“So you’re not as young as you seem,” said Anonoei. And then she smiled, so he would know that she understood the bathos of her own remark.
“I came out like an adolescent orphan, hardly remembering anything of my life before, not even understanding that I was the Gate Thief, and for a time not knowing what a gate was. I ate gates by reflex then. I made them the same way. A kind woman took me in and I made a mother of her, until someone murdered her for refusing to cooperate with an attempt to poison the queen.”
“You’re talking about Hull?” asked Anonoei.
“Please don’t tell me that you knew beforehand about the killing of that good woman,” said Wad. “Unless it’s true. If you lie to me we can’t be friends.”
“So many rules you have,” said Anonoei. “I lie to you all the time, and you lie to me. We’re human and we lie, because that is the only way people can possibly get along with each other.”
“You’re wrong,” said Wad. “We can tell each other the truth, as far as we know it. We might be wrong about what we believe is true, but we can speak our best understanding to each other. Hull did that with me, and I with her.”
“She knew you were the Gate Thief?” asked Anonoei. And when Wad didn’t answer, she smiled. “I see-you told her the truth, except when the truth might make her like you less.”
“So what is it that you aren’t telling me?”
“That I think you’re right, the boys will be safer on Mittlegard, and if I can’t take the risk of trusting you to get me through a Great Gate and back again, I might as well give up. If you’re not trustworthy then I’ve got nothing, but if I refuse to trust you then I’ve got nothing. So I might as well trust you and hope that you amount to something.”
“A fair gamble.”
“I trusted a king once,” said Anonoei.
“He never let you down.”
“But he did,” said Anonoei. “He may not have meant to, but he failed to find me and set me free.”
“My powers were too much for him,” said Wad. “What could he do against a gatemage?”
“Queen Bexoi did something,” said Anonoei.
“She murdered a baby when I was distracted. That was the limit of her power.” He said it calmly, as if the mention of Trick had not caused emotion to rage upward from his belly to fill his heart with grief and his mind with rage. “And she knew what I was. If Prayard had known, he would have suspected me, and if he had suspected me in your disappearance, he would have had me tortured to find out where you were.”
“You? Tortured?”
“He would have tried.”
“Did he even ask you?”
“I told him that I had looked at every inch of the castle and you weren’t there. Nor had I seen anyone carrying you out. All true, you’ll note.”
“And also lies,” said Anonoei. “I’m such a fool to believe in you.”
“I’m all you’ve got, and you’re all I’ve got.”
“All you’ve got to use against Queen Bexoi?” said Anonoei. “Why not just pass her through a gate to the bottom of the sea?”
“She has to lose and know that she has lost,” said Wad. “She has to see you in her place, and your sons in the place of her son.”
Anonoei laughed and nodded. “Now I can trust you. Now I know your heart.”
But she did not know him, not his heart, not his mind. Yes, he meant to wreak his vengeance on the queen, and so he spoke that way because Anonoei would understand that motive and believe him. But his real reason was that until he had put Anonoei back in her right place, beside the king, with her sons as his heirs, the guilt of his own crimes would be unbearably heavy, more than he could bear.
I spent fifteen centuries trying to save the world, and I would sacrifice it all for mere vengeance? Bexoi would never be brought to justice. She played the same game as all the royal people of the world; should she be called a monster because she was better at it?
No, Wad’s chief purpose was still and always would be to keep Bel from walking upon the face of Westil, taking its reins into his hand. If he could redeem himself for his crimes against Anonoei and her children, without discommoding that main purpose, that would be well and good. But for vengeance and retribution he would not cross the street.
Hearing such a thought in his own mind, he laughed bitterly. Self-deception always works-it has such a willing audience.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Anonoei.
“Myself,” he said truthfully.
When they explained the purpose of their upcoming journey to the boys, the younger one, Enopp, seemed to understand. Eluik, as usual, looked at the face from which the talking-noises came, but there was no sign that the language registered in his mind at all.
Then he talked to Roop and Levet.
“I did you no kindness bringing this woman and her children here,” said Wad. “I realize that now. The soldiers will be here soon, and if they don’t kill you outright, they’ll have you brought to the castle of Nassassa and torture you to tell them things you do not even know.”
Levet understood and her face flashed with anger, though she said nothing. Roop showed no anger. He merely bowed his head in resignation. “What must I do?” he asked.
“There is a windmage from Mittlegard named Ced. He’s being trained by a treemage at the southern end of Mitherkame. The treemage refuses to have a name, since trees have no language. I asked the treemage if he would object to having the meadows near him cultivated, and he did not mind at all. Fell no trees and he will be your friend. Until you have a harvest, he will teach you how to let the trees provide for you.”
“So we leave everything,” said Levet.
“Again,” said Roop.
“You’ve moved before. This time it will be a warmer place, with richer soil and a growing season long enough that it isn’t over before the seeds have pushed up stems and sunk roots fully into the earth.”
“What service will we owe the man?” asked Levet.
“None,” said Wad. “Not even the hand of your lovely daughter as his bride.”
They looked alarmed.
“I say he won’t require it,” Wad reassured them.
“Are there people in the world who would demand such things?” asked Roop.
“Kings require it of each other all the time. It’s how Queen Bexoi came to Iceway. She was forced on Prayard against his will.”
Roop reached out his hand to hold Eko. “You say we must do this.”
“Or leave your children orphans. Or watch them tortured before your eyes, if they believe you really know where I and this woman and her two sons have gone.”
“You’re a terrible friend to have,” said Eko.
“I am,” agreed Wad. “But then, I could have left you to your fate, not caring.”
“You’d never do that,” said Eko. “That is not the man you are.”
You don’t know the man I am, thought Wad.
As if she heard him, or guessed from his face, Eko said, “I know you better than you think.”
“Because you saw him crawling from a tree?” her little brother Bokky teased.
“Because he did bring them here,” said Eko. “He remembered us.”
“I wish he hadn’t,” said Levet.
“He remembered we were kind to him,” said Eko, “and so when he needed kindness for someone else, he came to us.”
“Yes,” said Wad.
Eko faced him boldly. “If you said that I would need to marry someone to save my family,” said Eko, “I would do it.”
“But I won’t say that to you,” said Wad.
“You’ll keep us safe,” said Eko. “From everyone?”