The Wayfarer King (22 page)

She tried to play the polite hostess, smiling and nodding during the remainder of the meal, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. It was the same sensation she’d had when Henrik died. Holding his hand during his final minutes, she’d felt his fear one moment, his calm the next, and after that, nothing. It was as if he had ceased to exist. Gavin’s tag shouldn’t have felt that way unless... Oh, no. Oh, no. He couldn’t have died. She prayed it wasn’t so. Tears welled in her eyes, and she tipped her head back, looking up as far as she could to make them soak back in.

“Then he fell on his... behind, right into a mud puddle,” Adro said.

The children burst into laughter.

“You made that up,” Trevick said.

“Did not, I swear it.” Adro crossed himself as a devotee of Asti-nayas.

“Did too!”

“He did not!” Jilly exclaimed.

The room instantly quieted, and all eyes snapped to the small girl.

“She speaks,” Trevick said.

Everyone laughed except Feanna. She couldn’t stop her thoughts from swirling around Gavin and whatever fate had befallen him. What had happened to him? Could it be that the bond connecting him to his warrant tag had been severed? It was possible, perhaps even probable. If only she could see for herself. He’d said that he lived in Tern, only a short day’s travel away, and he said she could send for him, though if he was well enough to answer her call, he would also have to interrupt his urgent business to do so. Instead, she would go to Tern to see him. Once she was assured he was well, she’d return home and rest confident that the lack of feelings from the warrant tag didn’t portend disaster.

After everyone had finished eating, Feanna set a pot of water on the stove to heat for washing the dishes. “Adro, I must travel to Tern. Are you available to escort the children and me? We have a wagon, and I can pay your usual fee.”

Adro smiled, dimpling his cheeks. He looked sweet and boyish when he smiled. “I owe you far more than that, m’lady. I’ll be glad to escort you at no charge. I can be here at first light if that suits you.”

“I was rather thinking to leave immediately. If we leave now, we’ll arrive well before dusk.”

Chapter 29

A wind, unlike any Gavin had ever felt, brushed through his senses of smell, taste and hearing more than touch. It left his head spinning. He found himself lying on his back, knees bent, on the dirt about five paces from the creek. Above, puffy white clouds floated across a pale-blue sky. Had he not just been sucked through a vortex of color, he might have thought he was in his own realm but for the sparse foreign foliage. The predominant plants were tall, rotund shrubs of deep teal green, and tall wispy trees whose long leaves danced in the breeze. He pushed himself to his knees, spurring another wave of dizziness.

A black bird sat in the nearest tree, squawking angrily at him. A foul scent like burnt corpses wafted by on a stiff breeze. He turned his face in to the wind and squinted. In a clearing downstream from him was a village, or rather, the remains of one. The ground surrounding the dozen or so crumbling buildings was blackened as were the lower thirds of the walls. From where he knelt, Gavin could see no signs of life there. Perhaps he would find some clues about what had happened to the inhabitants.

When the dizziness subsided, he headed toward the village. He hadn’t traveled more than a dozen paces when he stopped. Alarm stiffened his spine, though Aldras Gar was silent and its gems were dark. Whatever had destroyed that village was still there. Until he figured out which realm he was in and how well his magic worked here, he didn’t want to meet whatever was there. Not alone, anyway.

He walked upstream, hoping to come upon another village untouched by whatever had ravaged this one. Chances were good this wasn’t the beyonders’ realm. He couldn’t imagine vicious monsters living in villages. Most of them had strange appendages that weren’t well-suited to using tools. Building huts would be difficult at best.

He heard the snap of a twig and stopped, not wanting to give away his presence. He pulled on his leather glove, in case he needed to fight. Someone was approaching, humming softly as if unaware of Gavin’s presence. Though the sword didn’t whisper its warning in his mind, he drew it quietly and hid behind a tree until he got a good look at whoever — or whatever — it was. Soon it came into view — a being clearly not human but standing upright as one. Golden-brown ears, triangular like those of a terrier, sat high on its head. It was almost as tall as Gavin with long arms and legs and a graceful neck, all covered with short golden-brown fur. It wore a patched beige loincloth around its hips. The mismatched sandals on its feet were haggard and torn.

Gavin watched, mesmerized by the creature. It picked nuts from the lowest branches of a tree and placed them into the brown sack hanging from its shoulder.

Then it saw him and froze. Its ears lay flat on its head, and it ducked deferentially like a dog before its master. “A human?” Gavin would have sworn he heard the words in his mind, while with his ears he heard clicks and whistles. Its round, orange eyes drooped sadly beneath a wrinkled brow. It didn’t look like any beyonder Gavin had ever seen, and he didn’t think there was such thing as a submissive one.

“Do you understand me, Emtor? I mean no harm.”

Again, the creature emitted whistles and clicks, but Gavin understood it as though it had spoken his language. King Arek’s magic must have been at work here. He knew no other way to explain it.

“Yes. I understand.” Gavin examined the creature’s haze. What he saw there amazed him. Although he was still learning to interpret the colors and patterns in the hazes, he knew this creature had nothing but warm regard for Gavin, though it was understandably wary. Its haze showed a gentle and submissive nature. Even the kindliest and most devout clerics he’d examined at home harbored some kind of anger or jealousy or secret perversion. This creature was the purest being he’d ever encountered. He resheathed his weapon. “Who are you?”

“I’m called Bahn. You’re human, yes? You look like the humans of legend. Are you the champion?” Its eyes changed from orange to green, and its wide mouth, stretched across a short snout, opened in a smile. Something about the creature made it seem male, despite its soft, warm air.

“What champion?” Gavin asked.

“Ronor Kinshield.”

Gavin jerked in surprise. “I’m Gavin Kinshield. How do you know Ronor?”

From the way Bahn limped forward, it was clear that his right leg had once been injured. The gatherer’s sack shifted back and forth with each step. “Everyone knows the story of Arek, the Wayfarer King, Emtor. We have many stories about him and his champion.”

“Why do you keep calling me Emtor?”

“Yes.” Bahn bowed deeply, bending even his knees. “You’re a most honored guest. That’s the meaning of Emtor. Do you mean to close the gaps?”

“You mean the tears the beyonders come through?”

“Yes. The dark ones have destroyed many of our villages and upset the balance in our realm.”

“Well, truth be told, I came here by accident, but closing the rift is my goal.”

“Ah, then you’ve come for the Runes of Carthis.”

Surprised, Gavin said, “Yeh. A Rune o’Summoning to be exact.” He needed the rune to summon Ritol to its own realm. That was how King Arek had planned to do it before his plan had drastically changed. “I can’t close the rift without it.”

Bahn’s face lit up. “My complement agrees to help you, Emtor. She asks you to come with me.” He began to limp back the way he’d come, then beckoned Gavin with a wave.

“What complement?” He looked around but didn’t see anyone. “There’s no one here.”

“She is the one born with me to balance the Is. Come, Emtor. Please. This way.”

With a shrug, Gavin caught up with Bahn as he led the way along a narrow trail beside the creek. Although Gavin was an inch or two taller, his guide had longer legs and moved more swiftly despite his injury. Gavin had to walk briskly to match Bahn’s gait. “How did your complement ask me to come with you if she isn’t here?”

“Complements can speak to each other through our thoughts. Wherever I am, she is always present in my thoughts. It’s how we balance each other.”

“So she’s your twin?”

“No, Emtor,” Bahn said as he limped along. “We were born to different parents. She’s my complement.”

Gavin nodded. “She’s your wife, then.”

Bahn emitted a high-pitched warble that Gavin took to be a laugh, though there was no contempt in it. “Not wife. Complement. She tells me your realm has nothing like it. I don’t know how to describe it so you’ll understand.”

“Try.”

As they approached the face of a large hill that in Gavin’s realm belonged to the foothills of the Superstitions, the woods thickened. Around them, birds twittered and small rodents rustled the forest litter as they darted to safety. Bahn lifted a low-hanging branch, stepped under it and held it for Gavin. “Within you is both darkness and light. You sometimes struggle to keep darkness from overpowering your thoughts and actions, yes?”

“Sometimes.”

“And sometimes you feel relaxed and serene but never so meek that you allow others to harm you.”

Much like he felt now, Gavin noted. Bahn’s gentle presence calmed him and made him comfortable. “Right.”

“The khozhi is the balance. As chaos balances order, as strength balances weakness, as cold balances hot, so does the kho balance the zhi. I represent the zhi, and Bahnna represents the kho.”

“Awright, but what’s kho and what’s zhi?”

“Kho encompasses dark, hard, chaos, hot and aggressive. Zhi is light, soft, order, cold, and passive. Do you see? Together, they balance each other. Kho is focused, zhi is diffuse. Kho is fast, zhi is slow.”

“I think I understand,” Gavin said. “Kho is bad, zhi is good.”

“The khozhi has no bad or good. Those words are judgments made by beings of intellect based on their morality or personal preference. The khozhi doesn’t represent judgments.”

“What about emotions like happiness or anger?”

“Emotions are also balanced within the Is. Zhi is happy, kho is angry. Zhi is shame, kho is pride. Zhi is fear, kho is courage.”

“Zhi is love?” Gavin asked. “And kho is hate?”

“That’s right, Emtor. Zhi emotions are more yielding or open. Kho emotions are more rigid or closed.” Bahn paused when they came to a point narrow enough to cross the creek. He went first and hopped across easily.

The jump was too far for Gavin’s shorter legs, and his leading foot landed in shallow water. “Damn.” He stepped quickly to the other side to keep the water from seeping through the sole of his boot.

“Kho is dry, zhi is wet,” Bahn said with a grin as he resumed his pace. “Bahnna’s kho-ness is necessary to balance my zhi-ness. I don’t understand her thought process any more than she understands mine, but as complements we accept and embrace each other because together we create harmony.”

“Sorry, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“The khozhi is within you, Emtor. You balance yourself. You live within a society because of your realm’s tendency toward order. The realms with more orderly societies than yours have less chaos. The realms with more chaos have less complex social structures.”

Gavin thought about the thousands of people he’d met during his travels as a warrant knight. Some had been predatory, dominated by the foul darkness within them. Others were victimized — usually good, kindly people who were weaker or more willing to yield than their attacker. Judging by their hazes, most people were somewhere in the middle, acting within the accepted boundaries of society despite the temptation to unleash whatever violence or perverseness they kept hidden within. He supposed that in the end, it all balanced out enough to keep society poised. “If your complement represents chaos, how do you keep her from destroying your society?”

“My thoughts temper hers, as hers temper mine,” Bahn explained. “Together we create balance.”

“What if one o’you dies?” Gavin asked.

“Without each other, neither tempers the other. Should Bahnna fall, I would die a natural death soon after. The opposite is also true.”

“What about the beyonders, the dark ones? Do you know how their realm works?”

“Theirs is the realm most dominated by the kho. It is filled with chaos, aggression and so forth. Their realm is balanced in the Is by the realm of nearly pure zhi. In that realm is order, light, passivity.”

“Where is the Is?”

“The Is is a what, not a where. It is simply the existence of all life. We know not what else to call it, so we call it the Is. Here on our world, life exists in layers we call realms. The mountains and oceans are the same across the realms. The birds and fish and trees are not.”

“So the two realms balance each other in existence?”

He looked at Gavin with a sad expression. “Yes, Emtor, but for how long, we don’t know. When the dark ones invade other realms, they upset the balance. Without balance, chaos reigns. If chaos reigned in all the realms, the world would be destroyed. We don’t want to kill the dark ones, only close those rips that allow them to cross into other realms.”