Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [139]
There are things I cannot even give names to. You might be better off in a smaller, quieter place.”
“I might be,” he agrees. “I will find out when I leave. But I need to speak with you first. I came to do that, as well.”
She hides her surprise, wondering how he would even know of her. “As you wish. But we will not do so here. Are you hungry? Have you eaten today?”
He has not, and so they go to a place where she knows there is food to be salvaged, and they carry the packets to a small open square and sit on stone benches to eat while the sun, hot enough to melt iron, sinks slowly into the maze of buildings that lie between them and the ocean.
“Who hunts you?” she asks him after a few minutes of chewing in silence.
She regards him carefully. “Who would dare?”
He smiles at the compliment. “Many more than you would think. Mostly demons and the once-men in their service. Do you know of them?”
She does not, and so he tells her of the history of the Great Wars and of the source of the destruction that has changed life for all of them. He tells her of the Word and the Void and the battle they have waged since the beginning of time. He tells her of how life is a balance between good and evil, and how each is always attempting to tip the scales.
“Each side uses servants to aid its efforts. The Void uses demons, black soulless monsters that seek only to destroy. The Word uses its Knights, paladins sent to thwart the efforts of the demons. Once, they were mostly successful. But humans are an unpredictable, volatile species, and in the end they fell victim to their own excesses, fostered by the work of the Void’s demons. They succumbed, and civilization succumbed with them.”
She doesn’t know if she believes him or not; certainly she thinks his story is as much fable as truth. But the way he tells it lends it the weight of truth, and she finds herself believing despite her reservations. His words provide an explanation she finds plausible for all the mad things that have happened to the world. She has always known that it is more than it seems, that the conflict between nations, between peoples, between beliefs, is augmented in a way she doesn’t understand.
“I serve the Lady, who is the voice of the Word,” he continues. “It is given to me to find a handful who will attempt to restore the balance once more.
For a long time, it wasn’t possible; the madness and rage were too great to be overcome. But enough time has passed, and now there is a chance it can be done.
Are you interested in serving?”
She is caught off guard by his question, and she stares at him in surprise. “My place is here, with my people,” she answers.
“Your people are no longer confined to a small part of a large city,” he tells her. “Your people are the people of the world, near and far. If you would make a difference, you must look beyond your own neighborhood. A balance restored in one small place is not enough to change anything. In the end, it will fail and become a pan of the larger madness. It will be consumed.”
She knows this is so. She has been feeling it for some time. She fights a losing battle because the larger world continues to encroach. But she is afraid to lose even this; it is all she has left.
“What is it you want me to do?” she asks finally.
The big man leans forward. “It is the Lady who seeks your help. She would have you become a Knight of the Word. She would have you enter into her service and give over your life to restoring the balance. She would have you do battle against the demons and their minions, against the evil they inflict. She would give you this.”
He lifts up the black staff, which has been resting against the bench beside him. She has forgotten about it since she first saw him holding it. Now she looks at it closely, sees how deep and pervasive are the carvings on its surface, how they dominate the sheen of its polished wood. She has