Wizardborn, p.47
Wizardborn, page 47
The Waymaker was a powerful reaver, his intellect deep, and his memories vast. He had fed upon the brains of Way-makers before him—an endless line of them that spanned thousands of years. The knowledge came to her in a blur.
Reavers recall scents far better than men recall words or images. So the map of the Underworld that began to take shape in Averan’s mind was a map of scents.
The map revealed the meanings of various warning posts that would tell how to open secret doors, or find hidden tunnels, or avoid dangerous beasts.
The Waymakers had traveled far in the Underworld, had even sailed the Idumean Sea in boats made of stone. They had followed paths that other reavers feared to tread. Averan recalled wonders and horrors and the positions of ancient duskin ruins and other historic sites.
She climbed from her saddle, stood before him.
The great reaver merely knelt, overcome by exhaustion. He was huge, towering above her, peering at her with philia that merely twitched.
She stared into his mind, sifting his thoughts.
He had come to the Overworld to begin mapping it, to study its paths and blaze new trails. It had been a grand adventure, a journey that promised danger and excitement. He knew now that it led to death.
61
PASSAGES
We are often called upon to make our way through dim passages, never knowing whether they open into shadow or to light.
—Jas Laren Sylvarresta
Borenson stumbled upon Fenraven shortly after setting Myrrima adrift in the stream. His mind was reeling with fatigue, and his sight was blurry. He stood looking for a long moment. The dilapidated village sprawled on a small hill, open so that morning sunlight played upon the thatch roofs of its cottages. Around the village, the fog still held thick upon the moors, so that the hill rose up like an island in a sea of mist. It had a gate that stood halfway open, and beside the gate were braziers where dwindling watch fires burned. Silver mirrors behind the braziers would reflect their light, focusing it onto the road.
Borenson staggered forward, feeling as if every muscle in his body were slowly transforming into pure weariness.
The inn at Fenraven was a small affair, with nothing more than a single room. It was in the process of being vacated by a pair of gentlemen from the south.
The mistress of the inn was cooking breakfast, morning savories with mushrooms and chestnuts. Borenson was worn to the bone, and heartsick. All of his thoughts were on Myrrima. But he had a job before him still, and he knew he had to keep focused for a little while, at least until he went to sleep. He sat on a stool, and solemn pain settled into his back, between his shoulder blades.
As he waited for breakfast he asked, “So you’ve just the two boarders? No one came through in the night?” His voice felt rough, as if from disuse.
“In the night?” she asked.
“A man—a lone rider with sheepskin boots on his horse?”
“No!” she said, in exaggerated horror. “He sounds like a highwayman, maybe, or worse! There’s assassins on the road, I hear. They found the body of Braithen Towner nine miles down the road yesterday morning.”
Borenson wondered at that. Assassins on the road still. Raj Ahten’s troops down here probably hadn’t heard about the fall of Carris. It might only have been a random assassin. But Borenson wondered. He couldn’t escape the feeling that the fellow had been searching for him.
He rubbed his gritty eyes, all done in, and ate a small bite of pastry while the other guests vacated the inn.
Afterward, he told the mistress that he would be leaving when he woke, and asked her to go about town purchasing supplies for his trip to Inkarra. Here at Fenraven, he was but a hundred miles from the mountains at the border, with few cities between.
He went to the single room and found it more than adequate. It was clean and cozy. The straw beneath the mattress was fresh, and the mistress’s daughter took out the old blankets and brought in new. He didn’t have to worry about fleas or lice.
The food had been good, and the stableboy knew his business. Borenson felt well provided. It was his first chance for some real rest in days, and without an endowment of stamina, he needed it sorely.
He lay down on the cot, and began trying to think about the coming journey. Tomorrow he would have to go in search of some endowments of stamina. An upwelling of sadness took him. He couldn’t think about anything but Myrrima, the taste of her lips, the feel of her cold body beneath his arms as he placed her in the water.
He ached not for himself, nor even quite for her. He felt that the world had lost something beautiful and needful and glorious.
His eyes were so gritty, he closed them only to ease the pain, and fell into a deep slumber.
He woke hours later, and came awake only slowly.
He became aware that there was a guest in his bed, and that it was night already. It was common for guests at an inn to share beds when necessary.
But it wasn’t common for a woman to share a man’s bed, and he could tell by the smell of her hair and by the light touch of the arm that wrapped around him that a woman lay beside him.
He came full awake with a start, bolted up.
Myrrima was lying next to him.
“What?” he began to ask.
Myrrima climbed up on an elbow, stared at him. Outside, there was a slim moon, and stars filled the night, shining through an open window. No one else was in the room.
“Are you awake, finally?” Myrrima asked.
“How—”
“You put me in the water,” Myrrima said. “I was weak and nearly dead, and you gave me to the water.”
“I’m sorry!” he said, horrified. He’d thought her dead for sure. But she sat here looking as healthy as ever. Her clothes were dry.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve discovered something. Averan isn’t the only one around here who was wizardborn.”
Borenson was filled with a million questions.
I should have seen it before, he realized. I should have known it from her every manner, the way she’s gentle when she needs to be hard, the way her touch soothed me, just as the touch of the undine soothed me after I slaughtered the Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta.
He’d sensed something in her. But only one word came out of his mouth. “How?”
“The water took me,” Myrrima said. “I dreamt of it—of clouds heavy with moisture and waterfalls that misted the air, and of brooks that tumbled over clean stones. I’ve always loved water. I dreamt of the great wizards in the ocean depths, and the strange and wondrous things there. The water healed me, and would have taken me out to sea, out beyond the Courts of Tide. I could have let it take me.
“But I realized something,” Myrrima said. “I realized that I love you more. So I came back, to be your wife.”
Borenson stared at her in dumb amazement. She had not truly died, he could tell. She had been near it. But she still had her endowments of glamour. Belatedly, he realized that he had put her in the water knowing that, on some level. His mind had been muddled from exhaustion, so weary that it could think no more. He’d been watching her face for some sort of transformation, for that moment when her endowments departed, but it had never come.
That’s why he’d felt that placing her in the water was an act of betrayal.
More than that, he realized how truly she loved him. She didn’t just want to follow him to Inkarra. She’d just given up a chance to serve the Powers, to become a wizardess and live in the sea. Few who were born to such a fate could resist the call of the oceans.
Myrrima leaned into him then, and kissed him. Borenson felt his body respond to her. Binnesman had healed him, beyond his wildest hopes or imagining.
The room was empty but for the two of them, and finally he felt ready to love her in return.
“I guess I ought to pay that wizard more than a pint of ale after all,” Borenson teased. He held her passionately for a long moment, and pulled her close.
As afternoon waned toward night, Erin and Celinor rode out of Fleeds, through southern Heredon, and into the borders of South Crowthen. As they went north, the land got drier, and the colors of autumn leaves lit up the countryside.
Erin had not slept last night, dared not sleep again. Yet all day long she considered the words of her dreams, the talk of the dangerous locus Asgaroth who had come to destroy her world. She did not speak of it to Celinor, for she considered that if she did, he might think that she was raving.
Yet the owl’s words had pierced her, inscribed knowledge on her heart. She suspected that the owl had summoned her, that perhaps some part of her even now was trapped in the netherworld, awaiting further instruction.
She believed that something more than a mere Darkling Glory was on their world—that a locus had come among them. She craved to know more about it, yet dared not succumb to fatigue.
Guards met Erin and Celinor at the border, several hundred knights and minor lords who had set bright pavilions along the roadside. The borders here were hilly, and filled with bracken. A few dozen carts and horses had stopped as merchants tried to pass the roadblock.
As Erin and Celinor rode past, one old man recognized Celinor and shouted, “Prince Celinor Anders, speak to your father for me. I’ve traded with him for years, eaten at his own table. This is madness!”
Celinor made to ride past the roadblock himself, but pikemen blocked the way. A young captain led them. He was dark of hair, like Celinor, and nearly as tall. His eyes had a fanatical gleam to them. “Sorry, your lordship,” he said. “I have orders to let no one cross.”
“Gantrell?” Celinor asked. “Are you going blind? Or have I changed that much?”
“These be dangerous times,” Gantrell apologized. “My orders are clear: no one in, no one out.”
“Even your crown prince?”
Gantrell gave Celinor an appraising look, said nothing, Erin could imagine the turmoil in the man’s mind. If he let Celinor through, he would be violating orders. If he didn’t, Celinor would hold it against him for the rest of his life—and King Anders was rapidly getting old, declining in health.
“I’ll let you pass,” he said cautiously, “with an escort.”
Celinor nodded. “That would be appreciated.”
“But not the woman,” Gantrell said, glancing at Erin. She wore a horsesister’s simple attire—a woolen tunic stained from the road over her leather armor.
“‘The woman,’” Celinor said, “is my wife, and will someday be your queen!”
Gantrell tilted his head to the side and cringed, as if he had just recognized that he’d made a mistake that would cost him a career.
“Then,” he said, “welcome to South Crowthen, milady.”
He bowed curtly, and Erin rode into South Crowthen under heavy guard. Knights rode at every side—a dozen ahead, a dozen behind, a dozen to their left and another to their right. Gantrell rode beside them, and kept sneaking sly looks at Erin.
“Am I under arrest?” Erin demanded when she could take it no more.
“Of course not,” Gantrell replied. Yet he did not sound sure of his answer.
Sweat poured from Averan. She held the Waymaker with her mind, absorbed his knowledge. Without having tasted the brains of other reavers, she would not have been able to make sense of it all. She concentrated on building a mental image, a map of the Underworld. As she did, all other sights and sounds were gone. She was not aware of the scents of the day, or of the noises, or of the time that passed.
When Averan broke contact, she collapsed in a swoon.
In a daze she looked around her, saw that night had descended. With the sun departing, the air had cooled. She had searched the Waymaker’s memory for hours.
The Waymaker lay before her, dehydrated, rasping its last. Its mouth gaped with each breath, and the philia around its armored head hung like rags. The creature would not survive the night.
Gaborn had stayed beside her all this time.
Now he picked Averan up, held her in his strong arms. “Come,” he said, “let’s get away from this monster. It’s still dangerous.”
He won’t eat me, Averan wanted to tell him. But she didn’t know if that was true. Besides, she could hardly work her throat. Her mouth was dry, and she felt so weary, so drained, that it wasn’t worth the effort to speak.
Gaborn carried her a dozen yards, to a cart. A driver sat atop it, rubbing his eyes, fighting sleep. The team of horses stood dozing in their traces.
“What happened? Where is everyone?” Averan managed to croak. Her head was spinning.
“You’ve been standing over that reaver for hours, for the whole day,” Gaborn said. “The rest of the knights are following the horde south. But Binnesman is here, and his wylde.”
“Good,” Averan said. She always felt comforted in Binnesman’s presence. Overhead a fireball raced across the sky. It left a churning red trail of smoke behind. Almost immediately she saw another flash of light, and another. Everywhere in the sky, the stars were falling. Dozens came in the space of a few heartbeats.
“What’s going on?” Averan asked, as Gaborn put her on a seat. He climbed up beside her. The driver cracked his whip, and the cart lurched forward.
“The One True Master has bound the Seal of Heaven to the Seal of Desolation and the Seal of the Inferno,” Gaborn answered. His jaw was tight. “We must break those seals.”
“You mean it’s already done?”
“Already,” he said. “And there’s something else. I suspect that the reavers defeated Raj Ahten at Kartish. Now the danger is … far more immediate, and growing by the minute. Do you know the way now to the Place of Bones?”
“Yes,” Averan said with conviction.
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
“No,” she said. “Not if we had a month.”
“Will you lead me then? While you were busy, Iome brought some men—a facilitator and some vectors. I’ve already taken endowments of scent. I can smell the reavers’ words here, thick on the ground. But I can’t make sense of them.”
Averan shuddered. She had glimpsed the Underworld through the eyes of reavers, through the eyes of the Way-makers who knew it best. The journey would be long and perilous. Worse things than reavers lay before them.
Her thoughts seemed muddled.
The darkening skies yawned wide, and stars dropped from the firmament. What happens when they all fall down? she wondered. Will the night go dark?
She shuddered again. This is not what she’d have wanted from life.
“Take me to the vectors,” she said, “I’ll lead you the best that I can.”
Wizardborn
A New York Times Bestseller
The Saga of The Runelords Continues
“Farland once again proves himself a wizard at storytelling … This latest is certain to summon past readers of the series back to bookstores.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Colorful, inventive magics, vigorous plotting, and gore aplenty …”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Farland’s massive and compelling saga, which began with The Runelords (1998), continues at a breakneck pace … . As in the earlier books, the danger and violence are larger than life, and many die. But any grimness is leavened by the strong theme of love and respect for the earth and its denizens.”
—Booklist
Wizardborn continues the story of the struggle of Gaborn, now the Earth King, who has lost his powers but continues to lead his people. He must contend with the threat of the huge, inhuman Reavers, whose myriads Gaborn and his forces must now pursue across the nation. It has become Gaborn’s fate to follow, even into the depths.
Raj Ahten, the great warlord endowed with the strength and qualities of thousands of men, once the primary threat to Gaborn, now struggles to retain his own empire. His war of conquest thwarted, his very life is now threatened by the Reaver thousands.
And a young girl, Averan, who has eaten a Reaver and absorbed some of its memories, becomes a Keystone in the search for the dark Reaver lair.
David Farland, Wizardborn
