She stared, not quite ready to believe what she was hearing.
Listen to me, Wren. Your mother understood the impact of Eowen’s
prophecy far better than the queen. The prophecy said that you must be
taken from Morrowindi if you were to live, but it also said that you would
one day return to save the Elves, Your mother correctly judged that whatever
salvation you could provide your people would be tied in some way to a
confrontation with the evil they had created. I did not know this at the time;
I have surmised it since. What I did know was that your mother was
determined that you be raised to be strong enough to withstand any danger,
any foe, any trial that was required of you. That was why she gave you
to me.
Wren was stunned. “To you? Directly to you?”
Garth shifted, pushing himself into a sitting position, giving
his hands more freedom. He grunted with the effort. Wren could
see blood soaking through the bandages of his wounds.
She came with her husband to the Rovers, sent by the Wing Riders.
She came to us because she was told that we were the strongest of the free
peoples, that we trained our children from birth to survive because survival
is the hardest part of every Rover’s life. We have always been an outcast
people and as such have found it necessary to be stronger than any other.
So your mother and your father came to us, to my family, a tribe of several
hundred living on the plains below the Myrian, and asked if there were
someone among us who could be trusted in the schooling of their daughter.
They wished her to be trained in the Rover way, to begin learning as soon
as she was old enough how to survive in a world where everyone and
everything was a potential enemy. I was recommended. We talked, your
parents and I, and I agreed to be your teacher.
He coughed, a deep, racking sound that tore from the depths
of his chest. His head lowered momentarily as he gasped for
breath.
“Garth,” she whispered, frightened now. “Tell me about this
later, after you have rested.”
He shook his head. No. I want this finished. I have carried it with
me for too long.
“But you can hardly breathe, you can barely . .
I am stronger than you think. His hand closed over her own
momentarily and released. Are you afraid I might be dying?
She swallowed against her tears. “Yes.”
Does that frighten you so? After all I have taught you?
“Yes.”
The dark eyes blinked, and he gave her a strange look. Then
I will not die until you are ready for me to do so.
She nodded wordlessly, not understanding what he meant,
wary of the look, anxious only that he live, whatever bargain it
required.
His breath exhaled in a thick rattle. Good. Your mother, then.
She was everything you have been told-strong, kind, determined, devoted
to you. But she had decided that she must return to her people. She had
made up her mind before she left Morrowindl, I think. Your father acqui-
esced. I don’t know the reason for their decision; I only know that your
mother was bound in countless ways to her own mother and to her people,
and your father was desperately in love with her. In any case, it was agreed
that you should be sent to live with the Ohmsfords in Shady Vale until
you were five-the beginning age for training a Rover child-and then given
back to me. You were to be told that your mother was a Rover and your
father an Ohmsford and that your ancestors were Elves. You were to be told
nothing else.
Wren shook her head in disbelief. “Why, Garth? Why keep
it all a secret from me?”
Because your mother understood how dangerous it was to try to influence
the workings of a prophecy. She could have tried to keep you safe, to prevent
you from returning to Morrowindl. She could have stayed with you and
told you what was foreordained. But what harm might she have caused by