David Farland - Wizardborn

“I know you’re not crazy,” Gaborn said. He seemed to want to draw her back out of her shell. “So reavers can talk in smells?”

“And read and write, too.”

Iome felt perplexed. She’d never suspected such a thing.

“How come we’ve never seen their writing?” Gaborn said.

“Because they write with smells. They leave smells written on stones along every trail. That’s the way that they like to talk best. In fact, it’s easier for a reaver to write a message than to talk face-to-face.”

“Why?” Gaborn asked.

Averan struggled to explain. “For a reaver, a word is a smell. Your name and your smell are the same thing, so that all a reaver has to do to say ‘Gaborn’ is to make your smell.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Gaborn said.

“It is, and it isn’t. Imagine that we are talking, and you said to me, ‘Averan, that’s a beautiful pair of rabbit-skin boots you’re wearing. Where did you get them?’ And I said, ‘Thank you, I found them by the roadside, and no one claimed them. So now they’re mine.’

“When we talk like that, every word goes out of our mouths and stays in the air for a moment. Then it fades all by itself. So our words are a line of sounds, coming out of us.

“But with reavers, words don’t disappear on their own. All those smells, all those words, simply hang in the air—until you erase them.”

“And how is that done?” Binnesman asked. Everyone in Gaborn’s retinue crowded round Averan, as if she were some great scholar in the House of Understanding. They hung on her every word.

“After I create each scent, I have to make its opposite, the unsent that erases it.”

“What...?” Binnesman asked. “You say ‘I.’ But you mean the reavers?”

“Yeah, I mean the reavers make the unsent.”

“The scent’s negative?” Gaborn asked.

“Yes,” Averan said, uncertainly, as if she’d never heard the word negative before.

“So when I say the word ‘Gaborn,’ I have to create a scent that says ‘not Gaborn,’ before I speak again. I have to take the word ‘Gaborn’ from the air.

“And that can be very hard to do,” Averan said. “If I scream the word, if I make the scent strongly, I must unscream it too. And the farther away you are, the longer it takes for you to get my message. So reavers learn to speak when they’re close together, to talk softly, to make scents that are so faint, other animals can’t even smell them. They’re just whispers that float in the air.”

“Wait a minute,” one lord said. “You say you have to make this word disappear. But why couldn’t you just make all the scents anyway? You can walk into a room and smell carrots and beef and turnips all boiling at the same time.”

“You can,” Averan said, “but it doesn’t mean anything. To a reaver, it would just be a jumble of words. Imagine if you took all the words I’ve said in the last two minutes and said them all at once. Could anyone make sense of it?”

“The reavers must talk slowly, then,” Gaborn mused.

“Not much slower than how you and I are speaking now,” Averan said, “at least when they’re close together. But it’s hard to understand each other across great distances.

“So reavers do write,” Averan continued, “all the time. If a scout passes down a trail, he’ll leave messages behind, telling what he sensed on side journeys, where he last saw enemies.”

This news astonished Iome and everyone else in the room. For ages men had wondered how reavers communicated. Most men assumed that they did it by waving their philia about. But Averan’s words would profoundly change the way that men perceived reavers. The girl knew this, and now seemed to have lost her inhibitions.

“And another thing,” Averan said. “Reavers don’t see like we do. They can only see close by, and they see the world all in one color, but it isn’t a color. I can’t explain it, but it’s the color of lightning. Lightning blinds them. When it flashes, they feel the way you would if you were staring into the sun. It’s very painful.”

“You’re a brave little girl,” Gaborn said. As if she had been waiting for his reassurance, Averan’s resolve broke. Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and she began to sob. “Your tale brings certain questions to mind.”

“What?” Averan asked.

“For example, can you tell me about the nature and disposition of the reavers’ troops?”

Averan stared at him blankly. “Nature?”

“The reaver armies,” Gaborn clarified. “Do you know how many reavers there are?”

Averan shook her head. “I...one of the reavers I ate was a scout. The other a mage. I don’t know about numbers.”

Gaborn turned back to Averan. “Let me pose it another way. You don’t have any idea how many reavers there are in the Underworld?”

Averan seemed to gather herself. She closed her eyes for a long moment and said, “The Underworld is full, but the reavers—they can’t live just anywhere. Food is scarce.”

And we’re food, Iome thought. Gaborn glanced back at his counselors. The Wits showed little emotion.

“Your Highness,” Averan continued, “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Gaborn asked softly.

“The One True Master has unraveled much of the Master Rune. Yesterday, you destroyed the Seal of Desolation that her apprentice laid on Carris.”

Gaborn nodded. Gaborn had killed the most powerful reaver mage ever mentioned in the tomes. Some small part of Iome had been clinging to the hope that Gaborn had already slain the most powerful of all reavers. But this child described it as being a mere “apprentice” to a far more powerful master.

“Tell me about her,” Gaborn demanded.

Iome’s glance flicked up to Binnesman. The mage, with his perpetual stoop, looked suddenly pale. He leaned on his staff, as if seeking support.

“In the Underworld,” Averan said, “the One True Master is taking endowments. And she’s giving them to her leaders.”

“Reavers have always been able to eat one another and grow that way,” Gaborn said. “Are you sure it isn’t the same?”

“This is different,” Averan said. “Reavers can eat each other’s brains to learn. And they can eat the musk glands under their arms to grow. But now they’ve discovered rune lore. She’s already deciphered the runes of grace, scent, and brawn. Now she’s trying to perfect metabolism.”

There was a moment of silence as warriors looked at one another meaningfully. Facing reavers was bad enough. Facing one that had endowments of metabolism was terrifying.

“But there’s something more,” Averan said. “I don’t understand it at all. The Seal of Desolation that you destroyed, that was part of something bigger. She plans to bind a Seal of Desolation to the Seal of Heaven and the Seal of the Inferno.”

Binnesman drew back, leaned on his staff for support. “That...that’s not possible! No one could decipher so much of the Master Rune!”

“It is possible,” Averan said. “I saw the runes taking shape at the Place of Bones! You saw the Seal of Desolation—”

“But,” Jerimas blurted, “it has taken mankind thousands of years to decipher the shapes of even the smallest of runes—brawn and wit! How could one reaver learn so much?”

“She divines them by looking into the fire,” Averan said.

Binnesman backed away. “By the Tree!” he swore. His face was hard. He looked bewildered, as if someone had just bludgeoned him for no apparent reason. “By the Tree...” He knew something that Iome didn’t, she felt sure. Or perhaps he merely suspected something. “You’re sure that this One True Master is a reaver, not some other creature?”

“I’ve seen her,” Averan said. “She’s enormous, but she’s just a reaver.”