«Anything left in the kettle?» Slanter asked, scowling at them both.
Wordlessly, Garet Jax handed him a plate. The Gnome dropped the pack he was carrying, sat down next to the fire, and helped himself to a generous portion of the bread and meat. Jair stared at him. He looked haggard and irritable, as if he hadn’t slept all night.
The Gnome caught him staring. «What’s bothering you?» he snapped.
«Nothing.» Jair looked away quickly, then looked back again. «I was just wondering where you’d been.»
Slanter stayed bent over his plate. «I decided to sleep down by the river. Cooler there. Too hot by the fire.» Jair’s eyes strayed down to the discarded pack, and the Gnome’s head jerked up. «Took the pack so I could scout upriver a bit — just in case. Thought I’d be certain that nothing…»
He broke off. «I don’t have to account to you, boy! What’s the difference what I was doing? I’m here now, aren’t I? Let me be!»
He went back to his breakfast, attacking it with a vengeance. Jair glanced furtively at Garet Jax, but the Weapons Master seemed to take no notice. The Valeman turned again to Slanter. He was lying, of course; his tracks led downriver. Garet Jax had said so. Why had he decided to come back?
Unless…
Jair caught himself. The idea was so wild that he could barely conceive of it. But just perhaps the King of the Silver River had used his magic to bring the Gnome back again. He could have done that, Jair thought, and Slanter would never have been the wiser or realized what was being done to him. The old man could have seen that Jair would have need for the tracker — a Gnome who knew the whole of the Eastland.
Then suddenly it occurred to Jair that perhaps the King of the Silver River had brought Garet Jax to him as well — that the Weapons Master had come to his aid in the Black Oaks because the old man had wanted it so. Was that possible? Was that the reason that Garet Jax had freed him — all without realizing it?
Jair sat there in stunned silence, his food forgotten. That would explain the reluctance of both tracker and soldier–of–fortune to discuss the reasons for their actions. They didn’t understand it fully themselves. But if that were true, then Jair, too, might have been brought here by similar manipulation. How much of what had happened to him had been the work of the old man?
Garet Jax finished his breakfast and was kicking out the fire. Slanter, too, was on his feet, wordlessly pulling on the discarded pack. Jair stared at them in turn, wondering what he should do. He knew that he couldn’t just stay silent.
«Time to go,” Garet Jax called over, motioning him up. Slanter was already at the edge of the clearing.
«Wait… wait just a minute.» They turned to stare at him as he climbed slowly to his feet. «I’ve got something to tell you first.»
He told them everything. He had not intended it to happen that way, but telling one thing led to telling another by way of explanation; before he knew it the whole story was out. He told them of Allanon’s visit to the Vale and of his story of the Ildatch, of how Brin and Rone Leah had gone east with the Druid to gain entry into the Maelmord, and lastly of the appearance of the King of the Silver River and of the mission he had given to Jair.
When he had finished, there was a long silence. Garet Jax walked back to the fallen log and sat down, gray eyes intense.
«I am to be your protector?» he asked quietly.
Jair nodded. «He said you would be.»
«What if I were to decide otherwise?»
Jair shook his head. «I don’t know.»
«I have heard some wild tales, but this is the wildest it has ever been my misfortune to suffer through!» Slanter exclaimed suddenly. «What are you up to with all this nonsense? What’s the purpose of it? You don’t think for a minute anyone sitting here believes a word of it, do you?»
«Believe what you want. It’s the truth,” Jair insisted, refusing to back away as the Gnome advanced on him.
«The truth! What do you know about the truth?» Slanter was incredulous. «You spoke with the King of the Silver River, did you? He gave you magic, did he? And now we’re supposed to go traipsing off into the deep Anar, are we? And not just into the Anar, but right into the teeth of the black walkers! Into the Maelmord! You’re mad, boy! That’s the only truth there is in any of this!»
Jair reached into his tunic and brought forth the pouch containing the Silver Dust. «This is the Dust he gave me, Slanter. And here.» He pulled the vision crystal on its silver chain free of his neck. «You see? I have the things he gave me, just as I said. Look for yourself.»
Slanter threw up his hands. «I don’t want to look! I don’t want anything to do with any of this! I don’t even know what I’m doing here!» He wheeled about suddenly. «But I’ll tell you this — I’m not going into the Anar, not with a thousand crystals or a whole mountain of Silver Dust! Find someone else who’s tired of living and leave me be!»
Garet Jax was back on his feet. He came over to Jair, took the pouch from the Valeman’s hand, slipped the drawstrings open, and peered inside. Then he looked up again at Jair.
«Looks like sand to me,” he said.
Jair glanced down hurriedly. Sure enough, the contents of the pouch looked exactly like sand. There was not a sparkle of silver to be seen in the supposed Silver Dust.
«Of course, the color might be a guise to protect against theft,” the Weapons Master mused thoughtfully, a distant look in his eyes.
Slanter was aghast. «You don’t really believe…»
Garet Jax cut him short. «I don’t believe much of anything, Gnome.» His eyes were hard again as they shifted to Jair. «Let’s put this magic to the test. Take out the vision crystal and sing to it.»
Jair hesitated. «I don’t know how.»
«You don’t know how?» Slanter sneered. «Shades!»
Garet Jax didn’t move. «This seems like a good time to learn, doesn’t it?»
Jair flushed and looked down at the crystal. Neither of them believed a word he had told them. He couldn’t really blame them, though. He wouldn’t have believed it himself if it hadn’t happened to him. But it had, and it had been all too convincing not to be real.
He took a deep breath. «I’ll try.»
He began to sing softly to the crystal. He held it cupped within his hands like a fragile thing, the silver chain dangling down through his fingers. He sang without knowing what it was he should sing or how he could bring the crystal to life. Low and gentle, his voice called to it and asked that it show him Brin.
It responded almost instantly. Light flared within his palms, startling him so that he nearly dropped the crystal. A living thing, the light shimmered a brilliant white, expanding until it was the size of a child’s ball. Garet Jax bent close, his lean face intense. Slanter edged his way back from across the clearing.
Then abruptly Brin Ohmsford’s face appeared Within the light, dark and beautiful, framed by mountains whose slopes were stark and towering against a dawn less friendly than their own.
«Brin!» Jair whispered.
He thought for a moment she might reply, so real was her face within the light. Yet her eyes were far distant in their vision, and her ears were closed to his voice. Then the vision faded; in his excitement, Jair had ceased to sing, and the crystal’s magic was spent. The light was gone in the same moment. Jair’s hands cupped the crystal once more.
«Where was she?» he asked hurriedly.
Garet Jax shook his head. «I’m not sure. Perhaps…» But he did not finish.
Jair turned to Slanter, but the Gnome was shaking his head as well. «I don’t know. It happened too fast. How did you do that, boy? It’s that song, isn’t it? It’s that magic you have.»
«And the magic of the King of the Silver River,” Jair added quickly. «Now do you believe me?»
Slanter shook his head glumly. «I’m not going into the Anar,” he muttered.
«I need you, Slanter.»
«You don’t need me. With magic like that, you don’t need anyone.» The Gnome turned away. «Just sing your way into the Maelmord like your sister.»
Jair forced down the anger building within him. He shoved the crystal and the pouch with the Silver Dust back
