Gaborn looked up to Celinor. “Your father harbors a locus, and is there-fore your father no more. Bind him, and bear him to the deepest dungeon at Ravenscroft. There, you may tend him and feed him, but do him no harm.”
Celinor peered at his father, horror showing in every line of his face.
At that, King Anders screamed in protest, his back arching up off of the ground. His eyes rolled back in his head, and when he slumped to the ground, he breathed no more. Gaborn saw a flash of darkness as the locus fled. A chill ran up Gaborn's spine. He rushed from the tent, and saw the shadow blurring away to the north.
“What happened?” Celinor called from within the tent. Gaborn peered back through the flap. The guards were looking about darkly.
“The locus feared imprisonment,” Gaborn said with certainty. “So it tore your father's spirit from its body, and fled.” Gaborn felt certain that it would make itself known in time.
Celinor went to Erin, and begging forgiveness, cut her free of her bonds.
Home, Averan thought, as Gaborn raced to Anders's tent. Everyone is going home. But where will I go? Her home was gone.
By her body's clock, thirty days and nights she had been in the Under-world, and in that time she had become accustomed to the smell of the deep earth, the overwhelming silence of the Underworld, the eternal shadows. The open sky above her seemed strange and foreboding, with all of its bright stars falling down from midnight blue skies in a steady stream, like bright coins of gold and silver tumbling through the darkness.
By dawn the folk of Carris had begun to bury the dead in two great mounds before the castle walls. In a cool gray mist Averan watched them as she rode south toward the Courts of Tide, the hills becoming smaller and smaller, fading into the distance. She imagined them as they would be someday, with broad-leafed elms growing atop them, giving shade to the folk who would build cities here again. Rabbits would feed on the hillsides, and foxes would dig dens beneath the roots of the forest giants. Doves would call from the boughs in the evening while young men sat in the shade of the hillock and sang to the women they loved.
Soon, the Earth whispered to Averan. It will happen again soon.
On the road, the prisoners that Averan and Gaborn had rescued from the Underworld filed off toward their homes. Gaborn provided each of them with cloaks and horses and food and money for the road, and many a proud man wept in gratitude as he took his leave.
The ride to the Courts of Tide was not a hurried one. The Earth King traveled by day, and by night he ranged far from camp. With his many endowments he traveled quickly over hills and through the fields, seeking out the cottages of humble farmers and woodsmen, Choosing those that he fancied. He took to wearing a green travel robe, and carrying a staff of oak. Tiny rootlings took shape in the robe almost as soon as he put it on, and within two days they had so overrun the fabric that nothing could be seen of the original material. Instead, Gaborn wore a wizard's robe that seemed as brown as turned earth in some light, or as green as pine needles in others.
Within three days, they reached the soaring towers at the Courts of Tide, where the crystalline bridges spanned the ocean between the isles.
The warlords of Internook had already sailed away by the time they reached the city, but evidence of the damage they had wrought was everywhere—scorched wood along the piers, walls of huge estates knocked over.
Still, the folk were delighted to see the Earth King, and came out in force. All of the warning bells in the city rang for joy, and the children and mothers cried.
Gaborn rode through the city slowly, for he was so pressed by those who wanted the Choosing that he could hardly move forward. So he sat atop his horse and held his left hand high, looking into the crowd at knots of people, calling, “I Choose you. I Choose you all for the Earth.”
Averan wondered why he bothered. He had saved the seeds of the Earth, as was his duty. Why did he keep up the Choosing?
So she asked him one night a week after they had reached the city.
“I am the Earth King in times of peace, as well as in times of war,” Gaborn said. “Indeed, now my Power will serve me best.”
And he continued to Choose. Over the coming weeks, lords came from far lands—from the remote reaches of Indhopal, and the islands of the north, and from every realm in Rofehavan, all of them bowing their heads and offering up tribute from their realms. Wuqaz Faharaqin came from Indhopal, to make a peace offering from all of the kings of the desert, and brought with him a great store of blood metal as tribute.
Gaborn distributed the blood metal freely, but only to those who belonged to the Brotherhood of the Wolf. “The Earth King needs no standing army,” he explained. “Our greatest enemy now is the evil that lurks among us, and the Brotherhood of the Wolf is hereby charged with excising that evil. Go into the hills and find the brigands and bandits there, and root them out. Go into the halls of your barons and dukes, and find the evil there, and cut them down.” And though his orders sounded broad, the truth is that few men actually paid the ultimate price. The Brotherhood went out with great authority, executing judgment righteously, and all who dared to defy them were destroyed.
Only the men of Inkarra did not come be Chosen. Borenson told Gaborn that the Kings of Inkarra had gone riding to fight the reavers, but no sign of such a battle was ever seen, and whether they fought and died, or whether they discovered the reavers coming out of the Mouth of the World and decided to retreat, never became quite clear.
Averan waited at the Courts of Tide and took a room in the castle, a room fit for an honored lord. But though it was huge, and the chestnut paneling on the walls was inlaid in gold, and enough feathers had gone into the bolster of its huge bed to make cots for all of the farmers in a village, Averan did not feel at home. She found herself at night wandering from room to room, looking for a place to sleep.
Thus it was on the tenth night, just after sunset, that an old stargazer with a silver beard came to the castle, begging to see Gaborn.
The stars had quit falling every night by then, though the heavens seemed to be filled with light, as if new stars now shone above. Averan led the fellow to Gaborn, who was up on his tower, watching over his kingdom like a shepherd standing watch over his flock.
“Your Highness,” Jennaise the stargazer said when he saw Gaborn. “In behalf of our guild, I thank you.”
“For what?” Gaborn asked.
“For moving the Earth back near its normal course in the heavens.”
Gaborn looked at Averan sidelong out of his eye. “I had no part in that,” he said. “A wizard greater than I managed it.”
At that, the stargazer gaped in surprise at Averan, and begged, “Then it is you that I must thank. However, things are not exactly as they were….”
“In what way?” Averan asked.
“Our path through the heavens will take longer than before. Each year is extended by nearly a day, if our calculations are correct. Can you not repair the damage?”
“The damage is repaired,” Averan said. “The new course will be better for us than the old.”
“But,” the stargazer gasped in exasperation, “the calendars—they will all have to be changed!”
“Then change them,” Gaborn said. “Add a day to the calendar.”
“But, what shall we call it?” the stargazer asked.
“Gaborn's Day,” Averan answered. “In honor of our king.”
“No,” Gabom said. “I don't want people celebrating me. Call it Brother-hood Day, so that men may celebrate their kinship with one another. Make it a day of feasting and games.”
“Very well,” the stargazer said, nearly sweeping the floor with his beard as he bowed and left.
43
HOME
Home is anywhere that we find peace.
—a saying of Rofehavan
Iome stayed on at the Courts of Tide for the winter, though her husband soon left. She heard rumors of him ranging far and wide, stalking through the mountains of Ashov
en and hills of Toom, racing through Orwynne. Many a traveler saw him on the road, a bent man with many endowments, hurrying toward some secret destination. On all of his journeys it as said that he Chose the common folk at large, selecting some, neglecting others, and executing men whose hearts had gone dark after committing bloody deeds.
Thus he was loved and admired by most, but feared by others, and it was rumored that evil men were gathering in the forests all through the kingdoms, lest Gaborn's bright eyes pierce them and discover their secrets.
Throughout the autumn Iome heard word of skirmishes here and there, where the Brotherhood of the Wolf rounded up villains and slaughtered them wholesale.
As for her babe, Iome had not even been showing when she made the trip to the Underworld, but her endowments of metabolism made the babe mature quickly within her womb.
It was on a cool winter night, not more than three weeks after the battle at Carris, that Iome gave birth to Gaborn's first son. She laid him in a cradle, and named him Fallion, after the hero of old.
To her surprise, Gaborn came home that very night and marched to her loft to look at the child. Iome had made sure that Gaborn received many endowments, and he moved swiftly now, and aged accordingly. Though he had only been gone a few weeks, his body bore the ravages of years.
He peered into the crib, and seemed to hesitate before he said at last, “This one is an old spirit, one that has been born many times. He does not come as others do, with a blank mind, empty of purpose. He comes on a quest.”
“What is his purpose?” Iome asked.
Gaborn stared hard at the child, and whispered mysteriously, “To finish what I cannot.”
Iome sensed sadness in Gaborn then, and she ached for what she had bought. She was losing him, losing him to his cause. Yet she was the one who had paid the coin, given him the endowments that he would not have taken himself. And though they had managed to save the world, they had paid a dear price. He would die of his endowments within a year. And her life too would be short.
Iome sent to Heredon for word of her dear friend Chemoise and learned that she had made herself Gaborn's Dedicate. Saddened, Iome had her brought to the Courts of Tide so that Iome could care for her until Gaborn's demise.
Gaborn remained near the castle for a few days more, and Iome healed from her labor and soon found herself with child again.
Almost immediately Gaborn headed back out on the road, for there came word that an army was gathering in Indhopal, an army that would challenge Gaborn. And so her husband slipped out in the night, and once again Iome heard little of him but rumors.
Then, at midwinter, when the first light snow had fallen over the green fields of Mystarria, Iome got word from Gaborn.
She dreamt of him, and in her dream, Gaborn walked beside her and told of his labors of the past few days, of Choosing the poor in Taif, those who were most ravaged from the famine that occurred in the south. He spoke in a language that used no words during the dream, so that she felt his thoughts and his desires, and thus in a way, the time she spent apart from him seemed more fulfilling than the time that they had spent together.
And when she woke, she spoke with her counselors and discovered that her sending was true, that Gaborn was in Taif. There he was using his Powers to warn men not of danger but to tell them who was in greatest need. Thus, those with plenty of food found themselves responding to the Earth King's warning, and were oft led to give a loaf of bread to a child beside the road, or an old woman holed up in her hovel.
Indeed, from time to time, she heard Gaborn's voice herself, as he told her what funds to send to the relief of various realms within his kingdom.
And he did not return. He passed into the southern realms of Indhopal at midwinter, and Iome heard rumor that he might have gone to Inkarra.
She ached to see Gaborn, for every day that she spent away from him, he grew another fifty days old. Iome herself had taken many endowments of metabolism, and thus had to bear her own burden. Her second son, Jaz, came a month by the calendar after her first. In their cribs the children looked almost like twins. And though the children hardly grew at all, Iome aged a decade over the course of the winter, while Gaborn grew past middle age.
As spring neared, Myrrima and Borenson took up residence in their estate at Drewverry March. The manor house there offered nothing in the way of defensible walls, and Myrrima preferred it that way. Borenson had hung up his shield and battle-ax, beneath the crystalline tooth of a reaver, and there she hoped the weapons would stay.
Myrrima invited Averan to live with her, and treated the girl as if she were her own daughter. But Averan had taken endowments of metabolism, too, and during the course of the summer, she blossomed into a young woman, the kind that Borenson would have admired only a few years before. The girl seemed restless, and wandered around the house like one who was lost, and often could be seen staring to the west with a faraway look in her eye. Whenever Myrrima saw her thus and asked what she was thinking about, Averan would only say, “Home.” Then she would drop her eyes and look away in embarrassment.
It was obvious to Myrrima that Averan longed to be someplace else.
Over the summer, Borenson went to work beside his farmhands, and learned the fine art of growing string beans, and pulling weeds, and swinging a scythe.
Myrrima, in the meantime, spent much of the day up at a spring above the house. It opened into a clear pool, deep and wide, encircled by weeping willows. In the fall their leaves came on golden, and fluttered noisily in the wind in the evenings, and Myrrima liked to go there and cast rose petals upon the water. She gave birth to a daughter in the late summer, and gave the child no name for the first few weeks.
Borenson had not heard much of Gaborn in long weeks. The last that he'd heard, the Earth King was in South Crowthen. There were rumors that old King Anders had not died after the battle at Carris after all, and had been seen at night, standing upon the castle walls at Ravenscroft. Most of the other tales that Borenson heard, though, were good. The people of the world had nearly all received the Choosing, and among them there was a sense of deep and abiding peace that had never been known.
Often Borenson would find himself prompted to visit an old neighbor woman and help with her chores, and each time that he did, he knew that by doing so, he was saving the old woman's life. And a thousand times a thousand times a day, such deeds were repeated all across the world.
Borenson began to see now that though Gaborn had won the day at Carris, like Erden Geboren himself, it would someday be said of him, “He was great in war, but greater in peace.”
That evening the Earth King came to them. It had been just more than a year since the battle at Carris, and with his many endowments of metabolism, Gaborn had grown old indeed. His hair had turned gray, and cracks lined his skin. The dark green blotches of earth blood upon his face stood out like tattoos of leaves, and the wrinkles on his cheeks became the veins in the leaves.
Gaborn came and stayed that night and talked to Borenson, Iome, and Averan of many things—of strange goings-on in the south, of rumors of Celinor's rising madness, and how his wife had gone into hiding. They sat in rough chairs in the kitchen, drinking warm ale, so yeasty that it built a new head of foam if left for a moment. Outside, the wind was growing cold, howling like a wolf cub.
“The children born this year see better than their fathers ever did,” Gaborn told them. “They see new colors in the rainbow, and in flowers. And down in Inkarra, new animals have begun to appear, and many of those that we thought we knew are taking on new Powers. In Fleeds the grass grew long and lush this summer, and it smelled so sweet that I envied the horses that ate it. The colts that sprang forth run fast from birth, faster than their mothers.”
“I've heard some stories, too,” Borenson said. “My steward claims to have dreams, sendings from the netherworld. He does not say much about them, but I can tell that they frighten him. He spends too much time sharpening his sword.”
“There's no
thing to fear,” Averan said. “The world is changing, and will continue to change.”
“It's all your doing, then?” Gaborn asked Averan.
“The world is changing,” Averan said, “taking on some of the shape of the One True World. There is nothing to fear in this.”
So they stayed up late talking, and Borenson reveled in the company of his old master, until they heard a thump at the door late in the night, and Borenson opened the door to find the Wizard Binnesman there.
Borenson grunted in surprise, looked at the old gray wizard, and at Gaborn, and asked at last, “What's going on?”
“We came to say good-bye,” Gaborn said. “To you, and to Averan. We four shall not meet again. I will not live out the winter, and when I pass, I will leave the world in your hands. And so I must ask a favor of you.”
“Name it,” Borenson said, and he saw that Averan and Binnesman were leaning near them, intent on Gaborn's every word.
“Protect my wife and my sons.”
“What won't she be safe from?” Borenson asked. “Are the reavers returning?”
But Gaborn only shrugged. “I am not told, I only feel.”
“Not the reavers,” Averan said. “They will never bother us again, I think.” “There are darker things than reavers,” Gaborn said with a shiver. “I have searched the world for them far and wide, but many yet remain hidden from me.”
That morning at dawn, Averan, Gaborn, and Binnesman mounted up for one last ride. They told Myrrima that they would be back in three days, and they took force horses to the Courts of Tide.
There, Iome gave Averan a gift, and told her, “Let this be a light for you in dark places,” Iome said. “You may only be a wizard, but you shall look the part of the queen of the Underworld.” Iome gave Averan her crown of blazing opals.
Averan tucked it into her pack, hugged Iome, and said her good-byes.
A night later the three of them rode fast horses to the Mouth of the World. Averan bowed her head as they passed Keep Haberd, and would not look at the massive stones all thrown down, now covered with wild peas that had their blossoms open to the night.
The Lair of Bones Page 45
