Down through the camp he hastened, the heat of his encounter with the Warlock Lord threatening to suffocate him. He forced himself to breathe evenly, to ignore the turmoil of the waking camp, the shouts and cries, and the thudding of booted feet as squads of armed soldiers were dispatched in every direction. Ahead, he could see the blackness of the plains appear, the sweep of emptiness that lay beyond the ring of campfires. Guards were standing all about the perimeter, but they were looking out into the darkness in expectation of an attack from that direction. He had an almost irresistible urge to look back over his shoulder, to see what might be following, but something warned him that if he did so he would reveal himself. Perhaps the Warlock Lord would see his eyes and know who he was, even from within his concealment. Perhaps he would recognize his face. Maybe that would be enough to undo him. Risca did not turn. He continued ahead, slowing to choose the point of his escape as he neared the perimeter of the camp.
“You and you,” he said to a pair of Gnomes as he passed between them, not bothering to slow so that they could see his face, using their own language to address them, a language he had spoken fluently since he was ten. He beckoned. “Come with me.”
They did not question. Soldiers seldom did. He had the appearance and look of an officer, and so they went without argument. He strode out into the darkness as if he knew what he was about, as if he had a mission to perform. He took them far into the night, then dispatched them in opposite directions and simply walked away. He did not try to go back for his weapons and cloak, knowing it was too dangerous. He was fortunate to be alive, and it would not do to tempt fate further. He breathed the night air deeply, slowing his pulse. Did Bremen know the nature of their enemy? he wondered. Did the old man realize the power that the Warlock Lord possessed? He must, for he had gone into the monster’s lair and spied on him. Risca wished he had asked a few more questions of the old man when he had the chance. Had he done so, he would never have considered attempting to destroy Brona on his own. He would have realized that he lacked the weapons. No wonder Bremen sought a talisman. No wonder he relied on the visions of the dead to advise him.
He searched the skies for the Skull Bearers, but he did not see them. Nevertheless, he kept his magic in place so that he remained concealed. He walked out into the Rabb and turned southeast for the Anar. Before morning’s light could reveal him, he would be safely within the concealment of the trees. He had escaped to fight another day and could count himself lucky to be able to say so.
But what sort of fight could he manage against an enemy like the Warlock Lord? What could he tell the Dwarves to give them hope?
The answers eluded him. He walked on into the night, searching for them.
XIII
Two days later the Northland army was encamped within twenty miles of Storlock. The army had crossed the plains unhindered, angling east toward the Anar, staying clear of the entangling forests, a huge, sluggish worm inching its way steadily closer to the haven of the Dwarves. Watch fires burned in the distance against a twilight sky, a bright yellow haze that stretched for miles across the flats. Kinson Ravenlock could see the glow from as far away as the edge of the Dragon’s Teeth below the mouth of the Valley of Shale. The army would have spent the afternoon crossing the Rabb River before settling in. At sunrise it would resume it’s march south, which meant that by sunset tomorrow it would reach a point directly opposite the village of the Stors.
Which meant in turn, the Borderman realized, that he and Mareth must cross the Rabb tonight, ahead of the army’s advance, if they wished to avoid being trapped on the wrong side of the plains.
He stood motionless in the shadow of a cleft in the rocks some fifty feet above the plains and found himself wishing they had been able to get this far a day earlier so that a night crossing would not have been necessary. He knew that with the coming of darkness Brona’s winged hunters would be abroad, prowling the open spaces that lay between them and safety. It was not an appealing thought. He glanced back to where Mareth sat rubbing her feet in an effort to alleviate the ache of the day’s forced march, her boots dumped unceremoniously on the ground along with her cloak and their few provisions. They could not have come faster than they had, he knew. He had pushed her hard just to get this far. She was still weak from her experience in the Druid’s Keep; her stamina drained quickly and she required frequent rests. But she had not complained once, not even when he had insisted they must forgo sleep until they reached Storlock. She had great determination, he acknowledged grudgingly. He just wished he understood her a little better.
He looked back out at the plains, at the watch fires, at the darkness as it rolled out of the east and descended in gathering layers across the landscape. Tonight it was, then. He wished he had magic to hide them on their passage, but he might as well wish he could fly. He could not ask her to use hers, of course. Bremen had forbidden it. And Bremen himself was absent still, so there was no help to be found there.
“Come eat something,” Mareth called to him.
He turned and walked down out of the rocks. She had set out plates with bread, cheese, and fruit, and poured ale into metal cups. They had bartered for their provisions with a farmer above Varfleet yesterday evening, and this was the last of what they had acquired. He sat down across from her and began to eat. He did not look at her. They were two days gone from fallen Paranor, having come down out of the Kennon once more and turned east along the Mermidon, following it below the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth to here. Bremen had sent them ahead, had given them strict orders to go on without him, to follow the Mermidon to the Rabb and then cross to Storlock. There they were to inquire after a man the Druid believed was living somewhere within the Eastland wilderness of the Upper Mar, a man of whom Kinson had never heard. They were to determine where he might be found, and then they were to wait until Bremen could rejoin them. The Druid did not explain what it was that he would be doing in the meantime. He did not explain why they were looking for this unknown man. He simply told them what to do—told Kinson what to do, more to the point, since Mareth was still sleeping at that juncture—and then disappeared into the trees.
Kinson believed that he had gone back into the Druid’s Keep, and the Borderman once more wondered why. They had fled Paranor in a maelstrom of sound and fury, of magic unleashed and gone wild, some of it Mareth’s and some the Keep’s itself. It was as if a beast had risen to devour them, and it had seemed to Kinson that he could feel its breath on his neck and hear the scrape of its claws as it pursued them. But they had escaped to the forests without and hidden there in night’s fading dark while the rage of the beast vented itself and died away. They had remained in the shelter of the trees all the next day and let Mareth sleep. Bremen had tended her, obviously concerned at first, but when she had come awake long enough to drink a cup of water before sleeping again, he had ceased to worry.
“Her magic is too powerful for her” was how he had explained it to Kinson. They were keeping watch over her in the late-morning hours after she had awakened and gone back to sleep again. The sun was high overhead, and the dark memory of the night before was beginning to fade. Paranor was a silent presence beyond the screen of the trees, gone as still as death, emptied of life. “It seems obvious that she came to the Druids in an effort to find a way to better understand it. I suppose she was not with them long enough to do so. Perhaps she asked to come with us believing we might help her.”
He shook his gray head. “But did you see? She summoned her magic to protect me from the creatures Brona had left to ward against my return, and instantly she lost all control! She seems unable to judge the measure of what is needed. Or perhaps judgment is not an issue at all, and what happens is that on being summoned, her magic assumes whatever form it chooses. Whatever the case, it rolls out of her like a flood! In the Druid’s Keep, it swallowed those creatures as if they were gnats. It was so powerful that it alerted the magic the Keep maintains for its own protection, the earth magic set in place by the first
Druids. This was magic I tested on my return to make certain it could still guard against an attempt to destroy the Keep. I could not protect the Druids from the Warlock Lord, but I could ward Paranor. Mareth’s magic was so pervasive in its destruction of Brona’s creatures that it suggested that the Keep itself was in danger and thereby conjured forth the earth magic as well.”
“Hers is innate magic, you once said,” Kinson mused. “Where would it have come from to be so strong?”
The old man pursed his lips. “Another Druid, perhaps. An Elf who carries the old magic in his blood. A faerie creature, survived from the old world. It could be any of those.” He arched one eyebrow quizzically. “I wonder if even she knows the answer.”
“I wonder if she would tell us if she did” was Kinson’s reply.
Thus far, she had barely spoken of it. By the time she came awake, Bremen had gone. It was left to Kinson to advise her that she was not to use her magic again until Bremen had returned and counseled her. She accepted the edict with little more than a nod. She said nothing of what had happened in the Keep. She seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely.
He finished his meal and looked up again. She was watching him.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I was wondering about the man we are sent to find. I was wondering why Bremen considers him so important.”
She nodded slowly. “Cogline.”
“Do you know the name?”
She did not respond. She seemed not to have heard.
“Perhaps one of your friends at Storlock will be able to help us.”
Her eyes went flat. “I have no friends at Storlock”
For a moment he simply stared at her, uncomprehending. “But I thought you told Bremen . . .”
“I lied.” She took a breath and her gaze fell away from his. “I lied to him, and I lied to every one at Paranor before him. It was the only way I could gain acceptance. I was desperate to study with the Druids, and I knew they would not let me if I did not give them a reason. So I told them I had studied with the Stors. I gave them written documents to support the claim, all false. I deliberately misled them.” Her gaze lifted. “But I would like to stop lying now and tell the truth.”
The darkness was complete about them, the last of the daylight faded, and they sat cloaked within it, barely able to make each other out. Because they would cross the Rabb that night, Kinson had not bothered with a fire. Now he wished he had so that he could better see her face.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that this might be a good time for the truth. But how am I to know if what you tell me is the truth or simply another lie?”
She smiled faintly, sadly. “You will know.”
He held her gaze. “The lies were because of your magic, weren’t they?” he guessed.
“You are perceptive, Kinson Ravenlock,” she told him. “I like you for that. Yes, the lies were made necessary because of my magic. I am desperate to find a way to . . .” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “To live with myself. I have struggled with my power for too long, and I am growing weary and despairing. I have thought at times that I would end my life because of what it has done to me.”
She paused, looking off into the dark. “I have had the magic since birth. Innate magic, as I told Bremen. That much was the truth. I never knew my father. My mother died giving birth to me. I was raised by people I did not know. If I had relatives, they never revealed themselves. The people who raised me did so for reasons that I have never understood. They were hard, taciturn people, and they told me little. I think there was a sense of obligation, but they never explained its source. I was gone from them by the time I was twelve, apprenticed to a potter, sent to his shop to fetch and haul materials, to clean up, to observe if I wished, but mostly to do what I was told. I had the magic, of course, but like myself it had not yet matured and was still just a vague presence that manifested itself only in small ways.
“As I grew to womanhood, the magic blossomed within me. One day the potter tried to beat me, and I defended myself out of instinct, calling on the magic for protection. I nearly killed him. I left then, and went out into the border country to find a new place to live. For a time, I lived in Varfleet.” Her smile returned. “Perhaps we even crossed paths once upon a time. Or were you already gone? Gone, I suppose.” She shrugged. “I was attacked again a year later. There were several men this time, and they had more in mind than a beating. I called up the magic again. I could not control it. I killed two of them. I left Varfleet and went east.”
Her smile turned mocking and bitter. “You see a pattern to all this, I imagine. I began to believe I could live with no one because I could not trust myself. I drifted from community to community, from farm to farm, earning my way however I could. It was a useful time. I discovered new things about my magic. It was not merely destructive; it was also restorative. I was empathic, I found. I could apply the magic and bring healing to those who were injured. I discovered this by accident when a man I knew and liked was injured and in danger of dying from a fall. It was a revelation that gave me hope. The magic used in this way was controllable. I could not understand why, but it seemed governable when called upon to heal and not to destroy. Perhaps anger is inherently less manageable than sympathy. I don’t know.
“In any case, I went to live with the Stors, to ask to be allowed to study with them, to learn to use my skills. But they did not know me and would not accept me into their order. They are Gnomes, and no member of another race has ever been allowed to study with them. They refused to make an exception for me. I tried for months to persuade them otherwise, staying in their village, watching them at their work, taking meals with them when they would let me, asking for a chance and nothing more.
“Then one day a man came down out of the wilderness to visit with the Stors. He wanted something from them, something of their lore, and they did not seem concerned in the least about giving it to him. I marveled. After months of begging for scraps, I had been given nothing. Now this man appears out of nowhere, a Southlander, not a Gnome, and the Stors can’t wait to help him. I decided to ask him why.”
She scuffed her boot against the earth as if digging at the past. “He was strange-looking, tall and thin, all angles and bones, pinch-faced and wild-haired. He seemed constantly distracted by his thoughts, as if it were the most difficult thing in the world to hold a simple conversation. But I made him speak with me. I made him listen to my story. It became clear as I went along that he understood a great deal about magic. So I told him everything. I confided in him. I don’t know why to this day, but I did. He told me the Stors would not have me, that there was no point in remaining in the village. Go to Paranor and the Druids, he suggested. I laughed. They would not have me either, I pointed out. But he said they would. He told me what to tell them. He helped me make up a story and he wrote the papers that would gain me acceptance. He said he knew something of the Druids, that he had been a Druid once, long ago. I was not to mention his name, though. He was not held in favor, he said.
“I asked his name then, and he told it to me. Cogline. He told me that the Druids were no longer what they once were. He told me that with the exception of Bremen they did not go out into the Four Lands as they once had. They would accept the story he had provided for me if I could demonstrate my healing talents. They would not bother to check further on me because they were trusting to a fault. He was right. I did as he told me, and the Druids took me in.”
She sighed. “But you see why I asked Bremen to take me with him, don’t you? The study of magic is not encouraged at Paranor, not in any meaningful way. Only a few, like Risca and Tay, have any real understanding of it. I was given no chance to discover how to control my own. If I had revealed its presence, I would have been sent away at once. The Druids are afraid of the magic. Were afraid rather, for now they are all gone.”
“Has your magic grown more powerful?” he asked as she paused. “Has it become more unco
ntrollable? Was it so when you called it up within the Keep?”
“Yes.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line, and there were sudden tears in her eyes. “You saw. It overwhelmed me completely. It was like a flood threatening to drown me. I could not breathe!”
“And so you look to Bremen to help you find a way to master it, the one Druid who might have an understanding of its power.”
She looked directly at him. “I do not apologize for what I have done.”
He gave her a long look. “I never thought for a minute that you would. Nor do I propose to judge you for your choice. I have not lived your life. But I think the lies should end here. I think you should tell to Bremen when we see him next what you have told to me. If you expect his help, you should at least be honest with him.”
She nodded, wiping irritably at her eyes. “I intend that,” she said. She looked small and vulnerable, but her voice was hard. She would give up nothing further of herself, he realized. She must have agonized over telling him as much as she had.
“I can be trusted,” she said suddenly, as if reading his mind.
“With everything but your magic,” he amended.
“No. Even with that. I can be trusted not to use it until Bremen tells me to.”