Chapter Twenty-Nine

With Bremen gone west to bear the Druid sword to the Elves, Kinson Ravenlock and Mareth turned east along the Silver River in search of the Dwarves. They traveled that first day through the hill country that buttressed the river’s north bank, winding their way steadily closer to the forests of the Anar. Mist clung to the hills with dogged persistence, then began to burn away as the sun rose higher in the midday sky. By early afternoon, the travelers had reached the Anar and started in.

Here the land flattened and smoothed. Sunlight pierced the leafy canopy and dappled the earthen carpet. They had enough food and water for that day only, and they divided it carefully when they paused for their lunch, reserving enough for dinner in the event that no better choice presented itself.

The Anar was bright with the green of the trees and the blue of the river, with shafts of sunlight from the mostly cloudless sky, and with birdsong and the cluttering of small creatures darting through the undergrowth. But the trail was trampled and strewn with the leavings of the Northland army, and no human life revealed itself anywhere. Now and again the faint scent of charred wood and old ashes wafted on the wind, and moments of silence would descend — a quiet so intense it caused the man and the woman to look about guardedly. They passed small cottages and outbuildings, some still standing, some burned out, but all vacant.

No Dwarves appeared. No one passed them on the trail.

“We shouldn’t be surprised,” Mareth observed at one point when Kinson had remarked on the subject. “The Warlock Lord has only just withdrawn from the Eastland. The Dwarves must still be in hiding.”

It seemed a logical conclusion, but it bothered Kinson nevertheless to pass through country so improbably deserted. The absence of even the most transient peddler was disturbing to him.

It suggested that there was no reason for anyone to be here anymore, as if life no longer had a purpose in these forests. It gave him pause to think that an entire people could vanish as if they had never been. He had no frame of reference for an eradication of this magnitude. What if the Dwarves had been annihilated? What if they had simply ceased to exist? The Four Lands would never recover from such a loss. They would never be the same.

As they walked, content to stay silent, mulling over their separate thoughts, the Borderman and the Druid apprentice did not speak to each other much. Mareth walked with her head up and her eyes forward, and her gaze seemed directed to something beyond what either of them could see. Kinson found himself wondering if she was pondering the possibility of her heritage in light of what she had learned from Bremen. That she was not his daughter, after thinking for so long that she must be, would be shock enough for anyone. That she was perhaps the daughter of one of the dark things that served the Warlock Lord was worse.

Kinson did not know how he would react to such a revelation. He did not think he would accept it easily. It did not matter, he thought, that Bremen insisted it could have no bearing on the sort of person Mareth was. There was more than logic at issue here.

Mareth was well-reasoned and intelligent, but the vicissitudes of her childhood and the complexities of her adult life had rendered her vulnerable to an undermining of the few beliefs she had managed to hold on to.

From time to time he considered speaking to her of this. He considered telling her she was the person she had always believed herself to be, he could see the goodness in her, he had witnessed the force of it firsthand, and she could never be betrayed by so tenuous a heritage as her blood. But he could not think of a way to frame the words so as not to make them appear condescending, and he was afraid to risk that happening. She seemed content simply to have him there, and in spite of his rude remarks when Bremen had suggested she come with him, he was secretly happy that she had. He had grown comfortable with her, with the history they shared, with their talks, with the way in which each knew what the other was thinking, and in the closeness he felt toward her in dozens of small ways he could not easily define. The latter came from such small things as the sound of her voice, the way she looked at him, and the sense of companionship that transcended simply the sharing of the journey. It was enough, he decided in the end, that he was there if she should decide she needed to talk. She knew that her father’s identity and origins made no difference to him. She knew that none of it mattered.

They reached Culhaven at sunset, the light fading, the air cooling, the smell of death harsh and pungent amid the shadows.

The home city of the Dwarves had been burned to the ground, and the land ravaged. Nothing remained but scorched earth, rubble, a few burned timbers, and scattered bones. Many of the dead had been left to lie where they had fallen. They were indistinguishable from one another by now, but the smallness of the bones revealed that some had been children. The Borderman and the apprentice Druid came out of the trees into the clearing where the city had stood, paused in sad appraisal, and then began to walk slowly through the carnage. The attack was weeks old, the fires long burned away, the land already regenerating from beneath the ruins, small green shoots poking up out of the ash. But Culhaven was empty of human life, and across the whole of its blackened sprawl the silence hung in curtains of indifference.

At the center of the city they found a vast pit into which hurdreds of Dwarves had been thrown and their bodies burned.

“Why didn’t they run?” Mareth asked softly. “Why did they stay? They must have known. They must have been warned.”

Kinson stayed silent. She knew the answer as well as he did. Hope could play you false. He looked off into the distance, across the broad expanse of the ruins. Where were the Dwarves who were still alive? That was the question that needed answering now.

They moved on through the destruction, their pace quickening, for there was nothing left to see that they had not already seen in abundance. The light was fading, and they wanted to be well beyond the ruins when they set their camp for the night. They would find no food or water here. They would find no shelter There was nothing to keep them. They walked on, following the river to where it wound sluggishly out of the deep woods east. Perhaps things would be better farther on, Kinson thought hopefully Perhaps farther on there would be life.

Something scurried through the rubble to one side, causing the Borderman to start. Rats. He had not seen them before, but of course they were there. Other scavengers as well, he supposed. He felt a chill pass through him, triggered by a memory of a time of his boyhood when he had fallen asleep in a cavern he was exploring and had awakened to find rats crawling over him. Death had seemed oddly close in those brief, horrifying moments.

“Kinson!” hissed Mareth suddenly and stopped.

A cloaked figure was standing before them, unmoving. A man it appeared — there was enough of him revealed to determine this much at least. Where he had come from was a mystery. He had simply materialized, as if conjured from the air itself, but he must have been in hiding, waiting for them. He stood close to the riveibank on which they walked, shadowed by the night and the remains of a stone wall. He did not threaten them; he simply stood there, waiting for them to approach.

Kinson and Mareth exchanged a quick glance. The man’s face was concealed in the shadows of his hood and his arms and legs in the folds of his cloak. They could tell nothing of who he was, nothing of his identity.

“Hello,” Mareth ventured softly. She held the staff Bremen had given her like a shield before her.

There was no reply, no movement.

“Who are you?” she pressed.

“Mareth,” the other called to her in a slow, whispery voice.

Kinson stiffened. The voice had the feel of rat’s feet and the presence of death. He was back in that cave again, a boy once more. The voice scraped against his nerve endings like metal on stone.

“Do you know me?” Mareth asked in surprise. The voice did not seem to trouble her.

“I do,” said the other. “We all do, those of us who are your family. We have waited for you, Mareth. We have waited a long time.”

Kinson could hear the catch in her voice. “What are you talking about?” she asked quickly. “Who are you?”

“Perhaps I am the one you have been searching for. Perhaps am he. Would you think harshly of me if I were? Would you be angry if I told you I was...”

“No!” she cried out sharply.

“Your father?”

The hood tilted back, and the face within revealed itself. It was a hard, strong face, and the similarities to Bremen’s were more than token, though the man before them was younger. But the resemblance to Mareth was unmistakable. He let the young woman look on him momentarily, let her study him well. He seemed oblivious of Kinson.

He smiled faintly. “You see yourself in me, don’t you, child? You see how alike we are? Is it so hard to accept? Am I so repulsive to you?”

“Something is wrong here,” Kinson warned softly.

But Mareth didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the man who said he was her father, on the dark-cloaked stranger who had appeared so unexpectedly before them. How? How had he known where to look?

“You are one of them!” Mareth snapped coldly at the stranger.

“One of those who serve the Warlock Lord!”

The strong features did not recoil. “I serve who I choose, just as you do. But your service to the Druids was prompted by your search for me, was it not? I can read it in your eyes, child. You have no real ties to the Druids. Who are they to you? I am your father am your flesh and blood, and your ties to me are clear. Oh, I understand your misgivings. I am not a Druid. I am pledged to another cause, one that you have opposed. All your life, you have heard that I am evil. But how bad am I, do you think? Are the stories all true? Or are they perhaps shaded by those who tell them to serve a purpose of their own? How much of what you know can you believe?”

Mareth shook her head slowly. “Enough, I think.”

The stranger smiled. “Then perhaps I should not be your father.”

Kinson watched her hesitate. “Are you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be. I would not wish your hatred if I were. I would wish your understanding and your tolerance. I would wish for you to listen to all that I would tell you of my life and of how it affects you. I would wish for an opportunity to explain why the cause I serve is neither evil nor destructive, but premised on truths that would liberate us all.” The stranger paused. “Remember that your mother loved me. Could her love have been so misguided? Could her trust in me have been so badiy misplaced?”

Kinson felt something shift imperceptibly — a current of air, a hint of smoke, a ripple in the river’s flow — something he could not see, but could only feel. The short hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. Who was this stranger? Where had he come from? If he was Mareth’s father, how had he found them here? How did he know who she was?

“Mareth!” he warned again.

“What if the Druids have been wrong in all that they have done?” the stranger asked suddenly. “What if everything you have believed is premised on lies and half truths and misrepresentations that go all the way back to the beginning of time?”

“That isn’t possible,” Mareth answered at once.

“What if you are betrayed by those you have trusted?” the stranger pressed.

“Mareth, no!” hissed Kinson in fury. But instantly the stranger’s eyes settled on him, and suddenly Kinson Ravenlock could neither move nor speak. He was frozen in place, as much so as if he had been turned to stone.

The stranger’s eyes shifted back to Mareth. “Look at me, child. Look closely.“ To Kinson’s horror, Mareth did. Her face had assumed a vacant, faraway look, as if she were seeing something entirely different from what was before her. ”You are one of us,” the stranger intoned gently, the words soft and coaxing. “You belong with us. You have our power. You have our passion. You have all that is ours save one thing only. You lack our cause. You must embrace it, Mareth. You must accept that we are right m what we seek. Strength and long life through use of the magic. You have felt it flowing through you. You have wondered how it can be made your own. I will show you how. I will teach you. You need not shun what is part of you. You need not be afraid. The secret is in giving heed to what it asks of you, of not trying to restrain it, of not fleeing from its need. Do you understand me?”

Mareth nodded vaguely. Kinson saw an imperceptible change in the features of the stranger before them. No longer was he quite so human. No longer did he resemble either Bremen or Mareth.

He was, instead, becoming something else.

Slowly, painfully, the Borderman strained against the invisible chains that bound his muscles. Carefully, he eased his hand along his thigh to where his long knife was sheathed.

“Father?” Mareth called out suddenly. “Father, why did you abandon me?”

There was a long silence in the deepening night. Kinson’s hand closed about the handle of his knife. His muscles screamed with pain, and his mind felt drugged. This was a trap of the same sort as the one the Warlock Lord had set for them at Paranor! Had the stranger been waiting for them, or just for whoever happened through? Had he known that Mareth, in particular, would come?

Had he hoped it might be Bremen? His fingers tightened on the knife.

The stranger’s hand lifted free of the cloak and beckoned to the young woman. The hand was gnarled, and the fingers were clawed. But Mareth did not seem to see. She took a small step forward.

“Yes, child, come to me,” the stranger urged, his eyes gone as red as blood, fangs showing behind a smile as wicked as a snake’s strike. “Let me explain everything to you. Take my hands, your father’s hands, and I will tell you what you are meant to know. Then you will understand. You will see that I am right in what I tell you. You will know the truth.”

Mareth took another step forward. The hand that held the Druid staff lowered slightly.

In the next instant Kinson Ravenlock wrenched free of the magic that ensnared him, threw off its shackles, and unsheathed his long knife. In a single fluid motion, he flung the knife at the stranger. Mareth cried out in fear — for herself or her father or even Kinson, the Borderman could not tell. But the stranger transformed in the blink of an eye, changing from something human to something that was definitely not. One arm swept up, and a sheet of wicked green fire burst forth, incinerating the long knife in midair.

What stood before them now in a haze of smoke and flickering light was a Skull Bearer.

A second burst of fire exploded from the creature’s clawed fingers, but Kinson was already moving, flinging himself into Mareth and carrying her from the trail and into a pocket of ashcoated rubble. He was back on his feet instantly, not waiting to see if she had recovered, dodging around a wall and toward the Skull Bearer. He would have to be quick now if he wanted to live. The creature was slouching toward them, fire sparking from the tips of its fingers, red eyes burning out of the shadows beneath its hood.

Kinson darted across an open space, the fire just missing him as he threw himself down and rolled behind the skeleton of a small tree The Skull Bearer swung toward him, whispering words insidious and hateful, words filled with dark promise.

Kinson drew out his broadsword. He had lost his bow, which might have made a better weapon — though in truth he possessed no weapon that could make a difference. Stealth and guile had protected him in the past, and neither was of any use now.

“Mareth!” he cried out in desperation.

Then he launched himself from his hiding place and charged toward the Skull Bearer.

The winged hunter shifted to meet the attack, hands lifting, claws sparking. Kinson could tell already that he was too far away to close with the monster before the fire struck. He dodged to his left, looking for cover. There was none to be found. The Skull Bearer rose before him, dark and forbidding. Kinson tried to cover his head.

Then Mareth cried out sharply, “Father!”

The Skull Bearer whirled at the sound of the young woman’s voice, but already the Druid fire was lancing from the raised tip of Mareth’s staff. It slammed into the winged hunter’s body and flung it backward against a wall. Kinson stumbled and fell trying to shield his eyes. Mareth’s face was harsh in the killing light, and her eyes were cast of stone. She sent the fire into the Skull Bearer in a steady stream, burning through its defenses, through its toughened skin, and into its heart. The creature screamed in hatred and pain flinging up its arms as if to fly away. Then the Druid fire consumed it completely, and it was turned to ash.

Mareth threw down the staff in fury, and the Druid fire died away.

“There, Father,” she hissed at the remains, “I have given you my hands to hold in yours. Now explain to me about truth and lies. Go on. Father, speak to me!”

Tears began to stream down her small, dark face. The night closed about once more, and the silence returned. Kinson climbed slowly to his feet, walked to her, and carefully drew her against him. “I don’t think he has much to say on the subject, do you?”

She shook her head wordlessly against his chest. “I was such a fool. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I couldn’t stop myself from listening to him. I almost believed him! All those lies! But he was so persuasive. How did he know about my father? How did he know what to say?”

Kinson stroked her hair. “I don’t know. The dark things of this world sometimes know the secrets we keep hidden. They discover our fears and doubts and use them against us. Bremen told me that once.” He lowered his chin to her hair. “I think this creature was waiting for any of us to come — for you, me, Bremen, Tay, or Risca — any of those who threaten his Master. This was a trap of the same sort set by the Wariock Lord at Paranor, designed to snare whoever walked into it. But Brona used a Skull Bearer this time, so he must be very afraid of what we might do.”

“I almost killed us,” she whispered. “You were right about me.”

“I was wrong,” he replied at once. “Had I come alone, had you not been with me, I would be dead. You saved my life. And you did so with your magic. Look at the ground on which you are standing, Mareth. Then look at yourself.”

She did as he asked. The ground was blackened and scorched, but she was untouched. “Don’t you see?” he asked softly. “The staff channeled your magic, just as Bremen said it would. It carried off the part that would threaten you and kept only what was needed. You have gained control of the magic at last.”

She looked at him steadily, and the sadness in her eyes was palpable. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Kinson. I don’t want control of the magic. I don’t want anything to do with it I am sick of it. I am sick of myself — of who I am, of where I came from, of who my parents were, of everything about me.”

“No,” he said quietly, holding her gaze.

“Yes. I wanted to believe that creature or I would not have been so mesmerized. If you hadn’t broken his hold on me, we would both be dead. I was useless. I am so caught up in this search to discover the truth about myself that I endanger everyone around me.”

Her mouth tightened. “My father, he called himself. A Skull Bearer. Lies this time, but maybe not the next. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps my father is a Skull Bearer. I don’t want to know. I don’t want anything more to do with magic and Druids and winged hunters and talismans.“ The tears had started again, and her voice was shaking. ”I am finished with this business. Let someone else go on with you. I quit.”

Kinson looked off into the darkness. “You can’t do that, Mareth,” he told her finally. “No, don’t say anything, just listen to me. You can’t because you are a better person than that. You have to go on. You are needed to help those who cannot help themselves. It isn’t a responsibility you went looking for, I realize. But there it is, your burden to bear, given to you because you are one of only a few who can shoulder it. You, Bremen, Risca, and Tay Trefenwyd — the last of the Druids. Just the four of you, because there is no one else, and perhaps there never will be.”

“I don’t care,” she murmured dully. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “You all do. If you didn’t, the struggle with the Warlock Lord would have been finished long ago, and we would all be dead.”

They stood looking at each other in the ensuing silence, like statues left standing amid the ruins of the city.

“You are right,” she said finally, her voice so soft he couid barely hear her. “I do care.”

She moved against him, lifted her face to his, and kissed him on the mouth. Her arms slipped around his waist and held him to her. Her kiss lasted a long time, and it was more than a kiss of friendship or gratitude. Kinson Ravenlock felt something grow warm deep inside that he hadn’t even known was there. He kissed Mareth back, his own arms coming about her.

When the kiss was finished, she stayed pressed against him for a moment, her head lowered into his chest. He could feel her heart heat He could hear her breathing. She stepped back and looked at him without speaking, her huge, dark eyes filled with wonder.

She bent down to pick up the fallen staff and began walking toward the woods again, following the Silver River east. Kinson stared after her until she was only a shadow, trying to make sense of things. Then he gave it up and hurried to catch her.

They walked for two days afterward and encountered no one.

All of the villages, farms, cottages, and trading centers that they oassed were burned out and deserted. There were signs of the Northland army’s passage and of the Dwarves’ flight, but there were no people to be found. Birds flew across the skies, small animals darted through the undergrowth, insects hummed in the brambles, and fish swam in the waters of the Silver River, but no humans appeared. The man and the woman kept careful watch for any more of the Skull Bearers or any of the other myriad netherworld creatures that served the Warlock Lord, but none came.

They found food and water, but never in abundance and always in the wild. The days were slow and hot, the sticky swelter of the Anar cooled infrequently by passing rains. The nights were clear and deep, filled with stars and bright with moonlight. The world was peaceful and still and empty. It began to feel as if everyone, friend and foe alike, had vanished into the firmament.

Mareth did not speak again of her origins or of abandoning her quest. She did not mention her loathing of the magic or her fear of those who wielded it. She traveled mostly in silence, and when she did have something to say it concerned the country through which they passed and the creatures living there. She seemed to have put the events ofCulhaven behind her. She seemed to have settled on staying with Kinson, though she gave her decision no voice. She smiled often in his direction. She sat close to him sometimes before sleeping. He found himself wishing more than once that she would kiss him again.

“I am not angry anymore,” she said at one point, her eyes directed ahead, carefully avoiding his. They were walking side by side across a meadow filled with yellow wildflowers. “I was angry for so long,” she continued after a moment. “At my mother, at my father, at Bremen, at the Druids, at everyone. Anger gave me strength, but now it only drains me. Now I’m simply tired.”

“I understand,” he replied. “I have been traveling for more than ten years — for as long as I can remember — always in search of something. Now I just want to stop and look around a little I want to have a home somewhere. Do you think that’s foolish?”

She smiled at his words, but she didn’t answer.

Late on their third day out of Culhaven, they reached the Ravenshorn. They were within its shadow and climbing into the foothills when the sun began to sink beneath the western horizon.

The sky was a wondrous rainbow of orange, crimson, and purple, the colors spilling everywhere, staining the earth below, reaching out to the darkening comers of the land. Kinson and Mareth had paused to look back at the spectacle when a solitary Dwarf appeared on the trail before them.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

He was alone and bore only a heavy cudgel, but Kinson knew at once there would be others close at hand. He told the Dwarf their names. “We are searching for Risca,” he advised. “The Druid Bremen has sent us to find him.”

The Dwarf said nothing, but instead turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked for several hours, the trail climbing through the foothills to the lower slopes of the mountains. Daylight faded, and the moon and stars came out to light their way The air cooled, and their breath puffed before them in small clouds. Kinson searched for signs of other Dwarves as they traveled, but he never saw more than the one.

At last they crossed into a valley where several dozen watch fires burned and ten times as many Dwarves huddled close abort them. The Dwarves looked up as the Southlanders came into view, and some rose from where they had been sitting. Then stares were hard and suspicious, and their words to each other were kept purposefully low. They carried few possessions, but every last one of them wore weapons strapped to his waist and back.

Kinson wondered suddenly if he and Mareth were in danger He moved closer to her, his eyes darting left and right. It did not feel safe. It felt ugly and threatening. He wondered if these Dwarves were renegades fled from the main army. He wondered if the army even existed anymore.

Then abruptly Risca was there, waiting for them as they approached, unchanged from the time they had left him at the Hadeshorn save for the new lacing of cuts that marked his face. And when a smile appeared on his weathered face and his han stretched out in greeting, Kinson Ravenlock knew that everything was going to be all right.