The Wizard Lord
Page 39
Someone roused Brewer to roll out a keg of well-aged winter beer, and Digger gathered the village musicians, and by the time the sun was behind the ridge almost the entire village had collected in the pavilion, talking and laughing. A dozen couples danced to a brisk jig.
Breaker did not dance. He spoke quietly with his mother when she arrived, saying simply, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. And I’m back, and I’ll stay as long as I can.”
She embraced him and said nothing; her eyes remained dry.
And when next the musicians took a break, Joker called, “Swordsman! Welcome home, congratulations on your survival, and thank you for ridding us of the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills!”
Breaker nodded an acknowledgment. “I did what I had sworn to do,” he said. “No more, and no less.” And as he spoke he thought of the Thief, and the Seer, and the Leader, and the Wizard Lord himself, who could not truthfully have made even so modest a claim.
“Tell us about it!”
That elicited a chorus of echoes. “Tell us! Tell us!”
“What was it like?”
“Was his magic very fearsome?”
“Did he really throw lightning bolts at you?”
Breaker looked out at the eager faces of his townsmen, at their expectant smiles and ready ears, and felt a sudden surge of disgust—with them, and with himself, and with all the world, Chosen and wizards, priests and farmers, everyone and everything. They did not see the truth, that he was a hired killer, sent to dispose of another killer, that the Chosen and the Wizard Lord were just men and women no better than themselves.
This might be his home, but at the heart it was no better, no more understanding of what he had done, what he had been through, than Red-clay or any of the other places he had stopped. They wanted a tale of heroism and glory, and he had nothing true to say to them that would serve.
“I’ll leave that to the storytellers,” he said. “I’ve said and done enough.”
And he stood, and left the pavilion, walking back to his mother’s house alone in the gathering dusk.