Part 21 (2/2)
Foraker chuckled mirthlessly. ”You would think so. But not everyone wants to believe the truth of things, you see. Some want to hide from it.”
”Have any of the races agreed to aid you?”
The Dwarf shrugged. ”Some. The Westland Elves are sending an army under Ander Elessedil. It's still two weeks away, though. Callahorn promises aid; Helt and a handful of others already fight with us. Nothing from the Trolls yet-but the Northern territories are vast and the tribes scattered. Perhaps they will at least help us along the northern borders.”
He trailed off. Jair waited a moment, then asked, ”And the Southland?”
”The Southland?” Foraker shook his head slowly. ”The Southland has the Federation and its Coalition Council. A bunch of fools. Petty internal bickerings and power struggles occupy all of their energies. And the new Southland has no use for the peoples of the other lands. The race of Man reverts to what it was in the time of the First War. If there were a Warlock Lord alive now, I fear the Federation would be a willing follower.”
Jair winced inwardly. In the First War of the Races, fought hundreds of years earlier, the Warlock Lord had subverted the race of Man and convinced it to attack the other races. Man had been defeated in that war and had still not recovered from the humiliation and bitterness of their loss. Isolationist in policy and practice, the Federation had absorbed and become spokesman for the majority of the Southland and the race of Man.
”Still, Callahorn stands with you,” Jair declared quickly. ”The Bordermen are a different breed.”
”Even the Bordermen may not be enough.” Foraker grunted. ”Even the whole of the Legion. You've seen the gathering of tribes without. United, they are a power greater than anything we can match. And they have the aid of those black things that command them...” He shook his head darkly.
Jair's brow furrowed. ”But we have an ally of our own who can stand against the Mord Wraiths. We have Allanon.”
”Yes, Allanon,” Foraker murmured, then shook his head once more.
”And Brin,” Jair added. ”Once they've found the Ildatch...”
He trailed off, the warning of the King of the Silver River suddenly a dark whisper in his mind. Leaves in the wind, he had said. Your sister and the Druid. Both will be lost.
He shoved the whisper aside roughly. It won't happen like that, he promised. I'll reach them first. I'll find them. I'll throw the Silver Dust into Heaven's Well to cleanse its waters, throw the vision crystal after, and then...He paused uncertainly. What? He didn't know. Something. He would do something that would keep the old man's prophecy from coming to pa.s.s.
But first there was the journey north, he reminded himself glumly. And before that, Garet Jax must return...
Foraker was walking along the battlements once more, bearded face lowered into his chest, hands stuffed into the pockets of the travel cloak he wore wrapped about his stocky frame.
Jair caught up with him as he started down a set of broad stone steps to a lower ramp.”Can you tell me something about Garet Jax?” the Valeman asked suddenly.
The Dwarf's head remained lowered. ”What would you have me tell you?”
Jair shook his head. ”I don't know. Something.”
”Something?” the other grunted. ”Bit vague, don't you think? What sort of something?”
Jair thought about it a moment. ”Something no one else knows. Something about him.”
Foraker walked to a parapet overlooking the dark expanse of the Cillidellan, resting his elbows on the stonework as he stared out into the night. Jair stood silently beside him, waiting.
”You want to understand him, don't you?” Foraker asked finally.
The Valeman nodded slowly. ”A little, at least.”
The Dwarf shook his head. ”I'm not sure that it's possible, Ohmsford. It's like trying to understand a...a hawk. You see him, see what he is, what he does. You marvel at him, you wonder at his being. But you can't ever understand him-not really. You have to be him to understand him.”
”You seem to understand him,” Jair offered.
Foraker's fierce countenance swung sharply about to face him. ”Is that what you think, Ohmsford? That I understand him?” He shook his head once more. ”No better than I understand the hawk. Less, maybe. I know him because I've spent time with him, fought with him, and trained men with him. I know him for that. I know what he is, too. But all that doesn't amount to a pinch of dust when it comes to understanding.”
He hesitated. ”Garet Jax is like another form of life compared to you, me, or anyone else you'd care to name. A special and singular form of life, because there's only one.” The eyebrows lifted. ”He's magic in his way. He does things no other man could hope to do-or even try to do.
He survives what would kill anyone else, and he does it time after time. Like the hawk, it's instinct-it lets him fly way up there above the rest of us where no one can touch him. A thing apart. Understand him? No, I couldn't begin to understand him.”
Jair was quiet for a moment. ”He came to the Eastland because of you, though,” he said finally. ”At least, he says that is why he came. So he must feel some sort of friends.h.i.+p for you.
You must share a kins.h.i.+p.”
”Perhaps.” The other shrugged. ”But that doesn't mean I understand him. Besides, he does what he does for reasons that are all his own and not necessarily what he says they are-I know that much. He's here not just because of me, Ohmsford. He's here for other reasons as well.” He tapped Jair on the shoulder. ”He's here as much because of you as because of me, I think. But I don't know the reason why. Perhaps you do.”
The Valeman hesitated, thinking. ”He said he would be my protector because that was what the King of the Silver River had said he must be.” He trailed off.
”Well and good.” Foraker nodded. ”But do you understand him any better for knowing that? I do not.” He paused, then looked back out across the lake. ”No, his reasons are his own and the reasons are not ones he would tell to me.”
Jair barely heard him. He had remembered something, and a look of surprise flitted over his face. Quickly he turned away. His mind froze. Were the reasons that Garet Jax would not tell to Foraker ones that he would tell to the Valeman? Hadn't the Weapons Master done just that in the dark, chill rain that second night out of Culhaven when the two had crouched alone beneath that ridgeline? The memory stirred slowly to life. I want you to understand...That was what Garet Jax had told him. The dream promised a test of skill greater than any I have ever faced. A chance to see if I am truly the best. For me, what else is there...?Jair breathed deeply the chill night air. Maybe he understood Garet Jax better than he thought. Maybe he understood him as well as anyone could.
”There is one thing not many know.” Foraker turned back suddenly. Jair shoved aside his musings. ”You say he found you in the Black Oaks. Ever wonder why he happened to be there?
After all, he was coming east out of Callahorn.”
Jair nodded slowly. ”I hadn't thought about that. I guess the Black Oaks are rather out of the way for one traveling from the borderlands to the Anar.” He hesitated. ”What was he doing there?”
Foraker smiled faintly. ”I'm only guessing, you understand. He's not told me any more than you. But the lake country north, between Leah and the lowlands of Clete-that was his home.
That was where he was born, where he grew up. Once, long ago, he had family there. Some, anyway. Hasn't said anything about it for a long time, bur maybe there's still someone there. Or maybe just memories.”
”A family,” Jair repeated softly, then shook his head. ”Has he told you who they were?”
The Dwarf pushed himself back from the parapet. ”No. Mentioned it once, that was all.
But now you know something about the man no one else knows-except me, of course. Does that help you understand him any better?”
Jair smiled. ”I don't suppose so.”
Foraker turned and together they started back across the battlements. ”Didn't think it would,” the Dwarf muttered, pulling his cloak close about him as the wind caught at them beyond the shelter of the wall. ”Come back inside with me, Ohmsford, and I'll brew you a cup of hot ale. We'll wait for our hawk's return together.”
Foraker's rough hand clapped his shoulder gently, and he hurried after.
The night slipped away, its hours empty and lingering and clouded with dark antic.i.p.ation.
Mist crept down out of the heights on cat's paws, thickening, shrouding the whole of the locks and dams, and draping Gnome and Dwarf armies alike in veils of damp, clinging haze until even the bright glow of the watchfires disappeared from view.
Jair Ohmsford fell asleep at midnight, still awaiting the return of Garet Jax. Slumped wearily in a high-backed captain's chair in a watch lounge while Foraker, Slanter, and Edain Elessedil talked in low voices over mugs of hot ale and a single candle lighted against the deepening gloom, he simply drifted off. One minute he was awake, listening in weary detachment to the drone of their voices, eyes closed against the light; in the next, he was sleeping.
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