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 riverbank 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 badly 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.