Wizardborn (19 page)

“Milord!” Iome said, trying to catch her breath. She knew that he had studied mimicry in the Room of Faces. Yet the transformation that had come over Gaborn in that instant was astonishing to behold.

For in that moment, despite every doubt that Gaborn had expressed, and despite the fact that he felt bereft of his powers, she recognized for the first time that she looked upon the face of the Earth King.

   13   

Men name the four powers Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Such appellations are good enough for common folk, but only wizards ever learn their true names. We call upon them only in our hour of greatest need, and sometimes at our own peril.

—
Excerpt from
The Child's Book of Wizardry,
by Hearthmaster Col

Averan clung tightly to the pommel of the saddle as the cool wind whipped her face. The force horses galloped south across hills as green as emerald, beneath a blue sky marbled by high cirrus clouds.

Binnesman had her riding in front of him, her back snug against his warm riding cloak, his big left hand wrapped around her protectively. He did not trust her on such a fast horse alone.

She thought it laughable, for at the age of five she'd once ridden a graak through a wild storm where the wind blasted her while lightning sizzled under the clouds below. The graak fought the air currents so hard that its wings would sometimes buckle. It was an experience that only another skyrider could sympathize with, and it was one that would have loosened the bowels of many a brave knight.

Still, she was glad to have the wizard ride with her. Averan had never traveled with so many people before, and with the dangers of the road the journey felt much safer for the company. There were advance guards ahead of her,
stern Runelords armed with lances at her back, and fierce giants as the rearguard.

Averan was especially glad to have Spring in the retinue, for Averan had been the first to find the green woman. A small part of her still felt responsible toward her, even if she knew now that Spring was a wylde. And Averan was also happy to have Iome as part of the company. With Averan being a skyrider, she seldom got much contact with other women.

The force horse raced, its hooves pounding a rhythm against the road, its barding and the king's armor jangling like music.

Averan suspected that riding a kingly force horse was as close as she'd ever again come to riding a graak.

Binnesman remained silent for a while, and his grip on her was loose. He seemed weary.

“Will Borenson truly be healed?” Averan asked.

“I hope so,” the wizard answered. “Healing a flesh wound is a small matter. Restoring a body part is a greater magic, and carries a hard price. But for a true healing such as he requires, a healing of the heart, the afflicted must also desire to recover.”

“Is it hard work—healing such a wound?”

“Very hard,” Binnesman said. “Nearly impossible. But we were in a place of Power, with a wylde at our back. On another day, in another setting, I would not have tried it at all.” He fell silent for a while.

They swept like a gale through villages that Averan had only seen distantly from the air. Garrin's Tooth she'd always thought of as merely a lord's estate with odd-shaped fields and some clustered buildings just north of the Solace Mountains. But on the ground, with the full sun shining on it in the early autumn, it was a riot of life. The buildings turned out to comprise a fine tall inn, with whitewashed sides and green trim, and flower baskets hanging from every window. The odd-shaped fields were vineyards and hayfields cut from the rolling hills, where a blue stream threaded and pooled, reflecting the sky and the black swans
that swam upon its surface. The lordly manor there was such a fine estate that it took her breath away.

Then she was out of the hills completely, galloping past villages with names like Seed, and Windlow, and Shelter—each an oasis of life among rolling autumn fields where huge black-eyed Susans grew taller than a child. Averan loved the way the yellow flowers bobbed in the wind, with their dark faces.

The retinue was making as much as thirty miles per hour, traveling so fast that the giants at the end of the train could hardly keep up. They panted and grunted, sometimes emitting barking roars as they loped. They fell behind, but caught up whenever the horses rested.

During one of these rests, Averan began to pick at the seeds that had sprouted on the cuff of her robe.

Binnesman playfully slapped her hand. “Stop that.”

“Why?”

“You're growing your wizard's robe,” he said. “It will protect you from sun and from fire, from wind and cold. And whether you are walking in the woods or out among the open fields, whether in daylight or darkness, it will shelter you.”

Averan glanced at the sleeve of Binnesman's robe. The rootlike fibers in the robe were a reddish tan, the color of maple leaves in autumn. She couldn't see if there had ever been any cloth beneath those fibers. Nor could she imagine it offering much shelter from prying eyes.

“Beastmaster Brand said I'm growing fast. What happens when I get too big for my robe?”

“You'll never get too big for your robe,” Binnesman said. “It grows to fit you just right.”

“I hope my robe looks better than yours,” Averan said. “No offense, but it's kind of baggy. I'd rather have something pretty.”

Binnesman laughed. “I'm sure yours will grow to be the envy of Earth Wardens everywhere.”

“So,” Averan asked, “when are you going to teach me how to do spells and stuff?”

“Well, there's no time like the present,” he said. “This will protect you against Fire.” Binnesman drew a rune on her hand. Immediately the sun that had seemed blinding over the past few days dimmed. Its rays no longer burned her. “And this will protect you against Air.” He drew a second rune. Averan had not even noticed in the past few days how chafing the wind had become, as if it carried winter upon it. But suddenly there seemed to be a lull. Averan traced each of the shapes again herself.

“Those should help for the moment,” Binnesman said. “I'll teach you more rune lore and spells later.”

Not long after they resumed their ride, they approached the deadlands that surrounded Carris. A dark ugly line lay on the horizon, and intuitively Averan wanted to stay away. Something vital had been leached from the soil there. On the ridges ahead stones now somehow seemed revealed to be the misshapen bones of a dying Earth, much in the way that the white knuckles of a leper are displayed as his skin sloughs off in decay.

Averan had hoped that she would never again have to visit Carris, even in her nightmares, but here she was riding toward it.

Binnesman called out to Gaborn, “Your Highness, may we stop for a moment?”

Gaborn did not ask why. He could see the ugly line ahead, and knew that the animals would need to forage. “Troops, halt!” he shouted.

The horses immediately began to forage for grass, and the giants all stopped and dropped to the ground, panting.

Binnesman rode away from the troops, toward a hill half a mile to the west. The wylde rode at his side. At the base of the hill, Binnesman halted beside a stream, let the horses graze and drink.

“You can stay here, if you like,” he told Averan and the wylde.

He climbed the hill and stood beneath a great oak tree. He bowed toward the desolation, and raised his staff overhead
in both hands. Averan heard him chanting, but the wind carried his words away.

For long minutes, it seemed as if nothing happened. Then she saw a thin green mist that seemed to seep from his staff, blowing on the wind as if it were seeds or pollen.

The green woman had gone to the creek. She knelt in the water and picked up a crayfish, held it up and stared at it curiously. Someone had dressed her since last they'd met, and the green woman now wore a tunic of brown, with green leggings and some new leather boots. But she wore Roland's big black bearskin cloak over it all. The attire made her look more human.

But Averan knew that it was all an illusion. She was a wylde. Binnesman had made her, as a woodcarver might make a doll. He'd made her from stones and bark and Earth blood. He'd given her a life of some sort, made her to be his warrior.

“What's Binnesman doing?” Averan asked Spring.

Spring looked up at Averan, followed her gaze, saw the wizard standing there, and squinted. “Don't… know.”

Averan studied the wylde. She was learning fast. A few days ago, she could only repeat a few words. Now she could answer some basic questions.

“Spring,” Averan said. “Are you scared?”

“Scared?” the wylde asked, cocking her head to the side. She dropped her crayfish back into the water, studied Averan.

“Scared,” Averan said. “It's a feeling. Your heart starts to pound, and sometimes you shake when you're really scared. It's a feeling that comes when you know that something bad is going to happen.”

“No,” Spring said. “Not scared.”

“You don't get scared even when you fight reavers?”

Spring shook her head with an expression that said she was utterly baffled.

Maybe she doesn't have feelings, Averan thought. She'd never seen Spring cry or laugh.

“Do you feel anything?” Averan asked. “Do you dream when you sleep?”

“Dream?”

“Do you see things when you close your eyes?”

The green woman closed her eyes. “No. Not see.”

Averan gave up. She wanted to be friends with the wylde, but the creature could hardly talk.

Absently, Averan began to teach her a few more words.

When Binnesman finished, he bowed again toward the deadlands, then climbed downhill.

Nothing had changed. The lands to the south were as desolate as ever.

But the transformation that had taken place in Binnesman over those few minutes was astonishing. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and he trembled from exhaustion. He fell down at the edge of the stream and drank deeply for a long minute. He shook so badly that Averan worried that he would not be able to climb to his feet by himself.

“What did you do?” Averan asked.

“The land is sorely cursed,” Binnesman said, “with plagues and sickness, rot and despair. It needed a blessing.”

“Did you fail?”

“Fail? Not at all!” Binnesman said. “Some magic works slowly. The effects of this spell may not be fully seen for a century or more.”

He patted her head.

“Binnesman,” Averan said. “Can your wylde dream?”

The wizard frowned. “Dream? No, I think not. Perhaps she'll dream of feeding, or of hunting. But nothing more.”

“Oh,” Averan said, disappointed.

“You mustn't think of her as a person.”

“I was hoping we could be friends.”

“That… would be dangerous.”

“You mean she'd hurt me?”

“No,” the wizard said. “Not on purpose. But she's not human. She'll protect you, but she has no emotions—Oh, look what you've done. You've got me calling ‘it' a ‘she.' The wylde could have taken any form. It could have looked
like a walking tree, or taken the shape of a snake. But I was called to protect mankind, and so I guess it is only fitting that my wylde take the shape of a human.”