by Matthew Berg
By the time they entered their kitchen again, Breeden was reassured by the fact that he still felt no change in how he felt about his parents. If anything, he had a new admiration for them in raising another’s child as their own. But in essence, the news changed nothing.
He embraced his mother and held her for a long, long moment—reminded, oddly, of the hug he’d shared with Janelle upon her learning of the king’s death a week earlier.
And then the floor was given to Aegir, to finish the tale that had begun with the revelation of Breeden’s true birth.
“Your father was a wizard. But he was not just any wizard, I’m afraid. He was—and still is—one of the greatest of his kind ever to walk the earth. That’s right, Holt, Marlene, and Breeden: Breeden’s father still lives. And it is he who has sent me to ask for Breeden’s help with a matter that concerns the fate of the world.”
Breeden’s mother gasped. His father showed no outward change. And Breeden became suddenly angry and confused. “Not dead? But if he’s not dead, then why did he abandon me? And why has he not come to visit me?”
It was a rare outburst for Breeden. And he realized, as soon as he’d raised his voice, that Aegir was merely the messenger, and not responsible for his blood father’s actions.
Aegir gently interjected. “But he has visited you—a handful of times since the year you were born and I brought you here.”
Breeden’s eyes widened. And he thought for a moment. The old man? When he was unloading fish? Regardless . . . He continued in a more moderate tone. “Well, what need could he possibly have for me, anyway? I hardly even know what my powers can do—never mind how to control them really.”
Breeden’s mother made a small sound, as though she’d swallowed something unintentionally. He turned to look at her, seeking forgiveness for keeping things from her with his glance. But it was clear from the look she returned that she already knew about his powers. His father must have decided to tell her after all.
Aegir brought them back. “I cannot tell you exactly what part you will play in these events, but your father and his powers are of a nature that would allow him to do things no other could. He believes you might share some of these abilities with him. And he has reason to believe that these unique powers of yours could make a difference in battling against the agents of evil that are gathering even now.”
“Agents of evil?” It was Breeden’s mother, clearly concerned.
Aegir nodded his massive head. “Yes. Agents of Mirgul, the Dark Lord.”
Breeden’s father spit on the floor and then mixed it with a small pile of sawdust using the tip of his boot.
Aegir nodded again. “This is no vacation I propose to take your son on. Make no mistake. It may be a hard road. But another reason why Breeden’s father hopes to involve you, my young friend, is that he does not believe Mirgul knows you even exist. It is your father’s belief, Breeden, that your anonymity will keep you safe.”
Breeden surprised them all with his next question. “What is my father’s name?”
Aegir responded without hesitation. “He is known by many names. But to your mother, he was known as Einar.”
“Einar.” Breeden tasted the word. He listened to it echo in his head. He believed that Aegir spoke the truth, that his mother had called his father by this name. But he also sensed that the giant was holding something back, not revealing something important about his father. But the stony face that regarded him revealed no further secrets, and Breeden let the matter drop. He could always raise the question later if his suspicions should grow.
“And my mother? Is she really dead? Or is she alive, too?”
Aegir frowned. “I’m afraid that part of the tale is true, young Breeden. She was truly killed in a storm.”
Breeden allowed himself a moment to imagine this woman he would never meet. But his anger came back quickly.
“Who are these agents of the Dark Lord? Humans?”
The giant nodded, as if out of respect for the keenness of the young man’s mind. “Yes, for now. Though he also finds it simple enough to exercise his will on weaker races when he chooses to do so. Before it is over, it will likely involve gnomes at the least. And perhaps worse.”
Again Breeden had the sense that the giant was failing to reveal some important piece of information. But the giant remained silent. And Breeden didn’t care anyway. He would be going with the giant to meet his father. That much was plain.
“When does he need me, and when would we leave?”
Aegir placed his hands firmly on the table. “Tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest. There is a meeting of the council of wizards at the dwarf city of Ekszer Hegy. He needs us now.”
“Tomorrow, then.” Breeden wanted to say goodbye to Janelle. And to the rest of his friends if he could manage it.
32
Farewell
Breeden knew it was late to be knocking at a girl’s door. And he feared a tongue-lashing from her mother or father when the door finally opened. But it was Janelle who answered. She must have seen him from the window. She was wearing a night shift and bore a look of mild alarm. “What is it?”
Breeden was his father’s son and knew no other way than to come right out with it. “I have to leave.”
“Leave? What? Why?”
Breeden shook his head and reached out for her hand. She took it, and he stepped inside her home so she could close the door. As he passed over the threshold, he could see her father watching from the end of the hallway.
On the walk over, he’d thought about what he would tell her. Especially her, among all of his friends. But he clearly couldn’t tell her the truth. At least not all of it. Whether her father was listening or no.
“I learned something tonight.”
She squeezed his hand in encouragement and gestured toward a bench by the door. He gratefully accepted, and they sat down beside each other. She turned toward him and grabbed both of his hands in hers.
“What is it? What did you learn?”
Out with it now. “I learned that I was adopted. And my birth father needs me.”
Breeden had been looking down as he spoke. But he lifted his gaze to see how she would process his words. She looked relieved. Then perhaps a little angry. And then something else he couldn’t identify.
“But where are you going? And why is it so urgent? Can’t you finish the school year with us?”
“No. It’s far from here. I’m actually not sure exactly where. But a . . . man has come to take me there. And he tells me it is urgent I see my father as soon as possible.”
“Is he dying?”
Breeden shook his head. “No.” But then he reconsidered. “Well, perhaps. I’m not sure, to be honest. He did tell me it was a matter of life and death. So, maybe. I’m sorry . . .”
She leaned over and hugged him then. And she clung to him even more tightly after hearing her father’s cough. “I will miss you.” She whispered the words in his ear.
Breeden breathed in deeply the intoxicating smell of her hair, and his nose brushed her neck as he whispered back. “I will surely miss you too. We were only just . . .”
Janelle’s father coughed again, and Breeden pulled away. “I will be leaving very early in the morning. And I don’t know when I’ll be back. I am so sorry, Janelle.”
He stood then, not wishing to prolong his agony. Or Janelle’s. But her father be damned . . . he kissed her then, right on the lips. And then he quickly pulled away. “Goodbye, Janelle.” And then he was out the door.
He thought about trying to find Laudan and Oskar then. But he didn’t think he had the heart for it. He turned around one last time to look back at Janelle’s door. He thought he could make out a shadowy figure through the thick glass sidelight. And then he hung his head and turned toward home.
33
Journey Begun
The morning came quickly. And the day looked to be a hot one. But as his goodbyes had been with Janelle the night before, it was a tear-filled
goodbye with his mother and father. Their only child—not even a man yet—was off on his first trip away from home. And it was not just any trip but one fraught with danger. His untested abilities, and the might of a giant at his side, were all they could count on to see him safely returned to them.
Breeden had never seen his mother look so miserable and helpless as she did when he released her from the last of their many parting hugs.
“I’ll be back, Ma. I promise. And Aegir will keep me safe. I love you, Ma.” They were his final words as he left the house. His mother had decided she could not see him off at the pier and that she’d save her worrying and tears for the privacy of their home. Besides, Aegir had enjoined them that the trip should not appear to be an unusual one, lest they draw the notice of one of Mirgul’s agents. Breeden carried only a small rucksack on his back, and that was filled almost entirely with food—and was devoid of any possessions beyond spare clothes, rope, a whetstone, and his favorite whittling blade as a backup for the stout workman’s blade he wore at his belt. Of course, Breeden’s father couldn’t help but remark that in the village of Woodfall, a giant’s involvement hardly lent to the event a sense of normalcy.
Aegir cast off the lines that held his unusual sailboat against the shallow-water pier closest to their family’s home. The current was sluggish, but it began turning the boat’s nose south almost immediately. Breeden could see that the hull was not very deep, and while the boat turning so easily in the Woodfall’s current had him admiring its nimbleness, it also concerned him that they would have a rough and unpleasant journey once they’d reached the ocean.
The boat itself had a round aspect with a nearly square stern. Attached at the stern was an ingenious removable tiller Breeden saw Aegir putting in place with the ease with which he might fasten his own belt. Clever! He looked around more carefully at the boat’s contents. The boat was large enough that there was room for the giant to move about, and a good deal of storage space too. Tucked away under the seats were about a dozen long oiled-canvas bags, which Breeden expected would contain extra sails, rope, and material for underway repairs. He also spied a long wooden blade that could have been a tooth extracted from a giant wooden whale. But before he could comment on the oddity and ask Aegir what it was for, he realized that the giant was still allowing the boat to turn south.
“Um, Aegir? Were you planning to turn north?”
The giant smiled again. “No. I thought we’d brave the southern route and pick up a few days on our voyage.”
The giant’s words upset Breeden, who’d explored the river south on a handful of occasions and had never been able to go more than a few furlongs due to the water’s depth, or lack thereof, and the high volume of obstacles in the form of numerous deadfalls. Most notably, there was a massive logjam that had become a permanent part of the river’s terrain.
Breeden was silent a moment. “Do you know what lies to the south? Have you traveled this river before?”
Aegir wobbled his head in neither a nod nor a shake. “I have heard tales of what lies to the south, but no, I have never navigated it before. My understanding, however, is that it will get us to where we need to go much faster—a good four or five days faster, in fact. And even if we need to carry the boat around the deadfalls and logjam, we might still gain a few days on the northern route.”
Breeden was skeptical. “The first jam has to be two or three furlongs, you know.”
Aegir made his odd wobbling-head movement again, which Breeden interpreted to mean he was not yet prepared to agree or disagree.
As they talked, Aegir had been efficiently preparing the boat for sail and had raised a light cloth sail on a taught rope that ran at an angle from the bow of the boat up to the top of the single mast. Breeden had seen these rigs before, though not often, and he’d never sailed on a boat that used one. The light sail proved to be much larger than he’d thought it would—or should—be when it filled with air. And rather than being held flat and taut, as he’d expected, the sail billowed outward from the front of the boat like a cloud pulling them forward. Aegir made no move to raise the mainsail, obviously counting on this odd front sail to do the job of moving them downriver. The wind was coming from just north of west, and Aegir was able to easily maneuver the boat so they reached the first logjam within about a quarter of an hour.
Breeden’s mood was sour. And as they approached the jam, he became embarrassed for his father’s friend.
“It’s okay if we turn around,” he offered. “We haven’t lost much time at all.”
Aegir smiled and steered the boat steadily toward the river’s eastern shore. When they had bumped gently against the embankment, he handed a line to Breeden and asked him to secure the boat to a sapling nearby. Breeden stepped ashore and lashed the line as instructed. When he turned back, Aegir had begun to systematically take apart the boat. Or that was how it appeared to Breeden. He lowered the front sail, then removed pins from the base of the mast and lowered the mast as well. Breeden had never seen anything like it. In a matter of minutes, the giant had secured everything to the top of the boat and had attached a stout frame to the boat’s stern with two large and heavy wheels close set to one another.
Despite the efficiency with which the giant had disassembled the boat and prepared it for a land voyage, Breeden was still skeptical as to how they would transport this boat two or three furlongs downriver, when the only trail was a footpath hardly wider than a game trail. Aegir answered the unasked question by removing a large axe that, in his hands, would have sent chills down the spine of the stoutest heart. “You can stay here, if you’d like. Or you can join me. I’m not sure how long it will take.”
He walked south, along the river’s eastern bank, and remained on the game trail that hugged the riverbank.
Breeden opted to follow. After just about the distance he had promised the giant, they reached a point in the path where the logjam ended. Aegir stopped and stood silent for a long moment. Breeden could tell he was thinking, and guessed he was considering the effort that would be required to transport the boat such a distance. The moment lingered. And still Breeden waited for the giant to make some indication he’d reached a decision. Finally Aegir nodded. “It will do. We should be on our way by lunchtime the day after tomorrow at the latest.”
Breeden was flabbergasted. The giant was so matter-of-fact. He described accomplishing a feat in two days that Breeden thought would require ten men and a week’s work as casually as Breeden’s father might give an estimate for a simple repair to a customer.
Aegir wasted no more time chatting with Breeden and began swinging his axe to clear a launch area down to the water’s edge. He chose a spot where the embankment had been washed out and the launch would be as smooth as possible. The work went quickly. The giant would crouch down to his knees and swing the axe parallel to the ground, shearing off most saplings and smaller trees in a single blow. Clearing a wide area of all trees for the launch took the giant no more than a handful of minutes.
He paused briefly to survey whether the work would serve, and then he picked up the saplings and smaller trees he’d cut, and he laid them out flat, removing branches as he went and butting them roughly against one another. Breeden thought it looked as though the giant was going to build a raft out of the tiny trees.
When Aegir was done with this last bit of work, a wide area, easily big enough to accommodate the boat, was cleared and covered with a flat makeshift wooden “flooring.” He looked at Breeden quizzically. Breeden was unsure what the look signified, but he thought the giant might be offering Breeden a chance to ask a question. So Breeden spoke. “You’re going to drag the boat across trees, as you’ve laid out here, the entire way?”
The giant nodded. “They will roll somewhat and slide a bit, though not as well as the dry-docking logs we use in the north. But they will roll enough that the boat will not simply drag across the wood.”
Breeden nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen my father do this to move a boat a fe
w feet out of the water. But the logs were quite round and smooth, and it was still hard for the men to haul out the boat across them.”
Aegir agreed. “Easy it’s not. But it will serve. And we should be on our way the day after tomorrow.”
And then he resumed the work he’d begun by clearing a small swath to either side of the footpath they had walked. He would clear a few yards and then set the axe down to go back and lay down the saplings on either side of the path. Breeden was amazed at how quickly the giant accomplished so much. And the work on the path went much more quickly than that to prepare the launch.
It was soon sunset at the end of the first day, and the giant had cleared at least a hundred yards in this way. Breeden was hungry, and he guessed the giant had to be ravenous. So he suggested they go back to the boat to eat something. Aegir told Breeden to go back and eat, and indicated he would be along shortly, after doing just a bit more work while the fading sunlight still provided enough illumination to do so. Breeden agreed, wondering what supplies the giant had brought along.
Along with being hungry, Breeden was also very tired. And hot. He was dripping sweat from simply standing in the day’s heat and watching the giant work. He couldn’t even imagine how hot the giant must be. He walked back toward the boat even less sure of himself—and the voyage he had hardly had a chance to begin—than he had been the night before. It was not a lack of faith in the giant. On the contrary, the giant had more than proven he would be a formidable force in confronting the “dark agents” of an evil god. But Breeden himself had done nothing—the entire day—but watch the giant do everything he could to move the journey forward.
Too, Breeden admired the giant’s relentlessness, and his conviction. He had taken on a task that would have foiled Breeden at the first obstacle—an obstacle Breeden had known his whole life, in fact, and had always assumed to be insurmountable. Not only was it possible to get around the jam, but the giant claimed he would do it in a matter of not much more than two days!