The Nomad (32 page)

The seized him and dragged him away, kicking and fighting, and bound him securely to a nearby agafari tree while they went to prepare the stake and build the fire. In the morning, they would conduct the Ritual of Purging, where each member of the tribe would formally renounce him and curse his name before their chief, and when the sun set, they would bum him.

Late that night, after they had all retired, Ogar’s mother came to see him. She stood before him with tears in her eyes and asked him why he had done such an awful thing, why he had brought such pain into her heart. He thought of trying to explain it to her, but then realized she would never understand, and so said nothing.

“Will you not even speak to me, my son?” she said, “one final time, before I must renounce you to your father?”

He looked up at her then and sought understanding in her eyes. He saw none. But perhaps there was one final hope. “Release me, Mother,” he said. “If I have so disgraced the tribe, at least let me go back to those who would accept me. Let me rejoin my wife and son.”

“I cannot,” she said. “Much as it breaks my heart, your father’s word is law. You know that.”

“So then you would let me die?”

“I must,” she said. “I have your brothers and your sisters to consider. For their sake, I cannot risk their father’s wrath. Besides, you would have nothing to return to.”

He looked up at her with sudden concern. “What do you mean?”

“Your father has sent a runner to the Faceless One.”

“No!” said Ogar with horror. “No, not him!”

“There is nothing I can do,” she said. “Your father’s will is law. Never have I seen him so furious before. He has sworn that he will undo the disgrace that you have brought upon us, and he will ask the Faceless One to cast a spell against the Moon Runners, killing every last elfin the tribe.”

“But they have done nothing!”

“They have defiled Ragna’s son,” she said, “and through you, they have defiled Ragna. He is set upon his course, and nothing will dissuade him.”

“Release me, Mother! For pity’s sake, release me!”

“Would you condemn me to the fate you would escape?” she said. “Would you condemn your brothers and your sisters to the flames in your place? How can you ask me such a thing? Truly, you have been defiled by the elves, that you could think of yourself at such a time, at their expense.”

“I do not think only of myself, but of my wife and son, and of an entire tribe of people who have done nothing to offend you!”

“So, I see now where your true allegiance lies,” she said. “Ragna was right. You are no longer Ogar. You are no longer my son. You care more about a tribe of misbegotten elves than you do about your own family and your people. You are no longer halfling. My son is dead. I thought that he had died five years ago, and I see now I was right. I have already done my grieving. Nothing more remains.”

She turned and left him then, though he cried out and strained against his bonds. But they had tied him firmly, and there was no escape.

* * *

They had come down from the lower foothills of the northern slopes to cross a small valley at the desert’s edge, beyond which, in a jagged, curving line stretching out as far as the eye could see, lay the highest peaks among the Ringing Mountains. In the distance, as they had started across the valley, they had been able to see the Dragon’s Tooth, the tallest peak in all of Athas. Kether had seen it in his vision, and he believed that they would find the pyreen there. When he had told them that their quest was almost at its end, there was great joy among the Moon Runners, and as they began to cross the valley, heading toward the mountains, they had spontaneously burst into song.

Less than an hour later, all of them were dead. Alaron stood alone among their fallen bodies, stunned and numb and horrified beyond all capacity to endure, unable to understand what had happened to them. His mother lay stretched out at his feet, her eyes wide open and unseeing, her lips pulled back into a rictus of agony that had frozen on her features. He had prodded her and tearfully called her name and screamed, but she had not responded. She would never respond to him or anyone again.

Kivara, too, lay dead, and close beside her, Eyron and Lyric, his three young playmates, who had all fallen writhing and screaming to the ground, clutching at their throats and twisting in agony until they breathed their last. Kether, too, had fallen, and the mighty chieftain was no more. One by one, they had all been struck down by some terrible, unseen force, and now only Alaron remained, somehow unaffected by whatever had struck down the rest of them. Terrified and helpless, he had watched all his people die in excruciating agony.

Now he gazed emptily at the twisted bodies strewn all around him on the sand, and it was a sight too horrible for his young mind to accept. He stood there, breathing in short gasps, feeling a terrible pressure in his little chest, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he whimpered pathetically. And then something within him snapped.

He turned and started walking out into the desert, not knowing where he was going, not caring, unable even to think. He simply placed one foot before the other, walking with his eyes glazed and unfocused, and after a few steps, his little legs began to move more quickly, and then he began to run.

Half whimpering, half gasping for breath, he ran faster and faster and faster, as if he could somehow outdistance the horror that lay behind him. Farther and farther out into the desert he ran, gulping deep lungfuls of air as an intolerable weight seemed to press down on his chest and something deep within him twisted and churned and writhed. He ran faster than he had ever run before, he ran until his strength gave out completely, but something in his mind broke down long before his muscles ceased responding. He fell, sprawling, face down on the desert sand, his fingers scrabbling for purchase, as if he had to grasp the sunbaked soil to keep from falling off the world.

His father had simply left one day, and now his mother, his guardian and his protector, was also gone forever. Pretty Kivara, his mischievous young playmate… gone. Happy, little Lyric, who always laughed and sang… gone. Eyron, who was just a few years older and always seemed to know everything better than anybody else… gone. Kether, their noble, visionary chieftain… gone. Everyone and everything he knew was gone, leaving him alone. Abandoned. Helpless. Why had he survived? Why? Why?

“WHYYYYYYYYYY?”
his mind screamed, and as it screamed, it shattered, fragmenting into bits and pieces as his identity disintegrated and the young elfling known as Alaron, named after a bygone king, simply ceased to be. And as he lay there, senseless, dead and yet not dead, the fragmented pieces of his mind sought desperately to preserve themselves, and started to reform anew. And as if the cry was heard in a world beyond the plane of his existence, there came an answer. First one, then two, then three, then four…

* * *

“I know,” he said softly, opening his eyes. He swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “I… know.”

“Yes,” said the Sage, gazing at him with a kindly expression. “Yes, you do. Was it what you wanted?”

“All those years, wondering, yearning for the truth… and now I wish I had never found it,” he said miserably.

“It was a hard truth that you discovered, Alaron,” said the Sage.

“You know my truename?” Sorak said. “But… you said that you would not be with me on the journey…”

“Nor was I,” said the Sage, shaking his head, sadly. “It was enough for me to know what you would discover. I had no wish to see it for myself.”

“You knew?”

“Yes, I knew,” the Sage replied. “Even though my path in life took me away from them, some bonds can never break. I felt it when she died.”

“She?” said Sorak.

“Your mother, Mira,” said the Sage. “She was daughter.”

“Father?” said the Guardian, emerging. “Is it true? Is it really you?”

“Yes, Mira,” said the Sage, shaking his head. “You were but an infant when I left. And I have changed much since that time. I did not think you would remember.”

Tears were flowing freely down Sorak’s cheeks now, but it was the Guardian who wept. They all wept. All of them together, the tribe, the Moon Runners, who had died, and yet lived on.

“I do not understand,” the Guardian said. “How can this be? We are a part of Sorak.”

“A part of you is part of Sorak,” said the Sage. “And a part of you is Mira, the spirit of my long lost daughter. And a part of you is Garda, my wife, Mira’s mother, and Alaron’s grandmother.

“The powerful psionic gifts that Alaron was born with, but had not yet evidenced, had forged a strong but subtle bond with you, and with others of the tribe, and he could not accept your deaths, so he would not let you die. He did not know what he was doing. He saw you dying, and he could not endure it, so some inner part of him held onto you with a strength that defied even that of death itself. His tormented little mind could not suffer the hardship, and so it broke apart, but in doing so, he sacrificed his own identity so that you could live. You, and Kether, and Kivara, and Eyron and Lyric and the others…”

“But… what of the Inner Child? And the Shade?”

“The Inner Child is the one who fled in terror from the horror it had seen, and cocooned itself deep in the farthest recesses of your common mind. The Shade is the primal force of your survival, the fury that you felt at death, the last defiant rebel against inevitable fate.”

“And Screech?” asked Sorak, returning to the fore. “What gave birth to Screech?”

“You did,” said the Sage. “He is the part of you that knew the path that you would walk even at the moment of your birth, the embodiment of your calling to choose the Path of Preserver, and your fate to embrace the Druid Wu. He was born at the moment Alaron had ceased to be, when in his last extremity he drew strength out of the werid itself, and manifested in your mind. Screech is that part of you that
is
Athas itself, and every Irving creature the planet has produced.
You
are the Crown of Eves, Sorak, born of a chieftain’s seventh son. The prophecy did not say that it would be an
elven
chieftain. Your father fell, when he came to the rescue of your mother, and then he rose again, when she tended to his wounds and saved him, and out of that a new life was created—your life.”

“And the great, good ruler?” Sorak asked “Not a ruler, but one who hopes to guide,” the Sage replied. “The avangion, a being still in the process of its slow birth, through me. And now that you have come, and learned the truth about yourself and me, another cycle in the process has become complete. Or, perhaps I should say, may soon become complete, depending on what you decide.”

“What I decide?” said Sorak. “But… why should that decision rest with me?”

“Because it must be your choice,” the Sage replied. “Your willing choice. You are the Crown of Elves, and it is you who must empower the next stage of my metamorphosis, without which I cannot proceed. But it is a decision you must
choose
to make, of your own free will.”

“Why… of course, Grandfather,” said Sorak. Tell me what I have to do.”

“Do not agree so quickly,” said the Sage. “The sacrifice mat you must make is great”

“Tell me,” Sorak said.

“You must empower me with the tribe,” the Sage replied.

“The tribe?”

“It is the only way,” the Sage said. “They shall not die, but they shall live on in me. Not in the same way they have lived in you. Our spirits shall unite and be as one, and that one shall be the natal avangion. Merely the beginning of a long process yet to come, but a necessary step.”

“Then… it was fated that all this should happen?” Sorak asked.

“Fate is merely a series of possibilities,” the Sage replied, “governed by volition. Yet, for most of your life, you have lived as what you are, a tribe of one. Before you agree, you must consider this: could you bear to live without them?”

“But… I would still be Sorak?”

“Yes. But only Sorak. You would no longer have the others. You would face that which almost destroyed you once before. You would be alone.”

Sorak glanced toward where Ryana slept, peacefully, with Kara sitting by her side, watching over her. “No,” he said. “I would not be alone. I am not afraid.”

“And what of the tribe?” the Sage asked.

“We understand,” the Guardian replied. “We would miss Sorak, but at least a part of us shall always be a part of him. And I would like to see him heal, as I would like to join my father, whom I never truly knew.”

“Then, come to me,” the Sage said, holding out his hands. “Let Galdra be the bridge between us. Draw your sword.”

Sorak stood and drew Galdra from its scabbard.

“Hold it out straight, toward me,” the Sage said.

Sorak did as he was told.

The old wizard put his hands upon the blade, grasping it tightly. “Hold on firmly,” he said. Sorak tightened his grip with both hands on the hilt.

“And now?” he said.

“And now, there shall be an ending,” said the Sage. “And a new beginning.”

And with that, he impaled himself upon the blade.
“No!”
shouted Sorak.

But it was done, and as the blade sank into the flesh of the old wizard, Sorak felt a powerful, tingling sensation and a rush of heat, and then his head began to spin. Galdra’s blade glowed with a blue light, and Sorak felt the tribe begin to drain away from him. He screamed as he sensed something being ripped loose inside his mind, and an ethereal, amorphous shape seemed to pass along the blade, from him into the Sage. It happened once again, and then again, each time coming faster and faster as the luminescent spirits of the entities that were the tribe passed along the blade, from him and into the old wizard.

And then it was done, and both Sorak and the Sage collapsed, the contact broken as the blade pulled free of the old wizard.

Kara got up and came to crouch beside Sorak, feeling for his pulse. Satisfied, she sighed and checked the Sage, who lay there groaning and breathing laboriously, blood flowing freely from his wound. She took the Breastplate of Argentum, as he had directed her while Sorak took his inner journey, and she fastened it around him. And as she watched, the talisman glowed brightly, and then he disappeared from view.