Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (74 page)

And found herself face to face with a man a little below her height. She straightened up and stared. He stood scarce an armspan away … a man who might have been her height had he stood straight, but he was a little stooped. Rough-cut hair, mostly gray … brown eyes … a scar across his face from some blow that had misshapen his nose. He wore a brown tunic over brown trews, and his feet were bare, brown as his trews. He looked back at her
and smiled, goodwill radiating from him like the sun’s heat from the rocks.

“Well met, Daughter,” he said. “I am glad to find you so far advanced.”

Dorrin frowned; that made no sense. “I do not think I know you,” she said. “My name is Dorrin—”

“Verrakai, yes.” His smile widened. “And you know me better than you think. As I know you and have long known you.”

Dorrin searched her memory but found nothing. “Do you know where I am?” she asked.

“Here with me,” he said at once, as if that were a full explanation. “Do you know where you are?”

“No,” Dorrin said. “And—forgive me, ser—I have no memory of you.”

“Do you not?” Amusement danced in his eyes, lighting them from dark brown to amber. “Then tell me, Daughter, what is it you lack?”

Lack? Everything … or … she was alive, so not lacking life. What she lacked was knowledge. “I do not know where I am,” she said. “Or which way to go to find my home. Or where to find water, or food, or—” She pointed at her ripped boot. “—a cobbler or anything to pay the cobbler.”

“It is knowledge you lack,” he said. “And perhaps I can aid you. Where you are—as I said—is with me. For the time being, that is all you need to know. To guide you to your way home will require some time and conversation. But as for water … consider where you stand.”

Dorrin looked. The outcrop she had come around … another two or three boulders as tall as she. Here on the side of the slope, more than halfway down, they formed a cleft. She would not have been surprised to see a trickle of water coming out from under one of them—a spring made sense here. But there was no spring, only a fringe of dry, brown fern leaves.

“A spring was there,” she said. “But it’s not there now.” She looked back at the man. He nodded, saying nothing. “It’s dry,” she said. He still said nothing. What he might mean seeped into her mind.
If he knew—but how could he know?—that she had once had water magery—“I’m not the same,” she said. “That’s all gone.”

“Is it?” he asked. “Do you not think the land honors those who heal it?”

Dorrin frowned again. “I was certain …”

This time he laughed aloud, and a breeze sprang up, shaking the leaves of trees and shrubs alike, as if they also laughed. “Daughter,” he said, his voice still amused, “you might at least ask the water’s grace.”

Moved by an impulse she did not understand, Dorrin turned, found a sprig of pale blue flowers on the aromatic shrub, and stooped to lay it in the mouth of the opening below the higher stone. She put her hand on the rock. “May the gods bless this spring,” she said, “and may water nourish the land.”

“Eshea valush,”
the man said.

Dorrin stared. A tongue of clear water flowed from beneath the rock; as it moistened the fern fronds, they lifted, greening even as she watched. It spread, wetting the soil outside the rock’s shade, overflowing the lip of the ferns. More water emerged from under the other rocks; the trickles joined, and the little stream ran off downhill.

“Thank you,” Dorrin said.

“Eshea valush,”
the man said again. Then, to Dorrin, “You are thirsty, Daughter. Drink.”

“You are my elder,” Dorrin said. “Please—drink first.”

The man bowed, as one who has been taught grace, and knelt by the little stream now running clear between them. He put his hand down, let the water fill it, and lifted it to his mouth. Twice he drank as Dorrin watched—noting the scarred, callused hands, the signs of age and poverty on his feet as well. “And now you,” the man said, rising.

Dorrin knelt and let the water fill her hand. It tingled with life, as Arian had taught her to feel it, as her own magery felt it. She drank one handful and then another. Cold, clean … joy filled her with the water, as if it sparkled in her veins. She looked up at the man, who stood watching her with a mix of pride and amusement.
All at once she knew who this was. “Lord Falk,” Dorrin said. Her voice failed for awe; she could say nothing more.

He nodded. “Yes, Daughter … you are correct in your surmise. This is the form in which I choose to appear.” He reached across the rivulet, offering her his hand. “Come, now. You and I should walk together this day; there are questions to be asked and answered.”

Dorrin stood and took his hand. Warm, dry, the strength of his grip no more than companionable … and she was on the other side of the rivulet, where the game path ran on downhill into the shade of the trees. “I didn’t know …” she managed to say.

He shrugged. “It is no matter. Now you do.”

When they reached the trees, the path led in among them to a glade near a tumble of rocks with puddles between them.

“It will take some little time for the stream to rise again,” Falk said. “All the springs hereabout are small.”

“Are they all rising?” Dorrin asked. “Just from one—”

Falk chuckled, folding himself down onto a rock and gesturing to her to sit on another. “Daughter, you do not know your own power even after what you have done. Do you remember what that was?”

She had not thought about it, she realized, since she found herself on the hillside. Now, as if through thinning mist, she regained a memory of herself … herself on a ship … in the water … on a barren sandy beach … walking somewhere through red and black rocks rising from the sand. A weight on her head, a box she must carry, no matter how tired she was. Smooth stones beneath her feet, forming a path. Figures in white robes, walking nearby, urging her on. Clearer and clearer … the heat, the dry mountains, the dry plain beyond, three white towers piercing a heat-hazed sky … and the great empty bowl of rock near it. Designs … water. Water and water and something … a dark shape …

He went on. “What you did, returning Aare’s water … that was more than well done. So you and I have been granted this space, this time, for your rest and recovery and for you to think how to live the rest of your life.”

“I did not expect to live,” Dorrin said. “Not when I went into the
sea and not when the water rose around me. And not when the dragon showed me the fire.”

“I know,” Falk said. “I did not expect to live when I saw the look on that man’s face as my brothers walked out free. And yet—” He grinned at her. “I lived a long time after that, you know. And here I am, still meddling in the world’s affairs.”

“I … should go back,” she said.

“Back to Tsaia?” he asked. She nodded. “You have no oath to the king now,” he said. “He released you.”

“But my people—”

“Do not expect your return,” he said. “You told them so, if you do not remember. A desperate chance, you told them. Your heir, young Beclan … I am not sure he is mine, in the end. With all the turmoil in Tsaia, he may go to Gird … but either of us will be glad to claim him.”

“You … know Gird?”

Another chuckle. “In a way. Yes. The way the high gods chose. We do not walk together, exactly, but we know … I am sorry, Daughter, but this is not possible to make clear to you. Gird has taught me; I think I have taught him. Camwyn and Torre have given us both lessons we needed.”

“Torre … of the Necklace?”

“Yes, of course. Did you think she was legend only, while I once walked on earth? We are all people who once lived and also aspects of the gods’ will.”

Dorrin wanted to ask which gods but thought better of it.

“Even now,” Falk said, “I cannot comprehend the high gods. I know names—names used in this place and that, each people trimming the gods to their own measure, to their own understanding. Esea Sunlord and Barrandowea Lord of the Sea and Alyanya of the Flowers: those my father taught me when I was a child. But Adyan Namer, Sertig Maker, High Judge, First Singer … these are names for powers far beyond me.”

Dorrin thought of the night she had lain on sand in the desert, staring up at stars that seemed to recede—layer after layer of patterns, endless, beyond comprehension, into the darkness.

“Exactly so,” Falk said, once more recognizing her thought. “Is there but one power above all, or do they share equally? No one can be sure. What we can know is that we—you and I and all others who have walked the earth—are not the high gods. And yet we are more than grains of sand or drops of water.” He reached out and touched her knee with one finger. “As you have shown, Daughter.”

Dorrin said nothing. She heard water dripping now, saw rings spread across the surface of the puddle she’d been watching. Then, long before the drip could have filled it, the water’s surface lifted, overflowed its rock lip, and ran down into the next puddle. Upstream, more water sounds approached—the chuckle of water over rocks, the gurgle of water along a creek bank. Had she really started this?

“Will it do harm?” she finally said. “Bringing water in a dry season if it’s supposed to be dry?”

“No,” Falk said. “Once these springs ran in wet season and dry. Like your well, they were dried by a curse, and you have lifted that curse.” He looked around. “Are you hungry, Daughter?”

She was, suddenly. Her stomach cramped with hunger. How long had it been?

“We have only a short way to walk,” Falk said. “Come.” Once more he held out his hand, and once more she took it. He led her upslope beside the stream, with its laughing waters, and after a time they came out of the trees to a grassy bowl centered by a pond. “There,” he said. “Walk into the water, my daughter, just as you are, and bring back what you find.”

Dorrin looked at the water—limpid, crystalline. She could see all the way to the bottom … see water plants waving in the current from the springs there, the sand disturbed by the uprising water. She looked at Falk, who said nothing, waiting for her response.

Well. He was her patron; she wore—she had worn—his ruby. She walked to the edge and took a step into the pool, then another. The water drew her in; she sank into it, and as she did, she felt its life enfolding her. Down, down … she looked up for a moment at the silvery wavering surface and then down again. What was she supposed to bring back? Her feet touched the sand, tickled by the water
plants … Her boots had disappeared, and as she realized that, she knew her clothes had disappeared as well. A box lay at her feet that had not been there a moment before. She crouched to look at it, picked it up, and the water lifted her to the surface, to the pool’s very margin.

She stepped out, holding the box, and almost stumbled as she discovered that she was dry, clothed in brown like Falk, with comfortable boots on her feet. Falk smiled at her. “Let me have the box, Daughter.”

She handed him the box and stepped back; it opened in his hands, expanding as it did, and he took from it a red belt, a red length of ribbon, and a stone that flashed in the sunlight.

“Come here, Daughter.”

Dorrin took a step toward him; he took the ruby and pressed it to her forehead. “No one can take it from you,” he said. “And now—let us eat.” He sat down and took from the box a loaf of bread, a round of cheese, an onion, a length of sausage, and a plain-hilted dagger in its sheath. “Every wanderer needs a knife,” he said, handing it to her. Then he took out a mug, heavy pottery glazed green, and set it between them. By this time Dorrin was not surprised to see that it held liquid.

She cut rounds from the sausage and wedges from the cheese while he broke the loaf of bread. They ate, sharing the watered wine in the mug, passing it back and forth. As they did, the shadows lengthened; though midday had seemed to last a long time, now the sun moved quickly. Falk pulled a blanket from the box. Dorrin was past wondering what else the box might yield—a sword and full suit of armor? a horse?—and took the blanket he handed her.

“It is safe to sleep here, Daughter, and you are tired. Take your rest.”

Darkness fell even as she wrapped herself in the blanket, and she slid into sleep. In the morning, she woke refreshed to find the green mug full of water beside her, along with a fresh loaf of bread. Falk was nowhere to be seen, but she heard a deep voice singing over in the trees.

That day they talked again. “You might have died,” Falk said,
“but you did not. I might have died, and I did not. What I did changed me, as you are changed, and I had to find a way to live different than both my lives before, my early life as a prince and my life as a slave. So you must find a way to live that fits who you are now, not who you were.”

“You think I should not go back to Verrakai domain? Even to Tsaia?”

He shrugged. “Maybe … or maybe not. What matters now is that you are true to your real self, the self you are now, that grew out of the self you were. Can a gold ring go back to being specks of gold in ore?”

“It can be melted into a lump.”

He laughed. “So it can, Daughter, so it can. And one thing the same with you is that sharp mind. But can it put itself as a vein or as specks back into the mountain from which it came?”

“No,” Dorrin said. “I see … but I am no gold ring, all one kind of stuff.”

“You are human stuff,” Falk said. “Not half elf or half dwarf or half anything. All human.”

“And human stuff is …?” she asked, grinning now herself.

“Capable of choice,” he said. “For among humans is the greatest diversity. The Elders were made each for mastery of one suite of arts, but among humans are minstrels and bards for song, smiths for working metal, masons for working rock, farmers for nurturing plants and animals.” He smiled at her. “And that, Daughter, is why I offer you choice—the gift given humans of which arts to choose. You may choose to go back to the life you had—or as much as you can salvage after your time away—or choose a different one. I am here, among other reasons, to help you find the choice you want most.”

Dorrin nodded, staring at the grass. What she wanted … she wanted to hear children laughing again. She wanted to come into Farin Cook’s kitchen and see that formidable woman kneading dough. She wanted to see Kieri again, and Arian, and the twins. She wanted to see King Mikeli when he was not frightened and worried. But … she also wanted no more of those sidelong looks, those tightly
clamped mouths when she walked in the palace in Vérella. She could do without the court dress, without the women staring at her in the short puffed trews and stockings … not that she wanted to wear their dresses, but that was the problem.