David Farland - Wizardborn

Or maybe, Gaborn wondered, his thoughts coming in a rush, they recognize that Time also gives us all that we have. It brings us our homes, our wealth, our loved ones. Time gives us every precious second to enjoy.

So Time may ultimately be a paradox: creator and destroyer, bringer of joy and sorrow.

Perhaps the Days saw themselves as enlightened, standing aloof from that paradox. It certainly fit with their actions—and inaction.

But what could they hope to gain from their service? Time. The Days served the Time Lords. Could they hope to gain more Time for their service? Binnesman had lived for hundreds of years. The Earth had extended his life. Water wizards also were known to live for long ages.

Could his Days hope to similarly extend his life? It was a curious thought.

A nagging suspicion took hold of Gaborn. In all of the chronicles of the lives of various kings, nothing was ever said of the Days. The authors did not name themselves, remained completely anonymous. From time to time, they were reassigned. Gaborn’s own Days had come to him when he was still only a child. He had looked then much as he did now—skeletal, fiftyish. His hairline had not receded farther, no age spots had appeared in, what, fifteen years?

Yet Gaborn could not credit the notion. If the Days did live to a long age, someone would have noted it before—unless, like other wizards, the Days each had varying degrees of power.

Perhaps there really were Time Lords. If one of them stood before Gaborn, would he even know?

“How old are you?” Gaborn asked the Days.

The Days’ head swiveled. “How old do I look?”

“Fifty years.”

The Days nodded. “That would be about right.”

The answer was imprecise, an obvious evasion. “Whose life did you chronicle before you began writing my history?”

“Picobo Zwanesh, a prince of Inkarra,” the Days replied.

Gaborn had never heard the name, or even one similar to it. Nor had he known that his Days could speak Inkarran. “He was the first person you chronicled?”

“Yes.” It was spoken slowly. Another evasion?

“How long do you hope to live?”

“From all that you say, anything beyond a week would be a great boon.”

There was a puzzle here. Something was still missing. For a moment he’d thought he was on the verge of a revelation. Now he wasn’t sure he’d come any closer to the truth at all.

His Days certainly would not provide him with any clues. Gaborn couldn’t afford to ponder it anymore. He was too appreciative of how every precious second passed. The future rushed toward him. He needed to rest. The time was coming when he’d not be able to afford the luxury.

Every couple of minutes, a falling star would arch through the sky like an arrow shot from the bow of the heavens. Shortly after midwinter, for three days after Bride’s Feast, it was normal for the heavens to put on a display like this, but not now.

“When you write the book of my life,” Gaborn asked, “will you tell the world that it pained me to use my friends? Will you write that I wished evil upon no man, even my enemies?”

The Days answered, “It is said that ‘Deeds reveal the inner man, even when he would cloak himself in fine words.’ ”

“Yet sometimes deeds tell only half a tale,” Gaborn said. “I don’t like using this child, Averan. She should be allowed to grow into a beautiful woman, with sons and daughters of her own, and a husband that loves her true. Your book will only tell that I used her badly. It shames me that I must use her at all.”

“Your sentiments will be added as a footnote,” the Days said.

“Thank you,” Gaborn said sincerely.

A shout rose in the distance, hailing Gaborn. Gaborn looked south. A knight rode hard toward him, a flaming brand in his hand. He recognized the scout who had been with Averan and Binnesman.

“Yes?” Gaborn called.

“Milord,” the knight said, riding closer, “I’ve been looking for you.

I thought you should know: the girl Averan ate of the reaver. She’s very ill.”

Gaborn went cold. “How ill?”

“She cried out a few times, and sweat began to pour from her. Then she fell to the ground and began to convulse. She bit her tongue badly, and swallowed some blood. She was choking on it—”

“By the Powers!” Gaborn swore. What have I done?

“I got a knife between her teeth and pried her mouth open, but we had to put her on her belly lest she smother in her own blood. We can’t get drink down her at all.”

Gaborn leapt down from the rock, ran to his horse.

“Binnesman and his wylde are doing their best to keep her alive,” the scout said.

He swung up onto his mount, urged it galloping back to the south. He came up on a small knot of men all in a circle.

Two lords held Averan pinned to the ground, so that she wouldn’t hurt herself as she convulsed. Her eyes were rolled hack in her head, showing white, and her eyelids quivered. Her breath came out in great wheezes.

Binnesman stood over her, swinging his staff slowly, as he finished a higher incantation.

The stench told Gaborn that she’d retched, and wet puddles in the ash showed the remains of her meal.

He turned away in disgust. After long minutes, Binnesman came to his side, put a hand on his shoulder.

“The reaver she ate must have been near death. It was suffering greatly. She had hardly finished eating, when she cried out, ‘I’m dying. I’m dying.’ ”

Gaborn dared not say anything.

“She regurgitated most of the meal,” Binnesman said. “In doing so, I suspect she saved her life.”

Gaborn shook his head, confounded, unable to think what to do next. “And perhaps because of it, we have lost ours.”

Borenson stared by starlight at Myrrima’s right hand. The knuckles and middle three fingers were icy and almost as white as the hoarfrost that blasted the ground for fifty yards in every direction.

He touched her flesh, found it so bitter cold that it felt hot. Her teeth were chattering, and she trembled from the chill.

The Toth wight had cast some sort of spell on her.

“Damn,” he swore. Her fingers were as good as gone. She’d lose them for sure—maybe the whole hand.

Borenson’s heart was still pumping frantically. The wight’s dying scream echoed endlessly in his mind. His thoughts were racing. His wife had banished a wight. That couldn’t happen. Only a powerful mage might have done it. And it looked as if she would lose her hand.

She did it for me, he realized. She stood over me and fought the monster, just as she fought the reavers near Mangan’s Rock.

He couldn’t think clearly. He breathed on her hand, trying to heat it.

“Let’s wrap it and try to keep it warm,” he offered, pulling off his own cloak. He gingerly bundled the cloak around the injured hand.

“There’s no warmth left in it,” Myrrima said. “The cold is spreading.”

The touch of the air around him was surprisingly bitter, as if this place might not thaw in a week. Ice clung to his beard. The very air felt as brittle as the crust of ice at his feet.

A fire? he considered. But his fire kit was in his saddlebags. He looked down the road. The horses had both run off. With a wight on their tails, they’d probably keep running until dawn.

“Can you walk?” Borenson asked. “Fenraven can’t be far.”

“I can walk,” Myrrima said through chattering teeth. “But can you keep up with me?” She was a Runelord now, with more endowments of brawn and metabolism than he, and endowments of stamina to boot. She could run farther and faster than he.