Farland David
Chaosbound
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Chaosbound
David Farland
For my daughter, Nichole, may all of your fantasies come true—at least the pleasant ones!
Book I
The Flood
1
Sir Borenson at the End of the World
Great are the healing powers of the earth. There is nothing that has been destroyed that cannot be mended . . .
At the end of a long summer’s day, the last few beams of sunlight slanted through the ancient apple orchard outside the ruins of Barrensfort, creating golden streams among the twigs and branches of the trees.
Though the horizon was a fiery glowering, sullen and peaceful, from the deadwood linnets had already begun to rise upon their red and waxen wings, eager to greet the coming night.
Sir Borenson leaned upon the ruins of an old castle wall and watched his daughters Sage and Erin work amid the tallest branches of an apple tree. It was a hoary thing, seeming as old as the ruins themselves, with lichen-covered boughs that had grown to be as thick as many another tree.
The wind had knocked the grand old tree over two summers ago, so that it leaned at a slant. Most of its limbs had fallen into ruin, and now the termites feasted upon them. But the tree still had some roots in the soil, and one great branch thrived.
Borenson had found that the fruit of that bough was the sweetest to grow upon his farm. Not only were the golden apples sweeter than all of the others, they ripened a good four weeks early and grew huge and full. These apples would fetch a hefty price at tomorrow’s fair.
This was not the common hawk’s-day fair that came once a week. This was the High Summer Festival, and the whole district would likely turn out up at Mill Creek, for trading ships had come to Garion’s Port in the past few weeks, bringing spices and cloth from faraway Rofehavan.
The fallen tree left a hole in the canopy of the orchard, creating a small glade. The grass grew lush here. Bees hummed and circled, while linnets’ wings shimmered like garnets amid streams of sunlight. Sweet apples scented the air.
There can be beauty in death, Sir Borenson thought, as he watched the scene.
Erin climbed out on a thin limb, as graceful as a dancer, and held the handle of her pail in her mouth as she gently laid an apple in.
“Careful,” Sir Borenson warned, “that limb you’re on may be full of rot.”
Erin hung the bucket on a broken twig. “It’s all right, Daddy. This limb is still healthy.”
“How can you tell?”
She bounced a bit. “See? It has some spring in it still. The rotten ones don’t.”
Smart girl, for a nine-year-old. She was not the prettiest of his brood, but Borenson suspected that she had the quickest wit, and she was the most thoughtful of his children, the first to notice if someone was sad or ill, and she was the most protective.
You could see it in her eyes. Borenson’s older offspring all had a fierceness that showed in their flashing blue eyes and dark red hair. They took after him.
But though Erin had Borenson’s penetrating blue eyes, she had her mother’s luxurious hair, and her mother’s broad face and thoughtful expression. It seemed to Borenson that the girl was born to be a healer, or perhaps a midwife.
She’ll be the one to nurse me through my old age, he mused.
“Careful with those apples,” he warned. “No bruises!” Erin was always careful, but Sage was not. The girl seemed more interested in getting the job done quickly than in doing it well.
Borenson had wadded some dry grass and put it in the buckets, so that the girls could pack the apples carefully. The grass had tea-berry leaves in it, to sweeten the scent. Yet he could tell that Sage wasn’t packing the apples properly.
Probably dreaming of boys, he thought. Sage was