“They are one in destruction,” he said firmly. “They try to enforce despair, and convince you that nothing matters, for they will wipe out all. Never believe it. The elves call them A-Iynisi, the Unsinger who unravels the Song of the Singer, but they know as well as we that the Singer lives, and living must create.”
“But are they really one, or two?” asked Harbin, the yeoman-marshal sponsored by Cami.
High Marshal Garris shrugged. “No man knows, Harbin; no man needs to know. I think—but it is only my thought—that it is only one, but one who appears in the guise you most fear. One fears the loss of fame, of being unknown and forgotten, and another fears having all his works unmade. All mortals have some form of this fear, and in search of immortality among men may do great evil without intention. It is hard to trust that the High Lord’s court will remember and reward a good life, hard to risk fame or lifework when those are at stake.”
Along with this, all the candidates were encouraged to learn languages. Paks had already found, in her travels, that she was quick to pick up new phrases. Since she had made friends among the elves and dwarves in Fin Panir, Amberion urged her to spend her evenings with them, speaking elven and dwarvish in turn. At first this went quickly: she could ask for food and drink, and greet her friends politely, after only a few lessons. But the more she wanted to say, the harder it got. A simple question, like “where are you from?” would bring on a flurry of discussion. Paks found the dwarves more willing to explain than the elves, but she could not follow their explanations.
“It is simple,” said Balkon one night, the third time of trying to explain dwarf clan rankings. “Let us begin with the Goldenaxe.” They had begun with the Goldenaxe before, but Paks nodded. “The Goldenaxe has two sons and a daughter.”
“Yes, but—” Paks knew that something difficult was coming.
“Wait. The Goldenaxe that was, before this, had a sister who had a son, and so this Goldenaxe is the sister-son of the Goldenaxe that was.”
“His nephew?” ventured Paks.
Balkon scowled. “No—not. In Common that is son of either brother or sister, yes? And this is only for sister-son. Brother-son is mother’s clan.”
Paks started to ask why, and thought better of it.
“Now—this Goldenaxe has no sister, only brother, and brother has no sons. But a daughter. It is clear?”
Paks nodded. She still had a thread to follow. The current Goldenaxe had a brother, with a daughter, and two sons and a daughter of his own.
“So will inherit to the title either the son of his brother’s daughter, or his oldest son, or the son of his daughter.”
“But why not just his son?” asked Paks.
“Because that is not his blood,” said Balkon. “His son’s son is not his clan, you see that—only his daughter’s son—”
“Then why not his daughter?” asked Paks again.
“What? She be the Goldenaxe? No—that would rive the rock indeed. No dwarfmaid wields coldmetal—”
“They don’t fight?”
“I did not say that. They wield not the coldmetal, the weaponsteel, once it is forged. You, lady, would not stand long against a dwarven warrior-maid in her own hall.”
Paks went back to asking the names of common objects after that. With elves the trouble was different but equally impenetrable. Some questions were simply ignored, others answered in a spate of elven that drowned her mind in lovely sound. Ardhiel gladly taught her songs, and encouraged her to learn the elaborate elven courtesies, but as for learning more about elves themselves, it was “Lady, the trees learn water by drinking rain, and stars learn night by shining.” Paks found individual words easy to speak and remember, but her best efforts at stringing them together sounded nothing like Ardhiel’s speech, though he praised her.
She had also much to learn of paladins, as did the other candidates. Most of them had thought, like Paks, that being Gird’s holy warrior meant gaining vast arcane powers—they would be nearly invincible against any foe. Their paladin sponsors quickly set them straight. Although paladins must be skilled at fighting, that, their sponsors insisted, was the least of their abilities. A quest might involve no fighting at all, or a battle against beings no steel could pierce.
“Paladins show that courage is possible,” Cami said to them one day. “It is easy enough to find reasons to give in to evil. War is ugly, as Paks knows well,” she nodded toward Paks, who suddenly remembered the worst of Aarenis, the dead baby in Rotengre, the murdered farmfolk, Ferrault dying, Alured’s tortures. “We do not argue that war is better than peace; we are not so stupid as that. But it is not peace when cruelty reigns, when stronger men steal from farmers and craftworkers, when the child can be enslaved or the old thrown out to starve, and no one lifts a hand. That is not peace: that is conquest, and evil. We start no quarrels in peaceful lands; we never display our weaponskills to earn applause. But we are Gird’s cudgel, defending the helpless, and teaching by our example that one person can dare greater force to break evil’s grasp on the innocent. Sometimes we can do that without fighting, without killing, and that’s best.”
“But we’re warriors first,” said Paks before she thought. She wished she’d kept still. She had already noticed that the others, with their years in the Fellowship and service in the granges, had different views. Now they all looked at her, and she fixed her gaze on Cami.
“Yes,” said Cami slowly. “Some evils need that direct attack, and we must be able to do it, and to lead others in battle. Did you ever wonder why paladins are so likeable?” It seemed an odd remark, and threw Paks off-balance. Apparently others were confused as well, by the stirring in the room. “It’s important,” said Cami, now with that grin that pulled them all together. “We come to a town, perhaps, where nothing has gone right for a dozen years. Perhaps there’s a grange of Gird, perhaps not. But the people are frightened, and they’ve lost trust in each other, in themselves. We may lead them into danger; some will be killed or wounded. Why should they trust us?” No one answered, and she went on. “Because we are likeable, and other people will follow us willingly. And that’s why we are more likely to choose a popular yeoman-marshal as a candidate than the best fighter in the grange.”
Paks dared a sideways glance. From the thoughtful and even puzzled faces around her, the others had never considered this. She herself, remembering the paladin in Aarenis, realized that she had trusted him at once, without reservation, although the Marshal with him had annoyed her.
“But you see how dangerous that could be, if someone wanted to do evil,” said Cami, breaking into her thoughts. “We choose from those with a gift for leadership, those people will follow happily. Therefore we must be sure that you will never use that gift wrongly. Another thing: because we come and go, we make demands on those we help for only a short time. It’s easier for them to follow us quickly, and then go home. Never scorn Marshals: when we have left, they must maintain their yeomen’s faith. Perhaps we showed them what was possible—but we left them with years of work.”
As for the powers legend had grafted onto paladins, in reality there were four.