Kared's Children - Chapter 16

Sometimes Karec found himself believing almost that the cost had been worthwhile. When he could help someone and realize he had, or when, like last night, while walking with Benjamin, he almost had seemed able to grasp the entire history of Kared, and how the consequences of each individual’s life and the choices he made laid out the structure of that life like instructions on a parchment-at such times Karec could feel himself just one more pigment in that brilliant opus that was existence, and then, yes, then, he could love his father. But at other times his father was just a name, an abstraction-and at those times, only Morgan mattered to him.

It had struck Karec more than once since this journey had begun that in many ways it was a journey of orphans. He and Morgan, Shaerden and his friends, even Dox and Benjamin, when their parents had surrendered them to their apprenticeships, all had become parentless far too young. Since no one else had commented on this curiosity, Karec had kept the observation to himself. He would’ve liked to have questioned Morgan about it, because if anyone would have known of any significance to this odd fact, it would have been his brother-but he hadn’t gotten the opportunity in this rush of events.

And now Morgan was away, as was Karec, on his own adventure. They were following one of the only two legacies their father had left them. It was a path, Karec feared, filled with sorrow and loss.

No one knew what had become of their father. He had journeyed to the west, beyond the southern tip of the Calaran, some said in search of a legend itself: the Priva River. The Priva was supposed to be the source of life. What that meant, Karec never had met anyone who could say. He suspected that, perhaps, it had been the route into this peninsula-which, if what Morgan had said was true, had been because it was the only remaining unpoisoned portion of their entire world. Karec hadn’t heard of anyone, except maybe the Kagatje, who ever had been outside the protective ring of the Calaran Mountains and into the world beyond-and most definitely he’d heard of no one who had returned. If the legends even were close to the truth, he could understand well why whatever the Kagatje had seen could have maddened them to the point of hating anyone they believed responsible for bringing such horrors to reality.

That Karec the legend would have gone in search of a legend was unsurprising. That he had not returned, also, to those he’d left behind, was not surprising. No one who’d been a member of that group ever had returned whatever nightmares they’d faced-no one, that was, except the old woman, Claire Stearens. She’d been found wandering, years ago, sick and out of her mind, in the Harshland above Taroc-that same Harshland toward which they were traveling now.

She’d been near death. Those who’d found her had brought her back to Taroc, where she’d been nursed for weeks before she even was able to squeeze anyone’s hand in response to a query. It had been longer still before she had spoken. She’d refused all inquiries, except his, to what had happened. And to him what she’d said had made no sense.

So he never did find out what had become of their father, and he’d resigned himself that he’d never know. He was an absence as a hero and as a father and then as a hero again. He was a wound from which Karec never would recover. And Karec loved him. And would always love him. And he never would give up hope that his father’s death had been worth the cost. That was the other legacy his hero, his father, had left the two sons: a scales by which to weigh all decisions. So far as he knew, it never had weighed in error.

. . .

They were climbing a slope, the wagons swaying as the horses strained, and the Caravan was slowing. Many of those on foot had caught the wagons and were passing them; others were helping the horses with their jobs, and others still were languishing behind, in no hurry, content with the knowledge that even with this difficulty, those in the wagons still faced the easier journey. The day was warm, and the path dusty and rocky. Men and women sweated and struggled and swore while children pushed or pranced, and Karec, Piskin, and Shaerden joined in the effort, moving from wagon to wagon, migrating slowing toward the front of the Caravan.