The Deed of Paksenarrion (132 page)

“The true elf was correct in his surmise. These will heal no better without intervention. Did he try?”

“He said he had not the skill. He had known one who had, but—”

“I see. Paksenarrion, this will take time and patience. It will not be easy for you; it is a matter of purifying the wounds of the poison they used. If you can bear the pain a short while longer, you should be strong enough in body for the healing. Can you?”

Paks forced a smile. “After these months? Of course.”

His face relaxed briefly. “Good. And now we must come to the other—it’s not for this pain that you were ready to throw away your life. What else did they do to you?”

“Do I have to—? Now?”

“I think so. Healing those—getting that poison out—will take strength from us both. I must know what else is wrong, what reserves you have, before I start that.” He started to gather up the remains of breakfast, though, as if it were any other morning. Paks sat where she was, unspeaking. After brushing crumbs onto the windowsill for the birds, he turned back to her. “It might be easier outside. Sunlight cleanses more than dirty linen. Come walk with me.”

They had wandered an hour in the grove before Paks began to speak, starting with her first days in the training barracks at Fin Panir, and the sun was high overhead when she came to the kuaknomi lair. Even in the bright sunlight (for they had come again to the glade) she felt the darkness and the foulness of that
place. Her words came short, and halted, but the Kuakgan did not prompt her. The fountain’s chuckling filled the silence until she spoke again.

“I could not say his name,” she said finally. “I couldn’t call on Gird. I tried, at first. I remember that. But after awhile . . . I couldn’t say it. And I had to fight: whenever I woke again, they were there, and I had to fight.” She told what she could remember of the battles in the arena, of her horror at seeing the great bloated spider that devoured those she defeated. “After awhile, I don’t remember more. They said—those who came and found me—that I was wearing enchanted armor, and wore Achrya’s symbol around my neck.”

“Who found you?”

“Others in the expedition: Amberion, Marshal Lord Fallis, those. I don’t remember that at all. They told me that after a day I was awake and talking to them clearly, but the next I remember is walking along a trail in another canyon, and finding the way to Luap’s stronghold.”

“So it was real—you found it?”

“Oh yes, it’s real. A great citadel, deep in the rock, full of all kinds of magic.” In her mind’s eye the dark lairs were replaced by that soaring red rock arch between the outpost and the main stronghold. “We’d hardly be back to Fin Panir by now had it not had magic. That’s how we came.”

“Magic, then, but no healing?”

Paks stopped short. “No. Not for me, anyway.” She went on to tell him what had happened when she returned to Fin Panir. How the Marshal-General had said she was deeply tainted with kuaknomi evil, and how she had come at last to agree. She shivered as she spoke, and the Kuakgan interrupted.

“Let’s go back for supper. It’s late.” Already the sun was far behind the trees. When they came to the house, Paks feared to stay alone, and could not say it. But instead of leaving her, the Kuakgan came in and brought out bread and cheese. They ate in silence, and he seemed abstracted. After supper, for the first time, he lit a fire on the large hearth, and they sat before it.

“Now go on,” he said. “But don’t hurry yourself. What did your Marshal-General propose to do? Why did she think Gird had not protected you?”

“She didn’t say why,” said Paks, answering the last question first. “But I think they believe I was too new a Girdsman, and too vulnerable as a paladin candidate. They’d said we were more open to evil, in our training. She said that fighting under iynisin command had opened a passage for their evil into my mind. It could be taken out, but—” Paks broke off, steadied her voice, and went on, staring into the flames. “She said the evil was so close to the—to what made me a fighter, that to destroy it might destroy that too.”

“And what did she say that was?”

“My courage.” She barely breathed the words, but the pain in them rang through the room.

The Kuakgan hummed briefly. Paks sat rigid as a pike staff, waiting for his reaction. He reached a poker to the fire, and stirred it. Another pause, while sparks snapped up the chimney. “And now you are not a fighter. You think that is why?”

“I know it. Sir.” Paks sat hunched, looking now at her hands locked in her lap.

“Because you know fear? Did you never fear before? I thought you were afraid of me, the first time I saw you. You were afraid of Master Zinthys’s truth spell—you said so.”

“Before I could always face it. I could still fight. And usually I wasn’t afraid. Very.”

“And now you can’t.” His voice expressed nothing she could take hold of, neither approval nor disapproval.

“That’s right. As soon as I could get out of bed again, afterwards, I tried. But my own armor frightened me. Weapons, noise, the look on their faces, all of it. It was some little time before I could walk well, and I was clumsy with things at first. The Marshal-General had said that might happen, so when I picked up my sword and it felt strange, I wasn’t upset. At first. But then—” She shook her head, remembering her first attempt at arms practice. “It was just drill,” she said slowly. “They knew I’d been hurt; they wouldn’t have injured me. But I couldn’t face them. When that blade came toward me, I froze. They told me later that I fainted. It didn’t even touch me. The next day it was worse. I started shaking before I got into the practice ring. I couldn’t even ride. You know how I loved horses—” she looked up, and the Kuakgan nodded. “My own horse—the black I got here—I couldn’t mount him. Could not. He sensed my fear, and fretted, and all I could think of was the size of his feet. They all thought it would help somehow, so they lifted me onto a gentle little palfrey. I sat there stiff, and shaking, and as soon as she broke into a trot I fell off.”

“And so you left them. Or did they throw you out?”

Paks shook her head. “No. They were generous. The Marshal-General offered to have me stay there, or train me to any trade I wished. But you know, sir, that Gird is a fighter’s saint. How can they understand? It’s not right, and Girdsmen know it. And the Duke—” Her voice broke again.

“Was he there?”

Paks fought for control. “Yes. He came when he—when they told him I—what they might do. He said he would take me then, as a captain or whatever. But—I knew—they were right. Something was wrong. It had to be done. I still think so. And he was there after, when we knew it had gone badly. He gave me—”

“That ring you left in the basin.” Paks nodded. The Kuakgan sighed. “Your Duke is a remarkable man. He has no love for the Girdsmen in general, and the Marshal-General in particular. He must think a lot of you.”

“Not now,” said Paks miserably.

“He gave you the ring afterwards, did he not? After he knew what had happened? Don’t underestimate your Duke, Paksenarrion.” He stirred the fire again. “I saw him once, long ago. I wondered then what sort of man he would be. I have heard of him, of course, in the years since, but only what anyone might hear. For the most part.”

“Why does he dislike the Girdsmen so?” asked Paks.

The Kuakgan shook his head. “That’s not my story to tell. I have it only by hearsay, and may have it wrong. Perhaps he will tell you someday.”

“I . . . don’t think so.”

“Because you think you’ll never go back? Nonsense. In courtesy you must see him again, and ease his concern.”

“But—”

“You must. Whether you draw sword for him again or not, Paksenarrion, you cannot leave him wondering whether you are alive or dead. Not tonight, no, nor tomorrow—but you must go. And when you go, you will agree with me on that.”

Paks said nothing. She could not imagine going to the Duke’s hold with her fear still unconquered. Unless she regained her courage, and could fight, she could not face the Duke and her old companions.

“One thing more, tonight, and then you will sleep. What was it like, when you first thought your courage gone? How did you know it?”

Paks thought how to describe it. “When I first trained, with the Duke,” she began, “I could feel something—an eagerness—in the drill. When Siger—the armsmaster—threatened with his blade, I felt it rising in me. Excitement, eagerness—I don’t know how to say it, but I wanted to fight, wanted to—to strike, to take chances. When he hit me, the pain was just pain, like falling. Nothing to be afraid of, or worried about. And after that, in the battles—I was scared, the first year, but even then that feeling was inside, to draw on. As soon as the fight started, it seemed to lift me up, and carry me along. It never failed me. Even in the worst times, when we were ambushed, or when Macenion and I faced the old elf lord, I might think that I was likely to be killed, but it didn’t affect my fighting. Unless, perhaps, I fought all the better for it. That’s how we all were; those that feared wounds or death left the Company. That danger was our life. Some, indeed, loved the fighting so much that they were kept from constant brawling only by the rules. I had had one trouble with brawling; I didn’t want more. I liked my fights for a reason.” Paks stopped again; she was breathing faster, and her mouth was dry. The Kuakgan rose and brought the jug of water. They each had a mug of it, then she went on.

“At Fin Panir it was like a dream. Everything I’d ever thought about, when I was a girl: the knights, the paladins, the songs and music, training every day with warriors known all over the Eight Kingdoms. There were none of the—the things that bothered me, in the south. We would fight only against true evil. And I met real elves, and dwarves. I could learn any weapon, learn as much as I could. They said I did well; they wanted me to join the Fellowship of Gird, they asked me to become a paladin-candidate. For me, for all that I’d dreamed of, that was—” She stopped, poured another mug of water, and took a sip. “I never dared dream so high, before. It came like a burst of light. All the strange things that had happened in Aarenis seemed to make sense. Of course, I agreed. I felt I was coming to my true home, the heart of my life.”

“And now?”

“It was the happiest time of my life.” Paks drank the rest of her water. “It will seem silly to you, Master Oakhallow, I don’t doubt. A sheepfarmer’s daughter with silly daydreams of wielding a magic sword against monsters, a runaway girl joining the mercenaries, still holding that dream somewhere inside. I couldn’t make them understand, in Fin Panir; maybe it’s so silly it doesn’t matter. But I had tried to learn my craft of fighting well enough to be of use, and there, where all were dedicated to honor and war—there I was happy indeed.”

“I don’t think it was silly,” said the Kuakgan. “Such a dream is most difficult to fulfill, but it is not silly. But tell me, now, what it was that changed, after the Marshal-General did whatever she did.”

“It was gone, that’s all. That feeling or whatever that came when I was fighting. It was gone, and left emptiness—as if the ground suddenly disappeared under one foot, and left me with nothing to stand on. I had no skill and no courage to cover the lack. I thought at first it would come back; I kept trying. After awhile I could move better, and control my sword, but as soon as I tried to fence with someone the emptiness seemed to spread and spread until all was gone. Sometimes I fainted, as I said, and sometimes—once I ran away, and once or twice just stood, unable to do anything. Now when I try to face something, when something frightens me, I have nothing inside to do it with.”

“So you left Fin Panir and—did you plan to come here?”

“No! Never! I wandered along the roads, looking for work. I thought I could do unskilled work, at least: farm labor, and that. But so many things frightened me—things that frighten no one but a little child—” She wondered whether to tell him about the trader’s caravan, the robbers at the inn, and decided not to. What difference did it make, after all? “I wandered, mostly. I didn’t know this was Brewersbridge until I came to the inn. I would have fled, but a guard thought I was acting strangely and wanted to take me to the keep.”

“Wouldn’t Marshal Cedfer have vouched for you? You said the Marshal-General promised safe-conduct in all the granges of Gird.”

“I suppose he would have, sir, but I couldn’t ask him. I asked, once, in Fintha—they don’t understand. If I had lost an arm or leg, something they could see, they might. But as it is—cowardice—they think of that as shameful weakness, or punishment for great evil. With soldiers it’s even simpler. Cowardice is cowardice, and nothing else. I suppose they’re right, sir, but I can’t—” Her voice broke, and tears burst from her eyes. “I can’t—live with that—with their scorn. The Marshal knew me before—he’d say I wasn’t a criminal—but he’d despise—”

“Enough. I know the Marshal better than that. He is fair, if sometimes narrow-minded. And you are not being fair to yourself. But it is late, and you need rest. We will talk more of this tomorrow. Don’t fear to sleep; your dreams are withheld for the present.”

Paks thought she could not face the morning, but when she woke, she felt more at peace than she had for a long time. She awaited the Kuakgan’s questions. But he said nothing during breakfast, and afterwards called her to walk with him in the grove as usual. The first hour or so passed in silence. As always, Paks found something new to look at every few paces. She had never lived near a forest before, and it had not occurred to her how full a forest could be. Finally he turned to her, and spoke.

“Sit down, child, and we’ll talk some.” Paks sat against the trunk of a tree, and he stretched on the ground nearby. “You are stronger of body than when you came, Paksenarrion; are you aware of it?”

“Yes, sir.” Paks felt herself flushing. “I’ve been eating too much.”

“No, not too much. You were far too thin; you need more weight even now. But the day you came, you could not have endured what you did yesternight without collapse.”

“But that was my mind—”

He made a disgusted noise. “Paksenarrion, your body and mind are as close as the snail-shell and the snail. If you poke holes in the snail-shell, will the snail live?”