‘_____________________?’
‘I am listening,’ answered Thewson, asleep.
‘_____________________?’
‘I will remember,’ he said.
‘_____________________!’
‘I have never learned of that…’
_____________________!!’
‘That is a very strange thing…said Thewson.
In the morning he had new knowledge of which he was not aware and which he could not have told anyone of. He believed that the Mysterious-One-Who-Will-Not-Answer had not spoken, in which conviction he was, in a way, correct. Thereafter he did not consciously remember any messages given him by the gods.
Now, however, in the world of those who killed for any reason or for no reason, Thewson found himself thinking often of the spear round. Sometimes he would waken in the night to a silent imperative or to a dry whirring, a remembered voice coming from a great distance. So it was that he wakened one night in Dantland, among the dunes which edged the Silent Sea, surrounded by tufts of salt grass and the sound of the never-ending wind, brought to full Wakefulness by that remembered whirr. He crawled to the top of the dune to peer down at the shore which stretched its empty length away into darkness beneath a time-eaten moon. There were dark blots on the sand, men coming from the south, carrying nets, with their boots wrapped for silence’s sake. Alone on the sand, beckoning the black-robed men, was a curiously hunched figure moving crabwise. Thewson knew him at once. It was a creature from N’Gollo who had tried to cheat Thewson over the price of Thewson’s trade goods and who had not taken kindly to being summoned before the trader council.
Thewson’s lips curled into a sneer. The hunched creature obviously planned to sell him to the black robes, the Gahlians, the slavers; had tracked him out onto the dunes and then summoned strongarms to take him prisoner. Thewson breathed deeply, working himself into a killing rage which would sweep ten or twenty of the black robes into oblivion. Then, far and quiet, he heard the whirr’, the voice, the dry whisper, ‘Go, like the breath of wind….’ Without thinking further, he slipped away, silent as a shadow.
When the slavers found his sleeping place, it was cold. Later Thewson thought deeply about the incident. Had it not been for the whirr of wings, he would now be dead. It was not what a warrior should have done, but it seemed to be what the god of warriors would have Thewson do.
It was puzzling. It did not cease to be so.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JAER
Year 1168-Early Fall
One conversation that the two old men had during the years that Jaer was with them occurred on a still night in the late summer. They were behind the parapet of the tower, leaning on it as Ephraim smoked his pipe and looked at the stars.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘we ought to give Jaer a quest.’
‘A quest?’
‘You know. A mission. Remember all the old books. There were armoured men on horses going off on quests. And strange creatures to be conquered. There were mysteries to solve, or maidens to save from horrible fates, or lost artifacts to locate. Things like that.’
‘I know the word. I remember the stories. What I don’t understand is why Jaer ought to have one.
‘It would give him something to do.’
‘I thought we were going to suggest that he get to Orena as soon as he’s fully grown?’ They had taken to referring to Jaer as though he/she was a family of children, saying ‘he’ whenever Jaer was a boy and ‘she’ whenever she was a girl.
‘Even so, that’s a long trip and a hard one. It would be nice to have a quest to distract one along the way.’
‘Setting aside that any distraction might mean death, did you have anything special in mind?’
‘Well, I thought maybe the Gate….’
‘That isn’t a quest. It’s a chimera.’
‘A chimera is a mythical animal.’
‘I mean simply that a quest ought to be something do-able, achievable. It’s silly to spend time searching for something that doesn’t exist.’
‘We don’t know that it doesn’t exist.’
‘I know that.’
‘You do, maybe. I don’t.’
‘You just don’t want to.’
‘All right, I don’t want to. I want to believe there’s a Gate to a better world, or maybe back to a better time. I want to believe there are answers. I want to believe that we haven’t found it simply because we haven’t looked in the right places.’
‘People have looked everywhere.’
‘If I believe there’s a Gate, I believe we haven’t looked everywhere.’
‘Well, if you believe there’s a Gate, you can believe anything.’
At that point there was a long silence. Ephraim looked more hurt than sullen, and Nathan was ashamed of himself. After all, what difference did it make?
‘Ephraim, suppose there were such a thing. I’ll just suppose with you that there is. Now, how would you make a quest out of finding it?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘How would you make a quest of it? There should be signs and wonders, prophesies, maybe a map? At least a few little myths or cryptic verses? Maybe an enchanted steed, at least for part of the way?’
‘Nathan, it isn’t kind of you to mock.’
‘I’m not mocking. If you’re serious, let’s be serious. If
