The Wayfarer King (33 page)

Gavin wondered how the king would know that. “It is, my liege.”

“Please, there’s no need to address me so formally. You’re also King of Thendylath, are you not?” When Gavin nodded, King Arek said, “Then let us talk as equals. Call me Arek, and I’ll call you Gavin, if you don’t mind... my liege.”

The heat of embarrassment burned in Gavin’s face. While he understood King Arek’s position, he didn’t feel worthy of addressing the man so informally, but he’d do it if it meant Arek would never call him ‘my liege’ again. “Yes, my— Arek. Gavin’s fine.”

“Let me give you a few words of advice, if I may.”

“Please do.”

“Back-traveling is for information only. You cannot change anything that happened, or at least, nothing that would affect the future. I learned that the hard way. If you try through your actions, you’ll be completely ineffective, as if you weren’t there at all. If you try through your words, you’ll end up back in your own time with a terrible headache that might keep you in bed for days. If you trust me, heed this warning.”

“But me being here has already changed what’s happened, hasn’t it?” Gavin asked.

“It’s easy to think so, but from the perspective of the future, your visit has already occurred. Your history books will say that I received a visit from a mysterious stranger today. If I were to write down our conversation and preserve that writing, you might have read it in school as a boy, not realizing that stranger was you.”

Maybe all children went to school during Arek’s reign, but only the wealthy did in Gavin’s time. Instead of explaining that, he grinned. “So I could’ve brought it with me and showed you what you would write?”

“Then we’d have to ask ourselves which came first, the writing or the written?”

“The chicken or the egg?”

Arek laughed. “Precisely. It’s good to know you’ve a better sense of humor than Ronor has. It serves you well as king, doesn’t it?”

Gavin’s smile faded, and the urge to weep fell upon him. As Ronor, he’d spent many months lamenting the loss of his king and friend. Now here he was, sitting with King Arek as though none of those horrible events had ever taken place. He cleared his throat and swallowed the lump that threatened to snag his words. “I ha’n’t been king very long, my— Arek. Only a couple o’weeks now.”

“Curious. You’ve recently come into the throne and your first time back-traveling was to come here, to my time. So tell me, Gavin Kinshield, descendant of the man whose soul you bear, what information do you need?”

Gavin gestured toward the large painting over the mantle. “Who is that?”

“My father’s father, King Ivam. I don’t remember him well. He died when I was about six years old, not too long after that portrait was done.”

“Your father was an only child?”

“He had a younger brother, Stefram, who had two children. Sadly, my cousin Hent suffered a head trauma as an infant and now sweeps floors in the church. My cousin Corla never married.”

“Hent never had children, then?”

Arek looked at him with something like embarrassment on his face. “I suppose that story is only scandalous in present times. Thankfully time has a way of dulling the shame of such things. I’m glad the story hasn’t lived on in legend. Hent raped his sister and got her with child. Corla gave her baby to one of the lordovers to be raised as his ward and now lives a quiet life at the convent in Lavene.”

Gavin thought of Brodas Ravenkind. “Could a descendant o’that child have a legitimate claim to the throne?”

Arek laughed, shaking his head. “An illegitimate child has no legitimate claim to his father’s property or titles, so no such claim could be handed down. Did you come today to ask about my family history?”

Gavin took this in for a moment, glad that he had another way to thwart Ravenkind’s attempt to seize the throne. Facts made strong weapons. “No, I came to learn how to craft the Runes o’Carthis, in partic’lar the summoning rune.”

Arek’s eyes snapped open wide. “Oh, my.” He stood and paced for a moment, rubbing his chin. Gavin stood as well, not wanting to remain seated while the king was not. “That one the Elyle refused to teach me. After Crigoth Sevae summoned the monster, I’m sure you can understand why. That rune should never have fallen into the hands of someone like him to begin with — another shame upon my family that I hope is forgotten in time.”

“Maybe it was,” Gavin said. “I don’t know that story.”

“I hope you aren’t going to ask me. I’d prefer it stay forgotten.”

“No, but I would like to ask about back-traveling.” When Arek nodded, Gavin continued. “Can I move from realm to realm and time to time, or do I always got to return to my own realm and my own time afore going elsewhere?”

Arek put on a pensive expression. “I haven’t tried traveling from one time to another without returning to the present first, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I can travel from one realm to another, whether in the past or the present.”

“Could I return to this time? This very moment the two of us are talking?”

Arek started. “I— I don’t know. I suppose it would work because you’d be traveling back to your own past.”

“It wouldn’t make two o’me? The one that’s here now, and the one that back-travels here the second time?”

“I don’t believe so, no. Perhaps nothing changes except your memory of the event.” Arek fell silent as he rubbed his chin with a knitted brow. Gavin tried to think about it, but his thoughts tumbled into confusion and threatened to give him a headache. “It’s an interesting notion,” Arek said. “I’ll make a point to experiment.”

Both of them were startled by a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Arek asked.

“It’s Ronor, my liege. Marton said I have a visitor. May I enter?”

Gavin looked at Arek with wide eyes. This was the moment he’d fancied for most of his life, yet now he found himself dreading it.

“Do you want to meet him?” Arek asked with a mischievous smile.

Gavin shook his head frantically, but the door had already begun to open.

The first thing Gavin noticed about Ronor Kinshield was, of course, the eyes. He saw immediately why people so readily accepted him as a kin to Ronor. Like Gavin’s own eyes and those of his father, brother and three nephews, Ronor’s eyes were dark brown and deeply set under a heavy brow. That was where the similarity ended. Older by at least ten years, Ronor stood under six feet tall and had a stocky build, though one could plainly see he was well-suited to his task of protecting the king. He wore his brown hair long and tied back behind his neck. What stood out to Gavin most of all was the lack of scars on Ronor’s face. The two long furrows in his cheek that had become the distinguishing feature to live on in songs and paintings for the next two hundred years had not yet been carved. To Gavin’s surprise, that fact annoyed him. Gavin had lived with his scars since he was twelve — a constant reminder of Ronor’s selfish refusal to honor the vow he’d sworn. That Gavin might not have been born at all otherwise was a fact he dismissed in favor of his annoyance.

As well, Ronor measured Gavin with a glance as if to assess him as a foe or a friend. “I was told a Kinshield was here, but I don’t know you,” he said. His voice wasn’t as deep as Gavin’s, but it had a gritty quality that Gavin heard in his own voice from time to time when he was angry.

Arek approached his champion. “Gavin meet... What am I doing? Ronor needs no introduction to you. Ronor, meet Gavin Kinshield.”

“My liege,” Ronor said, clearly addressing Arek although his eyes bore into Gavin’s, “I don’t know what this man has told you, but don’t be fooled. My family isn’t so large that I wouldn’t know a cousin, however distant he claims.”

Arek chuckled. “There’s a good reason you wouldn’t know him. Gavin’s back-traveling. He’s a future King of Thendylath.”

Surprise flashed on Ronor’s features. “Has he proven it as fact?”

“How would one prove such a thing?” Arek asked.

A distant memory brushed Gavin’s mind like a fleeting scent upon the wind. If he could reach Daia across the boundary of time and use her conduit to remember, maybe he could prove it. Focusing through the gem in his ring, he followed the thread to where she waited beneath the bridge with the two horses. With a touch of his haze, he felt her take the connection.

The memory became instantly clearer, the moment when Ronor confronted the mysterious visitor in Arek’s library. His distrust had been unusually strong, and he’d demanded to know what they were talking about. He remembered being annoyed with himself that the man had inspired such misgiving for no apparent reason. After all, if Arek had accepted his claim of identity, then who was Ronor to dispute it? Something about the man had struck a chord within him, though, one he neither understood nor liked.

“I know why you distrust me,” Gavin said. “It’s because there’s something about me that resonates with you in a most peculiar way, reminding you o’the mystical crap Arek does every day that you don’t understand. I was a lot like you once.” He chuckled at his jest.

Arek laughed too, clapping his shoulder. “I do like your humor.”

Ronor, feeling like he was the target of sport, grew more irritated. “What have you been discussing, then? Something about my family I should know?”

“Nothing like that, Ronor,” Arek said. “Gavin’s here for some kingly advice.”

“Marton said he was here to see me. Here I am. What do you have to say to me, sir?”

It was a strange moment for Gavin, both remembering what the mysterious stranger had said, and knowing those were his own words. “Just do your best, Ronor. It’s all we can ever do. And for what it’s worth, I forgive you.”

Saying those words aloud, Gavin felt a tremendous weight lift from his heart. All the anger and resentment he’d borne for Ronor — for himself — dissipated. All that remained was sadness for the pain and sorrow Ronor would both endure and cause during the coming years and lifetimes.

Ronor’s face reddened, and his hands balled into fists. “What could I possibly have done that warrants your forgiveness?”

“It’s for what you will do,” Gavin said.

Ronor opened his mouth to speak, but Arek silenced him with a raised hand.

“Gavin, before you say anything more, remember my warning. Perhaps, Ronor, you should leave us now, and we can get back to the matter we were discussing.”

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone with him, my liege,” Ronor said. His eyes went to Aldras Gar, whose hilt peeked out from behind Gavin’s head over his left shoulder. “He’s armed. In fact, it appears he has some of your gems.”

Arek’s eyes went to the sword, perhaps for the first time. “They do look familiar,” he said thoughtfully, “but they’re no longer mine. Leave us now. Gavin means me no harm.”

Ronor glared at Gavin, an unspoken warning, before he left.

Arek’s eyes sparkled as he took his seat once more. “That was interesting. Is he as you remembered?”

“Shorter,” Gavin said pensively as he sat. “Not as handsome.”

Arek laughed. “You were saying you want to learn how to craft the Runes of Carthis. Did you use the Rune of the Past given to you by your mother or father?”

“No, I got it from an Elyle in the midrealm.”

“Oh, good. Then you know by now that only the kho-bent can craft them, and they aren’t always easy to negotiate with. Learning how to make them will save you a great deal of aggravation.”

Gavin briefly wondered what unpleasantness Arek had been subjected to for his knowledge. “Since you can’t teach me how to make the summoning rune, maybe you can tell me more about Crigoth Sevae. Where did he live?”

Arek nodded slowly. “You’re hoping to find the rune he used to summon Ritol. For years, he lived here in Tern while he served first my father and then me as Royal Mage. When I discovered his betrayal, he fled to a house several miles east of Calsojourn. I would draw you a map, but the house is no longer standing. We burned it to the ground. I doubt you’ll find the rune in the charred remains and rubble. We’ve already searched for it.”

Gavin slumped, dejected. What now? He had rested all of his hopes on King Arek’s help.

“I don’t know anything about your circumstances, and I’m not meant to know,” Arek said, “but I would caution you against summoning a champion from another realm to aid you. Those strategies have a way of turning around on you in ways you least expect. Perhaps it’s best if you don’t find the rune.”