“Daylan Hammer? You are telling me that Daylan Hammer still lives? The Sum of All Men? After sixteen hundred years?”
“I am telling you that he may live,” Binnesman said. He shook his head thoughtfully. “I could be mistaken. I've never told this tale to anyone. Perhaps it is unwise to tell you now.”
“Why?”
“He did not seem to be a happy man. If he has secrets, they should remain with him.”
“Is happiness everything?” Gaborn asked.
“Yes, ultimately I believe it is,” Binnesman said. “It should be the goal of your existence, to live life in peace and joy.”
Gaborn considered. “Am I wrong to fight Raj Ahten using his own tactics? To fight him at all.”
“To fight him is dangerous,” Binnesman said. “Not just dangerous for you, dangerous for the whole world. If he would join your cause, I would rejoice. But he will oppose you, and it is not for me to say whether you should fight him. It shall be your task to gather the seeds of humanity. You must decide which to save, which to toss aside.
“You have already begun your task.” He waved to the manor house, where Borenson and Myrrima cooked in the dining hall.
Gaborn shuddered at the thought of his task, that he was supposed to somehow gauge the worth of men, save some, discard others. This would have to become the work of his whole soul, his every waking thought. Yet even then, he had no guarantee that he could succeed. “What of Iome?”
“A good woman, I think,” Binnesman said. “She is very much in touch with the powers, can feel their most subtle influence, better than you—or I. She would be an asset.”
“I love her,” Gaborn said.
“Then what are you doing here?” Binnesman asked.
“Giving her time alone, to grieve. I fear that if she accepts me, her people might revolt. They will not want me.”
“I would not worry about her people, only about her. Do you think she wants you to leave her alone? Do you think she doesn't love you?”
“She loves me,” Gaborn said.
“Then go to her, soon. If she grieves, then grieve with her. Sharing our pain makes our wounds heal faster.”
“I...it wouldn't be a good idea. Not now. Not so soon—after.”
“I spoke with her not an hour ago,” Binnesman said. “She asked for you. She wants to see you on some urgent matter, tonight—soon.”
Gaborn studied the wizard's face, wondering. It seemed madness to go to her now, considering how her people felt about him. Yet if Iome had asked for him, perhaps she had good reason. Perhaps, he thought, they had treaties to discuss. She would need money to repair her castle. House Sylvarresta knight need loans, armies...
He would give whatever she asked, of course.
“All right,” Gaborn said. “I'll see her.”
“At sunset,” Binnesman said. “Don't let her be alone after sunset.”
Binnesman's words encouraged Gaborn. What good was it to have a wizard as your counselor, he reasoned, if you did not listen to his wisdom?
61
Peace
Gaborn did not leave the manor before sunset. He took time to warm some water in the kitchens, to bathe and rub his hair with lavender; to scrub his armor with the soft leaves of lamb's ear, so that he'd present himself well.
By evening the clouds blew out of the region altogether, and warmer air now suffused the night, almost as if it were any other afternoon in late summer. The scents of grass and oak grew strong in the air.
Borenson and Myrrima stayed behind at the manor.
Only the wizard Binnesman and Gaborn's Days rode with him to Longmont. There, thousands of people worked in the twilight, salvaging supplies from the castle, cleaning the dead. More warriors arrived from farther north—eight thousand knights and men-at-arms from Castle Derry, headed by Duke Mardon, arriving unexpectedly at the summons of Groverman.
Gaborn reached camp, and was escorted to Iome by a guard who seemed friendly enough.
Custom in Heredon dictated that the dead be interred before sunset on the day of their death, but so many lords and knights were swelling in from the hills around Longmont, setting up tents, that King Sylvarresta could not be buried. King Orden, too, had not been interred, and whether this was done as an honor, so that the kings might be buried together, or because the people did not want to bury a foreign king on their soil, Gaborn did not know.
But too many people wanted to view the bodies, to pay their last respects.
Gaborn found Iome still mourning her father. The bodies had been cleaned and laid out on fine blankets over beds of paving stones. The Earl of Dreis lay near their feet, in a place of honor.
Upon seeing the dead, the wounds on Gaborn's heart felt all fresh and new. He went to Iome, sat beside her, and took her hand. She clenched his fingers tightly, as if her very life depended on his touch.
She sat with her head lowered, eyes forward. Gaborn did not know if she was only deep within herself, fighting her pain, or if she kept her face down simply to hide it, for now she was no more lovely than any other maid.
For a long half-hour they sat while the soldiers of Sylvarresta came to pay their last respects, talking to one another in hushed whispers. Many a proud soldier shot Gaborn a disapproving scowl on seeing how he touched Iome so familiarly, but Gaborn defied them.
He feared Raj Ahten had won a small victory here, had succeeded in driving a wedge between two nations that had long been friends. Vainly, he wondered how he could ever heal that wound.
All along the downs, for a mile around, campfires began to spring up for the night. A soldier came with two large torches, and planned to set one at the heads, the other at the feet of the two kings, but Binnesman warned the man away.
“They died fighting flameweavers,” he said. “It would be inappropriate to put flames so close to them now. There is starlight enough tonight to see by.”
Indeed, the sky was alive with stars, just as campfires lit the valley.
Gaborn had thought it an odd sentiment on Binnesman's part. Perhaps he feared the flames as much as he loved the earth. Even now, on the cool of the evening, he walked barefoot, keeping himself in contact with the source of his power.
Yet almost as soon as the torches were withdrawn, Iome tensed, as if every muscle in her body spasmed.
She leapt to her feet and raised her hands high over her eyes, gazing up to the surrounding hills, and shouted, “They come! They come! Beware!”
Gaborn wondered if Iome had lost too much sleep over the past few days, wondered if she dreamed now with her eyes open. For she was gazing all about, at the line of trees on the western hills, her eyes shining with a fierce wonder.
Gaborn could see nothing. Yet Iome began shouting and grabbing at Gaborn as if something horrible and wonderful were happening.
Then the wizard Binnesman leapt away from the bodies of the dead kings, shouting, “Hold! Hold! Everyone get back! No one move, on your peril!”
All over the camp, for hundreds of yards, people looked up toward the campfire at their mad princess, at the shouting of the wizard, worry etched on their brows.
Binnesman took Iome by one shoulder, holding her close, and whispered in satisfaction, “Indeed, they do come.”
Then, distantly, distantly, Gaborn heard something: the sound of a wind moving through the trees, sweeping toward them from the forest northwest of the castle. It was an odd sound, an eerie sound that rose and fell, like the baying of wolves, or like the song of the night wind playing through the chimneys of his father's winter palace. Only there was a fierceness, an immediacy to the windsong he had heard only once before.