Wizardborn (48 page)

Averan knew that the danger was far from over. Perhaps he'd won a small round, but there were still nearly sixty thousand reavers down on Mangan's Rock, and they would not wait for long.

Binnesman moved three of the pebbles and said, “Now, look into the stones yourself and draw forth an image. Do not try to picture what you will see. I've moved the stones so that nothing I've shown you will appear again. Instead, I want you to merely open yourself to what they will show you. Once you unlock the power of the stones, you can change your viewpoint by moving them.”

He instructed her for long minutes, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not manage to draw forth any
image at all. She struggled to imagine things, tried not to imagine anything—it didn't matter.

The stones remained mere stones under her hands.

Binnesman pocketed them at last and said, “Don't worry. It may be that in time you will develop the skill.”

“What if I never learn to do it?” Averan said.

“Not all wizards need all powers,” Binnesman consoled her. “You already have a gift that I don't: you can learn from reavers. That's a very strange gift—a powerful one, I'd think.”

He sighed, looked contemplative.

“I know,” he said. “I have another idea. Try this: close your eyes and imagine a deer in the forest, any deer at all.”

Averan did. At first she tried to imagine a spotted fawn, lying in a bed of ferns.

But Keeper's memories still flowed to her, and she recalled a scene of herself learning to gut one of the great horn beetles. Her master was instructing her in the art, saying, “Pull off its head-plate first, to get at the brains.”

Averan recoiled from the image that assailed her. For a moment she stood blinking, trying to dredge up any image of a deer.

She imagined a stag, a huge stag with antlers as wide as tree limbs.

“Do you have it?” Binnesman asked.

“Yes,” Averan said.

“Good. Hold the image in your mind. Think of nothing else. Try to look closely at the animal, imagine its details. Every deer is different. There are males and females, different ages, different shades of red or tan. How does it look? What sounds does it make? How does it smell? What details separate it from any other deer in the woods? Hold the image in your mind and think of nothing else.”

For ten long minutes she did just that. She imagined a stag, an old buck with silver hairs in his coat, a ragged right ear from a battle. He had six tines on his left antler, and eight on his right.

The image came so vividly that she could see his nostrils
flaring as he breathed, the way he ducked his head and flashed his tail at a strange scent. She could smell the musk of him, strong now that mating season was on.

She pictured him in her mind until she
heard
the buck. Sounds came, and at first she was not sure if she just imagined them: the buck snorting as it tested the air for her scent. She heard it swish through brush, step on a dry twig, and bound twice downhill as if startled by its own noise.

The sound wasn't fantasized. She felt sure of that. The snap of the twig echoed twice in her memory. The first time it came loud and clear, as if she heard it with the stag's ears. The second time it was a distant snap, up the hill. The same was true with its bounding.

She felt… as if she didn't merely hear it. She felt as if she were dredging the creature up from a dream, giving it form.

She waited, heart hammering, expectant, until she discerned the thud of hooves draw close. Still she kept her eyes closed.

“Hold out your hand.,” Binnesman ordered.

She did. She reached out with her palm upward, and the stag drew near. The moist hairs of its muzzle brushed against her wrist, and his warm breath spread over her palm.

“Now open your eyes,” Binnesman instructed.

When she did, Averan gasped. She'd expected a stag, any stag, to have appeared at her summons.

But the stag nuzzling her hand was exactly the one she'd envisioned, complete with the fly that it flicked from its rump.

She stroked its muzzle, and the stag stood for her touch as if he were a faithful pet.

“Did I
make
him?” Averan asked.

“What do you think?” Binnesman said.

“No, I couldn't have made him. But he looks …”

“You envisioned him because he was near. Your mind sought for him, and found him, and he answered your call. It is a common enough power among Earth Wardens. And
because you have it, I suspect even more strongly that you are here to protect an animal of some kind.”

“Not a rock?” Averan teased.

But Binnesman's lesson was not done. He said sternly, “This is not a small matter. Each Earth Warden has his own charge, and each is of equal import. To answer his calling, each Earth Warden develops different powers. I could never summon animals. All that I know of the art is hearsay. But you are quite powerful. I tested you with a deer, and you summoned it the very first time.”

“Are deer hard?”

“The more complex the intellect, the keener the mind, the more difficult it is to summon an animal. Had you failed with a deer, I'd have had you try a mouse or a bug.”

“So a deer is harder than a mouse, and a man is harder than a deer?”

“Only the very greatest of summoners can call forth a man.”

“Can they be summoned even if they are dead?” She was thinking of Brand, Roland, and her mother.

“They can,” Binnesman said. “It is nothing at all like summoning a living being. It is far easier to summon the dead. Even I can do that.”

“Really?”

“Who do you think called the spirit of Erden Geboren to Longmot?” He pointed a finger at his own chest.

Averan wondered at that. Her summoning seemed a marvelous power. “Can a creature refuse the summons?”

“Yes,” Binnesman said. “In a sense, the stag here thinks it came of its own volition. And it did. You performed the summoning, and the stag answered in return. But it could have refused.”

Averan placed her hand on the stag's muzzle and stroked it. She smiled.

Binnesman stepped closer, gazed at the stag. “Now,” he said softly, “look into its eyes. Peer into them, and tell me what you see.”

Averan continued petting the stag, scratched under its
jaw. She'd never imagined that she could get so close to a wild animal and have it become so tame. But she remembered how Brand always used to say that even with the graaks, she had a gentle touch.

She peered into its deep brown eyes, looked far behind. She smelled the scent of men—woolen cloaks and horse sweat and armor and the sour odor of human flesh. It came strong to the stag's nostrils, and involuntarily the muscles in its calves quivered. It remembered a hunt long past—the yammer of hounds as it fled mounted archers. It started backward, as if to leap away.

“Fear,” Averan said. “The stag's fear is a terrible thing. There are too many men in the woods today, Runelords charging about on horses. It's made him wary.”

Binnesman crouched at her side as Averan let the stag bound away. It took six great leaps, then stood at the edge of the trees, head held high, as it froze in profile for a moment. At last it stalked back into the shadows, and began to feed.

“Very good,” Binnesman said. “You have a power that I never gained. I could never summon animals, and I could never see into the minds of people. I've always had to settle for talking to them.”

“But—the way you looked at me when we met! I was sure that you knew what I was thinking.”

“Ah, well. When you're as old as I am, you don't need Earth Powers to read the minds of children.” Binnesman said, “My mentor, on the other hand, used his powers often. He looked into the minds of birds and rabbits to find out who had passed along a trail before him, or who might be following….”

By now the shadows had grown long. Night was enfolding the land. The sweet smell of autumn straw from the plains below mingled with the scent of alder bark and dying leaves in the woods above. Wild pigeons cooed in the hills.

Binnesman and Averan sat in the grass. Campfires burned like diamonds upon the black plain, and strange blue lights flickered and throbbed over Mangan's Rock.

DAY 3 IN THE MONTH OF LEAVES

A DAY OF MAGES

   39   

Our world is but a shadow of the One True World. You are but an intimation of the Bright Ones.

—
Excerpt from the
Creation Saga

Erin and Celinor rode through the day without event. Their journey around Beldinook had slowed them to a crawl, for even their fast force horses could not negotiate the rocky streambeds and steep trails easily. By nightfall they'd skirted the southern tip of Beldinook and reached the plains of Fleeds. Clouds were rolling in, and now darkness and an approaching storm slowed them once again.

They stopped at a good roadside inn and had their first decent meal of the day—rye bread and a trencher of gravy made of stewed starlings in rosemary. On the side were scallions and parsnips cooked in butter and honey.