David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

If any of us survive these dark times, he thought, I will have to live with the memories of those I let down. For the sake of my own conscience, I dare let no one down.

For a long time he pondered some words from the small book written by the Emir Owatt of Tuulistan—not the forbidden words from the House of Understanding, but a silly poem about self-definition. He had not committed it to memory, could only recall two lines.

Love and lovers may not always sustain,

But I choose to love still.

Though heart might fail me and the battle be lost,

I choose to strive still.

As did the Emir, Gaborn saw wisdom in the struggle. The universe was a powerful foe. In time death overtakes all men. But while he breathed, Gaborn was free to choose the kind of man he would become. It was essential that he remain the kind of man he could live with.

He thought of Emir Owatt of Tuulistan. The little book he’d sent to King Sylvarresta intrigued Gaborn. The Emir was obviously a jewel among men. And now Gaborn was placing great hopes on his daughter Saffira.

A flicker of ghost fire caught his eyes up on the hill at the edge of the Dunnwood just at the tree line, a shimmering gray light.

A wight sat there, on its ghostly mount in the darkness, staring toward the castle at the huddled masses.

He’s watching over my people, Gaborn realized, just as I commanded him to do. Like a shepherd on a hill, watching his flocks by night.

Gaborn could not see from so far away who it might be. He imagined that it was the spirit of Erden Geboren himself, or perhaps his own father.

Gaborn missed his father’s counsel now.

He wondered idly if the wights would be able to fight the Darkling Glory. He doubted it. A wight’s cold touch could kill a mortal man, but wights dissipated when in light A campfire would drive them off. Sunlight banished them. And if the Darkling Glory came from the Realms of Fire in the netherworld, it would surely have some control over that element.

At the back of the room, Gaborn’s Days coughed.

Gaborn turned and looked at the man in the shadows, wondered what he knew.

“Tell me,” Gaborn said in an easy tone. “What think you of our plans? Did I do well or ill today?”

“That, I cannot say,” the Days answered in a tone that told Gaborn precisely nothing.

Gaborn asked rhetorically, for he knew the answer, “If I were drowning in deep water, a foot from shore, would you save me?”

“I would note in my records the moment that you went under for the last time,” his Days said amused by the game.

“And if mankind sank with me?” Gaborn asked.

“It would be a sad day for the books,” the Days said soberly.

“Where is Raj Ahten? What does he plan?”

“Everything in its own time,” the Days said. “You will know all too soon.”

Gaborn wondered. Had Raj Ahten sped north, too? Could he be coming with the Darkling Glory? Or did he have more dire plans in mind?

“Your Highness, may I ask you a question?” the Days said.

“Of course.”

“Have you considered the fate of the Days? Have you considered whether you will Choose me—or any other Days?”

Seizing the moment, Gaborn stared the man in the eyes, gazed beyond them, into the Days’ hopes and dreams.

Gaborn had looked into his father’s heart, and it had been clear. He’d looked into the heart of Molly Drinkham’s child and seen that it loved nothing, was only grateful for its mother’s nipple and for the warmth of her body and the way she sang sweetly to get him to sleep.

Yet even that child, with its vague longings, seemed clearer, more comprehensible, to Gaborn than did the Days.

Through the Earth Sight, he saw not a man, but a man and a woman, a woman with a quill and parchment, a woman with wheat-colored hair and emerald-green eyes.

Gaborn had never guessed that the scribe to his witness would be a woman. Now he saw that the two loved one another, that for them sharing a mind was a joy and an intimacy that Gaborn had never quite imagined.

He looked deeper still, and saw that they shared something more than that: a love of old tales and deeds and songs, a childlike joy that came from merely watching events unfold, the way that an old gardener loves to watch the first crocuses of spring spread wide their white petals, or seeds sprout green from a newly planted field. For them, the study of history was a constant delight, an ever-present joy.

And neither of them wanted anything more than to simply watch. They did not want to better the world or lessen another’s pain. They sought no gain.

They were content to watch.

Gaborn could not fathom it, he was amazed. He had never quite imagined that any man’s heart could be as odd as what he saw beating within the historian.

Gaborn considered. He’d told Iome that he wanted much the same kind of unity earlier in the day, that his domain and hers were one, and that he wanted to grow together with her. Yet so long as they remained two creatures apart, perhaps that could never be achieved. But the Days had seen a possibility, away to unite two people so that they became of one mind and one heart, and they had followed that path.

Gaborn almost envied them. He would have spoken to Iome of the possibility, but it was too late for them. She’d already granted an endowment of glamour to Raj Ahten’s vector, and though the vector was dead and Iome’s beauty had returned to her, the fact that she had given an endowment now made it impossible for her to ever give another.

She and Gaborn could never share such intimacy.

“I will consider the possibility,” Gaborn answered.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the Days said.

Gaborn resumed looking out the window, letting the fresh night air blow into his face as he listened to the frogs. For long hours, he sat taking his rest as Runelords do, eyes awake, wandering through a realm of dream.

In his dream, he was a young man, riding a stallion through a dark chasm along a narrow mountain road he’d once ridden with his father.

He knew this place, knew this bleak landscape. Last week he had asked his Days why the Days were once called the “Guardians of Dreams.” His Days had said that someday soon, in his sleep, he would visit this place: this land in his dreamscape where all of his terrors lay hidden. He’d told Gaborn to seek out that place.

Only in this dream, he was alone and spiderwebs as strong as bands of steel barred his way. In crevasses among the dark rock, he could see spiders larger than crabs scuttling in the shadows, eyes glittering like bright crystals.

Now, Gaborn looked up the dark ravine, thick with cobwebs. His heart pounded with terror, and his chest was tight. Sweat beaded on his brow. He drew his saber and cut through the strong strands, so that they snapped like lute strings. He urged his mount forward.

He missed a strand, and it hit his forehead, slashed his face before it broke. Gaborn rode on with blood running down the bridge of his nose, into his clenched lips.

This is the land of fears, he realized. This is where my terrors reside. He raced now to face them.

He ducked low and rode hard up the narrow ravine, fearing death, hoping instead to find his father there, or his mother, or some other proper reward.

But ahead the crevasse turned and twisted. It splayed into a wide passage where a dim light shone.

There, above him, tall upon a dark horse, sat his Days. His narrow skull was a dark V, his close-cropped hair unkempt. He looked almost skeletal, merely bones wrapped in a bundle of cloth. He held a wavering green light in his palm, like the flame of a wind-blown lantern, though the light did not issue from any device.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the Days said, holding up the thin light, as if to pass it into Gaborn’s hand