David Farland - The Sum of All Men

It was an obvious jest. “Not without me,” Gaborn said, musing. “Last autumn, I came to the Dunnwood to hunt boars. This year we shall hunt reavers. Perhaps Groverman will ride with us. What think you?”

“Hah, not bloody likely,” Borenson spat. “Not after what I've done!”

Immediately, Borenson's eyes looked troubled again, and Gaborn sought to turn his thoughts. “Tell you what, if we kill a reaver, you get to eat the ears,” Gaborn jested. To eat the ears of the first boar of the hunt was a great honor. But reavers had no ears, and no part of a reaver was edible. “Or at least I'll cut off a patch of hide shaped like an ear.”

“Oh, you are too generous, milord,” Borenson chortled like some peasant woman in the marketplace, heaping unearned praise on a noble. “Oh, you're so gracious. All you lords are so...er, well, lordly, if you catch my meaning.”

“Well, uh, thank you, dear lady,” Gaborn said, affecting a stodgy accent much like that of the Marquis of Ferecia, a noted poser. He raised his nose in the air, just as the Marquis would, then used the full powers of his Voice to imitate the Marquis' accent. “A blessing on you and your hovel and all your snot-nosed prodigy, dear lady. And please don't come any nearer, or I think I might sneeze.”

Borenson laughed deeply at the jest, for the Marquis often sneezed when dirty peasants got too near his person. His threats of illness kept peasants away, so that the Marquis would not have to tolerate the scent of their poverty.

It was a grim sort of humor, but it was the best Gaborn could manage at the moment, and it eased Borenson's spirits somewhat. Gaborn almost hoped that someday things between them would be as they had been before.

Two weeks ago, Gaborn had ridden into Heredon with hardly a care. Now he felt the weight of the whole world landing squarely on his shoulders. Deep in his heart, he knew nothing could ever be the same.

They crossed the downs for several miles, riding over the rolling hills.

The clouds began to break, and the afternoon sun began melting the snow. A mile from Longmont, farmhouses still stood along the road, stone cottages whose thatch roofs had not been torched. All the animals were gone from their pens and the fruit had been harvested, giving the place an eerie sense of emptiness, but the shelters still stood.

Then they crossed a hill and saw Bredsfor Manor nestled in a cozy vale, a long building of gray stone with two wings fanning out. Behind it lay barns and dovecotes, carriage houses, servants' quarters, and walled gardens. A circular drive curved among the flower beds and topiaries before the manor, A deep brook cut through the vale, and a white bridge spanned the brook farther down the road.

On the steps of the manor sat a woman in cloud-colored silk, her dark hair cascading over her left shoulder.

Myrrima gazed up at them, stood nervously. Her beauty had not diminished in the past few days. Gaborn had almost forgotten how lovely she looked, how inviting.

Borenson spurred his horse and charged downhill, shouting, “How—what are you doing here?”

In a moment Borenson leapt from his horse, and Myrrima melted into his arms.

Gaborn halted a hundred yards off.

Myrrima laughed and hugged Borenson, weeping. “You didn't make it to Longmont in time. King Orden told me to wait here for you. Oh, I was so afraid. The skies went black, and frightful screams shook the ground.

Raj Ahten's army passed here—right down this road, so I hid, but they were in such a hurry—they never slowed...”

Gaborn turned his horse around, rode back over the hill, followed by his Days, so that the two could have a few moments of privacy. There he rested beneath an elm tree, where the ground was free of the slushy melting snow. Part of him felt relieved. He'd believed, somehow, that Myrrima was important to his future, that she would play a major role in the wars to come, and he felt grateful to find that his father had chosen to save her, to send her out of harm's way.

Yet at the same time, he could not help but feel somewhat jealous of whatever happiness she and Borenson might have.

Iome had been so horribly scarred by her encounter with Raj Ahten, so shattered. The manner of her father's death was sure to divide them. Gaborn did not know if she would ever want to speak to him again.

Perhaps it would be better to forget her, he mused. Yet her happiness mattered to him. Gaborn still felt numb; his breathing came ragged, and he trembled.

Both of them bore wounds from this war, and these deep cuts were just the beginning.

But we cannot give in to pain, Gaborn thought. It is a Runelord's duty to place himself between his vassals and danger, to take the enemy's blows, so that fragile people do not have to suffer.

Though Gaborn felt hurt beyond telling, he did not weep, and he did not let himself mourn his loss. Just as, he vowed, he'd never let himself flinch in the face of danger.

Yet he feared that this day, these deeds, would haunt his dreams.

Gaborn's Days stood behind him, under the elm. Gaborn said, “I missed you, Days. I'd not have thought it, but I missed your presence.”

“As I missed you, Your Lordship. I see you have had a little adventure.”

It was the Days' way of asking Gaborn to fill in the blanks in his knowledge. It occurred to Gaborn that the Days did not really know how many things had happened to him, how he'd given himself to the Earth, or how he'd read the Emir of Tuulistan's book, or how he'd fallen in love.

“Days, tell me,” Gaborn said, “in ancient times, the men and women of your order were called the 'Guardians of Dream.' Is that not right?”

“Long ago, in the South, yes,” the Days answered.

“Why is that so?”

“Let me ask you another question, Your Lordship. When you dream, do you sometimes find yourself wandering through familiar lands, to places unconnected?”

“Yes,” Gaborn said. “There is a path behind my father's palace in Mystarria, and in my dreams, when I ride my horse behind it, I sometimes find myself in the fields behind the Room of the Heart, which is at least forty miles from the palace, or I ride through those fields and find myself by a pond in the Dunnwood. Is this significant?”

“It is only the sign of an organized mind, trying to make sense out of the world,” his Days answered.

“Then how does this answer my question?” Gaborn asked.

“In your dreams, there are paths you fear to tread,” the Days answered. “Your mind shies from the memory, but they too are part of the landscape of dream. Do you remember them, also?”

Gaborn did. As the Days spoke, he remembered a time many years ago, when he'd been traveling with his father in the mountains, and his father had wanted him to ride up a trail through a steep, narrow ravine of black stone, where cobwebs hung between the rock. “I remember.”

His Days looked at Gaborn with slitted eyes, nodded slightly. “Good, then you are a man of courage, for only men of courage remember that place. Someday soon, you will find yourself riding through your dreams. When you do, take that trail, and see where it leads you. Perhaps then you will have the answer to your question.”

Gaborn gazed at the Days, wondering. It was a trick, he knew, to tell someone what to do in their dreams. The mind would do as instructed, fulfill the command.

“You want to know what happened to me over the past three days,” Gaborn said. “Would it be selfish, if I kept that knowledge to myself?”

“A man who fancies himself to be the servant of all, should never give in to a selfish desire,” the Days answered.

Gaborn smiled. “After I left you,” he said, and he told the tale in full, though he never mentioned the Emir's book.