Wizardborn (14 page)

Gaborn sat with his back straight and chin high, engaged in light conversation. The queen sat at his feet, in a robe as softly yellow as a rose.

Averan saw no sign of the wizard that Myrrima was seeking. Indeed, Myrrima whispered a question to a lord, and he nodded toward the inn.

Myrrima hurried back out of the garden, and Averan just stood a moment, too nervous to speak.

Some minor noble was saying, “There's tales going around Carris that a certain commoner, a fellow named Waggit, killed nine reavers in battle.”

“Nine?” several men guffawed in disbelief.

“No man who survived Carris should ever be called common,” Gaborn said. “And if the tales be true, I'm tempted to have this Waggit knighted and placed in my personal guard. What do you know of him?”

“He works in the mines at Silverdale,” the lord said. “I hear he's somewhat… well, he's simple.”

“A fool killed nine reavers?” Gaborn asked in disbelief.

“With a pickax, no less,” Lord Bowen confirmed. “The bards at Carris are already singing about it. I'd have brought the man to your attention sooner, but given his incapacity …”

“By the Powers, I would that all men were such fools!” Gaborn swore. “I'll have him in my guard!”

The knights laughed, and Averan found herself smiling at the jest too. Gaborn could only make the man a guard if he cured him of his idiocy, and the only way to do that would be to have him take an endowment of wit from someone who was whole. Surely Gaborn would not waste a forcible on a fool, for in curing one fool, it would only make another—and at great cost to the kingdom. For the forcibles used in the endowment ceremony were made of metal that was far rarer than gold.

She hadn't known what to expect of Gaborn. She normally dealt with old wrinkled dukes and barons. But Gaborn was not some pompous lord trying to impress people with his ten endowments of glamour. Instead he was a
strong, lanky youth with dark hair and piercing blue eyes.

She'd expected that the Earth King would be grim and stern, full of himself. But Gaborn did his best to fit in, to cheer the men around him.

Averan decided that she liked him in spite of the fact that she knew that something was wrong.

An unlikely pair of warriors climbed to their feet. One of them she recognized from his tunic. He wore the colors of South Crowthen, and could only be Anders's son, Celinor. The other was a young horsesister from Fleeds.

“Milord,” Celinor said. “We'll be leaving now, if we may.”

Gaborn looked thoughtful. “I… sense no immediate danger.”

The queen blurted an old blessing out of Fleeds: “Erin, Celinor—may the Glories ride before you while the Bright Ones blaze at your back.”

“And with you, My Queen,” the horsesister said.

Gaborn turned his gaze toward Averan, caught her eye. Everyone fell silent, watched her expectantly. She still wore the robe of a skyrider. Averan could tell by Gaborn's tone that he feared that she carried dire news.

“Well?” the king asked in a kindly tone. “Do you have a message?”

Averan stammered, couldn't think how to start.

“Have… have you forgotten the message?” Gaborn asked kindly.

“I…” Averan didn't know what to say.

“Spit it out, child,” Gaborn's counselor said.

Averan found herself babbling, trying to explain all that she'd learned: “A green woman fell from the sky, and her blood got on me, and ever since then, everything is so strange. I ate a reaver's brain. I can remember things—the way a reaver sees and smells and thinks. I know what they know. In the Underworld, there's a fell mage. She's called the One True Master. She's the one who sent the reavers to Carris. You didn't beat her—”

Around Gaborn, knights and lords stared at Averan, dumbfounded. One lord blurted, “Where did this child come from? I didn't see a graak fly in. What is she saying?”

Averan knew that she wasn't making much sense.

Another knight said, “She's gone mad.” He got up and started to walk toward her.

Averan shouted, “No!”

Gaborn raised his hands, warning the lords back. He looked at her sharply. “You say you
ate
a reaver's brain and learned what it knew?”

“Yes,” Averan said. “I ate the brain from the fell mage you slew. I know what it knows. She came to destroy all the blood metal beneath Carris, so that she could hurt us. But—in my visions I remember the screams of reavers. They've learned how to take endowments too.”

Gaborn hesitated a moment. He seemed pensive, thoughtful. Ages ago, mankind had developed their rune lore in an effort to mimic the way that reavers gained strength by eating the glands of their dead, or learned by eating the brains of their dead. But this was the first time anyone had discovered that reavers had learned to take endowments from their own.

“Tell me,” Gaborn asked. “Do you know anything about the Place of Bones?”

“Yes!” Averan shouted. “That's what the reavers call the throne where the One True Master rules, among the bones of the enemies she's eaten! It's in the Underworld, near the burning stones.”

The queen let out a yelp of surprise and alarm, and climbed to her feet.

“Can you tell me the way?” Gaborn asked.

Averan stood dumbfounded. She recalled bits of the journey, flashes of images of reavers marching up through twisting caverns in the Underworld. But they were just snatches of images—a long march through dangerous territory where the great worms lived, the hot vents near caves of fire. There were cliffs and ledges that no man could
scale, and the trail went past tunnels that led to the wilds. She couldn't describe it.

“There is a trail,” Averan said. “I… don't know how to get there. The trail is long and twisted, and no commoner could ever make it. Even for a reaver, the trail was terribly har—”

“But there is a trail, one that a bold man might follow?” Gaborn urged hopefully.

“Yes,” Averan said. “But there are millions of tunnels down there. There are hundreds of reaver hives, each with a thousand passages. You—you could waste a lifetime looking for the hive of the One True Master. Even if you found it, finding
her
would be another matter!”

Gaborn's eyes seemed to bore right into her. She knew what he was thinking. He wanted to go into the Underworld. But Averan didn't know the way.

“What's going on here?” someone demanded.

She turned. A wizard stood at the head of the garden in russet robes. He seemed to be a kindly looking man, with a weathered face and skin that was just a tad too green. His eyes were as clear blue as a summer's day. His hair might have once been the color of chestnuts, but now gray streaked through it. His cheeks were as ruddy as sandstone, and the hair of his beard grew thicker at the base than at the tips. His strange robe looked to be woven of reddish roots.

Averan had never seen anyone like the wizard before. Yet everything about him seemed familiar. She had never met her father. By all accounts, reavers ate him while she was an infant. But she looked upon the wizard and wondered if perhaps everyone had lied. Perhaps this man was her father.

The wizard stared at her with a gaze so intense that it could have bored holes through a millstone. She sensed power in him, a power older than the hills, stronger than iron.

Behind him stood Myrrima and the green woman who had fallen from the sky.

“Averan!” the green woman called.

The wizard strode forward, his robes swishing in the silence that suddenly seemed to descend upon the garden. The green woman followed.

He stopped a moment, glanced down at the pale roots sprouting in Averan's coat. “Here, child,” Binnesman said gently, “show me your hands.”

Averan held out her hands, opened them wide. Her palms itched more than before. Yesterday shapeless green blobs showed on her palms. The green woman's blood had seemed to be seeping below her skin.

Now, to her surprise, each palm bore a dark-green image that had enlarged overnight. For the all world, on each hand, it looked as if she had tattoos of oak leaves.

Binnesman smiled, then touched each palm. Immediately the itching eased, and the dull ache at the base of her skull went away.

One of the king's counselors, an old fellow with silver hair, gaped at her hands and said in astonishment, “She's wizardborn!”

   10   

If you listen closely, you'll learn as much from your child as it does from you.

—
Adage from Heredon

Iome stared at Averan, heart pounding. Such a small, frail-looking girl, Iome thought. Yet she appeared like a portent of doom.

Iome had thought her husband mistaken. She'd suspected that the Place of Bones existed only in his imagination, that he'd been unable to accept the Earth's rejection.

Now she feared that he would coerce this innocent child into leading him into the Underworld to battle this One True Master.

Binnesman leaned over the girl.
Wizardborn.
Jerimas's pronouncement hung in the air.

“Not merely wizardborn,” Binnesman said. “She's an Earth Warden—the apprentice I've long awaited.”

Binnesman held the girl's hands and smiled at her gently. His soft voice, his warm touch, all were meant to comfort her. But Iome sensed by his rigid stance and the way that he refused to meet the child's eyes that the wizard was at war with himself.

“Let us not speak in the open daylight,” Binnesman said. “Come inside with me.”

He took the girl's hand and led her to the common room of the inn. Every lord in the place followed, until there was no room around the bar where Averan sat, and men crowded the doorway.

Once he had her sitting on the bar, Binnesman asked easily, “Tell me, child, is Averan your name?”

The girl nodded.

“How did my wylde know?”

“I was riding my graak and I saw her fall from the sky. I landed, and tried to help, and her blood got on me. She came north with me to Carris—”

“Hmmm…” Binnesman muttered. “A strange coincidence, don't you think, that I lose a wylde and that you should find it?”

Averan shrugged.

“It's more than a coincidence,” Binnesman said. “Tell me, what were you thinking about when it happened?”

“I don't remember exactly,” Averan said. “I guess … I was hoping that someone would come help me.”

“Hmmm… You're a skyrider? You're good with animals, I suspect. Do you like animals?”

“Yes,” Averan admitted.

“Are you good with graaks?”

“Master Brand said that he thought I was the best that he'd ever seen. He was going to make me beastmaster someday.”

“Hmmm…” Binnesman said thoughtfully. “Do you have a favorite animal?”

Averan shook her head no. “I like them all.”

Binnesman mused for a long moment. “Do you like plants better than animals, or rocks?”

“How could you like a rock more than an animal?” Averan asked.