And in a moment of foolishness, he had forgotten who he was supposed to be.
As they rode over the causeway, they halted. The dead reavers from yesterday’s battle had all been dragged from the entrance to the city—all but one.
There, in the gray dust of ruin, sat the head of a single reaver, its mouth propped wide: the fell mage. The monster was incredible. Iome gasped at the size of it, for its mouth opened wide enough that it could have swallowed a hay wagon. Along the rim of its jaw and along the back of its head were the long, snakelike philia, the sensory organs of the eyeless creature. Each philium on this beast was three to five feet long, and as thick as Gaborn’s leg at the base—nearly three times the size of the philia he’d seen on other reavers. The mage’s gray head shimmered from a multitude of tattooed runes that glimmered like fire, and in the morning sunlight, its enormous crystalline teeth glittered like quartz.
Iome gasped at the trophy in awe. “I’ve never heard of one so large!”
Gaborn said, “Rumor has it there’s a bigger one.”
A messenger stood just outside the city gates. As Gaborn passed, the messenger shouted, “Milord, news from Skalbairn. The reavers have left their holes within the past hour, and are on the move south!”
Gaborn nodded at the messenger, said, “Tell him that I’m coming.”
Then he smiled and waved as he entered the city, holding his pose. Stern, regal, wise, indomitable. The mask of the Earth King.
His people cheered.
He could not stay long at Carris. He needed to reach the Place of Bones, confront the One True Master. But first he’d have to join Skalbairn, begin his campaign against the reavers. He needed to find the Waymaker, and learn the paths of the Underworld. The urge was becoming a compulsion. He felt driven.
He rode through the streets inspecting the damage. The odors of despair and rot—the residue of the fell mage’s curses—still clung to the city. He wondered how the people here could endure it.
He halted only once, when Lord Bowen shouted and pointed into the crowd. “There he is: that one’s Waggit!”
Gaborn reined in his charger and stared down at the grinning idiot. Waggit had straw for hair, and eyes so pale that they looked like holes that opened into a vast sky. But by the powers, was he big! He was cheering wildly, a pickax raised in his hands, bits of reaver gore still clinging to it.
So, he had indeed killed at least one reaver, perhaps even more. Gaborn frankly doubted the tale. Certainly the number of kills was exaggerated. No matter. Waggit was a hero now in the eyes of Carris, and the world needed heroes.
The fool did not notice that Gaborn had stopped and was staring, until Gaborn pointed at him. Then Waggit stopped, and to the delight of those around him seemed perfectly dumbfounded that the Earth King had taken notice of him.
Gaborn’s heart went out to the young man. In a world where the cruel and the cunning gained status by riding upon the backs of the poor, men like Waggit were too often unjustly scorned. Yet his stupidity was something that a single endowment of wit could cure. And in granting an endowment of wit from a weak and cowardly man to someone like Waggit, one might thus create a warrior of great worth.
Unfortunately, endowments of wit remained beyond the grasp of such simple folk. Gaborn would gladly have given any ten Merchant Princes of Lysle for such a man.
“Waggit of Silverdale, on your knees!” Gaborn shouted.
The man had no courtly graces. He clumsily squatted down on his knees and bowed his head, frowning terribly, as if he knew that he had committed some offense but could not remember what it was. Gaborn rode near, saw bits of oat straw in the big man’s blond hair. He’d obviously slept in a stable last night. Perhaps he did so every night.
Gaborn could heal him with a single forcible. By ancient law, any man who killed a reaver earned a forcible from his king. If the rumors were true, Waggit had earned nine. Yet Gaborn wondered if the man might not be happier if he remained an idiot.
Gaborn drew his sword and touched each of the man’s shoulder blades. “Baron Waggit of Silverdale, arise!”
The people of Carris erupted into a wild cheer as the idiot got up from his knees. To their greater astonishment, Gaborn reached down a hand and urged the young man to ride with him, aback his charger.
Then Gaborn put on the face of the Earth King once again.
It was not a perfect performance. Some of his subjects had obviously heard rumors that he’d lost his powers. He saw frightened faces in the crowd, and one man shouted, “Milord, is it true?”
For a moment he let his expression slip. People saw. A young peasant boy, perhaps four years old, sitting with his mother atop a pile of barrels asked, “Why does he look so sad?”
Gaborn set Baron Waggit down as he left the city, and was gone.
Feykaald watched Gaborn parade by the Ducal Palace in mild consternation. He searched for signs of weakness in Gaborn, but the young king looked regal, confident—almost everything these peasants expected from an Earth King.
But Feykaald saw through the facade. For years now Feykaald had served Raj Ahten. He’d been faithful, prudent, as a servant should be. He’d watched Raj Ahten grow from an ungainly child into the most sublime and powerful lord the world had ever known.
In great part, Raj Ahten was becoming the Sum of All Men because of Feykaald’s faithful service. Now, even though some of his master’s key endowments were gone, he lived and looked as glorious as ever.
The boy who paraded through the streets of this broken city was not even a faded shadow of Raj Ahten.
Gaborn rode by on a horse that Raj Ahten would not have fed to his dogs, with a jubilant idiot from the crowd on the saddle behind him. Gaborn’s armor was dirty from the road, as was his mount.
The retinue passed, ragged knights from half a dozen realms, some filthy Frowth giants in ragged chain mail that Raj Ahten had outfitted himself.
In no way could Gaborn best Raj Ahten—except...in the matter of the world worm.
Gaborn had indeed summoned a worm and saved Carris when Raj Ahten could not. One could almost imagine that he purposely kept his power veiled beneath a plain exterior.
Feykaald envied the boy such power. If only his master could somehow gain the Earth King’s crown.
As Gaborn paraded by, Feykaald watched the faces in the throng: the jubilant children, the hopeful mothers, the old men with worried frowns.
He did not feel a part of this crowd. Carris hoped for the Earth King’s favor, but Feykaald did not. The world was large, and Gaborn could not hope to protect all of it. At this very moment, reavers invaded Kartish.
While Gaborn paraded, Feykaald’s people died.
And that is the way it will remain, he told himself. The world is huge, and Gaborn is small. He cannot protect Rofehavan and Indhopal too.
Feykaald put his hopes in his own king.
So Gaborn paraded past.
But Feykaald’s presence in the crowd did not go unnoticed. A single rider peeled off from the king’s retinue, circled behind the giants, and brought his horse through the crowd.
“Greetings, Kaifba,” Jureem said in Indhopalese, bending close so that he could look down on the kaifba from his tall horse. “The smell of opium hangs heavy on you today.”
Feykaald opened his eyes and cocked his “good” right ear toward Jureem, “Eh?” he asked, maintaining by long habit his pretense of being nearly deaf.
“The opium—” Jureem said loudly.
“Ah—” Feykaald nodded, and finished his sentence. “Is a pleasant reminder of home.”
“It can also hide deceit in a man,” Jureem accused. Petty criminals in Indhopal often smoked opium to keep the nerves sedated and the pupils dilated. This could help them conceal their duplicity even during a rigorous examination by torture.
“Or it can ease an old man’s painful joints,” Feykaald said softly.