The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (22 page)

But, nothing happened. The night stayed quiet, and the air stayed cold. They were outside of Her influence here, hidden behind the illusions that protected the Kindred, and guarded by the strength of the Elders, the strength of this man who dared to ask aloud the question every Imperial child was trained to ignore.

“What do you mean, a world she cannot truly control?” Raven asked, fascinated despite himself.

“A good question,” said Goldwyn, his eyes far away. “I had the same discussion with your father as a matter of fact, before he left for Lucien.”

Raven felt a cold chill slide down his spine, his hands clutching the warm mug convulsively.

My father wasn’t just an Exile; he was one of Goldwyn’s students.

“I have often wondered,” the Elder continued, “if once he met her, he truly fell in love with her. You see, it’s been my feeling for a long time now that we don’t fall in love with perfection. Poets would have us believe we do, but I don’t think it’s true. I think we fall in love with flaws. Your father, Relkin, he was always one of those men who fell in love with things that needed help – always the last to abandon a man or woman in serious need, always the one to see a light of hope in the deepest, darkest night. I have often wondered if that is what kept him by your Mother’s side, often wondered if that strange mix of love and yearning on both their parts, is what gave rise to you, the Seventh Child.”

Goldwyn looked at him then, and as he did Raven realized that those gray eyes knew things about him that he had never guessed.

“What is it you want Raven?”

“What?”

“What is it that you want?” Goldwyn repeated, watching him carefully. His face was blank, but his gray eyes were terrible and wonderful, spearing him,
pulling
him.

“I don’t know,” he replied. It was true
 
– he hadn’t known for quite some time. What
could
he want? What hope for a life did he have?

Goldwyn nodded slowly.

“Crane was right about you,” he said, “there is much of both worlds in you – both lives.”

“What do you mean by that? What do you mean both lives?”

“I mean that you may be one of the very few people in this world who are given a chance to stand at the center of things. One of the very few people who are given a choice of two truly distinct paths, two truly distinct lives.”

Raven waited in silence, barely breathing, drawn in and held captive.

“Many people have no choice at all,” Goldwyn continued. “They choose the red shirt or the white shirt, the long walk or the short walk, but these choices mean little, and really could mean nothing. A good number of people may even get the chance to choose bigger things, like what they truly wish to do with their lives, or whom they truly wish to marry. But only a small number, a very few, will stand at the center of the world and shape it as life flows around and through them. I think that you are one them. And I think that you will have a chance to make a choice, a true choice, one that will change everything or nothing.”

The Elder fell silent, and Raven realized his mouth had gone slack. He snapped his jaw shut and shook his head. No – he couldn’t be drawn in by talk like this. He wasn’t grand, he didn’t want to be. His time as a Prince had passed.

“There is only one choice I’d like to make,” he said earnestly, “and it’s to stop making choices.”

“Do not say that,” said Goldwyn suddenly, fiercely.

Raven recoiled in surprise. The gray eyes were now the color of a gathering storm, and the air between them was heavy with the weight of unspoken emotion.

“You must not choose that path – for down that path lies destruction,” said the Elder, eyes boring into him. “Down the path of apathy lies death, and hopelessness. You
must
care. Find something to care about – anything. Everything. Someone – some
thing
. It matters little – but
you must care about life!
”

Raven found he couldn’t break away from Goldwyn’s stare, even when the moment had passed and the Elder had stopped speaking.

“You may berate me for it,” Raven said, his voice heavy with uncaring resignation, “but I’ve been chastised by much worse than you. I wish to be something different than what I am. I wish that I could just get up and leave, and go somewhere no one knows me and start all over.”

“There is no choice like that Raven,” said Goldwyn quietly, still watching him with a marked intensity. “How could you choose to be something different than who you are at this moment? How is it possible to do something you can’t do? Something you don’t want to do?”

“I don’t understand,” Raven said. “If I wanted to, I could … I don’t know … break this cup. Throw it against the wall. Spill it on the ground.”

“Could you though?”

Goldwyn watched him for a long time.

“You just got through telling me the manners of the Empire have been so finely ingrained in you that you cannot let them go, even if you wanted to. Correct? Along those lines, it would make sense to say that there is no difference between could and would, can’t and won’t in the present moment. In the here, in the now, there is nothing that hasn’t already been decided.”

“How can you say that? Free will –”

“But you said there is no such thing as free will. You can’t even choose to ignore the manners your family taught you. And if that is true, then all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever shall be, is already decided.”

“I have a brother who would very much disagree,” Raven said, thinking of Geofred, who could see into the future.

“Ah yes, the Eagle!” Goldwyn said. “And yet isn’t he the best example of this? How else could he see into the future if it wasn’t already written?”

“He sees multiple futures,” said Raven, troubled in spite of himself. He wasn’t sure what Goldwyn was getting at, but he was starting to think he very much disagreed with it. “He’s often told me about how the Eagle Talisman presents him with multiple futures, and then he chooses the one that he wishes to set the Empire toward.”

“And why would he chose the choice he chooses?” Asked Goldwyn. “Why would he move toward one direction and not another? Why does my daughter fight with daggers instead of swords?”

“Wh-what?” Raven asked, completely thrown off balance by the subject change.

Goldwyn smiled and shrugged, as if to say he was sorry for taking an unexpected step in an otherwise finely choreographed dance. There was silence for a long moment, and then Raven began to think harder about what the Elder was saying, and slowly he came to realize the point the man was headed toward.

“You’re saying that no one has any choice,” Raven said. “You’re trying to say that everything is already set in motion the way it will turn out. And in all of that, you’re trying to say that when all is said and done no one can truly change.”

“You,” said Goldwyn, smiling with his eyes, “are quite intelligent. That is indeed where I was going with this argument. At least, that’s what I’m saying
you
are trying to tell
me
. You’re saying you can’t change your manners because of your upbringing. You can’t stop lying because others always lied to you. You can’t change, you have no choice but to be who you are. This is what you have just said. I, however … I think this explanation is too
simple
. It is inelegant, it is ugly. Too few variables, too much predictability in a world that nearly no one can truly predict without, as you rightly noted, the power of a Talisman.”

“What do you mean?”

“Life is messy,” Goldwyn continued, smiling at Raven’s expression, “even when one can see the order beneath it all. I think that there is one case,
at least
one, in which everything isn’t determined, a hole in the argument that your brother exploits through his Talisman. Elder Crane disagrees with me, he always has. He says that someday I will see that there is truly nothing that can change, and no way in which to change things – he is much like you in fact – and says that all of life, and the essence of wisdom, is the understanding that all there is, is a
present
moment.”

Goldwyn made a dismissive sound, waving a hand in the air, and then turned back to Raven, his face tightly controlled and eyes bright.

“I think that all freedom is choice. I think that we all change, every moment, consciously or not.”

Raven was silent for a time, thinking.

“Tomaz always told me I could change things,” he said slowly.

“But you never believed him,” Goldwyn said, nodding as if he already knew the answer, making the question a statement.

Raven swallowed, then shook his head.

No. I never did truly believe him … everything I am is a subject of what I was brought up to be. Isn’t it? What choice is there in that?

“You’re asking yourself if everything isn’t just pre-determined,” Goldwyn said, watching him, “aren’t you? You’re asking yourself how a choice could exist in a world where there is nothing but what has happened.”

“Yes,” Raven said, through a throat suddenly closed tight. The word came out strangled, like an admission of wrong-doing.

“There is one case that defeats that argument,” Goldwyn said, watching him carefully, “can you see it?”

Raven shook his head, feeling as if something were pressing in on him all around, something he
had
to push back against. Something he couldn’t accept.

“Very well, then that is your question,” Goldwyn said with a smile, motioning toward the door with a long arm. “Think on it, and when you have the time to come back, we shall continue our conversation.”

“That – what? You – you want me to go?” Raven asked, baffled.

“It is late, and I know you have had quite a long few months,” said Goldwyn kindly, finishing the steaming liquid in his mug. Raven realized he hadn’t tried it yet, and took a sip. It was very bitter, and he did not particularly care for it. It did warm him though, and he felt a little better for it.

“I have certainly enjoyed this conversation,” the Elder continued, “and would very much like to have another. Please feel free to come back at any time, and if I am here I will be more than happy to speak with you.”

Raven watched the older man carefully and decided, rather abruptly, that he would never set foot in this house again.
These questions, they were too much. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know himself. He just wanted to get away from all of it, just wanted to be alone.

He stood and turned to leave, but just as he had crossed the courtyard and was about to exit through the large doors, something occurred to him. He stopped and turned back.

“It seems unfair,” he said.

The Elder stopped in the act of pouring more
kaf
into his cup.

“How so?”

“Well,” Raven said, “as I said, I don’t think I have any choices left to me. I think the rest of my life –
all
of my life – is determined by other people. It always has been and always will be. But now I know it. And it seems unfair.”

For a long moment Goldwyn said nothing, and then slowly, very slowly, he looked up, and Raven was struck once again by the brightness of the man’s eyes, the sense of light coming from behind clouds.

“I
very
much look forward to our next conversation,” he said. “Good night. I will see you when you wake.”

Raven spent that night with Tomaz in the giant’s cabin, where he had stayed the only other time he’d been in Vale. To his great surprise, as soon as he and Goldwyn had finished their conversation, Tomaz and the others had been ready to go. Leah and Davydd stayed in the manor, presumably in the rooms they’d had growing up, while Lorna left for wherever her quarters were.

Upon entering the giant’s cabin, a weariness had come over Raven that was total and complete. Suddenly nearly half a year of nights spent under the constant threat of attack, capture, or outright death, caught up with him and his head barely hit the giant’s couch before he was dead asleep. He didn’t even dream that night, but went quietly and blissfully into oblivion.

The next thing he was aware of was Tomaz resting a large hand on his shoulder and shaking him gently.

“Wha – wha is it?” He asked, looking around in a grainy-eyed stupor. Where was his sword? He needed his sword! By the Empress, where was his – ?!

“Calm,” Tomaz said slowly, holding him still, “everything is fine. I’m just getting you up so we can go to Iliad.”

Raven had told Leah and Tomaz about Crane’s promise of information on the road to Vale. He had felt he owed it to Tomaz to share the information because he now bore a Talisman as well, and as for Leah, it had felt wrong not to tell her when he had already told Tomaz.

“Right, right, I’m up, okay.”

He stood and found that at some point he’d removed his shirt, and a heavy pile of blankets had been placed over him in the night. Tomaz must have seen to him when he’d passed out. He quickly dressed, still not quite sure where he was or what was happening or why they had to be up at this time.

They left the cabin soon after, emerging into a world that was small and full of early half-light, cold and thin. Leah was waiting there for them.

“Good morning bright eyes,” Leah said with ill-concealed amusement.

“Hi,” he said, barely able to keep his eyes open. He passed a hand through his short hair and realized it was sticking up in back. That was a problem he hadn’t had when his hair was longer. Inconvenient.

Come on, wake up,
he berated himself,
you’re a Prince, Princes don’t stand around all bleary-eyed and –

He cut off abruptly, shaking the thoughts away, a little disconcerted. He hadn’t thought of himself as a Prince in a long time now.

The conversation with Goldwyn, that must be it.

Old memories were bad for him. They could only lead to dark places. He shook them off and turned to see Tomaz coming out of the cabin with his cloak – he’d forgotten it. No wonder he was so cold.

“Thanks,” he said as the big man handed it to him. It was a nice cloak – not like the drape-over he’d made himself, but that had been lost in the battle at Aemon’s Stand. Maybe before. The memories were a little hazy – he was coming to realize that most memories of battle were hazy, probably because the mind had better things to focus on. Like death. Or maiming.

“I’m so tired I’m rambling in my own head,” he mumbled.

Tomaz chuckled and Leah smirked, and they began to walk down the path that led from the cabin to Vale.

“When did we decide to go this morning?” Raven asked, realizing that he’d been drafted into this expedition without consent.

“Tomaz and I decided last night when you were talking with Goldwyn.”

“Oh.”

And then he realized something odd.

“Wait, he’s your father, why do you call him Goldwyn?”

She shrugged.

“It’s his name,” she said, looking to Tomaz, who nodded in agreement. “It’s just
weird
to call him anything else. Everyone calls him that – no one calls him William or General or even sir. I bet no one will call him Elder either; he’d
hate
it if they did. He tells everyone to just call him William, but no one does. I call him dad when I’m talking to him, but otherwise he’s Goldwyn – he always has been, since long before he took in Davydd and me.”

“All right, fair enough.”

They walked a bit more in silence, and then rounded a bend in the path. They could now see the city itself, bathed in early morning light coming from a sun that hadn’t yet managed to peak over the mountains that surrounded the valley.

“And
why
did it have to be this early?” He asked again.

“Elder Iliad is usually more awake at this time,” Leah said. “And it’s best to catch him before he’s overwhelmed by questioners.”

“Questioners?”

“Yup,” rumbled Tomaz , “all of Kindred are allowed to ask him questions. They have to wait in line, and you have to come between sun up and sun down. And you can’t disturb his lunch – he has to eat at pretty particular times.”

“So you two decided I’d want to wake up at the crack of dawn and go talk about really heavy subjects while I’m half asleep?”

“I’d say you’re half-awake,” Tomaz said, “but I guess I’m just positive.”

“Hah! Funny,” Raven said, without real mirth.

“Your eyes do funny things when you’re sleepy,” Leah said, peering at him closely. “One of them doesn’t seem to open all the way.”

“How are you so awake?” Raven asked her. He knew she was telling the truth about him – he had never been a morning Prince.

Person. Morning person.

“She’s always up before dawn,” Tomaz said with a shake of his head and a look akin to a man explaining some terribly debilitating disease he didn’t understand but had learned to cope with.

 
“She looks like she’s slept a full twelve hours and then had time to shower, brush her teeth, and comb her hair all after going for a brisk, morning jog.”

“Brisk morning jog?” She asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. “You think I jog? Do I look like I jog? No, forget that, you’ve practically been living with me for the past four months, have you
ever
seen me jog?”

“Away from dangerous things I suppose,” he said, thinking about it. “Toward food sometimes. You like food.”

“Damn straight I do,” she said, “but I don’t jog. I run. Or I walk.”

“You jog sometimes,” Tomaz rumbled.

“No I don’t.”

“What would you call it then?”

She thought about it for half a beat.

“Walking with purpose.”

Tomaz and Raven laughed and Leah glowered at them.

They were walking around the outskirts of Vale now, ringing the perimeter of the city. Raven was confused – he thought they’d be going through the city to see this Elder.

“Where exactly does this man live?” He asked.

“A ridge over there,” Tomaz rumbled, gesturing with a huge hand over to a rock outcropping that jutted out over the far south side of the valley. In the growing light Raven could just make out a structure of some kind built upon it – it was long and low to the ground, with a tall slanted roof.

“Will there be muffins there?” He asked.

Both of them looked at him askance.

“Yeah sure,” Leah said. “He’ll get up and say ‘come on in, I’ve buttered a crumpet.’ Why would you ask that?”

“I’m hungry,” he said, as his stomach growled in agreement. He hadn’t had any food since breakfast the day before.

“We’ll eat something after,” Tomaz said.

They finished the short hike in silence. Any other time Raven probably would have enjoyed the cold air, the sights and sounds and smells of the forest around them. But at the moment, he was just too tired.

When they finally arrived, it was by a short dirt path that led up the side of the rock ridge at a steady incline. The house itself had no surprises to it – it was just a house, made of wood. It looked like it had a number of rooms, all of roughly the same size, and was generally non-descript.

But Leah and Tomaz were acting as if they were suddenly on sacred ground.

They choose the strangest things to find impressive.

They stopped several paces before the door, without explanation. After a few seconds had passed, Raven looked from Leah to Tomaz, and saw they both had odd expressions on their faces. Leah looked like she was bracing for something, and Tomaz had on the ready-for-anything look of a man going to meet someone of questionable sanity.

“So do we knock?” Raven asked, trying to prompt them.

“Yeah,” Leah said. “Yeah, go ahead and knock.”

“What – me?” He asked, taken aback.

“Yeah, you have the questions, you make him answer.”

“Okay … I suppose that makes sense.”

Tomaz was still intently watching the door with his fearful-yet-determined expression, apparently too busy to contribute anything to the conversation.

“Okay, fine.”

Raven stepped up to the door, the long dirt path ending in a stone tablet just outside the door. He stepped up, raised his hand, and knocked on the wood.

The sound his knuckles made reverberated loudly, and with the way Leah and Tomaz were acting he half expected something to jump out and attack him, but nothing did. Nothing happened
at all
actually. He just stood there.

He raised his hand hesitantly, and then reached out to knock again, this time drawing his hand back a bit so as to do it louder. Maybe whoever was inside was still sleeping.

All sane people are still sleeping.

And then the door opened, just as his hand came forward, and he punched a little old lady in the nose.

“AHHH!”

“AHH!”

The old woman staggered back, holding her face, and Raven took a few steps back as well, hand going to his hip to reach for his sword, even though he knew he didn’t have it.

“Shadows and fire princeling, what did you do that for?!” Leah called, running forward

“It was an accident!” He protested. “I didn’t mean to – I was just knocking – I didn’t think anyone would –”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” said the little old lady, rubbing her nose and scrunching her face this way and that to see if anything felt broken. When she’d decided everything was still intact, she focused her eyes on Raven.

“I had half a mind to tell you to go away for coming so early,” she said, pointing a stern finger at him, “and now I’m actually considering doing it.”

“I apologize deeply … uh, ma’am. My lady. Miss.”

“Call me Tyla,” she said. Her voice was old and creaky like an ill-used door hinge, and her face was lined and sagging. But her eyes were bright and her anger was unmistakable, though it was a cold thing; the vindictive kind that made you think she’d later spit in your tea or kick your cat.

“Tyla,” Raven repeated, bowing his head to her. His cheeks were burning with embarrassment and every move he made now felt extremely awkward. “I apologize again, very deeply, I only meant to –”