“I tried, but I could say nothing. My throat be fire. My voice did not work. Mathrin held me by my hair; I could not move. Pell’s eyes be big as he stared at me. As I sat silent.Pell spoke to me. “How could you do that to me, Adie? How could you name me a baneling?” Then he cried.
“Mathrin asked him to name me a baneling. He said that if he did, they would believe him over me, because I had the gift, and he would be freed. Pell whispered, “I will not say that of her to save my life. Even though she has betrayed me.” Those words broke my heart.”she stared off at nothing, Zedd noticed a candle on the counter behind her melt into a puddle. He could feel the waves of power radiating from her. He realized he was holding his breath. He eased it out.
“Mathrin cut Pell’s throat,” she said simply. “He severed Pell’s head and held it before me. He said he wanted me to see what following the Keeper had brought on Pell. He said it be the last thing he wanted me to ever see. The men held my head back and pulled my eyes open. Mathrin poured the burning liquid in them.
“I be blinded.
“In that moment, something happened inside me. My Pell was gone, he died thinking I had betrayed him, my life was about to end. I suddenly realized how it be my own fault, for holding to an oath. The life of my love, for an ignorant oath, for a foolish superstition. Nothing mattered anymore; everything be gone to me.
“I turned the gift loose, turned the rage loose. I broke my oath not to use the gift to harm another. I could not see, but I could hear; I could hear their blood hit the stone walls. I struck out wildly. I shredded every living thing in that room, be it man or mouse. I could not see, so I simply struck at any life I could feel. I could not tell if any had escaped. In a way, I be glad to be blind, or seeing what I be doing, I might have stopped before I finished.
“When all be still, dead, I felt my way around the room, counting the bodies. One be missing.
“I crawled to my grandmother Lindel’s. How I made my way, I cannot imagine, except to think the gift guided me. When she saw me, she be furious. She pulled me to my feet and demanded to know if I had broken my oath.”leaned forward. “But you couldn’t speak. How did you answer?”smiled a small, cold smile. “I picked her up by the throat, with the power of the gift, and slammed her against the wall. I walked up to her and nodded my head. I squeezed her throat in anger. She fought me. She fought me with all her power. But I be stronger, much stronger. I never knew until that moment that the gift be different in different people. She be as helpless as a stick doll.
“But I could not hurt her, as much as I wished to for her asking that question before any other. I released her and sagged to the floor; I could stand no longer. She came to me and began tending to my wounds. She told me I had done wrong, by breaking my oath, but that what was done to me was a more grievous wrong.
“I never feared Grandmother Lindel again. Not because she be helping me, but because I had broken the oath, I be beyond the laws I had been taught, and because I knew I was stronger than she. From that day on, she be afraid of me. I think she helped me because she wanted me well, so I could leave.
“A few days later, Grandmother Lindel came home to tell me that she had been called before the king’s circle and questioned. She said all the men at the mill, all the Blood of the Fold, be dead, except Mathrin. He had escaped. She told the circle she had not seen me. They believed her, or said they did because they did not want to confront her and additionally a sorceress who had killed that many men in such a shocking manner, so they let her go about her business.”of the tension seemed to ease from her shoulders. She studied the teacup a moment and then took another sip. She held the cup out for him to warm. Zedd poured a little more. He idly wished he had put some of the powdered cloud leaf in his own tea. He didn’t think that was the end of the story.
“I lost my child,” Adie said in a soft rasp.looked up. “I’m sorry, Adie.”looked up to meet his eyes. “I know.” She took one of his hands in both hers after he set down the kettle. “I know.” She took her hands back. “My throat healed.” She touched her fingers lightly to her neck, then knitted them together. “But it left me with a voice like dragging iron over rock.”smiled at her. “I like your voice. Iron fits the rest of you.”ghost of a smile passed across her face. “My eyes, though, did not grow better. I be blind. Grandmother Lindel not be as strong as me, but she be old, and had seen many a trick with the gift. She taught me to see without my eyes. She taught me to see with the gift. It not be the same as eyes, but in some ways, it be better. In some ways, I see more.
“After I be healed, Grandmother Lindel wanted me to leave. She not be fond of living with one who had broken the oath, even though I be of her blood. She feared I would bring trouble. Whether from the Keeper, for breaking my oath, or from the Blood of the Fold, she did not know, but she feared trouble would come because of me.”leaned back in his chair, stretching his tense muscles a bit. “And did trouble come?”
“Oh, yes,” Adie hissed, raising her eyebrows as she leaned forward. “Trouble came. Mathrin Galliene brought them: twenty Blood of the Fold. Ones paid by the Crown. Professionals. Battle-hard men; big men, grim-faced, savage men, all pretty on horseback in neat ranks with swords, shields, and banners, every spear held just so, at the same angle. All pretty in their chain mail and polished breastplates shining with the embossed crest of the Crown, and all wearing helmets with red plumes that flicked as they rode. Every horse white.
“I stood on the porch and watched with the eyes of the gift as they spread rank before me with perfect precision, like they be performing for the king himself. Every horse put every foot the same, stopping in a line at the lifting of a finger from the commander. They be spread out before me, ready, eager, to do their grisly duty. Mathrin waited behind them on his horse, watching. The commander called out to me, “You be under arrest as a baneling, and are to be executed as such.’”lifted her head from the specters of her memory, her eyes meeting Zedd’s. “I thought of Pell. My Pell.”expression hardened into an iron mask. “Not one sword cleared a scabbard, not one spear be leveled, not one foot touched the ground, before they died. I swept the line, from left to right, one man at a time, everything I had, into each in turn, quick as a thought. Thump thump thump. Every one, except the commander. He sat still and stone-faced upon his white horse as men in armor crashed to the ground to each side of him.
“When it be finished, when the last shield had clattered into silence, I met his eyes. “Armor,” I told him, “be of no use against a true baneling. Or a sorceress. It only be of use against innocent people.” Then I told him he was to deliver a message to the king for me, from one sorceress named Adie. In a calm, firm voice, he asked the message. I said, “Tell him that if he sends another of the Blood of the Fold to take me, it will be the last living order he ever gives.” He looked at me for a moment without a hint of emotion in his cold eyes, and then he turned his horse and walked it away without looking back.”gaze sank to the table. “My grandmother turned her back to me. She told me to leave the shelter of her roof and never to return.”little wince touched Zedd’s face before he caught it, at the thought of a sorceress with enough power to kill men in that fashion. It was exceedingly rare for a sorceress to be that strong in the gift. “What of Mathrin? You didn’t kill him?”shook her head. A humorless smile played across her lips.
“No. I took him with me.”
“Took him with you?”
“I bonded him to me. Bonded his life to mine. Bonded him so that he always knew where I be, and so that every new moon he was compelled to come to me, no matter where I be, no matter what he wished. He had to follow me, at least close enough so that he could come to me every new moon.”, Zedd studied the dregs in his tea cup. “I met a man, once, in Winstead, the capital and Crown seat of Kelton. His name was Mathrin. He was a beggar, missing the fingers on one hand, as I recall. He was blind. His eyes had been…” Zedd’s eyes suddenly fixed on hers. She was watching him. “His eyes had been gouged out.”nodded. “Indeed they had.” Her face was iron again.
“Every new moon, he came to me, and I cut something off him, letting his screams try to fill the emptiness in me.”leaned back, his hands pressed to the tabletop. Iron indeed. “so you made a new home in Kelton?”
“No. I made no home. I traveled, seeking out women with the gift, ones who could help me in my studies. None knew very much of what I sought, but each knew at least a little that others did not.
“Mathrin followed, and every new moon he came to me, and I cut something else from him. I wanted him to live forever, to suffer forever. He be the one who beat me, down there, with his fists, so I would lose Pell’s child. He be the one who killed Pell. He be the one who blinded me.”white eyes shone red in the lamplight as she stared off again. “He be the one who made Pell believe I had betrayed him. I wanted Mathrin Galliene to suffer forever.”gestured vaguely with his hand. “How long did he… last?”sighed. “Not long enough, and too long.” Zedd frowned. “One day, a thought occurred to me: I had never used the gift to prevent Mathrin from killing himself. Why would he still come to me? Let me make him to suffer like I did? Why would he not simply end it? So, the next time he came, and I cut something else off, I also cut the bond. Cut his need to come the next time. But I did it in a way so as he would not notice, so he could simply forget about me, if he wished.”
“So that was the last you saw of him?”gave a grim shake of her head. “No. I thought it would be, but he returned with the next new moon. Returned when he needn’t have. It made my blood run cold, to wonder why. I decided that it be time for him to pay with his life for what he had done to me, and Pell, and all the others. But I resolved that before he gave me his life, he would give me the answer.
“In my travels, I had learned many things. Things for which I thought I would never have use. That night I found use. I used them to learn what torture Mathrin feared above all others. The trick be used to learn fears, but be useless to learn other secrets. Against his will, the words tumbled out of him, his fears spilled out.
“I left him to sweat all that night and the whole next day while I went in search of the things I needed: the things he feared above all else. When I finally returned with them, he be nearly insane with fright. His fears be well founded. I asked him to confess his secret. He said no.
“I dumped out the sack, put the little cages and the other things in front of him as he sat naked and helpless on the floor. I picked up each, held it before his sightless face, and described it, told him what be in each little cage or basket or jar. Again I asked him to confess. He be sweating and panting and shaking, but he said no. Mathrin thought I be bluffing, that I did not have the courage. Mathrin be wrong.
“I steeled myself, and brought his worst fears to life for him.”’s brow bunched up into wrinkles. Curiosity won out over dread. “What did you do?”lifted her head to look into his eyes. That be the one thing I will not tell you. It not be important anyway.
“Mathrin would not talk, and suffered so much that I almost stopped several times. Each time I wanted to stop, I thought about the last thing my eyes had seen before he blinded me: Pell’s head held in Mathrin’s fist before me.” Adie swallowed, her voice so low Zedd could hardly hear her. “And I remembered Pell’s last words: “I will not say that of her to save my life. Even though she has betrayed me.’”closed her eyes for a moment. They came open and she went on. “Mathrin be on the edge of death. I thought he was not going to tell me why he came to me. But just before he died, he became still, despite what was being done to him. And then he said he would tell me, because he be about to die, because this, too, had been by plan. I asked him again why he had come back.
“He leaned toward me. “Don’t you know, Adie?” he asked me. “Don’t you know what I be? I be a baneling. I have been hiding right under your nose all this time. You have kept me near you all this time, and the Keeper knew right where you be. The Keeper lusts for those with the gift above all else.” I had thought that that be it, that he be a baneling. I told him he had failed, it had done him no good, as he be about to die for his crimes.
“He smiled at me.” She leaned forward. “smiled! And he said, “You be wrong Adie. I have not failed. I have done the Keeper’s bidding. I have fulfilled my task. Perfectly. All this be by plan. I have made you do exactly as he wished. I shall be rewarded. I be the one who started the fire when you be little. I be the one who did those things to Pell. Not because I thought him or you a baneling. I be the baneling. I did it to make you break your oath. To make you welcome the Keeper’s hate into your heart.
“‘Breaking your oath be the first step, and look what you have done since. Look at what you be doing right now. Look at how far you have slipped toward him. You be within his grasp now. You may not have given him your oath, but you do his bidding. You have become what you hate. You have become me; you be a baneling. The Keeper smiles upon you, Adie, and thanks you for welcoming him into your heart.” Mathrin slumped, and fell back, dead.”dissolved into tears, her head sagging into her hands. Zedd unlocked his joints and swept around the table, holding her to him as he stood next to her, holding her head against his stomach, stroking her hair, comforting her as she cried.
“Not so, dear lady. Not so at all.”wept against his robes, shaking her head. “You think you be so smart, wizard? You not be so smart as you think. You be wrong about this.”knelt beside her chair, holding her hands in his, looking up into her stricken face. “I’m smart enough to know that the Keeper, or one of his minions, would not let you have the satisfaction of knowing you had won a battle against him.”
“But I…”
“You fought back. You struck out from your hurt, not for a lust of the things you did. Not for a want to help the Keeper.”brow wrinkled together with her effort to stop the tears. “You be so sure? Sure enough to trust one such as I?”smiled. “I’m sure. I may not know everything, but I know you are no baneling. You are the victim, not the criminal.”shook her head. “I not be so sure as you.”Mathrin died, did you go on killing? Seeking vengeance against any innocent?”
“No, of course not.”
“Had you been an agent, you would have given yourself over to the Keeper, to his wishes, and gone on to hurt those who fought him. You are no baneling, dear lady. My heart weeps for the things the Keeper took from you, but he did not take your soul, that is still yours. Put those fears aside.”held her hands and gave them soft squeezes. She didn’t try to take her hands back, but let them stay in his, as if to soak up the comfort as they trembled.wiped the tears from her cheek. “Pour me some more tea? But no more powdered cloud leaf, or I will fall asleep before I can finish the story.”arched an eyebrow. She had known what he had done. He patted her shoulder as he rose to his feet. He poured her tea and then pulled his chair forward and sat again while she sipped.she drank half of her cup, she looked to have regained her control. “The war with D’Hara be burning hot, but it be near the end. I felt the boundary go up. Felt it come into this world.”
“So you came here right after the boundary went up?”
“No. I studied with a few women first. Some taught me a few things about bones.” She pulled a little necklace from under her robes. She fingered the small, round bone, with red and yellow beads to each side. It was just like the one she had given him to get him through the pass. He still wore it around his neck. “This be a bone from the base of a skull like that on the shelf over there; the one that fell on the floor. The beast be called a skrin. Skrin be guardian beasts to the underworld, something like the heart hounds, except they guard in both directions. The best way to explain it is that they be part of the veil, though that not be accurate. In this world they be solid, have form, but in the other, they be only a force.”frowned. “Force?”held out her spoon and let it drop on the table. “Force. We cannot see it, but force be there. It makes the spoon drop, and keeps it from flying up into the air. It cannot be seen, but it be there. Something like that with the skrin.
“On rare occasions, in their duty to repel all from the cusp where the world of the living and the world of the dead touch, they be pulled into this world. Few people know of them because it so rarely happens.” Zedd was frowning. “It be very complex. I will explain it better another time. The important thing be that this bone from the skrin hides you from them.”took a sip of her tea while Zedd pulled his necklace out of his robes, taking a new look at it. “And it must hide you from other beasts, too, to get through the pass?” She nodded. “How did you know about the pass? I put the boundary up, and I didn’t know the pass existed.”turned the teacup around and around in her fingers. “After I left my grandmother, I sought out women with the gift, women who could teach me things about the world of the dead. After Mathrin died, I studied harder, with more urgency. Each woman could tell me only what small bit she knew, but they usually knew one who knew more. I traveled the Midlands, going among them, gathering knowledge. I collected all those bits of knowledge, piecing them together. In this manner, I learned a little of how the worlds interact.
“By putting up a boundary across parts of this world, it be a little like stoppering up a teakettle and then putting it on the fire. Without a vent, something will blow off. I knew that if there be magic wise enough to know how to bring the underworld into this, it must have a way to equalize each side of the boundary. A vent of some sort. A pass.”lifted an eyebrow, staring off into his thoughts, as he drew his thumb down his chin. “Of course. That makes sense. Balance. All force, all magic, must be balanced.” He focused his eyes on her. “When I brought up the boundary, I was using magic I didn’t fully understand. It was in an ancient book, from the wizards of old, who had more power than I can fathom. Using their instructions to bring up the boundary was an act of desperation.”
“It be hard for me to imagine you being desperate.”
“Sometimes, that’s all life is: one desperate act after another.”nodded. “Perhaps you be right. I was desperate to hide from the Keeper. I remembered what Mathrin had said: he be hiding right under my nose. I reasoned that the safest place for me to hide from the Keeper would be where he wouldn’t look: right under his nose, right at the edge of his world. So I came to the pass.
“The pass did not be this world, yet it did not be the underworld either. It be a mix of both. A place where both worlds boiled together a little bit. With the bones, I be able to hide from the Keeper. He and the beasts from his world could not see me.”
“Hide?” The woman had more iron in her than the kettle hanging on the fire. If he knew Adie, there was more to it. Zedd gave her a stern stare. “You came here, simply to hide?”averted her eyes as she fingered the small, round bone on her necklace, and then at last tucked it back into her robes. There be another reason. I made an oath. To myself. I swore I would find a way to contact my Pell, to tell him I did not betray him.” She took a long swallow of tea. “I have spent most of my life here, in the pass, trying to find a way to reach into the world of the dead, to tell him. The pass be part of that world.”pushed at his cup with a finger. “The boundary, the pass, is gone, Adie. I need your help in this world.”laid her arms on the table. “When you grew my foot back for me, it brought back everything that had happened, made it fresh, as if I be reliving it. It made me remember some things I had forgotten for a long time. It made me remember hurts that still be there, though time had dimmed them.”
“I’m sorry, Adie,” he whispered. “I should have taken your past into consideration, but I didn’t suspect you had lived through that much pain. Forgive me.”be nothing to forgive. You gave me a gift by giving me my foot back. You did not know the things I have done. It not be your fault I did them. You did not know I be a baneling.”cast her a harsh glare. “You think that because you have fought back against wickedness, you have become wicked?”
“I have done worse than a man like you can understand.”nodded slightly. “Is that so. Let me tell you a little story. I had a love once, like your Pell. Her name was Erilyn. My time with her was like your time with Pell.” A slow smile came to his lips, as his memory touched the mist of those pleasant times. The smile withered. “Until Panis Rahl sent a quad after her.”reached out and laid a hand on his. “Zedd, you do not need to…”brought his other fist down on the table, making the cups jump. “You can’t imagine what the four of them did to her.” He leaned forward, his face standing out red against his white hair. He ground his teeth together. “I hunted them down. What I did to each of them would make whatever you did to Mathrin seem a lark. I went after Panis Rahl, but couldn’t reach him, so I went after his armies. For every man you killed, Adie, I killed a thousand. Even my own side feared me. I was the wind of death. I did what was needed to stop Panis Rahl. And maybe more.”settled his weight back in the chair. “If there is such a thing as a man of virtue, you do not sit with him now.”
“You did only what you had to. That does not diminish your virtue.”arched an eyebrow. “Wise words, spoken by a wise woman. Perhaps you should listen to them.” She remained silent. He put his elbows on the table and idly picked up the cup, rolling it in his palms as he went on. “In a way, I was luckier than you. I had more time with my Erilyn. And I didn’t lose my daughter.”
“Panis Rahl did not try to kill your daughter, too?”
“Yes. Indeed, he thought he had. I… cast a death spell. To make them think they had seen her death. It was the only way to protect her, to keep them from trying until they succeeded.”death spell…” Adie whispered a benediction in her native tongue. That be a dangerous web. I would not reproach you for doing such a thing, you had cause, but such a thing does not go unnoticed by the spirits. You be lucky it worked, and it saved her. You be very fortunate the good spirits be with you on that day.”
“I guess sometimes it’s hard to tell which side of luck you’re looking at. I raised her without a mother. She had grown into a fine young woman when it happened.
“Darken Rahl had been standing next to his father when I sent the Wizard’s Fire through the boundary. He was standing next to his father when my fire found him. Some of it burned Darken Rahl. He spent his growing years learning, so he could finish what his father had started, and extract his vengeance. He learned how to cross the boundary; he was coming into the Midlands, and I never knew.
“He raped my daughter.
“He didn’t know who she was—everyone thought my daughter was dead—or he would have killed her sure. But he hurt her.” He pressed his palms together. The cup shattered. He turned his hands up, to see if they had been cut, and was a little surprised they weren’t. Adie said nothing.
“After that, I took her to Westland, to hide, to protect her. I never knew if it was more of that bad luck, or if somehow wickedness found her, but she died. Burned to death in her house. Though I always suspected the irony was more than coincidence, I never found proof it was so. Perhaps, after all, the good spirits hadn’t been with me on the day I cast her death spell.”
“I be sorry, Zedd,” Adie said in a soft rasp.waved off her pity with a flourish of his hand. “I still had her boy.” With the side of his finger, he pushed the shards of the cup into a little pile in the center of the wooden tabletop. “darken Rahl’s son. The spawn of an agent of the Keeper. But my daughter’s son too, and my grandson. Innocent of the crimes that brought him to be. A fine boy.”looked up at her from under his bushy eyebrows. “I believe you know him. His name is Richard.”lurched forward in her chair. “Richard! Richard is your…” She leaned back, shaking her head. “Wizards and their secrets.” She scowled a little, but then softened her expression. “Perhaps you had just cause for a secret such as this. Does Richard have the gift?”lifted his eyebrows as he nodded. “Indeed he does. That was one reason I hid him in Westland. I feared he had the gift, though I wasn’t sure, and I wanted him to be safe from danger. As you said, the Keeper lusts for those with the gift more than any other. I knew that if I began teaching him, used magic very much myself, the gaze of danger would settle on him.
“I wanted to let him grow, become strong of character, before I tested him, and if he had the gift, taught him. I had always suspected he had the gift. Sometimes, I hoped he did not. But I now know he does. He used it to stop Darken Rahl. Used magic.”leaned forward. “I suspect he has the gift from both his grandfather and his father. From two different lines of wizards.”
“I see,” was all she said.
“But we have more important things to worry about right now. Darken Rahl used the boxes of Orden. He opened one, the wrong one, for him anyway. But maybe the wrong one for us too. There are books back at the Keep that speak of it. They warn that if the boxes are used, if the Magic of Orden is used, and even if the person who put them in play makes a mistake and it kills him, it can still tear the veil.
“Adie, I don’t know as much about the underworld as you. You have been studying it most of your life. I need your help. I need you to come to Aydindril with me to study the books to see what can be done. I’ve read many of them and don’t understand much of their meaning. Perhaps you will. Even if you only see one thing I miss, it could be important.”stared at the table with a bitter expression. “I be an old woman. I be an old woman who has welcomed the Keeper into my heart.”watched her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. He pushed his chair back and stood. “An old woman? No. A foolish woman, maybe.” She didn’t reply. Her gaze stayed pointedly on the table.strolled across the room and inspected the bones hanging on the wall. He clasped his hands behind his back as he studied the talismans of the dead.
“Maybe I am just an old man then. Hmm? A foolish old man. Maybe I should let a young man do this work.” He glanced over his shoulder. She was watching him. “But if a young man is good, then even younger would be better. In fact, why not let a child do it? That would be better yet. Maybe there is a ten-year-old-boy somewhere who will be willing to do something to stop the dead from swallowing the living.”threw his hands up in the air. “According to you, it would seem, knowledge is of no use, only youth.”
“Now you are being foolish, old man. You know what I mean.”stepped back to the table and gave a shrug of his bony shoulders. “If you just sit here in this house instead of helping with what you know, then you might as well be the thing you fear most: an agent of the Keeper.”put his knuckles to the table and glowered as he leaned over her. “If you don’t fight him, then you help him. That is what his plan has been all along. Not to turn you to him, but to make you fear stopping him.”looked into his eyes, uneasiness stealing into her expression. “What do you mean?”
“He has already done all he needed, Adie. He made you afraid of yourself. The Keeper has an eternity of patience. He doesn’t need you to work for him. It takes effort to turn one with the gift. You weren’t worth the trouble. He needed only for you not to work against him. He did all that was necessary. He didn’t waste an effort to do more.
“In some ways he is as blind to this world as we are to his. He has only so much influence here; he must choose his tasks carefully. He doesn’t spend what power he has here frivolously.”took the place of unease. “Perhaps you not be such an old fool.”smiled as he pulled the chair forward and sat. That has always been my opinion.”nestled in her lap, Adie studied the tabletop as if hoping it would come to her aid. The house was silent, except for the slow crackle of the fire in the hearth. “All these years, the truth be hiding right under my nose.” She lifted her head, giving him a puzzled frown. “How did you come to be so wise?”shrugged. “But one of the advantages of having lived so long. You view yourself as just an old woman. I see a striking, dear lady, who has learned much in her time in this world, and has gained wisdom from what she has seen.”pulled the yellow rose from her hair and held it before her. “Your loveliness is not a mask, layered over a rotten core. It blossoms from the beauty inside.”lifted the flower from his fingers and laid it on the table. “Your clever tongue cannot cover the fact that I have wasted my life…”shook his head, cutting her off. “No. You have wasted nothing. You simply have not seen the other side of things yet. In magic, in all things, there is a balance if we look for it. The Keeper did as he did, sending a baneling to you, to keep you from interfering in his work, and to plant a seed of doubt in you that would perhaps turn you to him one day.
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