Duren watched impassively, until the last signs of breath had faded from his brother's body, then turned away and looked out of the balcony doors into the garden.
"Well. . . what family doesn't have its little ups and down?" he said to no one in particular.
"You are a monster," Ra'id al Mouli whispered.
Duren brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and replied, "I know."
14
Elgaria, 200 miles south of Devondale
Mathew Lewin sat by the riverbank and looked out over the water. His world had changed. Below him, the Roeselar flowed quietly by. There was just enough moonlight to see the swirling currents as they mixed with the orange of a small campfire burning a short distance away. Far above him in the mild night air the stars flickered against a splendid dark canopy. The constellations were there just as they had always been since the beginning of time, and against the infinite expanse he felt very much alone.
A week ago he lived on a farm in the same village where he had spent his entire life. A week ago his father was alive. Now there was a void in his life, a feeling of emptiness so palpable it threatened to completely overwhelm him. Tears filled his eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks. Had he stopped—had he controlled himself, he thought once again—none of them would be in the position they were in, deep in a forest, far away from their homes. Remembering made him uncomfortable and he tried to think of something else.
A short distance away he could hear the voices of his friends, talking quietly among themselves. He was thankful for both the darkness and the solitude. A light footfall caused him to turn.
"I'm over here," he said softly.
"Ah, there you are," Father Thomas replied, walking toward him.
Mathew looked away as the priest sat down. He rubbed his face on his knees, not wishing to let him see the tears on his face.
"It's a lovely night," Father Thomas said.
"Yes," Mathew agreed.
The Roeselar lapped up against its banks, and they both sat listening to its sounds. Far overhead Mathew saw a shooting star flash briefly across the sky. It disappeared above the treeline downstream, where the river turned.
"It goes away," Father Thomas said after a while. "You won't believe this right now, but eventually the pain goes away. Never completely ... but enough for us to live."
"What kind of God would allow something like this to happen, Father?" Mathew asked, as the bitterness welled up inside him.
There was a pause before Father Thomas answered. "I don't know the answer to that, Mathew. I don't know what kind of God would take your father at so young an age, or little Stefn Darcy, or Triad Layton's son, or any of the others. As a man, I wish I had an answer, but none us can see God's plan—only the Lord himself knows that."
Mathew looked back at the campfire and then at the river again, watching the silver moonlight on the water.
"I've made a pretty big mess of things," he finally said.
"It may seem like that to you right now," Father Thomas said, "but there is a reason things happen the way they do. I believe this with all of my heart. You mustn't blame yourself."
"I've not only ruined my life, but everyone else's."
Father Thomas took a deep breath. "Mathew, listen to me carefully. You did what you had to do. Your friends made their choices freely—just as I made mine. Saying that you've ruined their lives only diminishes those decisions. You are responsible only for your own actions, and not those of anyone else. Do you understand?"
Mathew nodded, not really understanding or believing what Father Thomas was saying. Neither of them spoke. He glanced up at the stars and then out onto the Roeselar once more. After a while he picked up a few pebbles from the ground and pitched them into the river, one by one.
Father- Thomas listened to the splashes. A minute passed before Mathew broke the silence.
"We're not going north, are we?"
Father Thomas turned to look at him. In the darkness, only the silhouette of Mathew's face was discernable.
"No," he finally said, "we are not going north. How did you know?"
"After the second day, the sun wasn't on our right any longer. It's been on our left and behind us for the last five."
Father Thomas smiled to himself. He'd forgotten Mathew's eye for details and how quick the boy's mind was.
"You are quite correct. We have changed directions, and for very good reasons. Anderon is to the north, along with our friend the constable and King Malach's courts. It would not be wise to spend any time there right now."
"I see," Mathew replied. "Then where are we going?"
'To Tyraine," Father Thomas replied.
"Tyraine? But it will take us more than two months to get there."
"Quite a bit less if we take this river."
Mathew had heard his father and other men in town talk about Tyraine, but it seemed like the other end of the world to him. He knew it was a city—a very big city. But until then the largest place he'd ever been was Mastrich, and that was only slightly larger than Gravenhage.
"I don't understand, Father. How can we take the river with our horses?"
"There's a small town called Elberton about a day's ride from here. Most of the river traders put in there before proceeding downriver for the crossing to Tyraine and Barcora."
"Crossing? Do you mean across the sea?"
"I do."
Mathew lay back, resting on his elbows, and looked up at the stars. The night was clear enough to pick out the hazy band of light that ran across the evening sky. He had once asked Father Haloran about it when he was very young. The old priest told him that it wasn't haze at all, but the light from billions and billions of stars stretching across the universe. That was the year Father Haloran had died and Father Thomas came to take his place.
"Why are we going to Tyraine?"
"A reasonable question. Actually, we'll only be there a short while. Our final destination is Barcora, which is just on the other side of the border in Sennia. There's an abbey on the outskirts of the city where we'll be safe until we can sort things out."
"Father, can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly."
"In Devondale, before we left, the constable said 'under the circumstances' he knew how you felt. I thought it was an odd way to put it."
Father Thomas didn't respond right away. Instead, the priest pitched a pebble in the river and rested his chin on his knees. Mathew was about to apologize for asking when Father Thomas began speaking.
"The constable had good reason to say what he did. Almost twenty-eight years ago I killed a man."
He could feel Mathew turn toward him in the darkness.
"In those days, your father and I served together in the same regiment with Lord Kraelin's troops. The world was a very different place then, and the Sibuyan War was not a pleasant time. The Sibuyan certainly began things, but Duren controlled them from the beginning. As the fighting intensified, atrocities were committed on both sides. In the second year of the war, Duren somehow managed to convince the Orlocks to side with him.
"For more than a thousand years the Orlocks had stayed away from the world of men, living in their caves deep under the earth. But in the space of a month they began to appear in different battles—particularly those that took place at night.
Our plan was to join forces with General Pandar and General Grazanka at Melfort, and then push on into Sennia. To reach the rendezvous in time, it was necessary to go through the Kohita Pass. The commander of our bat-
talion, a man named Cormac d'Lorien, was determined to make the meeting regardless of its toll on the men, who were utterly exhausted by that time. All of the senior officers urged him to let the troops take a half day's rest, but Cormac refused and ordered the column to advance. He was the son of a baron—an arrogant and pretentious man who listened to no counsel other than his own.
"We walked straight into an ambush.
"The Orlocks hit us in the
front, and the Sibuyan from behind. Over half the men—our friends and companions—were killed and butchered. Your father took two arrows that night before we fought our way back across the river."
Mathew swallowed once and tried to make out the expression on Father Thomas's face, but there was not enough light.
"In camp the next morning, we buried the dead while the surgeons stitched the wounded and removed arrowheads from bodies. A young boy—-about your age, I would guess—sat some distance away from us staring numbly ahead, unable to move. The older men had been through such things before, but the horror of what had happened was new to him. There can be times, Mathew, when a mind sees too much—more than it can take—and it goes to a place where the battles and killing are far away. So it was with that young man.
"Cormac saw the boy and ordered him to get to his feet—but he did not move. By this time he was incapable of it, you see," Father Thomas said softly.
"A baron's son is not used to repeating himself. When the boy failed to respond for a second time, he struck him across the face and hauled him to his feet, calling him a worthless coward. I could keep my temper no longer. There was a fight. In the end, Cormac d'Lorien was dead, and I went to King Malach's prison for eight years. That is where I met Brother Gregorio and decided to become a priest."
Mathew didn't know what to say. He searched his mind, but no words came to him, so he reached over and put his hand on top of Father Thomas's. "I'm sorry, Father, I didn't mean to—"
"No, no," Father Thomas soothed. "It was a very long time ago, as I told you. So you see . . . one door closes and another door opens. Come," the priest said, affectionately touching Mathew on the head as he got up. "We'd better get back before the others think we've fallen into the river."
"I'll be along in a minute."
He watched Father Thomas make his way back to the camp, a silhouette against the firelight. The fragrance from the first bloom of forest wildflowers drifted up to meet him. Mathew breathed deeply. A week ago there was snow on the ground, and tonight—flowers were growing somewhere in the darkness.
"One door closes and another door opens," he repeated to himself. He stood up and rubbed the small of his back. It wouldn't be dawn for about four hours yet, and sleep suddenly seemed like a good idea.
Collin half opened an eye as Mathew unrolled his blanket and stretched out alongside him. .
"Everything all right?" he asked through a yawn.
"Getting there," Mathew answered.
In the flickering firelight, Collin thought he could make out a faint smile on his friend's face before he drifted back to sleep himself.
15
Alor Satar, Rocoi
Beyond the mountain range that separated El-garia from Alor Satar, Karas Duren walked along the streets of the capital city of Rocoi, giving thought to recent events. His brother was dead. That was a shame, he thought. The man was an excellent general despite his lack of foresight, and he could have used his help. Maybe he was competing with his father, as Kyne had said. But so what? Sons did that all the time. What better way to measure one's success? Duren pondered the question for a moment then dismissed it from his mind. Images of his father made him uncomfortable.
There had been no word from the Orlocks about the ring yet, and that scared him. In recent weeks he had begun to believe that his original thoughts about the rings might not have been entirely accurate. Here and there oblique references appeared in the ancient books suggesting that the rings could actually be adjusted to fit a great many people through an alteration of their brain structure. That made it all the more imperative for him to find the ring and find it quickly. Because the books were so badly damaged, he couldn't be certain he was correct. Unfortunately, his experiments on the people his guards brought him usually resulted in the same thing that happened the first time he used the ring on Roland. And there was always so much blood. There had to be a way to get around that, he thought.
* * *
The little boy building a house of sticks turned around when he heard boots scrape against the cobblestones. He looked up and smiled innocently at the tall man standing there, and the man smiled back, but the smile never touched his eyes.
16
Elgaria, 200 miles south of Devondale
The smell of cooking woke Mathew. It was al-ready light out. He glanced around the camp and saw Lara by the campfire, turning over what appeared to be two hens on a spit. She looked back when she heard him stir and gave him a brief smile.
"Where did you get those?" he asked, bleary-eyed.
"These? Oh, Akin and Collin found them for us this morning," she said, tearing off a small piece of meat and tasting it. "Hmm, a little longer, I think."
Found them? Mathew thought.
He got up and began walking down to the river. He needed to splash some cold water on his face to fully wake up. A bruise on his shoulder from a tree root he'd managed to sleep on reminded him to suggest they select the next campsite more carefully. Hopefully, Elberton, or whatever Father Thomas called it, had an inn and some clean beds.
"Don't be long," Lara called. "Breakfast in ten minutes. Tell the others."
Mathew waved in acknowledgment as she turned away. He continued watching her for a moment, as the fleeting recollection of a dream he'd had during the night came back to him ... a substantial part of which involved her. She really does have wonderfull round, slender hips, he thought. The barest hint of a smile touched the corners of his mouth before he shook the thought clear. A cup of hot tea and a bath would have to do for the time being, he decided glumly—as soon as one or the other became available.
On the way down to the river he met Collin and Akin, who were on their way back.
"Morning," Mathew said. "Lara said to tell you breakfast is in ten minutes."
"Wonderful," Akin replied. "I'm hungry enough to eat my boot."
"Me too," Collin agreed.
"She also told me you found the hens she's cooking."
"Well, 'found' may not be entirely accurate," Akin said, glancing at Collin. "Actually, what we found was a farm, about a mile from here. The farmer was still asleep, and—"
"We didn't want to disturb him," Collin said, finishing the sentence for him.
Mathew's mouth dropped open in surprise. "You stole the hens? What if Father Thomas—"
" 'Stole' is a harsh word, Mathew," Akin said, managing to look both hurt and offended at the same time. "As I was about to say, we didn't have the luxury of time to negotiate a proper transaction with the man, so we left him three silver elgars."
"Three elgars?" Mathew exclaimed. "Isn't that a little high for two hens?"
"Well, there were the eggs too," Collin said.
"Eggs?"
"Of course there were eggs, Mat. A fine breakfast it would be without eggs."
Mathew looked from Collin to Akin, who nodded at each other in agreement.
"Are you sure you're completely recovered from that fever you had?" Akin asked, searching Mathew's face.
But Mathew's thoughts were still with the hens. "I suppose, as long as you paid for them," he said, "and Father Thomas isn't—By the way, where is Father Thomas?"
"Oh, he and Daniel got up early and rode on ahead to check the trail," Collin said. "You'd better hurry and wash. You know how Lara gets when people are late."
Mathew opened his mouth to say something but then thought better of it. When they turned to leave, he heard Akin ask Collin, "Do you think he's all right? He looks a little confused this morning."
He didn't bother trying to hear Collin's reply, and walked down the small embankment to the Roeselar. He shook his head and thought about Akin Gibb.
Akin was about ten years his senior. He and his brother Fergus were only a year apart, with Fergus the older of the two. Like their father, both brothers also became silversmiths. When he died, they continued his tradition of playing music in Devondale's square every Sixth Day, just as he had done for so many y
ears. Akin was slightly taller than Fergus, with the same slender features, pale skin, and blond hair. If not for the fact that his brother had decided to grow a mustache several years ago, something that virtually everyone in Devon-dale had applauded, it would have been difficult to tell them apart. Even their laugh and manner of walking were alike.
Mathew had always thought of Akin, who was a deeply religious man, as conservative and quiet, but he was finding out there were other sides to him. For one thing, he could ride a horse like no one he'd ever seen before, and Akin was certainly more comfortable with a blade than Mathew had ever imagined.
He shook his head and reached down to cup some water in his hands.
When Mathew got back to camp a few minutes later, Father Thomas and Daniel had returned. Incredibly, Father Thomas was holding two hens, and the sack Daniel had in his left hand looked suspiciously like it contained eggs.
"That's impossible," Lara was saying to Daniel. "You and Father Thomas found another pair of hens? Next I suppose you're going to tell me the hens are having a meeting here in the woods."
"Uh... I'd better see to the horses," Daniel said quickly, not answering her question.
Lara looked at Collin, who smiled innocently and shrugged. Next she turned to Akin, who seemed overly occupied with examining the edge of his belt knife.
Mathew moved closer, not wanting to miss a word of whatever explanation might be forthcoming.
"Ah, well. .. sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, my child," Father Thomas said. "Let us eat before the food grows cold. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll just help young Daniel over there and then we can get started."
Mitchell Graham - [Fifth Ring 01] - The Fifth Ring (v1.0) Page 16
