"So it comes," she said with sorrow.
"It comes." He nodded, shifted the gamal wad into his other cheek. It fit neatly into a pocket there alongside his gums, teeth and tongue teasing out the bittersweet juices that sharpened the mind. "They have a choice, old woman. They all have a choice. Even the one who comes with a sword."
"I know." Her voice was muffled, gnarled fingers covering her face. "Ah, Ngurra! It is such a short time we have."
"Old woman!" His hands encircled her wrists, swollen by a lifetime of digging and labor. "Warabi," he said, and his voice was gentle. "An eternity would not be enough time to spend with you. But it has been a good time."
Lowering her hands, she looked at him. "It has."
"The children," he said, "are safe."
"But who will teach them if we perish?" Her eyes glimmered in the starlight. "Ah, Ngurra! I know what must be. I know we must offer the choice. Still, I fear."
He patted her hands. "I too, old woman. I too."
She stared at the stars. "The poor boy. Where do you think he is tonight?"
He shook his head. "The Bearer's path is his own, old woman. I cannot guess. He has chosen, and must choose again and again, until his path finds its end."
THE DWARF SHIP DOCKED AT Port Delian, on the southern coast of Pelmar.
Carfax had the impression that the Dwarfs were glad to be rid of them, for which he did not blame them. Malthus' Company had breached Yrinna's Peace, destroying it irrevocably. As a war-proud Staccian in the service of Lord Satoris, he'd never had much use for peace.
Captivity had begun to change his perspective.
Peace, he thought, did not seem such an undesirable thing. Mayhap it would quench the killing urge he saw in the young knight Hobard's eyes whenever the Vedasian glanced at him, or the cold calculation in the eyes of Blaise Caveros, who still considered him an unwelcome threat.
Mayhap he would know himself deserving of the kindness that Dani and his uncle Thulu extended to him, of the burdensome compassion of Peldras the Ellyl, of the patient regard of Malthus the Counselor. And mayhap, mayhap, Fianna of Arduan would have some tenderness to spare for him, and cast a few of the yearning glances she saved for Blaise in his direction.
Would that be so wrong?
I am confused, Carfax thought as the Company departed Port Delian, I am heartsick and confused. His hands held the reins, directing his newly purchased gelding in a steady line, following on the haunches of Blaise's mount. It was so much easier to follow, to obey unquestioning. What merit was there in fruitless resistance? He had tried and tried and tried, to no avail.
Malthus knew it. He saw it in the Counselor's gaze, gentle and wise.
What if Malthus were a match for Lord Satoris?
It was heresy, the deepest kind of heresy. It froze his blood to think on it; yet think on it he must. What if it were so? Step by step, the Prophecy was being fulfilled. And they did not seem, after all, so evil. They believed in the tightness of what they did, in the quest to render the Sundered World whole.
Was it wrong?
Would Urulat be the worse if they succeeded?
Searching his mind, Carfax found no answers. And so he rode among them as they entered the depths of the Pelmaran forests, his dreams of vengeance giving way to vague thoughts of escape and warning. And he found himself seeking, unwitting, to win their approval, gathering firewood and making himself useful. Ushahin! he whimpered in his thoughts from time to time, but there was no answer, for Malthus' binding held, more gentle but no less firm.
And Fianna smiled at him when he gathered pine rosin for her bow, the ordinary Arduan bow she used for shooting game, and her smile echoed the smile of another girl long ago in Staccia. Goldenrod pollen, and freckles on the bridge of her nose.
Oh, my Lord! Carfax prayed. Forgive me. I know not what I do.
ALTHOUGH IT HAD STOOD FOR many years, Jakar remained a desert encampment, a few sandstone buildings erected around a scrubby oasis, the rest of it a city of tents. From time out of mind, Rukhari traders had used it as a last stopping-place before entering the trade routes that cut into the forests of Pelmar. Now the traders had fled, making way for fierce warriors with sun-scorched faces and black mustaches, who raced their swift desert ponies between the lines of tents with ululating cries.
It was a good bargain Vorax had offered them.
A half league to the west, a stony ridge sprawled across the landscape, ruddy and ominous in the light of the setting sun. It was haunted, the Rukhari said; riddled with caverns and haunted by bloodthirsty spirits of the unavenged dead. Small wonder, for it held a node of the Marasoumië, which was death to the unwary traveler.
A half league to the east, the Pelmaran forest began, a dark and ragged fringe looming over the barren plains of Rukhar. Beyond the verge was a darkness even the slanting rays of the sun could not penetrate, where Oronin's Children might lurk in the shadows a stone's throw from the trodden path.