“Why do the innocent suffer?” asked Dar Cassían. “Why do the guilty prosper?”
A voice thundered from the heavens. “When you have given your life to the suffering innocents, then you may ask. Not before.”
-From “Dar Cassían and His Daughter” (Old Tales: Book IV)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TrainingA thin brushstroke of gold painted the tips of the pines on the horizon, but the marshes were already the deep purple of twilight. Achingly close were the wood-smells, the fire-lights, the meal-sounds of the village ahead of them, and yet Tarin remained in maddening stillness on his knees, head bowed, leaning on his old sword. His stained mantle wrapped around him, he blended into the darkness like a boulder or a barrow. Only the sibilance of his repeated whisper marked him as living.
The change wa
