by Carol Berg
Lungfuls of clean, damp air and a firm hand were waiting for me when I emerged from the hole and crawled onto a wooden floor. The hands indicated I should help pull the ladder up. Once we had the heavy thing up, my shadowy companion took it away. I carefully closed and latched the hinged trap that had held me prisoner. The room was large, long and narrow, and at one end thin strips of gray light outlined shutters. Before I could determine what were the dark columnar shapes that filled most of the place like crude statuary, my rescuer returned.
“Who—?”
“Shhh.” The hand gripped mine, and we sped through a maze of stacked boxes and crates toward the end of the room away from the shutters. My companion cracked open the door and peered out, then pulled it open a little further. Outlined in the lingering gleam of a rainy twilight, dressed in a man’s breeches and shirt that were too big for her, was the Lady Seriana.
She closed the door carefully behind us and motioned me to follow. We sped across a muddy flat to a set of wooden steps, half buried in mud and the soggy debris of a riverbank. As I followed her down the steps toward the rush and slurp of the dark ribbon of water, I glanced back and saw the front of the low, block-like building we had just abandoned. It was tucked between two thick stone pillars that supported an arched bridge. Exactly as I had seen in my vision. And though the evening was eerily quiet and no starlike lights adorned the trees and buildings outlined against the night, we were most certainly in Avonar.
An armed man, strolling around the building, paused and turned his head our way. I ducked.
Lady Seriana led me a short way upriver to a spot where the swirling water had undercut the high riverbank. “I think we can talk here,” she said, keeping her voice low as she crouched under the bank. “I’d hoped to get you out hours ago, but only in the last hour did they leave the place to just the one guard. You’re uninjured? They had to carry you. . . .” Her words poured out as if she couldn’t get them out fast enough.
“I’m not injured, but very confused,” I said. “How ever did you come to be here? And how did you know where I was? Aimee told us you’d been arrested and confined to the hospice.”
“I followed you from the hospice to the Zhid camp, and slipped through the portal in the dust storm. When I came through, Gerick was having them take you off the horse and put you down the hole. None of the Zhid saw me.”
“My lady, do you know what he’s doing? Were you able to see those who came here today?”
To make out details in the failing light was difficult; Lady Seriana’s eyes were like dark blots. But the strain in her voice told me a great deal. “Twenty or thirty different people came here by ones and twos, most of them men. All of them armed. I couldn’t see their eyes, but they gave me the feeling . . . so cold . . . I’m sure they were Zhid. They left the same way in ones and twos. When I thought all of them were gone, I peeked through the window. Ten or twelve men remained, bent over a bronze thing the size of a tabletop—”
“An avantir.” Of course, that was the enchantment I’d felt. Here in Avonar. And I had thought I couldn’t feel sicker. “The red-haired man wearing a gensei strap across his chest. He was there?”
“Gensei?” She pushed her wet hair out of her face. “Gods, yes. That’s what the belt was. I couldn’t remember. Yes, the red-haired man was there. And two more with the same kind of belt. Almost all of the others wore the oval badges. . . .”
“Wargreves, then.” So many officers. Not just Zhid rabble.
“I couldn’t watch,” she said. “Every moment I stayed close, I felt sick. Those men—and Gerick, I suppose—must have left by way of the portal, as I didn’t see anyone else ride out.”
Lady Seriana’s hands were long and slender. Though scars and rough patches evidenced her years of hard work, age had not yet coarsened their shape or withered the skin. But as we spoke she twined her fingers into such a knot that the blood completely deserted them, leaving them little more than fleshless bones.
“Jen, I’ve found out something dreadfully important about the Lady, and I’ve not been able to tell anyone. Last night, when we realized what had happened to the oculus, Karon and I assumed . . . hoped, I suppose . . . that Gerick was responsible, that he was alive and close by and doing what he thought was necessary to remove her threat. Karon insisted I find him and tell him this information, no matter what I had to do. But before I could go, we heard the commotion, and Karon felt the violence coming and knew he had to intervene, while I found Gerick. But Gerick went off with these Zhid. . . .”
“You say no Zhid saw you. Did Gerick see you, my lady? Could he possibly have known you were here?”
“I believed so at first. I thought he raised the dust storm so I could follow. Now, I just don’t know.”
A damp wind gusted along the river, making me wish for my long-lost cloak. The rills and curls as the water raced around the rocks to join the slower main current shone white against the dark water. “Tell me, my lady, did your son touch your mind today?”
“Mind-speak?” She shook her head wearily as she rested her forehead on the knot of her hands. “No. I didn’t hear him.”
“Not speech. I don’t think he dares mind-speak, not if he’s determined to deceive the Zhid. They bend to his power, but they don’t trust him completely as yet. Listen, my lady. While I sat in that cellar, I saw several vivid images: this building and another one where, I think, the Zhid have a portal to infiltrate the city; a section of the wall where Avonar’s defenses are dangerously weak; and an ancient tower where Ven’Dar might be imprisoned. I think Gerick wants me to free Ven’Dar. Ven’Dar could call in people to block the portals, if I tell him where the Zhid assault will come. Then, if Paulo and Aimee can bring Je’Reint and reinforcements . . .”
As I gave her a brief history of the past days, my mind raced to sort out Gerick’s plan. He was taking charge of the Zhid assault, knowing he could not prevent it, but hoping to turn the tide somehow. He had made sure we knew our vulnerabilities, but what more could he do to affect the outcome of the assault? He couldn’t divert them with flawed strategies. The Zhid commanders were experienced in war and would know. He couldn’t destroy the avantir; if they had more than one, they would kill him and use the others. The moment he betrayed them openly, he was a dead man. . . .
I had to be missing something. Dead man . . . dead man . . . The words nagged at me. That’s what he had done when he was sixteen—offered his death to thwart the Lords. But he had relied on his father to finish the job five years ago, and this time he had no one to count on but himself.
“Did you see any image, any hint of what he might have in mind for you, my lady?”
“Perhaps . . . I don’t know. I imagined you in that awful place under the floor. I couldn’t leave you there”—her voice shook, and she pressed her hands harder against her forehead—“but then all I could think of was Karon dying. Alone. Oh, gods, such horrible things Gerick said to him . . . and I know it must be to some purpose . . . I’ve always had faith in Gerick . . . I still have faith . . . but it is so hard . . . And this time I can’t see any way to help him.”
I put my arms around Lady Seriana as she fought the sobs that racked her strong shoulders. “Your son is still what you believe, my lady, what your faith has made him. And you’ve seen how mule-headed I am, not at all easy to convince. He destroyed the hospice oculus because he feared it was channeling the Lady’s power to the avantir and thus strengthening the Zhid. He saw no other choice. But I know how difficult it was for him. And even so, he insisted that his own will accomplish the deed, taking the guilt on himself, not leaving it to me. How many people in any world would do such a kindness at such a terrible time? Few that I’ve known. And he’s gone with the Zhid”—the echoes of my own words illuminated the truth—“because he wants to stay alive! He needs time to recover his power and a way to survive until he can confront D’Sanya. His death will not protect us this time, but his life just might.”
I pulled her head to my b
reast and let her weep there in the dark where no one could see. Rain dripped on the muddy bank, a few drops here and there, quickly accelerating to a steady downpour. Time pressed.
“So. I think it’s clear,” I said, when no longer able to resist necessity. “Gerick wants you to go back to the hospice. To give his father his love and to assure him that he will do whatever is necessary to save Avonar. The thought of the two of you together will sustain him—the thought of your love for him and faith in him. I won’t abandon Gerick, my lady. I swear it. Tell me your information and then we’ll find you a way back to your prince, if we have to abduct a Preceptor and force her to conjure you a portal.”
We couldn’t find anyone to conjure a portal. Aimee had been right about that. Even old Ce’Aret, the retired Preceptor so feeble she could not sit a horse, had gone off to Astolle to stand by our warriors with enchantment and determination. But we did find Mae’Tila, an assistant to the Healer T’Laven, gathering a supply of newly formulated medicines to take to the northern battlefront. Lady Seriana, evidencing no further sign of her breakdown on the riverbank, persuaded the anxious, skeptical Mae’Tila to spirit her out of the city in her well-protected convoy. Seri would leave the medical convoy at the Gaelie road and head for Grithna Vale alone. I drew her a map, so she could not mistake the way, but I didn’t worry about her. No one who had heard her story could doubt her capability.
An hour after the small, heavily armed convoy passed through the east gate of Avonar, the rain started up again. I ducked under the colonnade on the outer approaches to the palace and pulled up the hood of Mae’-Tila’s spare cloak, sorely regretting the prospect of getting damp and filthy so soon after donning my first clean garment in weeks. As I surveyed the patrols guarding the palace gates, I swallowed the last bite of the sausage tart I had snatched from T’Laven’s larder and began to believe my legs might hold up under me for another hour.
In the adventure stories I loved to read, the heroes seemed able to go days at a time without food, drink, or sleep. They knew instinctively what to do next and what spells would get them past every locked door and into every treasure vault. Not for the first time, I wondered how I had managed to get involved in Gerick’s life. If I didn’t eat, I collapsed. I cowered in corners, whimpered at the slightest discomfort, and fell asleep when I should be escaping or standing watch. I couldn’t even climb up his father’s garden wall. And I had been paralyzed for the past hour trying to decide what to do next.
Was I betraying my own people because I had never heard a man speak my name as Gerick had spoken it when he was inside me? And if I held to this mad belief in him, how was I to do what he asked of me—get past the palace gates and release Ven’Dar? This astonishing information about D’Sanya . . . how was I to pass it along to the man planning the Zhid assault on Avonar?
Disowned. Disinherited. The implications of Lady Seriana’s news were monumental. D’Sanya had been purposely removed from the legitimate line of succession, and her anointing had undone that removal, returning her power over the matter of the Breach and the structure of the Bridge. Gerick believed her innocent of ill intent, but I shared his parents’ conviction that he needed to know these things before he confronted her. Yet even if I knew where to find Gerick, I could never get near him. Either the Zhid would kill me for being a Dar’Nethi spy or the Dar’Nethi would kill me for being a Zhid spy.
So I had decided to go after Ven’Dar first, and hope that he could contact Gerick.
I drifted from one column to another. On either side of the wide steps and gated portico of the formal entry into the palace precincts were the more businesslike gates, where riders and carriages were admitted to the inner courtyards. And beyond these “riders’ gates” to right and left extended the curved colonnades like open arms embracing the vast expanse of the public gardens and markets in eye-pleasing symmetry and grace.
At the ends of the colonnades nearer the palace, single rows of columns fronted curved sections of the actual palace walls, which were carved in relief with scenes from history and legend. But at the point where the walls angled away from the marketplace, the mosaic-tiled walkways became open colonnades. Sheltered gardens, fountains, and walkways filled the space between the receding walls and the fine buildings like the libraries and performance halls that had grown up around the palace. I had never seen the gardens, markets, or colonnades so empty, so early of an evening. Plenty of guards, though. No fewer than fifteen heavily armed men patrolled the approaches to the riders’ gates and at least that many more were on the steps before the central gates. Who knew how many others stood atop the walls and in enchanted spaces invisible to the untrained eye?
I arrived at the point where the right-side open colonnade yielded to the palace wall. A few hundred paces away, a guard passed through a rainy pool of torchlight. I hugged the wall and slipped from column to column, approaching the gates, pondering frantically how I was to get past the extra guards, not to mention the protective enchantments and the locked gates themselves.
A thunderous explosion split the night, making the tiles beneath my feet tremble. Flashes of light reflected from the pale stone of the columns and walls. At first I thought these but a violent escalation of the storm. But the guards pointed off to the south, and I peered around the column back toward the lower city. There, where the ramparts of Avonar had held fast against the Lords for a thousand years, the sky had burst into shimmering blue-and-white flame. The wall defenses had been triggered.
“What are you doing, Gerick?” I mumbled, aghast. I had never expected him to go this far with his deception. “Give me some time.”
The alarm pierced the rumbling thunder in gut-twisting suddenness and spread like fire in a haymow.
Trumpets blared from the palace walls. Bells rang from the palace towers, soon echoing from clock towers and watchtowers, from great houses and schools. Atop the wall towers that rose behind the opposite colonnade, fonts of scarlet flame burst into life—balefires. Soon they would burn on every tower and wall throughout Avonar and the Vales as they had not since victory quenched them five years ago.
I had not witnessed that signal of Prince D’Natheil’s victory over the Lords, but I well remembered the day—the day the thunderous bellows of the Lords had sent their slaves and servants cowering into cracks and corners lest our bodies be flayed by their anger, the day the brittle towers of Zhev’Na cracked and shattered over our heads, the day grown men had wept and women danced as we slowly emerged from the rubble and realized we were free. And now the balefires were lit again. The scar on my neck burned as if ignited by the warning.
The right-side riders’ gate burst open and a troop of horsemen rode out at a gallop, racing across the deserted parks and streets of the central city. At their head, astride her gray stallion, rode the Princess of Avonar, clad in silver ring mail, her yellow hair flying. She raised her sword, and it blossomed with blue flame, causing her band of riders to burst out in a cry of joy and defiance. Two bands of infantry followed them out of the gate, marching double time.
I sped through the colonnade, sacrificing stealth for speed, hoping to slip through the gates before they were closed. But I was too slow and too late. The portcullis had dropped, and the iron-banded gates slammed shut before I reached the last column. Guards held pikes and lances at the ready; whatever lethargy had settled over them on a cool rainy evening had been well banished. I sagged against the smooth, damp column, banging the back of my head against the unyielding stone. What now?
The tower I’d envisioned in the warehouse cellar was not one of the great defensive works of the Heir’s citadel, which stood as lumbering giants about the palace perimeter. This one was as slender as a spindle and had a slightly bulbous top with a steep-pitched conical roof of slate. The gray conical roof indicated the tower was part of the original structure of the palace in the northeast corner, and the unusual shape should be easy to spot.
As I retraced my steps down the colonnade and took a shortcut throu
gh the sheltered gardens behind it, Avonar rose to war. Peering down Mount Eidol between the Mentors’ Library and the Hall of Music, I glimpsed the lights of the lower city flaring bright, and at every succeeding opening I saw lanes alive with boys collecting horses, with armed men and women loading wagons with water barrels and bags of sand, with running messengers, identified by their bright blue handlights.
How many defenders remained in the city? How many of D’Sanya’s Restored held positions on the walls? How many of those had met with Gerick in the riverside warehouse preparing to betray us?
I ran.
CHAPTER 35
Once I rounded the southeast tower of the palace walls, I threaded my way through narrow lanes of fine shops, shuttered and deserted on this night, and across the slopes of the grassy apron that skirted the walls. The palace was built on the south-facing slopes of Mount Eidol, and the higher I climbed, the less uniform the walls, some sections built of the rose-colored, clean-dressed stone of recent centuries, some sections the age-mottled gray blocks of D’Arnath’s time.
When I reached the northeast corner of the citadel, I was surprised to discover that the newer wall cut straight through this ancient quarter of the palace. The steepness of the apron slopes in this area had prevented the Builders from enclosing the entirety of the original structure with the thick new wall. Those parts left outside the wall had fallen into ruin. And among the collapsed walls and crumbling foundation stones stood the spindly tower like a bony finger with a swollen tip, pointing at the sky.
Though a scarlet balefire burned on the great wall, and palace guardsmen would certainly be patrolling the wall and the hulking northeast tower, the object of my search displayed no lights and no guards. This tower would have existed when D’Sanya was a child, far more imposing before the taller towers were built. Perhaps the tallest of its time. And certainly no potential rescuer would ever look for the dethroned Prince of Avonar in such a place, outside the palace enclosure. Everyone would assume he was confined in the prison block in the bowels of the palace itself.
