“All I can do is muddle through as best I can,” said Danny.

“It’s what we all do,” said Veevee.

Clear Memory

18

CLEAR MEMORY

What no one knew about Wad, what he barely knew about himself, was how lost he was. You don’t live a thousand years inside a tree without losing something, and what Wad had lost was his own story.

Once he had been driven by a terrible purpose, something so important it was worth locking himself away from human life and devoting everything to the single task of taking away from any gatemage in Westil and Mittlegard the power to make a Great Gate. In doing this, he diminished all the mages, and consigned generations of human beings to suffering and death for lack of the power of healing that the gatemages had held.

But, waking from the tree, called from it by something he did not recognize or understand, Wad had wandered with no purpose at all. A girl had fed him and given him clothing, so he did not freeze to death or starve. A bakerwoman had taken him in and so he had dwelt in a castle and learned to care about the things that castle dwellers care about—kings and dynasties.

He had followed his body’s inclinations and fallen in love with a woman of beauty and ruthless power. Only gradually had he discovered that he had some moral principles, things he would not do. He would not murder King Prayard’s mistress and their children. He would not rip the baby from Bexoi’s womb in vengeance for her murder of the child they had made together.

It implied that once upon a time, Wad had been a man who thought deeply about right and wrong, and came to conclusions different from those that were common among the mages. That man had learned much about the workings of power, had acquired never-before-seen skills in gatemagery.

Above all, he had strength of will. When he set his mind to a purpose, he accomplished it.

Yet was there any sense in which Wad was still that man?

If he was, what purpose did he have now? Anonoei had her plans, and Wad helped her, as once he had accepted the purpose King Prayard assigned to him, and then had become the willing tool of Bexoi in her plotting.

When Wad came upon Danny North, he had acted according to what was left of the driving purpose of the man that Wad had once been. But when Danny North fought back and ate most of Wad’s own gates, Wad had backed away, beaten, and now even this feckless boy in a faraway place had more purpose in his life than Wad.