© 2010, Patrick Hester.  All Rights Reserved

Chapter Thirty-Six

The Magistrate stared out at the bay and beyond the horizon, his eyes focusing for a moment on the mountains above Corrac’amor before coming to rest on the Tower of Valles so very far away.  It was an old thing, a gift they had said, to be able to See.  He never thought of it so.  Still, today, with a feeling of unease growing within him, it was a pleasant if momentary distraction to be able to see home so easily.

Turning from the window, he closed his eyes.  Beneath him, through the stone of the keep, down through the foundation and deep into the earth itself, he could feel the rumbling.  It troubled him.

Not for the first time, he found his feet moving on their own and had to stop himself from leaving the room and heading into parts of the Keep he alone remembered even existed.

A slight shifting in the air, imperceptible to anyone else, is his only indication that he is no longer alone.  Turning, he smiled at Valenz.

“He still slumbers, Lord.”

“His were the worst of the injuries so it does not surprise me.”  Valenz had been with him so very long now.  He felt a quick twinge of guilt, there and gone again.  The other man had no friends, no family, no life beyond the one he had given him.  It was a terrible existence and no doubt lonely, living in the shadow of the Magistrate.  When they were in the room together, most people did not even acknowledge poor Valenz.  That had always angered him.

“There have been no further attacks.  It’s as if the Forest slumbers while the boy does,” Valenz said.

The Magistrate shook his head slightly.  “No.  It is not asleep.  It’s more active, if anything else.  I can feel it, just below the surface of it all.  Like a barely contained storm waiting to break.  I can think of no other way to describe it.”

“Trouble?”  The Magistrate snorted.  Leave it to Valenz to best him with words.

“I’m not sure what it all means yet, my old friend.”  He considered his next words carefully and decided that if he could not confide in Valenz, he could not confide in anyone.  “To be honest, I very nearly walked through the South Gate this morning.”

Valenz, who rarely, if ever, belied any emotion, stared in open shock.

“I did say ‘very nearly’,” the Magistrate chuckled.  “I know the danger there better than most.”

“Still, I would prefer you not make such jests, my Lord.  You are talking about suicide.”

“Of course,” he waved it off.  “I did not intend it to worry you.  I am not that far gone.  I still have most of my wits about me and have no intention of ending my life.”

Valenz looked only slightly mollified.  “You said that there is more activity than normal?” he asked.

“Hmmm?  Oh – much more.  Everything feels like it’s churning, rumbling.  I think that boy did more than we realized.”

“Is it possible that he…  killed Him?”

The Magistrate stared for a long time, letting the question linger between them.  He concentrated, sensing the ebb and flow of the energies deep within the earth where the roots formed a web.  The darkness he always sensed was there, just out of his reach, pulsing like a heartbeat, so unlike the spider web thin tendrils of green he could touch and manipulate since they…  He looked away, not wanting to remember such things.  The darkness, always the darkness, was denied to him no matter what he did or thought or tried.  It was deeper, richer and more difficult to see at first.  It had taken him a very long time to sense it, even longer to see it and how it pulsed.  He could trace it’s pathways throughout the earth now, see it’s focal point, very nearly see the red and gold eyes-

“He still breathes,” he announced, pulling away.  “Still lives.  I would know it if he were dead, Valenz.  I would feel it, sense it.  That place where I cannot go would open up to me and…”

“And, my Lord?”

“And… nothing.  I don’t know.  They never told me.  I never asked.”

“Yes, my Lord.  So, we wait?”

“As we always have.  We wait, and we watch.  Especially the boy.  Watch the boy, Valenz,” he said wearily.  Stumbling, he made his way to the throne and fell into it as if poured.  His eyes heavy, he knew that he’d pushed too far, tried for too much this day.  “Watch him,” he said, speech slurred.  Darkness began to fill the room.  The last he saw was a faint sparkle of light reflecting off his friend’s spectacles.

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