First King of Shannara (32 page)

He went down into the center of the city, the evening close and sluggish with heat, the hour edging toward midnight. He glanced through the doors and windows of the ale houses and taverns, debating whether he should enter. He did finally, choosing one or two that suited his purpose, staying long enough to listen to the talk, to ask a question or two, to buy a glass when it was called for, then moving on. Who did the finest metalwork in all the city? he would ask. Which of the smiths was master of his craft? The choices differed each time, and the reasons supporting the choices differed even more. Using the names he had heard mentioned more than once, Kinson stopped at a handful of midsize forges to test them on the smiths at work there. Some responded with little more than grunts of disinterest. Some had more voluble opinions to offer. One or two gave a thoughtful response. Kinson listened, smiled agreeably, and moved on.

Midnight came and went.

 

“He will not be back tonight,” Bremen said, looking down at the city from the hills, his cloak wrapped tightly about his spare form in spite of the heat.

Mareth stood next to him in silence. They had watched the Borderman until he could no longer be seen, a diminishing figure melting away in the gathering dark. Even then, they had not moved, continuing their vigil as if sentinels posted against the coming of the night. Overhead the skies brightened with stars and a quarter-moon, visible from the heights, but not from the smoke-shrouded city below.

Bremen turned away, walked a few steps to his left, and settled himself in a patch of soft, thick grass. Comfort for his aging bones. He sighed contentedly. It took less and less to satisfy him, he found. He thought to eat, but realized he wasn't really hungry. He looked up as Mareth came over to join him, seating herself unbidden, looking off into the dark as if something waited for her there.

“Would you like to eat?” he asked her, but she shook her head. Lost in her thoughts, gone back into the past again or perhaps speculating on the future—he had learned to recognize the look. More often somewhere other than where she was, possessed of a restless spirit and a dissatisfied heart, that was Mareth.

He left her alone for a time, gathering his own thoughts, not wanting to rush what he intended. It was a delicate matter, and if she felt she was being coerced, she would close herself off from him completely. Yet there must be a resolution, and it must come now.

“On nights like these, I think of my boyhood,” he said finally, looking not at her, but at the summit of the hills and the stars that hung above them. He smiled. “Oh, I suppose it seems as if someone as old as I am could not ever have been young. But I was. I lived in the hill country below Leah with my grandfather, who was a metalworker of great skill. Even when he was old, his hands were steady and his eye keen. I would watch him for hours, amazed at his dexterity and patience. He loved my grandmother, and when she died, he said she took a part of him with her that he could never have back again, but that the loss was worth it for the time they had shared. He said I had been given him in her place. He was a fine man.”

He looked at Mareth now and found her looking back, interested. “But my parents were another matter. They were nothing like my grandfather. They were never able to settle in one spot for long, not ever in their short lives, and nothing of my grandfather's dedication to his craft ever took root in them. They were always moving about, changing their lives, looking for something new, something different. They left me with my grandfather shortly after I was born. They had no time for me.”

His aged brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “I resented it for many years, but eventually I came to understand. That's how it is with parents and children. Each disappoints the other in ways that neither recognizes nor intends, and it takes time to overcome that disappointment. It was so with my parents and their decision to leave me.”

“But you have a right to expect your parents to stay with you through your childhood,” Mareth declared.

Bremen smiled. “I used to believe that. But a child doesn't always understand the complexities of adult choices. A child's best hope in life is that its parents will try to do what is best for it, but deciding what is best is a difficult process. My parents knew I would not grow well traveling with them, for they were not able to give me the attention I needed. They could barely give it to each other. So they left me with my grandfather, who loved me and watched over me as they could not. It was the right choice.”

She mulled it over for a moment “But it marked you.”

He nodded. “For a time, but not in any lasting way. Perhaps it even helped toughen me. I don't pretend to know. We grow as best we can under the circumstances given us. What good does it do to second-guess ourselves years after the fact? Better that we simply try to understand why we are as we are and then better ourselves by learning from that.”

There was a long silence as they faced each other, the expressions on their faces lit well enough by the light of stars and moon to be clearly discernible.

“You are talking about me, aren't you?” Mareth said finally. “My parents, my family.”

Bremen did not let his expression change. “You do not disappoint me, Mareth,” he said softly. “Your insight serves you well.”

Her small features hardened. “I do resent my parents. They left me to grow up with strangers. It wasn't my mother's fault; she died giving birth to me. I don't know about my father. Perhaps it wasn't his fault either.” She shook her head. “But that doesn't change how I feel about them. It doesn't make me feel any better about being left.”

Bremen eased forward, needing to shift his body to avoid cramping of muscles and joints. The aches and pains were more frequent and less easily dispelled these days. The very opposite of his hunger, he thought with irony. Welcome to old age. Even the Druid Sleep was losing its power to sustain him.

His eyes sought hers. “I would guess that you have reason to be angry with your parents beyond what you have told me. I would guess that your anger is a weight about your heart, a great stone you cannot dislodge. Long ago, it defined the boundaries of your life. It set you on your journey to Paranor. It brought you to me.”

He waited, letting the impact of his words sink in, letting her see what was in his eyes. He wanted her to decide that he was not the enemy she sought, for seek her enemy she did. He wanted her to accept that he might be her friend if she would let him. He wanted her to confide in him, to reveal at last the truth she kept so carefully hidden.

“You know,” she replied softly.

He shook his head. “No. I only guess, nothing more.” He smiled wearily. “But I would like to know. I would like to offer some comfort to you if I could.”

“Comfort.” She said the word in a dull, hopeless way.

“You came to me to discover the truth about yourself, Mareth,” he continued gently. “You may not have thought of it that way, but that is what you did. You came to seek help with your magic, with a power you can neither rid yourself of nor live without. It is an awesome, terrible burden, but no worse than the burden of the truth you hide. I can feel its weight from here, child. You wear it like chains wrapped about your body.”

“You do know,” she whispered insistently. Her dark eyes were huge and staring.

“Listen to me. Your burdens are inextricably bound together, the truth you hide and the magic you fear. I have learned that much in traveling with you, in watching you, in hearing of your concerns. If you would rid yourself of the magic's hold, you must first address the truth you have hidden in your heart. Of your parents. Of your birth. Of who and what you are. Tell me, Mareth.”

She shook her head dully, her gaze falling away from his, her arms coming about her small body as if to ward it from a chill.

“Tell me,” he pressed.

She swallowed back the advent of her tears, fought down her sudden shaking, and lifted her face to the starlight.

Then slowly, tremulously, she began to speak.

 

XXII

 

I
am not afraid of you” was the first thing she said to him. The words came in a rush, as if by speaking them she might tap I a hidden reservoir of strength. “You might think so after hearing what I have to say, but you would be wrong. I am not afraid of anyone.”

Bremen was surprised by her declaration, but he did not let it show. “I make no assumptions about you, Mareth,” he said.

“I might even be stronger than you,” she added defiantly. “My magic might be more powerful than yours, so there is no reason for me to be afraid. If you were to test me, you might regret it.”

He shook his head. “I have no reason to test you.”

“When you hear what I have to say, you might think differently. You might decide you must. You might feel it necessary to protect yourself.” She took a deep breath. “Don't you understand? Nothing between us is what it seems! We might be enemies of a sort that will demand that one of us hurt the other!”

He considered her words in silence for a moment, then said, “I don't think so. But say what you must to me. Hold nothing back.”

She stared at him without speaking, as if trying to decide the depth of his sincerity, to uncover the truth behind his insistence. Her small body was coiled into itself, and her large, dark eyes were deep, liquid pools in which the reflection of her roiling emotions was clearly visible.

“My parents were always a mystery,” she said finally. “My mother died at my birth, and my father was gone even before that. I never knew them, never saw them, had no memory of them to carry with me. I knew of them because the people who raised me made it clear enough that I was not theirs. They did not do so in an unkind way, but they were hard, determined people, and they had worked all their lives for what was theirs and thought that it should be so for everyone. I was not theirs, not really, and so they laid no claim to me. They cared for me, but I did not belong to them. I belonged to people who were dead and gone.

“I knew when I was very little that my mother had died giving birth to me. The people who raised me made no secret of it. They spoke of her now and again, and when I was old enough to ask about her, they described her to me. She was small and dark like me. She was pretty. She liked to garden and ride horses. They seemed to think she was a good person. She lived in their village, but unlike them she had traveled to other parts of the Southland and seen something of the world. She was not born in the village, but had come there from somewhere else. I never knew where. I never knew why. I think she may have kept that to herself. If I had other relatives living somewhere in the Southland, I never learned of them. Perhaps the people who raised me never knew of them either.”

She paused, but her gaze stayed fixed on the old man. “The people who raised me had two children, both older than me. They loved these children and made them feel a part of the family. They took them to visit other people and on picnics and gatherings. They did not do that with me. I understood from the beginning that I was not like these children. I was made to stay in the home, to look after things, to help with chores, to do what I was told. I was allowed to play, but I always understood that it was different for me than for my brother and sister. As I grew older, I came to see that my new parents were uneasy about me for reasons I did not understand. There was something about me that they did not like or trust. They preferred that I play by myself rather than with my brother and sister, and mostly that was what I did. I was given food and clothing and shelter, but I was a guest in the home and not a member of the family. Not like my brother and sister. I knew that.”

“This must have made you bitter and discouraged even then,” Bremen offered quietly.

Mareth shrugged. “I was a child. I did not understand enough of life to appreciate what was being done to me. I accepted my situation and did not complain. I was not treated badly. I think the people who raised me felt some sympathy for me, some compassion, or they would not have taken me in. They never said so, of course. They never explained their reasons, but I have to believe that they would not have cared for me—even in the way they did—if there was no love in their hearts for me.”

She sighed. “I was apprenticed at twelve. I was told that this would happen, and like everything else, I accepted it as part of the natural course of my life, of growing up. That my brother and my sister were not apprenticed did not bother me. They had always been treated differently, and I accepted that their lives would be different from my own. After I was apprenticed, I saw the people who raised me only a few times. My foster mother came to see me once and brought me a basket of treats. It was an awkward visit, and she left quickly. One time I saw both of them on the street, passing by the potter's on their way to somewhere. They did not look at me. By then, I was aware of the potter's predilection for administering beatings at the least excuse. I already hated my new life, and I blamed the people who raised me for giving me up. I did not want to see them anymore. After I fled the potter and the village of my birth, I never did.”

“Nor your brother or sister?” Bremen asked.

She shook her head. “There was no need. Whatever ties we had formed while growing had long since been broken. Thinking of them now only makes me sad.”

“You had a difficult childhood. You've come to understand that better now that you are grown, haven't you?”

The smile she gave him was cold and brittle. “I have come to understand many things that were hidden from me as a child. But let me finish my story and you can judge for yourself. What matters in all of this is that just before I left to apprentice to the potter, I began hearing things about my father. I was eleven by then and already knew that I would be apprenticed at twelve. I knew I would be leaving my home, and I suppose it made me consider seriously for the first time the scope and meaning of the wider world. Traders and trappers and tinkers passed through our village, so I knew there were other places to see, places far away. I wondered sometimes if my father was out there somewhere, waiting. I wondered if he knew of me. I had determined in my own childlike way that my parents had not married and so had not lived together as husband and wife. My mother bore me alone, my father already gone. What of him, then? No one would say. I thought to ask more than once, but there was something in the way my providers spoke of my mother and her life that made it clear I was not to ask. My mother had transgressed in some way, and she was forgiven her transgression only because she had died giving birth to me. I was a part of her transgression, but it was not clear to me how or why.

“When I was old enough to know that secrets were being kept from me, I began to want to uncover them. I was eleven—old enough to recognize deception and old enough to practice it. I began to ask questions about my mother, small and inconsequential questions that would not arouse anger or suspicion. I asked them mostly of my foster mother, because she was the less taciturn of the pair. I would ask the questions when we were alone, then listen at night at the door of my sleeping room to hear what she would say to her husband. Sometimes she would say nothing. Sometimes the words were obscured by the closed door. But once or twice I caught a sentence or two, a phrase, a word—some small mention of my father. It was not the words themselves that revealed so much, but the way in which they were spoken. My father was an outsider who passed through the village, stayed briefly, returned once or twice, and then disappeared. The people of the village shunned him, all save my mother. She was attracted to him. No reason for this was offered. Was she attracted to him for the way he looked or the words he spoke or the life he led? I could not learn. But it was clear they feared and disliked him, and some part of that fear and dislike had been transferred to me.”

She went quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She seemed small and vulnerable, but Bremen knew that impression was false. He waited, letting her eyes continue to hold his in the deep night silence.

“I knew even then that I was not like anyone else. I knew I had the magic, even though it was just beginning to manifest itself in me, not yet come to maturity, so that it was mostly vague stirrings and small mutterings in my child's body. It seemed logical to conclude that it was the magic that was feared and disliked, and it was this that I had inherited from my father. Magic was mistrusted in general in my village—it was the unwanted legacy of the First War of the Races, when Men had been subverted by the rebel Druid Brona and defeated in a war with the other Races and driven south into exile. Magic had caused all this, and it was a vast, dark unknown that lurked at the corners of the subconscious and threatened the unwary. The people of my village were superstitious and not well educated and were frightened of many things. Magic could be blamed for much of what they didn't understand. I think the people who raised me believed that I might grow into some manifestation of my father, the bearer of his magic's seed, and so they could never quite accept me as their child. In the eleventh year of my life, I began to understand why this was so.

“The potter knew my history as well, though he did not speak of it to me in the beginning when I went to work for him. He would not admit that he was afraid of a child, even one with my history, and he took pride in the fact that he took me in when no one else would. I did not realize that at first, but he told me later. ‘No one would have you—that's why you're here. Be grateful to me.' He would say that when he had drunk too much and was thinking about beating me. His drinking loosened his tongue and gave him a boldness that was otherwise absent. The longer I was with him, the more he drank—but it was not because of me. He had been drinking too much for most of his life, and it was the aging and the incumbent failure to achieve success of any kind that encouraged him. As his drinking increased, his work time and output lessened. I took his place many times, taking on the tasks I could manage. I taught myself a great deal and acquired an early skill.”

She shook her head sadly, a distance creeping into her voice. “I was fifteen when I left him. He tried once too often to beat me for no reason, and I fought back. By then, I had matured. I had my magic to protect me. I did not understand the extent of its power until the day I fought back. Then I knew. I almost killed him. I ran from the village and its people and my life, knowing I would never go back. I realized something on that day that I had only suspected before. I realized that I was indeed my father's child.”

She paused, her face intense, a fierce resolve apparent in her dark eyes. “I had discovered the truth about my father, you see. The potter had gotten drunk one too many times and told me. He would drink until he could barely stand, and then he would taunt me. He would say it over and over. ‘Don't you know who you are? Don't you know
what
you are? Your father's child! A black spot on the earth, birthed by a demon and his bitch! You have the eyes, little girl! You have the stain of his blood and his dark presence! Worthless to all but me, so better listen when I tell you to do something! Better heed what I say! Else you'll have no place in the world at all!'

“So it went, followed each time by a new beating. I didn't feel the blows much by then. I knew how to cover myself and how to say what he wished to hear so that he would stop. But I grew tired of it. I grew angry at my degradation. On the day I left him, I knew before he tried to strike me that I would resist. When he began to shout at me about my father, I laughed in his face. I called him a liar and a drunk. I told him he didn't know anything about my father. He lost control of himself completely. He called me things I will not repeat. He told me that my father had come down out of the north, out of the border country where his black order made its home. He told me my father was a conjurer of magic and a stealer of souls. ‘A demon disguised as a man! Him in his black robes! With his wolf s eyes! Your father, girl! Oh, we knew what he was! We knew his dark secret! And you, made in such a perfect image of him, secretive and sharp-eyed! You think we don't see, but we do! We all do, the whole village! Why do you think you were given to me? Why do you think those people who raised you were so anxious to be rid of you? They knew what you were! They knew you were a Druid's whelp!' “

She took a long, slow breath, looking at him, waiting for him to speak. She wanted to hear his reaction, he could tell. She was hungry for it. But he did not answer.

“I knew he was right,” she said finally, the words a low hiss of challenge unmistakably directed at him. “I think I had known for some time. There was talk now and again of the black-robed men who prowled the Four Lands, the ones who kept their order at the castle of Paranor. Conjurers of magic, all-powerful and all-seeing, creatures more spirit than human, the cause of so much pain and suffering among the people of the Southland. They spoke of how now and again one would pass close by. ‘Once,' it was whispered when the speaker did not realize I could hear, ‘one stayed. There was a woman seduced by him. There was a child!' Then hands would lift in a warding motion and the voice would go still. My father. That was who they were speaking of in their hushed, frightened voices. My father!”

She hunched forward, and Bremen could tell that in doing so she was bringing her formidable magic up from the center of her small body to the tips of her fingers, readying it. A twinge of doubt passed through him. He forced himself to remain calm, to stay perfectly still, to let her finish.

“I have come to believe,” she said slowly, purposefully, “that they were speaking of you.”

 

The shopkeeper was just closing up as Kinson Ravenlock stepped through the door from the darkness and stood looking at the sword. The hour was late, and the streets of Dechtera had begun to empty of everyone but the men passing to and from the ale houses. Kinson was weary of his search, and he had been on his way to find a room at one of the inns when he passed down a street lined with weapons shops and saw the sword. It was displayed in a window framed by crosshatched iron bars inset with small, grimy panes of glass. He had almost missed it in his need for sleep, but the brilliant glint of the metal blade had caught his eye.