ruins, with Gaborn and Binnesman leading the way.
The ruins looked exactly as they had the night before, when Binnesman, Gaborn, and Borenson had emerged. The gnarled roots of a great oak on a hill half hid the entrance. The men lit their torches and made their way down an ancient broken st
airway, where the earth held a thick mineral smell. Gaborn could tell that the scent had changed since yesterday.
The entrance to the ancient duskin city was a perfect half-circle some twenty feet in diameter. The stones along the walls were enormous, and each was perfectly carved and fitted, so that even after thousands of years, they still held solid.
For the first quarter mile, there was a myriad of side tunnels and chambers, houses and shops where duskins had once lived, now overgrown with the strange subterranean fauna of the Underworld—dark rubbery leaves of man’s ear and spongy mats of foliage that clung to the wall. The place had been picked clean of any duskin artifacts ages ago, and now was the abode of glowing newts and blindcrabs and other denizens of the Underworld.
The troops had not gone half a mile down the winding stairs when it ended abruptly.
The path ahead had recently been shorn away. Where the stair should have been leading down—miles and miles to the Idymean Sea—instead a vast tunnel crossed the path.
Binnesman edged close to the bottom stair, but the rock cracked and shifted under his feet and he leapt back. He held a lantern high, peering down.
The tunnel opening there was a huge circle, at least two hundred yards across, and had been hewn through thick dirt and debris. The bottom was a mess of sludge and stone. No human could have dug this passage. No reaver, either, for that matter.
Binnesman stared down, stroking his beard. Then he picked up a stone and dropped it. “So, I did feel something stirring beneath my feet,” he mused aloud. “The Earth is in pain.”
Just then, a flock of small dark creatures flew through the black tunnel below, creatures of the Underworld that could not easily abide the light of day. They made shrieking sounds of pain, then wheeled away from the lanterns.
Nervously, Borenson broke the silence. “What could have burrowed such a tunnel?”
“Only one thing,” Binnesman answered, “though my bestiary of the Underworld describes it as a creature only witnessed once before by a single man, and therefore describes it as a thing of legend. Such a passage could only have been dug by a hujmoth, a world worm.”
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