After that, during his childhood, Sam thought of legends as things Mam had left behind; not valueless things, like worn out shoes, but things difficult and awkward to transport, things that were quite heavy perhaps, with odd knobs on them, or even wheels, difficult but fascinating things. Without ever saying so in words to himself, and certainly without ever asking Maire, he assumed that one of he difficult things Mam had left behind had been Sam’s dad, Phaed Girat. Sam was never sure from day to day whether he could forgive Mam for that or whether maybe he had forgiven her for it already, without knowing.
Maire had offered Sam his choice, back in Voorstod upon Ahabar, in the kitchen at Scaery, where the fire made shadows in the corners and the smell of the smoke was in everything. Sam could not remember that time without smelling smoke and the earthy scent of the pallid things that grew along damp walls. “Sal and I are going away,” Mam had said. “You can stay with your dad or go with us. I know you’re too young to make that decision, but it’s the only choice I can give you, Sam. Sal and I can’t stay here. Voorstod is no place for womenfolk and children.”
He had wanted to stay with Dad. Those were the words crowding at his throat when she gave him the choice, but they had stuck there. Sam had been born with a quality which some might have thought mere shyness but was in fact an unchildlike prudence. He often did not say what came to mind. What he thought at the time was that he wanted to stay with Dad but it might be difficult to survive if he did so. Dad was unlikely to help him with his reading, or cook his dinner, or wash his clothes. Dad didn’t do things like that. Dad threw him high in the air and caught him, almost always. Dad gave him a whip and taught him to make it crack and to knock bottles over with it. Dad called him “My strong little Voorstoder” and taught him to shout, “Ire, Iron, and Voorstod” when the prophets went by and all the women had to hide in their rooms. But there were other times Dad scarcely seemed to notice him, times when Dad growled and snarled like one of the sniffers, chained out behind the house, times when Sam thought this big man was really someone else, someone wearing a mask of Dad’s face.
Besides, with Sam’s brother Maechy dead—Mam said he was dead and would never come back—wouldn’t Mam need a son to take care of her? Dad needed nobody, so he said. Men of the Cause needed nobody but themselves and Almighty God, whether they had been men of Ire or of Iron or of Voorstod to start with.
So Sam, prudently and dutifully, had said he would go with Mam and Sal. Even when Maire had told him he would have to leave his whip behind, Sam had figured out it was his duty to go, but he wasn’t sure then or later he had made the right choice. As he got older, he still wasn’t sure. Sometimes he dreamed of Dad. At least, when he wakened, that’s who he thought he’d been dreaming of. He also dreamed of hands over his eyes and a voice whispering to him, “You don’t see them, Sammy. They aren’t there. You don’t see them.” He woke angry from those dreams, angry that he’d been kept from seeing something important, or that he’d chosen to come to Hobbs Land, or that Dad hadn’t come along.
Remembering what he could of Dad, however, he could imagine why Maire had left him behind with the rest of the legends. Dad had been much too heavy to move. When Sam remembered Phaed Girat, he remembered him that way: a ponderous and brooding shape with no handles a person could catch hold of. The thought was comforting, in a way. If Dad was too unwieldy to be moved, then he was still there, in Voorstod, where Sam could find him later if he needed him. Voorstod upon Ahabar would always be there, half-hidden in mists, smelling of smoke and of the pale fungi growing along the walls.
On Hobbs Land—as in most places elsewhere in the System—children had uncles, not fathers, and Sam had to grow up without an older man of his own. Though Maire had had brothers in Voorstod, they would not have considered betraying the Cause by leaving it. Sam pretended his carved warriors were his father and his uncles. He put them on the table by his bed, where he could see them as he fell asleep. Clean-shaven Ire, with his sandals and jerkin, his shield and sword; bearded Iron, wearing flowing robes and headdress, carrying a curved blade; and mustached, heavy-booted Voorstod, with his whip at his belt. Voorstod’s name meant “Whip-death,” and he was the fiercest of the three. Sam believed he looked like Dad, the way Dad had sometimes been.
Sam grew up to be both dutiful and willful, a boy who would say yes to avoid trouble but then do as he pleased. He was biddable, but not docile, innovative in his thinking and tenacious in his memories. He had an occasional and peculiarly trying expression, one which seemed to doubt the sensations going on inside himself. Sugar was not sweet, nor vinegar sour, his face sometimes seemed to say, but to hide some other flavor concealed therein. “It’s all right, but …” his face sometimes said, to the irritation of those around him. Beneath each sensation, within each explanation, Sam felt
