“My plants grew to serve the people of this land. You saw how I dunged them with human waste. I used dung from many people, over many generations. So the plants serve these people.

“We are all . . . intertwined. Man, plant, earth, sky, fire, water. We are not many things, but one thing. And when we recognize that we are all but one thing, then we begin to tap into that One Greater Power—the communion.”

Binnesman fell silent and watched Gaborn intently. “Do you understand?”

As he considered, Gaborn thought he began to apprehend what Binnesman tried to say, but he did not know if he could comprehend it yet.

“There are gardens in Mystarria,” Gaborn said, for lack of any other response. “I’ll speak to my gardeners, learn what seeds I have to plant. I should be able to get many kinds of seeds, at the House of Understanding.”

“May I see your gardens?” Binnesman asked. “Perhaps I could advise you on matters of their cultivation.”

“I’d like that,” Gaborn said. “But you’ve spent your life here. Won’t you stay in the Dunnwood?”

“To what purpose?” Binnesman asked. “The Seventh Stone has fallen. The last of the obalin is dead. I’ve nothing more to learn from it, and can no longer serve it. My garden is destroyed.”

“Your wylde. What of it?”

“I searched for it all this afternoon, listened to the trees and grass. If it walks the earth, it does so far from here. I will search for it in Fleeds and farther south, until I find it. Perhaps in Mystarria.”

“But the woods?”

“Are beautiful indeed,” Binnesman said. “I will miss them. Now you are my king. I will follow you.”

It had such an odd sound, this exclamation of devotion. To Gaborn’s knowledge, no Earth Warden had ever claimed fealty to a king. Wizards were solitary beings, living outside the bounds of common men.

“It will be terrible, won’t it?” Gaborn asked. “The war. I feel it coming. I feel . . . a shifting under the earth. Energies stirring.”

Binnesman merely nodded. Gaborn looked down, noticed that the old wizard stood barefoot, though a few dollops of snow still hid among the leaves in the garden.

Gaborn said now the thing that had been haunting him all afternoon. “I claimed him with my whole heart. I claimed my father. I tried to protect him, and I tried to serve him—just as I claimed Sylvarresta and Chemoise’s father and Rowan. Yet I failed them. They’re all dead—seeds of mankind that I chose to save. Tell me, Binnesman, what more must I do?”

The wizard studied Gaborn frankly. “Don’t you understand, milord? It is not enough simply to want them. You must serve them with your whole mind, your whole will.”