They all believed him to be some hero. They looked at him and his ungainly form, and they saw a legend! How strange, how dreadful, how wonderful it was.
Perhaps the world was bigger than he had realized. Perhaps he had always limited himself to things that could be perceived by his senses rather than realizing that his perceptions were nothing more than restraints. Perhaps there were worlds and ways and wonders beyond anything he had imagined.
But that didn’t, in the end, make a difference.
The worlds may be bigger and grander, but he was still only himself. If anything, he realized now to a much greater extent his own insignificance. At least in the confines of Gaheris he’d had his realm: the library, the books; and he’d had his weapon: his ability to read and write. He could keep himself separate and see himself as superior despite his deficiencies.
Now he saw that even those things he had clung to—his wits, his talents, his hard-earned abilities—were nothing. They were no more useful than his paltry limbs. Here, in these new worlds, he was dwarfed in spirit as well as in height.
He should have stayed behind. He should have made some daring, foolish, useless gesture and been killed. Then he wouldn’t have to keep on living. He wouldn’t have to watch himself try and, inevitably, fail.
The Path beneath his feet was no longer mossy or leaf strewn. The Chronicler realized this slowly, then stopped and looked around, surprised. He stood on white rock, but rock harder than chalk. Above him, the trees had retreated and the half-light had given way to the full light of day. He was obliged to shield his eyes. Where were the others? He couldn’t see them for the light, and he wondered if he should call out to them.
He took a step. And he found that he stood on the edge of a precipice.
The Chronicler’s head whirled with a sudden dizzying sensation of height that was so much more than height, he could scarcely take it in. He saw clouds drifting below his feet, far away, like tufts of sheep’s wool tossing on a breeze.
Beneath the clouds, he saw the North Country.
How he knew this, he could not say. It was not like the maps in the Gaheris library, which were flat, indistinct, and often inaccurate. Every detail, color, shadow, valley, and crest presented itself with a precision the Chronicler’s eyes should not have been able to perceive, which dazzled and frightened him all at once. He could see Gaheris, every stone of the castle, though the distance between him and it was beyond his ability to reckon. He could see Hanna winding, every ripple and wavelet. He saw Aiven, which he had never before seen in person but which he recognized with a lurch of familiarity, like a father seeing his child’s face after a long absence, unfamiliar and yet dearly familiar at once. Every earldom, every fief, every hamlet and village and port . . . they presented themselves beneath the Chronicler’s vision, and he knew that he loved them. He loved the North Country with a love that was painful and vital and true.
And Gaheris he loved most of all.
But Gaheris was overrun. Even at this distance the Chronicler saw the cloud of smoke and dust, clear signs of the goblins’ desolating work.
“Fear not, small man,” said a voice behind him. “You will see your people free.”
The Chronicler whirled in place. A tall man stood behind him, but his height was all he could discern, for he could not see him clearly. The light in this place was much too bright.
“Who are you?” the Chronicler demanded.
“I am the one who chose you.”
“Etanun?” the Chronicler said. “The Murderer?”
But he knew even as he said it that this was wrong. The voice was not that of a murderer.
“No,” said the stranger. “Etanun did not choose you. He merely found you. Much is given and revealed to my servant, but it is not for him to choose his course or that of another. He has not the clarity of vision.”
“And you have? You have the right to choose destinies, to direct lives?”
There was a smile in the voice that replied. “I, who have named the stars and given them the patterns of their dance across the sky, also named you and gave you the pattern of the dance that is your life. I have the right. I am the right.”
The Chronicler wanted to back away, but there was only the precipice behind him and the great expanse of the North Country beneath his feet. He whispered a name he had seen only once or twice in the oldest, most-forgotten documents, but which was in his heart, ready to be spoken.
“Lumil Eliasul.”
“And you,” said the stranger, “are Florien Ferox-son. Smallman, sword bearer, dragon slayer. Future king.”
The Chronicler could not breathe. He felt as though the depths behind him threatened to drag him down, and he was afraid.