The Darkling Child

TWENTY‑SEVEN

MONTHS PASSED. SUMMER DRIFTED INTO AUTUMN, AND THE weather turned cold more quickly than was normal, the year’s end still weeks away when the skies darkened and the first snows fell. There were yet flowers in many parts of the Four Lands, and they were hard–pressed to survive the heavy white coating that layered them, though some managed to struggle on.

In the Westland, deep within the Sarandanon, the farms that dotted the Elven breadbasket that stretched from the Rill Song west to the foothills of the Breakline were closing up shop for the year. Crops were in, fields were turned over to wait for the next planting, animals brought in, and equipment stowed. Families began planning visits to friends and relatives while the weather would still allow for it, hasty outings organized and carried out, one eye on the horizon all the while.

For those who had been putting off visits to the healer in the tiny hamlet of Backing Fell, a fresh urgency surfaced. Their medical needs had not seemed particularly pressing before now, being mostly of the nagging sort, and thoughts of doing anything about them had been pushed to the side. But with that first snow a fresh attitude surfaced, and most chose to act while they could to prevent their various conditions and symptoms from blossoming into larger problems when the snows would prove too difficult an obstacle to overcome and winter might tie them down on their homesteads until spring.

Besides, they genuinely liked the young doctor and his wife, even if they weren’t Elves, and barely grown at that, so young they might have been the children of their patients. In most situations, the healer might have been dismissed as not yet ready to carry out the demands of his profession, still in need of further education. What could a Southlander know of healing and Elves, after all? But these suspicions were abandoned almost at once. After the first few brave souls visited and returned with stories of his gentleness and skillful ways, others quickly took advantage to make their visits, too, and the doubts disappeared.

It was rare to have a healer in such a small community, in any case. There had been none at all for so long. But the boy healer seemed not to care about the size of the community or the number of patients it provided for his practice. He seemed disinterested in larger cities and more populous regions. This was where he belonged, he insisted when asked about his choice. This was where he felt most at home.

And that young wife! Now, there was a catch. So lovely, like a china doll, her features perfect, her skin so pale and unblemished, her smile warm and she so willing to share it with everyone. She aided him in his practice, and then took time to bake breads and churn cream and knit scarves and bonnets for children and old people–all of it done without charge. She would go out in all kinds of weather to sit with the sick and injured. She would deliver medicines rather than have those that needed them make the trip into where her husband did his work.

They were a welcome addition to this farming community, to this scattering of families and neighbors, to the lives of the people of this vast and empty cropland where helping hands were often the lifeblood needed for survival. This young couple understood. Ask anyone, and they would tell you so.

Two days after the first snowfall, the initial white covering melted enough to allow for easy passage by foot or wagon or on horseback, the healing center was packed with fresh patients anticipating more bad weather all too soon. The young healer was working his way through the complaints and ailments of his patients with good humor and steady hands. Their problems were never challenging in ways he could not fathom or for which he could not find a reasonable solution. He was good at his craft, though the fact that he had perfected it over such a short period of time was something he was careful to keep to himself.

He worked steadily so that he could satisfy all of his patients’ needs by day’s end and had just finished servicing the last and when the door opened and a tall Highlander dressed all in black walked through.

For a second, the young healer did not recognize him. But when he did, he froze where he was, gone cold all through. “How did you find me?”

Paxon Leah shrugged. “It was convincing myself it was worth the effort that took time.”

Reyn Frosch moved over and sat down heavily on one of the waiting chairs, clearly shaken. “Is Arcannen still alive?”

Paxon took a seat across from him. “So far as I know. He disappeared again after he finished destroying the Red Slash.”

The boy immediately looked uncomfortable. “I don’t use magic like that anymore. I never will again. So if you’ve come to me about that …”

“No, I’ve not come about that.”

“What, then? What do you want with me?”

Paxon shrugged. His eyes were tired and his face worn. All the life felt drained out of him. “The woman I was with that last night on the bluff? The Druid? She died there. Arcannen killed her. I was supposed to protect her, and I couldn’t manage it. I was the Ard Rhys’s Blade, and I couldn’t save her. At the time, I thought you and Lariana were dead, too. But something about the way it happened bothered me. To satisfy my curiosity I went back to the bluff to look for your bodies, and there was no sign of them. There should have been something, but there wasn’t.”

Reyn clasped his hands in front of him. “So you got permission from the Druids to come looking for us?”

“You don’t understand. I didn’t do this for the Druids. I did this for myself. I wanted to believe that something good had come out of that night. That the terrible destruction I witnessed had a happy ending for someone. It didn’t for Avelene, and it didn’t for me. It didn’t for those men and women of the Red Slash or for Usurient, either.”

He leaned forward, suddenly animated. “But what if you and Lariana were still alive? What if you and she had gotten clear and found the life she said you both wanted? If you had, I could take some small measure of satisfaction just in knowing. That’s why I came looking for you.”

The young healer stared. “What did you tell the Druids when you left to find us?”

“I didn’t tell them anything. I asked for time away and they gave it to me. I’m not sure I will go back. I’m not sure I can stay with them after what happened. Avelene’s death haunts me. And there was another Druid I was close to who died before her. I may have had enough. I may need to find a different life, something that doesn’t involve people dying. I explained this to the Ard Rhys. He wanted to take my sword from me but I wouldn’t let him. I told him it belonged to me. In the end he agreed to let me keep it. Of course, he thinks my keeping it will bring me back to Paranor. And he may be right.”

They were silent a moment, avoiding each other’s eyes. “Do you still use the sword?” Reyn asked finally.

Paxon shook his head, eyes downcast. “I haven’t had to. I haven’t been in a situation where it was necessary. I would prefer not to have to use it again for the rest of my life.” He looked up. “You seem to have been able to do that with the wishsong.”

“Not entirely. I use it in my healing practice. But using it that way helps people.”

“Then you should keep doing so. I can’t say that’s true for me.”

Reyn looked down again. “You don’t think Arcannen might have followed you?”

“No one followed me.”

“But he might still be searching for us.”

“I don’t think so. He doesn’t know about the absence of your remains. He fled immediately after. Now he’s a hunted man. Everyone in the Four Lands and the entire Druid Order is looking for him. He hasn’t time to go chasing ghosts.”

“Ghosts.” Reyn smiled again. “How strange to think of Lariana and me like that, but I guess it’s what we are. Ghosts reborn to another life.”

At that moment, the door to the healing center opened and Lariana walked through. She was as striking as ever, even dressed in common clothes that were stained and worn. As soon as she caught sight of Paxon, she stopped. “You!”

Paxon held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I came for something else entirely. Reyn can explain it to you.”

Which the other did, taking great pains to be certain that all the rough spots were smoothed over and the concerns and fears put to rest. Paxon didn’t miss the way he deferred to her as he did so, how solicitous he seemed, as if perhaps his dependence on her exceeded normal boundaries. He supposed it was the result of what Reyn had gone through, but it bothered him nevertheless. It took time and patience for the healer to complete his explanation, but in the end Lariana simply nodded her acceptance and sat down next to him, taking his hands in hers.

But when she looked over at Paxon, her eyes were cold and hard. “Then we won’t be seeing you again after this, will we?”

She was every bit as beautiful now as the first time he had seen her, but her protective attitude toward the healer seemed almost dangerous. There was a determination mirrored on her face and evident in her voice that reflected more clearly than words the way she felt about him. The two had made a life for themselves in this remote section of the Westland–a life she had clearly imagined from the beginning and likely had brought to pass in large part through sheer force of will once they escaped Arcannen.

“No, you won’t be seeing me again,” he affirmed. “It’s sufficient for me to know you survived and have a life devoted to helping others.”

“It was Lariana who suggested I take up healing,” Reyn was quick to point out. “She wanted me to find a constructive way to learn to control it. I found I was good at it, that the magic had a good side to it. I knew I could never go back to singing in taverns and the like. Not with Arcannen and the Druids still out there. I can do more good with it this way in any case, curing sickness, mending bones, giving life back to those who are in danger of losing it …”

He trailed off, looking over at his wife for what Paxon believed was approval. “It helps make up for the ways in which I used it before. It gives something back of what I took away.”

They were quiet for a moment, all of them, lost in their separate thoughts. Lariana continued to clasp Reyn’s hands in her own. He, in turn, leaned against her, head lowered.

Like a puppy, Paxon thought. Like his need for her was so overwhelming, so unabashedly desperate, that he constantly required reaffirmation that it was still there.

He was suddenly troubled by the urgency of it, by the depth of his dependence on her. In this relationship, she was clearly the dominant party.

He glanced out the window, noted the approaching dark, and rose abruptly. “I have to go. I have another visit to make and a long way to travel to make it. If I learn anything you need to know about Arcannen, I will get word to you.”

Reyn and Lariana stood up with him. “You could spend the night,” she said quietly. “You could have dinner with us.”

“I think it’s best that I go.” He was suddenly uncomfortable; her attempt at hospitality felt insincere. “I’m happy for you. I’m glad you found a way to start over. This life seems right for you.”

“You’ll find something, too,” Reyn said quickly, as if suddenly wanting to give the Highlander some small reassurance.

“I imagine so.” Paxon Leah managed a smile, but it was an effort for him to do so. He didn’t believe what he was saying. He didn’t think he would ever find the sort of happiness they had found, whatever its true nature. He didn’t even think he would ever find any real peace of mind.

The Highlander nodded in farewell and went out the door into the growing dark. He did not look back.

Reyn Frosch watched him go, his arm still around Lariana, his thoughts tinged with sadness.

“I feel sorry for him,” he whispered.

Lariana’s gaze was steady and cool. “Don’t.”

“No?”

She shook her head slowly. “You have to make the best of the life you are given. He hasn’t learned that yet. So, no.”

“All right. It was just a comment.”

“I want you to forget about him. I want you to think about us. This life is ours, not his. He won’t be coming back.”

“Well, I don’t want him to come back.”

She leaned in and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Listen to me. You and I have our own life to live, our own path to follow. We made this life out of hopes and dreams we shared. The past and those who lived it don’t belong. Let them go.”

He smiled and nodded. “As long as I have you.”

Her eyes found his. “You will always have me. Always.”

She would make him feel even more certain of it that night when she told him she was carrying his child.

Paxon Leah returned to the Sprint he had left at the edge of Backing Fell when he had walked out to the healing center. It was the one he had built for himself years ago when he was still living in Wayford and running shipping for a living, knowing nothing of the magic of the Sword of Leah. He had left his airship behind when he went to live and train with the Druids. But after leaving the order he had gone home to retrieve it and begin his search for Reyn and Lariana.

He had been lucky, really, to find them. He had started with nothing but his hope that they had survived. He had considered asking the Druids to use the scrye waters to discover if he was right but had decided against it. Doing so would necessarily have required he reveal what he was looking for, and he didn’t want to do that.

So he had resorted to intuition, common sense, and five months of flying to places he thought they might go to hide. He talked to hundreds of people, investigated dozens of dead ends, listened to his heart, and constantly reminded himself how much this could end up meaning to him. He was beaten down and despairing of his life and its purpose. All the hopes he had harbored when becoming the Ard Rhys’s Blade lay shattered beneath the Horn of Honor on those burial grounds. He kept telling himself that it would make a difference if something good had come out of all the carnage Arcannen had created. It would matter if the boy and the girl had found a happy ending.

He had gotten lucky, of course. An old man in a village not far from Backing Fell, in a chance encounter at a tavern on a deeply silent and frosty night, had sat across from him as he told his story and recognized his description of the girl. A young couple, he said, recently come to a nearby village–she as beautiful as a new snowfall, he newly a healer of special skills. They could be the ones the Highlander was looking for.

And so they were. But now that he had found them, he found himself wondering exactly what it was he had found. Not the fairy–tale ending he had wanted. Theirs was a complex and personal relationship that he was not meant to understand. Certainly, it did not feel as warm and wonderful as he had hoped. There was an undercurrent of dominance and subjection that had left him feeling chilled and disappointed. It had not brought him the satisfaction he had sought. Instead, he was adrift again, his long search ended, its particular purpose fulfilled, but his peace of mind not yet found and the rest of his life a story still unwritten.

Oddly, it was the nature of his disappointment that gave him fresh direction. It was the conclusion to the one search that had revealed to him that he must undertake another. One more visit was needed to complete what he had come to perceive as not so much a quest to find how the lives of Reyn Frosch and Lariana had turned out as a journey of self–discovery.

He flew east again for a few hours, not wanting to linger in Backing Fell, even though he was immensely tired, knowing that his presence would only make Reyn and Lariana more uncomfortable than they already were. Better to press on to another place so they could begin the process of consigning him to a back corner of their lives once more. Better they should start to forget him again as soon as possible.

He set down on the easternmost edge of the Sarandanon where he slept the night inside his vessel, a blanket pulled around him, the sky above him bright with moon and stars. Before he slept, he thought of Chrysallin, still back at Paranor in the care of the Druids, and wondered what he was going to do about her. Before he had left, he had told her he was going away, that he was taking time to go on a personal quest.

“What sort of quest?” she had asked at once. “This is because of Avelene, isn’t it?”

She was always so smart. “Because of Avelene and Starks and the way I feel about myself just now. Will you be all right?”

She had given him that familiar look, the one that suggested he ought to know better than to ask such a question. “I think I might be more all right than you will. Why are you doing this, Paxon? Can’t you find what you need here? Like I did?”

“It’s not the same with me as it was with you, Chrys. Paranor became a sanctuary for you. For me, it was supposed to supply a direction. But now I wonder if perhaps I’ve taken a wrong turn. I have to find that out.”

“But how will you do that? Where will you go to find the answer?”

“I’ll go where I have to, I guess.” He had embraced her and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget about you.”

She had grabbed him by his arms and held him away from her. “I am stronger than I was before I came here. You know that. Just be careful for yourself. Try to remember that your friends did not die because of you.”

He had been uncertain about his decision then and he was uncertain about it now. Chrysallin had inherited the wishsong, and she would find out, sooner or later. Aphenglow Elessedil had insisted it would happen, and he was no longer inclined to dispute her conclusions. Something would cause it to surface–a trauma, a memory, or simply chance. But something. She would need to be ready for it when it happened, and he had come to believe that meant telling her the truth about her inheritance of its magic.

In part, this had happened through research he had undertaken on his return from Arishaig. Avelene had done much of the work already, but now he felt he needed to do some as well. With Keratrix to help him gain access, he had begun studying the Druid Histories, searching for links with the past that might tell him something of how the wishsong had evolved.

What he had found had given him the first clues about what might be true, but he was still puzzling it through, still considering the possibilities.

Whatever happened as a result of his wanderings, he knew he would have to return to Paranor long enough do something about his sister. He couldn’t just leave her with the order. If the magic manifested itself anew, they might never let her leave. They might choose to try to turn her to their own purposes. Perhaps they might genuinely believe it was the best thing for her. But they would be fully aware, too, of how much it would help them to have a user of such powerful magic as a member of the order.

It was an unpleasant conclusion, but an inescapable one.

When morning came, with dawn a misty gray light and a harsh cold wind blowing out of the north suggesting the firm possibility of further snow on the horizon, he set out anew. He flew from the Westland into the Tirfing, the grasslands still green and fresh below him but the air bitter with heavy clouds rolling in, and then he continued through the remainder of the day to the Borderlands before turning south.

By nightfall, he had reached the city of Wayford and landed his vessel at the public airfield. As he climbed out of the pilot box he found himself searching for Grehling Cara, but a man he didn’t know was taking the night watch this evening. It was just as well, Paxon told himself as he gave his Sprint over to the other’s care. He still wasn’t sure about what he was doing, and he didn’t want to have to talk about it with anyone.

He walked off the airfield and into the city proper. It was early still, the taverns and eating establishments doing a brisk business and the pleasure houses just opening their doors. People moved in knots through the crowded streets, maneuvering for position as carts, carriages, and riders on horses all pushed their way through to wherever they were going. Laughter and shouts rang out from every quarter, and there was an air of joyful expectation in their sounds.

Paxon took it all in, but kept his purpose fixed and his pace steady as he passed on. Eventually, he had moved into a district of shops and food stalls, and then he was on the street he had come to find. Everything was very quiet and still; there were few people, and the windows of the shops were dark and shuttered. As he walked up the street, his pace slowed. He was preparing himself for what he would find, for how he would be received. He had hopes, but no expectations. Expectations now would only make his disappointment sharper. He knew how things might have gone. He understood that time and chance both might have passed him by.

When he reached her door, he hesitated. He stood there for several minutes, trying to decide whether to turn around and walk away. It was still possible to do so. It might be better, in fact. In spite of what he had come to do, in spite of the distance he had traveled to do it, it might be the wiser choice.

He lifted his hand to the iron knocker and then dropped it, filled with indecision.

What am I doing?

Then, abruptly, the door opened, and Leofur Rai stood there looking at him.

He waited for her to say something, but she just stared, arms folded across her breast. She looked the same–brilliant green eyes, honey–colored hair with silver streaks, intense no–nonsense gaze.

“I … couldn’t decide about this,” he said finally.

She faced him in silence, waiting.

He straightened. “I came here because I had to see you. I had to tell you how wrong I’ve been. I’m about as unhappy as I could possibly be, and I know it’s due in no small part to having stayed away from you. I should have come before now. I thought to do so countless times–more times than I can to think about–but the longer I waited the harder it got and finally I couldn’t make myself do it.”

She still did not speak, but she nodded.

“Something bad has happened. Something so terrible that it has caused me to consider leaving the Druid Order. It made me rethink everything. Maybe I should have done so sooner–I don’t know. I’ve been looking for answers, but I haven’t found them yet. I’ve been on a sort of identity quest. I know I’m not making sense; I can’t seem to find the words. The point is, it led me here. It opened my eyes. I know now I will never be happy without you. I will never be complete. I realized that. And I know it’s probably too late for us, but I had to come say it all anyway. I owed you that much. And I had to find out. About us. Because I’m hoping there’s still a chance we can be together.”

He paused, the pain of his emotions sharp in his chest. “Leofur, I love you. I think I always have. I know I always will.”

She watched him a moment longer. Then she unfolded her arms and reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Maybe you better come inside, Paxon,” she said, her face expressionless. “We might take a little time to work this out.”

His hopes came to life, the glow in his heart warm and bright as he stepped through her door.