Stone of Tears

“Mathrin would not talk, and suffered so much that I almost stopped several times. Each time I wanted to stop, I thought about the last thing my eyes had seen before he blinded me: Pell’s head held in Mathrin’s fist before me.” Adie swallowed, her voice so low Zedd could hardly hear her. “And I remembered Pell’s last words: “I will not say that of her to save my life. Even though she has betrayed me.’”

She closed her eyes for a moment. They came open and she went on. “Mathrin be on the edge of death. I thought he was not going to tell me why he came to me. But just before he died, he became still, despite what was being done to him. And then he said he would tell me, because he be about to die, because this, too, had been by plan. I asked him again why he had come back.

“He leaned toward me. “Don’t you know, Adie?” he asked me. “Don’t you know what I be? I be a baneling. I have been hiding right under your nose all this time. You have kept me near you all this time, and the Keeper knew right where you be. The Keeper lusts for those with the gift above all else.” I had thought that that be it, that he be a baneling. I told him he had failed, it had done him no good, as he be about to die for his crimes.

“He smiled at me.” She leaned forward. “smiled! And he said, “You be wrong Adie. I have not failed. I have done the Keeper’s bidding. I have fulfilled my task. Perfectly. All this be by plan. I have made you do exactly as he wished. I shall be rewarded. I be the one who started the fire when you be little. I be the one who did those things to Pell. Not because I thought him or you a baneling. I be the baneling. I did it to make you break your oath. To make you welcome the Keeper’s hate into your heart.

“‘Breaking your oath be the first step, and look what you have done since. Look at what you be doing right now. Look at how far you have slipped toward him. You be within his grasp now. You may not have given him your oath, but you do his bidding. You have become what you hate. You have become me; you be a baneling. The Keeper smiles upon you, Adie, and thanks you for welcoming him into your heart.” Mathrin slumped, and fell back, dead.”

Adie dissolved into tears, her head sagging into her hands. Zedd unlocked his joints and swept around the table, holding her to him as he stood next to her, holding her head against his stomach, stroking her hair, comforting her as she cried.

“Not so, dear lady. Not so at all.”

She wept against his robes, shaking her head. “You think you be so smart, wizard? You not be so smart as you think. You be wrong about this.”

Zedd knelt beside her chair, holding her hands in his, looking up into her stricken face. “I’m smart enough to know that the Keeper, or one of his minions, would not let you have the satisfaction of knowing you had won a battle against him.”

“But I…”

“You fought back. You struck out from your hurt, not for a lust of the things you did. Not for a want to help the Keeper.”

Her brow wrinkled together with her effort to stop the tears. “You be so sure? Sure enough to trust one such as I?”

Zedd smiled. “I’m sure. I may not know everything, but I know you are no baneling. You are the victim, not the criminal.”

She shook her head. “I not be so sure as you.”

After Mathrin died, did you go on killing? Seeking vengeance against any innocent?”

“No, of course not.”

“Had you been an agent, you would have given yourself over to the Keeper, to his wishes, and gone on to hurt those who fought him. You are no baneling, dear lady. My heart weeps for the things the Keeper took from you, but he did not take your soul, that is still yours. Put those fears aside.”

He held her hands and gave them soft squeezes. She didn’t try to take her hands back, but let them stay in his, as if to soak up the comfort as they trembled.

Adie wiped the tears from her cheek. “Pour me some more tea? But no more powdered cloud leaf, or I will fall asleep before I can finish the story.”

Zedd arched an eyebrow. She had known what he had done. He patted her shoulder as he rose to his feet. He poured her tea and then pulled his chair forward and sat again while she sipped.

After she drank half of her cup, she looked to have regained her control. “The war with D’Hara be burning hot, but it be near the end. I felt the boundary go up. Felt it come into this world.”

“So you came here right after the boundary went up?”