Terry Brooks - The Darkling Child

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.