“Never mind, I understand him,” Alberich interrupted. He looked down at the boy with some bemusement. So that was why the boy looked vaguely familiar; he was Karsite, or at least, half Karsite. Most of the hill-folk shepherds were mongrels by Sunpriest standards anyway. “So,” he said—in Karsite, “we have another of the Sun’s children come to be a White Rider, eh?” This one must not have been too damaged by his experiences, or he wouldn’t have been Chosen so very young. “There are others here, not as White Riders, but as Selenay’s pages. You won’t be alone.”

“Oh.” Relief suffused the boy’s features. “I did not know that, Great Rider—”

Alberich looked up at Rotherven. “Selenay has perhaps five or six Tedrel orphans; in her service as pages they are. See that this lad meeting them is, please. Perhaps a playfellow he will find among them.”

Then he looked back down at the boy and continued the conversation in Karsite. “Also, there is Priest Gerichen, a true man of the Sunlord. You may go with the others to the Temple of the Sunlord if you wish—though they do not call it that here, but rather, the Temple of the Lord of Light. And if you do not wish to do so, you need not. You are free to serve who you wish, here.”

“I still serve the Sunlord, Great Rider,” the boy said quietly. “The Sunlord of the Prophecy.”

“Then you will find His House yonder in Haven, and Gerichen at His altar,” Alberich replied, suppressing a smile at the child’s solemn demeanor. It was quaint and charming, but a little sad also. Those children had been forced to grow up far too quickly. “I have it on the best authority that He approves of the White Riders and all they stand for, and that there is nothing in the pledges that a White Rider must make that run counter to His will. Quite the opposite, in fact. In serving as a White Rider, you will also serve Him. You will be a hope and an example to our people, and repay some of the debt to those who saved and succored us, as I try to do.”

The child’s face took on a look of fierce pride and determination. “I will not fail you, Great Rider!” he said, in tones that made it a vow. “I will not fail the Prophecy!”

Rotherven’s expression of bemusement, as he looked from Alberich to the boy and back again, made Alberich very glad that he had a great deal of practice in keeping his own face under control, or he might have laughed aloud.

“It is a great responsibility,” Alberich replied, as gravely as if the child was three times his actual age. “And a signal honor.”