The RuneLords (74 page)

His Days looked at Gaborn with slitted eyes, nodded slightly. "Good, then you are a man of courage, for only men of courage remember that place. Someday soon, you will find yourself riding through your dreams. When you do, take that trail, and see where it leads you. Perhaps then you will have the answer to your question."

Gaborn gazed at the Days, wondering. It was a trick, he knew, to tell someone what to do in their dreams. The mind would do as instructed, fulfill the command.

"You want to know what happened to me over the past three days," Gaborn said. "Would it be selfish, if I kept that knowledge to myself?"

"A man who fancies himself to be the servant of all, should never give in to a selfish desire," the Days answered.

Gaborn smiled. "After I left you," he said, and he told the tale in full, though he never mentioned the Emir's book.

For a long hour Gaborn related his tale, and as he did so, he considered his new responsibilities. By now, his father's Dedicates had regained their endowments, and so the people of Mystarria would know that their king was dead. People would be frantic for news. Already, little boys riding their graaks would be on their way to Castle Sylvarresta. Gaborn would need to go there, send letters home. Plan his war.

Myrrima herself walked over the hill to disturb his worrying, her hips moving like boiling waves beneath her gray silk.

She did something no woman had ever done to him.

She came to him, put a hand over his in sympathy, and just stroked it, staring deep into his face. Few women had ever dared touch him so familiarly.

"Milord," she whispered, "I...Your father was a good man. As deeply as he loved, so shall he be missed. I will always...revere his memory."

"Thank you," Gaborn said. "He deserved that."

Myrrima pulled at Gaborn's hand, and said, "Come down to the manor, into the garden. It is a beautiful garden. It will ease your spirits while Borenson and I fix dinner. Grapes hang on the vines, and vegetables are in the field. I found hams in the smokehouse."

Gaborn had not eaten since last night. He nodded wearily, took her hand, led his horse down to the manor. Behind them, his Days rode in silence.

The garden behind the manor was everything Myrrima had promised. The snow had nearly all melted, leaving the garden wet, fresh. Rock walls covered with rose and wisteria enclosed the garden; herbs and pleasant flowers grew all about.

A wide brook meandered through the lawn. In its deep, rocky pools, fat trout sunned themselves and snapped at bees that buzzed through the flowers beside the water.

Gaborn walked among the herbs for a long hour, examining plants. It was not as marvelous as Binnesman's garden had been, nowhere near as sprawling and wild and diverse. Gaborn had a little knowledge of herb lore, as much as most princes learned. So as Gaborn wandered about, he could not help but find things he'd need: dogbane growing on a trellis on the south wall of the manor, a bit of shepherd's purse for stanching wounds, nightcap poppy to help him sleep. There were so many herbs, and Gaborn did not know what to do with them.

He was so involved in harvesting the root of mallow to treat burns, that at first he did not notice when Binnesman arrived just before dinner.

"Hello," Binnesman said at Gaborn's back, startling him. "So, you gather herbs now?"

Gaborn nodded, afraid that to a master herbalist such as Binnesman, his efforts would seem feeble. Gaborn knelt near the aromatic, serrated leaves by the ground, and suddenly felt unsure, wondered if these rose-pink petals really were mallow, or if he'd been mistaken.

Binnesman only nodded kindly, and smiled, then knelt beside Gaborn and helped him dig. "The root of mallow is best for burns when it is still fresh," he said, "though vendors hawk it dried. It is the cooling sap that you need, not some desiccated twig. But a dried mallow root, once soaked in water, can still give some relief."

Gaborn stopped digging, but Binnesman urged him to keep on. "Look to the tops of the roots, the thickest parts. It's good that you do this, learn which parts to use."

He pulled at the mallow, then broke off its purplish-brown root for Gaborn to see. The sap oozed onto Binnesman's fingers, and the old wizard touched the cool stuff to Gaborn's forehead. "See?"

"Yes, I see," Gaborn answered.

There was an uncomfortable silence between them, and the wizard stared into Gaborn's eyes. Gaborn could see flecks of green in the old man's skin, but his robes had gone a ruddy flame, the color of maple leaves in autumn.

"You think I have some great powers," Binnesman said, "but it is only the power that comes from serving the Earth."

"No, your herbs are far more potent than any I've seen in Mystarria," Gaborn said.

"Would you like to know the secret of it?" the wizard asked.

Gaborn nodded dumbly, hardly daring believe the wizard would tell him.

"Plant the seeds yourself, My King," Binnesman said, "in soil fertilized and turned by your own hands. Water them with your own sweat. Serve them--fulfill their every need--and they'll serve you fully in return. Few men, even among the wise, understand the great power one can gain from service."

"There is nothing more?" Gaborn asked.

"My plants grew to serve the people of this land. You saw how I dunged them with human waste. I used dung from many people, over many generations. So the plants serve these people.

"We are all...intertwined. Man, plant, earth, sky, fire, water. We are not many things, but one thing. And when we recognize that we are all but one thing, then we begin to tap into that One Greater Power--the communion."

Binnesman fell silent and watched Gaborn intently. "Do you understand?"

As he considered, Gaborn thought he began to apprehend what Binnesman tried to say, but he did not know if he could comprehend it yet.

"There are gardens in Mystarria," Gaborn said, for lack of any other response. "I'll speak to my gardeners, learn what seeds I have to plant. I should be able to get many kinds of seeds, at the House of Understanding."

"May I see your gardens?" Binnesman asked. "Perhaps I could advise you on matters of their cultivation."

"I'd like that," Gaborn said. "But you've spent your life here. Won't you stay in the Dunnwood?"

"To what purpose?" Binnesman asked. "The Seventh Stone has fallen. The last of the obalin is dead. I've nothing more to learn from it, and can no longer serve it. My garden is destroyed."

"Your wylde. What of it?"

"I searched for it all this afternoon, listened to the trees and grass. If it walks the earth, it does so far from here. I will search for it in Fleeds and farther south, until I find it. Perhaps in Mystarria."

"But the woods?"

"Are beautiful indeed," Binnesman said. "I will miss them. Now you are my king. I will follow you."

It had such an odd sound, this exclamation of devotion. To Gaborn's knowledge, no Earth Warden had ever claimed fealty to a king. Wizards were solitary beings, living outside the bounds of common men.

"It will be terrible, won't it?" Gaborn asked. "The war. I feel it coming. I feel...a shifting under the earth. Energies stirring."

Binnesman merely nodded. Gaborn looked down, noticed that the old wizard stood barefoot, though a few dollops of snow still hid among the leaves in the garden.

Gaborn said now the thing that had been haunting him all afternoon. "I claimed him with my whole heart. I claimed my father. I tried to protect him, and I tried to serve him--just as I claimed Sylvarresta and Chemoise's father and Rowan. Yet I failed them. They're all dead--seeds of mankind that I chose to save. Tell me, Binnesman, what more must I do?"

The wizard studied Gaborn frankly. "Don't you understand, milord? It is not enough simply to want them. You must serve them with your whole mind, your whole will."

Gaborn wondered deep in his heart what he needed to do, and in answer he felt a terrifying sense of distress, a sense that the whole world was rocking, shifting under his feet, and he had nothing to cling to. Certainly he'd loved his father and Sylvarresta, had struggled to keep both kings alive.

"It is my fault that Raj Ahten still lives," Gaborn mused. "I spun too thin a web to catch such a large fly." Gaborn smiled at the image.

Yet there was something more he needed to do, something he could not quite grasp or voice. Gaborn was so new in his powers. He didn't know his own measure, his own responsibilities.

Binnesman said something then, words that would haunt Gaborn forever. And as Binnesman spoke the secret, Gaborn felt his mind begin to unhinge: "Milord, have you not understood? Choosing a man for the Earth is not enough. The powers of Earth are weakening, while Fire grows strong. Each person you seek to save, Fire will only seek more fully to destroy. And it will seek to destroy you above all."

Gaborn gasped and his heart froze at the recognition, for surely he'd felt this all along--this secret nagging suspicion. The new powers he'd felt stirring within him bore a tremendous price. By choosing to love someone, by seeking to save a person, he marked the person, made him a target.

"How then? How can I do anything?" Gaborn asked. "What does it benefit a man to be chosen?"

"In time, we will learn to use your powers," Binnesman said. "You think that benefit is slight, and perhaps that is so. But is the benefit slight to a man, if it means the difference between life and death?"

As Gaborn considered, he recognized that he'd done some things right. He'd saved Iome when Raj Ahten hunted them. He'd managed to save Borenson at Longmont. He'd drawn Myrrima here for reasons he did not yet understand, and he suddenly felt sure to the marrow of his bones that if he'd not sent Borenson back to warn Myrrima of the invaders in the woods, the whole family would have been slaughtered.

Without the aid of Gaborn's fledgling powers, many more would be dead now.

Yes, I've done something. But I must do far, far more.

"What will you now, milord?" Binnesman asked, almost as if divining his thoughts.

"What would you advise?" Gaborn said.

"You are the king; I am merely a servant, and no counselor," Binnesman said. "The earth will serve you in ways it would never serve me. I have no idea what you should do."

Gaborn considered. "There are forcibles hidden here in the garden," Gaborn said with a sigh. "I'll dig them up. Raj Ahten believes I already have them, that I've already used them. By the time he returns, I shall have done it. He may become the Sum of All Men, but I shall be the sum of all his nightmares.

"You know much about ancient lore," Gaborn said. "Can he do it? Can he become the Sum of All Men?"

"Not of all men," Binnesman said. "He craves power, the guarantee of a continued existence. I do not know much of the Runelords' arts, but I know this: If he seeks to become the Sum of All Men, perhaps he should go to the source, learn how it is done."

"What do you mean?" Gaborn asked.

"We Earth Wardens live a long time. Lives given in service are usually long, and lives given in service to the land can be longest of all. Yet when I was young, four hundred years ago, I once met a man of the South. I met him at an old inn near Danvers Landing. He seemed only a young Runelord, some traveling noble. But a hundred and eighty years ago, he came north and visited Castle Sylvarresta for the summer. At least I believe it was him. There had been trouble that year to the north with reavers and with robbers. He put an end to them both. Then he went south again."

"Daylan Hammer? You are telling me that Daylan Hammer still lives? The Sum of All Men? After sixteen hundred years?"

"I am telling you that he may live," Binnesman said. He shook his head thoughtfully. "I could be mistaken. I've never told this tale to anyone. Perhaps it is unwise to tell you now."

"Why?"

"He did not seem to be a happy man. If he has secrets, they should remain with him."

"Is happiness everything?" Gaborn asked.

"Yes, ultimately I believe it is," Binnesman said. "It should be the goal of your existence, to live life in peace and joy."

Gaborn considered. "Am I wrong to fight Raj Ahten using his own tactics? To fight him at all."

"To fight him is dangerous," Binnesman said. "Not just dangerous for you, dangerous for the whole world. If he would join your cause, I would rejoice. But he will oppose you, and it is not for me to say whether you should fight him. It shall be your task to gather the seeds of humanity. You must decide which to save, which to toss aside.

"You have already begun your task." He waved to the manor house, where Borenson and Myrrima cooked in the dining hall.

Gaborn shuddered at the thought of his task, that he was supposed to somehow gauge the worth of men, save some, discard others. This would have to become the work of his whole soul, his every waking thought. Yet even then, he had no guarantee that he could succeed. "What of Iome?"

"A good woman, I think," Binnesman said. "She is very much in touch with the powers, can feel their most subtle influence, better than you--or I. She would be an asset."

"I love her," Gaborn said.

"Then what are you doing here?" Binnesman asked.

"Giving her time alone, to grieve. I fear that if she accepts me, her people might revolt. They will not want me."

"I would not worry about her people, only about her. Do you think she wants you to leave her alone? Do you think she doesn't love you?"

"She loves me," Gaborn said.

"Then go to her, soon. If she grieves, then grieve with her. Sharing our pain makes our wounds heal faster."

"I...it wouldn't be a good idea. Not now. Not so soon--after."

"I spoke with her not an hour ago," Binnesman said. "She asked for you. She wants to see you on some urgent matter, tonight--soon."

Gaborn studied the wizard's face, wondering. It seemed madness to go to her now, considering how her people felt about him. Yet if Iome had asked for him, perhaps she had good reason. Perhaps, he thought, they had treaties to discuss. She would need money to repair her castle. House Sylvarresta knight need loans, armies...

He would give whatever she asked, of course.