The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

of magic there are, wizards will tell you. Yet I have often found myself wondering whether there are other, older magics in the world. It seemed there was always a spell of tranquility upon the Birchwood—something that relaxed your muscles, that made you wish to dip your feet in the cold, clear water of its rivers. I was happy there.”

His expression darkened. “Though others were less fortunate. The other reason I wished to return was to look after some friends.”

Mag’s face twitched. I noticed it, though I did not understand it.

“Old friends?” said Mag.

“Not old the way I am,” said Dryleaf. “They were only children, and I had known them for most of their lives. I was mostly concerned with the girl, though there was also a boy who loved her. It has been … well, it has been many long years since I was last able to visit them, and when last I was forced to leave them … well. The girl, Loren—”

Mag and I had both frozen, her with a bite of food halfway to her mouth. A dawning realization had been creeping upon me as Dryleaf spoke, and when he spoke Loren’s name to confirm it, I nearly choked.

“—she had parents with evil hearts,” Dryleaf went on, not noticing our sudden silence. “I always worried for her, and as time went on, I would return to visit her more and more frequently. The boy, Chet, was moonstruck for Loren from a young age, and I worried it might get him into trouble with her parents. Particularly her father. I did not know exactly how to help them, but I thought, if I could be there when she came of age, I could somehow … some way …”

He fell silent. Still I could not move, could not speak. But now Mag was looking at me from across the table.

“Albern,” she said quietly.

I stared at her.

Dryleaf frowned. “What is it? Is everything all right?”

Mag turned to him. “Dryleaf … this girl from the Birchwood …” She fell silent, seemingly unsure what to say.

He pursed his lips. “Yes?”

“We told you of our friends who rode from Northwood,” I said. “The ones who delivered word of the Shades to the High King.”

Dryleaf went very still. His sightless eyes brimmed with tears.

“It was Loren,” said Mag. “And Chet was with her.”

His jaw quivered as the tears spilled down his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice had dropped to a whisper.

“Loren is alive?”

We told him everything. Everything we knew, that is, which was not, in fact, everything there was to know. Loren had told me only bits and pieces of what had happened on the long road between her departure from the Birchwood and our meeting in Strapa. But I told Dryleaf everything that had happened after that, and he asked me many questions, so that no detail was missed. He went very pale when we told him of the attack on Northwood, and gave a great sigh of relief when we told him how Loren had escaped the fighting. That was the end of what we had seen, and as my tale subsided, Dryleaf asked me another question.

“Her parents,” he said. “Do you know what became of them?”

“We do not,” said Mag. “She was not very willing to speak about her home, or her past.”

Dryleaf sighed. “No, I suppose she would not have been. Something evil lurked in their souls, and they took it out on their only daughter. Theirs was always a house of secrets—secrets, and pain. I feared that if she remained in that home, she would not survive it.”

“You should be happy, then,” said Mag. “She escaped, and if I know anything about her, she will never again fall under their sway.”

“No,” said Dryleaf. “That seems clear. And my heart sings to know that Chet is with her now. He has loved her for a long time, and though I suspect Loren never felt quite the same way—or at least not to the same degree—it will be good for her to have a reminder that not everything in her past came from suffering.”

“And she has the children as well,” I said. “She may not have known them as long as Chet, but they are a great source of comfort to her. She thinks she protects them, and I suppose she does. But they are better for her than she realizes.”

“Good, good,” said Dryleaf. “It sounds as though she went through many hardships on her road—and she may still face hardship even now. But as long as she has Chet, I am confident she will be well cared for.”

“How did you first meet Loren, anyway?” said Mag. “Why did you keep returning to the Birchwood to see her?”

Dryleaf tilted his head. “You have met her yourself. You know how remarkable she is. She was always that way, and I knew she could do great things, if she could only escape her horrible home. It was always something that just seemed to happen to me: finding the lonely and the lost, and trying to make their lives somewhat easier, if it was in my power to do so. Loren was not the only one, though she was a particularly urgent case. I knew an orphan girl in Cabrus, who has run away now, and is lost in the nine kingdoms. A merchant boy in Idris, who finally broke his family’s shackles and lives on his own now. A child of nobility in Hedgemond, who needed more love than her mother felt she could spare. She is a Mystic now, and a fine officer of that order.”

My expression darkened, and I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve. I was not from Hedgemond, of course, but Dryleaf’s words would have been most apt for my own mother.

“But these others had already managed to escape, sometimes with my help, sometimes on their own. Loren was the last. She never knew me as Dryleaf, by the by. In the Birchwood, they