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"What is it?" I asked, moving Gold up alongside Glory. We were riding through tall prairie grass, a plain broken only by solitary trees, easy going for the horses unless there was something to trip them up in the grass. And with twilight, we wouldn't be able to see anything low.
"Ride!" Parthet said harshly. "To your mother. Ride!"
I looked ahead, trying to see what Parthet was aiming for, but I didn't see anything but more of the stuff we were in. There was a low hill across our path at an angle from southeast to northwest. Parthet changed course enough to hit the northern end of the ridge. He pushed Glory to a gallop. Lesh and I had no problem keeping up, but Timon's pony was outclassed, even by old, sway-backed Glory. Or maybe Timon just wasn't an experienced enough rider for that kind of terrain. He couldn't have done much riding scrubbing pots. I tried to keep an eye on him, but I had to watch Gold and our course too. I held on, hoping there were no gopher holes to trip us.
Parthet led us across the shoulder of the long hill, down into another valley. The trees disappeared and the grass became sparser in rocky soil. The footing was more difficult. Now and then a horseshoe sparked off stone. There was a track along the flank of one of the bordering hills, and Parthet angled up to that. Glory started to tire and slow. Parthet's eyes remained fixed on the horizon. He seemed to strain forward, either trying to see something that was still out of sight or trying to urge more speed from his animal. I had to rein back on Gold to keep from ru
The evening shadows were getting thick and long. Soon it would be impossible to see anything well enough to continue this mad dash.
"How much farther?" I shouted. Parthet didn't answer. Perhaps he was too deep in magic or concentration to hear. All I could do was follow and hope that our horses could still find footing.
At the end of that valley, Parthet cut left across a low pass between two neighboring hills-neither more than about thirty feet high-then went north again into the next valley. This one widened out quickly, and the bottom was flat. I could see a thick patch of trees ahead-moderate-sized trees with rounded shapes. When we got closer, I could see that it was apples and pears in an orchard. There was a cottage at the far end of the orchard, between two garden-sized fields.
Parthet headed straight for the cottage.
We were a hundred yards off when I saw a brief glint that had to be the cottage door opening and closing. A figure moved in front of the doorway and notched arrow to bow. We were a lot closer before I could tell that it was my mother, dressed in a Robin Hood costume without the cap, her black hair pulled back and tied behind her head. She didn't ease the tension on her bowstring until we were reining in our horses.
I was the first out of the saddle, but Parthet was less than a step behind me. Mother had been crying. She looked at me, then at Parthet.
"I was too late," she said, her voice wavering.
7 – The Hero
My insides seemed to lock up on me. I knew what she was saying. There was no point in questioning it. Even the blind instinct to repeat bad news was blocked. I don't think I had ever seen Mother cry before. Parthet and Lesh stood with us. The four of us remained silent for a time and a time. Timon arrived, dismounted, gathered up the reins of all our horses, and took them off to the side without saying anything, while the rest of us remained locked in tableau. Timon must have felt the grief. When I finally spoke, the words seemed to isolate themselves in the air one at a time, like crystal bubbles, fragile explosive charges.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Inside," Mother said, without any hint of gesture.
I looked at the door behind her, walked to it-very slowly. I hesitated before I pulled it open, and hesitated again between the dim twilight outside and the blackness within. As my eyes started to adjust, as well as they could, to the internal darkness, I saw a few vague shapes inside. I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned, Parthet handed me my flashlight. I nodded and he backed off, leaving the moment to me.
I turned on the flashlight and stepped into the cottage. It was as simple and mean a hovel as Parthet's. Dad was lying on a bench at the side of the room, over to my right. Carl Tyner, King's Champion, Hero of Varay. Dad.
Dead.
He was dressed for the outdoors, leather tunic over fatigue trousers like mine, Robin Hood cap on his head. His head rested on a small shield with a piece of fabric, something like burlap, folded over it into a thin pillow. His hands were clasped on his chest, over the hilt of his sword. I stared, looking for some trace of his chest rising and falling as he breathed, but there was no movement, no breath. I knew that there wouldn't be, but that impossible hope nagged at my mind. His eyes were closed. His face looked serene, at peace. I saw no sign of wounds.
An emptiness swelled up inside and reached out to engulf me, a series of sensations that I had no precedents for. My throat got tight. My heart seemed to flutter. But even those commonplaces were somehow different, strange. The pain was there, but something bottled it up tight, sealed it off in a cold chamber somewhere to wait for a more appropriate time. My mind tried to reject the reality. Maybe I was trapped in a fairy-tale world with dragons and wizards, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't con myself into believing that death was any less final because of that. I looked at the body at the side of the room. I had never let myself dwell on this possibility. Deep down, I guess I had never been able to completely shake the feeling that Varay was some kind of mental aberration, that none of my adventures were real.
Too late the waking. I walked across the room and stood next to the bench. I played the light along the supine form and kept staring. Death was real, and reality was an ulcer's fire in my gut. Closing my eyes didn't make the pain go away, and opening them didn't alter the reality.
I heard a slight shuffling behind me. Mother and Uncle Parthet had come in together. I turned around while Mother lit two candles.
"How did it happen?" I whispered instinctively.
"Nine days ago," Mother said, answering a different question. I turned to look at the body again, another question leaping to my mouth. Mother answered this one before I could get it out. "He was Hero of Varay. The magic of his initiation protects him now, more than it could in life. His flesh will remain whole until he is properly interred."
"But no magic can bring him back," I said. It wasn't a question.
"No magic can bring him back," Parthet agreed softly.
I moved between Mother and Parthet and walked outside, flicking off my flashlight. An appropriately chilled breeze did what grief had been unable to do, bring tears to my eyes, blur my vision. When I blinked my eyes clear, I saw Lesh and Timon, both looking apprehensive, perhaps in echo to my pain.
"The Hero of Varay is gone from us," Parthet said behind me. His voice wasn't loud, but the words seemed to hang in the air and reverberate.
Lesh was a soldier, but at that moment he was no more hardened to death than I was. Muscles rippled under the skin of his face as he fought to hide any display of grief. "We share your loss, lord," he said, and his voice nearly betrayed him. Timon cried openly, tears streaming down his face, leaving tracks in the dust we had all picked up along the way. He turned and clung to Lesh, who held his shoulders, hardly aware that the boy was there.