«I suppose I am to blame in a way.» The Valeman stared after the retreating Gnome.
«No more than he himself,” the other said quietly. «He came into the Anar on his own, didn’t he?»
Jair nodded. «But I asked him to come.»
«Someone asked all of us to come,” Helt pointed out. «We didn’t have to come, though; we chose to come. It’s no different with the Gnome. He chose to come with you to Culhaven — probably he wanted to come. It may be that he wants to come now, but can’t admit it to himself. Maybe he’s even a little frightened by the idea.»
Jair frowned. «Why would he be frightened of that?»
«Because it means he cares about you. There isn’t any other reason that I can think of that he would be here.»
«I hadn’t thought of that. I guess that I thought just the opposite from what he’s been saying — that he didn’t care about anything.»
Helt shook his head. «No, he cares, I think. And that frightens him, too. Trackers can’t afford to care about anyone — not if they expect to stay alive.»
Jair stared at the Borderman a moment. «You seem pretty sure about all this.»
The big man rose. «I am. You see, I was once a tracker, too.»
He turned and walked away into the dark. Jair stared after him, wondering what it was that had prompted the Borderman to speak, but rather grateful nevertheless that he had done so.
Dawn broke gray and cheerless, and a mass of rolling dark clouds swept east across the morning sky. The wind blew chill and harsh out of the north, biting at their faces it! fierce gusts, whistling through the skeletal limbs of the forest trees. Leaves and dirt swirled all about them as they resumed the march, and the air smelled heavily of rain.
Jair Ohmsford walked that day in the company of Edain Elessedil. The Elven Prince joined him at the start of the journey, conversing in his loose, easy manner, telling Jair what his father the King had told him of the Ohmsfords. There was a great debt owed Wil Ohmsford, the Elven Prince explained, as they bent their heads against the wind and trooped forward through the cold. If not for him, the Elven nation might have lost their war with the Demons, for it was Wil who had taken the Elven Chosen Amberle in search of the Bloodfire so that the seed of the legendary Ellcrys might be placed within its flames, then returned to the earth to be born anew.
Jair had heard the tale a thousand times, but it was different somehow hearing it from Edain, and he welcomed the retelling. He, in his turn, recounted to the Prince his own small knowledge of the Westland, of his father’s admiration for Ander Elessedil, and of his own strong feelings for the Elven people. As they talked, a sense of kinship began to develop between them. Perhaps it was their shared Elven ancestry, perhaps simply the closeness in age. Edain Elessedil was like Rone in his conversation at times — serious and relaxed by turns, anxious to share his feelings and ideas and to hear Jair’s — and bonds of friendship were quickly formed.
Nightfall came, and the little company took shelter beneath an overhang along a ridgeline that shadowed the Silver River. There they had their dinner and watched the sullen rush of the river as it churned past through a series of rocky drops. Rain began to fall, the sky went black, and the day faded into an unpleasant night. Jair sat back within the overhang and stared out into the dark, the fetid smell of the poisoned river reaching his nostrils. The river had grown worse since Culhaven, its waters blackened and increasingly choked with masses of dying fish and deadwood. Even the vegetation along the riverbanks had shown signs of wilting. There was a murky, depthless cast to the river, and the rain that fell in steady sheets seemed welcome, if only to help somehow wash clean the foulness that lay therein.
The members of the company began to fall asleep after a time. As always, one among them stood guard for the rest. This watch was Helt’s. The giant Borderman stood at the far end of the outcropping, a massive shadow against the faint gray of the rain. He had been a tracker a long time, Edain Elessedil had told Jair more than twenty years. No one ever talked about why he wasn’t a tracker anymore. He’d had a family once, it was rumored, but no one seemed to know what had become of them. He was a gentle man, quiet and soft–spoken; he was also a dangerous one. He was a skilled fighter. He was incredibly strong. And he possessed night vision — extraordinary eyesight that enabled him to see in darkness as clearly as if it were brightest day. There were stories about his night vision. Nothing ever crept up on Helt or got past him.
Jair hunched down within his blankets against the growing cold. A fire burned at the center of the outcropping, but the heat failed to penetrate the damp to where he sat. He stared a while longer at Helt. The Borderman hadn’t said anything further to him after their brief conversation of the previous night. Jair had thought to talk again with him, and once or twice had almost done so. Yet something had kept him from it. Perhaps it was the look of the man; he was so big and dark. Like Allanon, only… different somehow. Jair shook his head, unable to decide what that difference was.
«You should be sleeping.»
The voice startled Jair so that he jumped. Garet Jax was next to him, a silent black shadow as he settled in beside the Valeman and wrapped himself in his cloak.
«I’m not sleepy,” Jair murmured, struggling to regain his composure.
The Weapons Master nodded, gray eyes peering out into the rain. They sat there in silence, huddled down in the dark, listening to the patter of the rainfall, the churning rush of the river, and the soft ripple of leaves and limbs as the wind blew past. After a time, Garet Jax stirred and Jair could feel the other’s eyes shift to find him.
«Do you remember asking me why I helped you in the Black Oaks?» Garet Jax asked softly. Jair nodded. «I told you it was because you interested me. That was true; you did. But it was more than that.»
He paused, and Jair turned to look at him. The hard, cold eyes seemed distant and searching.
«I am the best at what I do.» The Weapons Master’s voice was barely a whisper. «All my life I have been the best, and there is no one even close. I have traveled all of the lands, and I have never found anyone who was a match for me. But I keep looking.»
Jair stated at him. «Why do you do that?»
«Because what else is there for me to do?» the other asked. «What purpose is there in being a Weapons Master if not to test the skill that the name implies? I test myself every day of my life; I look for ways to see that the skill does not fail me. It never does, of course, but I keep looking.»
His gaze shifted once more, peering into the rain. «When I first came upon you back in that clearing in the Oaks, bound and gagged, trussed hand and foot, guarded by that Gnome patrol — when I saw you like that, I knew there was something special about you. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was there. I sensed it, I guess you’d say. You were what I was looking for.»
Jair shook his head. «I don’t understand what you mean.»
«No, I don’t guess you do. At first, I didn’t understand either. I just sensed that somehow you were important to me. So I freed you and went with you. As we traveled, I saw more of what had intrigued me in the first place… something that I was looking for. Nothing really told me what I should do with you. I just sensed what I should do, and I did it.»
He straightened. «And then…» His eyes snapped back to find Jair’s. «You came awake that morning by the Silver River and told me of the dream. Not a dream, I guess — but something like it. Your quest, you called it. And I was to be your protector. An impossible quest, a quest deep into the heart of the lair of the Mord Wraiths for something no one knew anything about but you — and I was to be your protector.»
He shook his head slowly. «But you see, I had a dream that night, also. I didn’t tell you that. I had a dream that was so real that it was more… vision than dream. In a time and place I did not recognize, I stood with you as your protector. Before me was a thing of fire, a thing that burned at the touch. A voice whispered to me from within my mind. It said that I must do battle with the fire, that it would be a battle to the death, and that it would be the most terrible battle of my life. The voice whispered that it was for this battle alone that I had trained all of my life — that all of the battles that had gone before had been to prepare me for this.»