Daughter of Ancients tbod-4

by Carol Berg

  K'Tya's prediction was exactly correct. The square-jawed woman with whom I sat in the shade of a dusty plane tree quickly demonstrated that her mind was highly organized, and she was unlikely to have forgotten anything. In no more than a quarter of an hour, Eu'Vian had recounted her tale of the young Gardener J'Savan bringing the starving woman with the incredible blue eyes to her camp, where the poor soul grieved for the long-dead king she claimed was her father.

  ". . . We fed her and cleaned her and put her to bed. She carried nothing with her but a primitive bronze knife and J'Savan's water flask. She bore no scars—none visible at least—and no evidence of beatings, torture, or enslavement. We were sure she was mad, yet she touched us so deeply that we wept to see her sorrow."

  "And you took her back to Avonar right away?"

  Eu'Vian sat up as straight as a child reciting lessons, her hands folded around a gray stone water flask. She did not fidget as so many do when questioned. "Not for three days. Though we had no Healer among us, she was so weak, you see. We woke her only to give her water and nourishment. On the third day, her madness seemed behind her, and she was already picking up our modern speech. She called for me and asked if she could hold my hand while she asked me a question. Of course, I agreed."

  "And what was the question?"

  "She asked how many years it had been since King D'Arnath had died. I hesitated, fearful of her delicate state, as you can well imagine. She spied my reluctance and smiled at me so sadly. 'Good mistress, I promise I will not retreat into madness,' she said. 'As I have lain here enfolded in your kindness, I have searched my memory and concluded that something extraordinary has come to pass. If I am to confront my fate, whether it be truth or enchantment or some disease of my mind, I must know its full compass. So—you spoke of D'Arnath as if he were a being of myth, his life and passing well beyond your own span of years. Tell me, Eu'Vian, how far beyond?' "

  "And when you told her?"

  "She wept, but did not falter. 'So there is no one living who knew him, or his sons, or his children's children. No one who could tell me of his dying words?'

  " 'No, gentle lady,' I said to her. 'Unless they are written in our histories, no one could tell you that.'

  " 'But you've told me you have a prince … a successor. … Is he not of D'Arnath's line?'

  "I told her how the direct line of D'Arnath had ended so honorably with Prince D'Natheil and so tragically with his demon son, and I told her of good Prince Ven'Dar."

  "And how did she react to that?"

  "With resignation, I would call it, as if my news had met her worst expectations. All she said was, 'I would dearly love to have met my great-great-grandnieces and-nephews to the hundredth degree, but I suppose I shall have to be content with your prince. Am I right that my identity will be a great sensation in Avonar?' When I confirmed that it was already, she laughed sweetly, but with her sadness yet entwined with it. 'It is a wonder, is it not? I cannot explain it.' That's all she said of the matter to me. As we escorted her back to Avonar, she asked ten thousand questions as to matters of our history, exclaiming over each revelation as if it were a wonder in itself."

  My fingers traced the sun-faded patterns of the woven blanket, feeling the malleable firmness of the warm sand underneath. My mind was racing. "You say she asked about D'Arnath's dying words. Did you not think that strange?"

  Eu'Vian glanced at me oddly. "Not if one considers the traditions of our past. Did your family not—? Well, I suppose so many died in the war that some families have forgotten the old ways."

  She seemed to be waiting for me to respond. I didn't want her wondering about me or examining me. "My family was never traditional," I said. "No one had time for it."

  She shook her head, not quite in disapproval, but in disappointment. "How will our young people ever grasp the value of our Way if those of us with graying hair forget? That's why our enchantments continue to weaken, even though the Lords are gone. No one remembers. Well, it was long the custom that a father's dying words would make a family whole: settling grievances, resolving disputes, setting recompense for offenses, finalizing judgments. The family left behind was required to adhere to the dying man's saying. Before a battle, a man would set his words in writing or hold them in his weapon or a ring or something that could be given his family."

  "Ah yes. Of course, I've heard of that custom." Only a small lie. "Just one more thing. Did the Lady ever give any hint of her true talent?"

  "No. Certainly not to me. I've never even thought about it." Few Dar'Nethi would ever have asked the question. She puzzled over it for a few moments, but shook her head.

  "What of the youth, J'Savan? Did he ever refer to it?"

  "I never heard anyone speak of her gifts—except in the months since that day, of course, when they reported of their astonishing magnitude. Do you think there is some . . . significance in the direction of her talents?"

  "Most likely not. We would just like to have the records complete. So, I'd like to ask J'Savan about it, and about other small things he might remember from the first encounter. Mistress V'Rendal says that no one has spoken to J'Savan himself since those first days, as you are the leader of your group and you've been so clear and reliable in your reports. But every mind remembers small things so differently. Would it be possible for me to speak to J'Savan? I promise not to take much time from his work."

  For the first time Eu'Vian looked a bit uncomfortable, shifting her position on the blanket and brushing away gnats or hair from her face. "J'Savan no longer works in our group. He—" She shifted again, frowned, and pressed her water flask to her mouth for a moment without drinking from it. "It is very sad about him, as he is so young. No one knows quite what happened."

  "What is it, mistress? I would really like to speak with him."

  "J'Savan fell ill several months ago—a terrible disease of the mind. I ask after him frequently, but no one has yet been able to help him. He is confined in Feur Desolй, the prison house at Savron. You could learn nothing from him."

  "You're saying he's gone mad?" Dread crept into my soul, roiling and growing and thickening like yellow winter fog.

  "Indeed. He slaughtered three members of our work group and tried his best to murder us all."

  Chapter 15

  Any jailer in the Four Realms would have scoffed at the Dar'Nethi idea of a prison. No dank dungeons, no chains, no whips or rats or moldering foulness, no starvation or torture. Not even very many prisoners compared to the bulging horrors in Leire and Valleor. Even Gerick, the most dangerous prisoner the Dar'Nethi had ever held captive, had been imprisoned in a cell that was clean and dry. And though confined deep in the palace in Avonar, he had been given comforts of blankets, food, writing paper, and wine.

  The Dar'Nethi philosophy discouraged imprisonment. For most crimes, the convicted offenders were subjected to spells and enchantments that would make repetition of the crime physically or mentally intolerable. Only for the incurably violent was confinement required, along with a host of powerful enchantments. A Dar'Nethi who threatened innocent life forfeited all claim to his own existence. Although executions were extremely rare, he would never again walk free unless society was given compelling evidence of his change.

  Yet any house of secure confinement could not but burden the spirit. The Dar'Nethi had not learned how to avoid that.

  The prison house of Feur Desolй stood about five leagues from Avonar, an old fortress with thick walls and few windows, but clean and dry inside. The wardens were men and women of varying talents who were willing to serve their sovereign and their fellow citizens in a work that was quite against their nature. Most of those confined to the prison were Zhid captured at the end of the war, warriors of such great age and power that no Healer had yet been able to help them recover their souls. A few of the inmates, like the unfortunate J'Savan, had fallen prey to some disease or perversion of mind that, while not the profound corruption of the Zhid, had turned them on their own kind.

&nbs
p; A stooped, gray-haired man led me down a long corridor, his wine-colored robe whispering over the warm yellow of the stone. Lamps hung from the high ceiling every few paces, the light swelling as we approached and fading behind us, as if we traveled in a carriage made of light through a tunnel of night.

  "No need to be afraid here, mistress," said the man over his shoulder. "None can escape their chambers in Feur Desolй. Look in the door glass. They've no way out."

  Several of the doors that lined the passage were scribed with a name in silver lettering, and above the name was fastened a round glass that gleamed in the light as we passed. A morbid curiosity slowed my feet, and I peered into one of them. The palm-sized glass was not a window, but a myscal—one of the magical Dar'-Nethi mirror glasses. If you looked long enough, your own reflection faded, and you could see into whatever place the enchantment had linked with the glass. In this case, I glimpsed a windowless room of ten paces square, its whitewashed walls and ceilings reinforced with bands of silver—dolemar, no doubt, the "sorcerer's binding" that prevented any use of power by those held captive within. The cell's only furnishings were a water basin that was a part of the wall, a single chair of thick white wood bolted to floor and wall, and a pallet laid on the floor. On this pallet a large man in a brown tunic lay on his back in the image of sleep, his slack face as craggy and rough as a granite boulder. The chamber was dark, the soft light that illuminated the stark scene some factor of the enchanted glass that moved with my eyes.

  "He looks dead."

  "He's not," said the warden, motioning me to keep moving. "We keep the prisoners under heavy enchantments that allow no freedom to move or speak. We treat them with dignity—often more than they deserve—feed them, clean them, and rouse them when Healers or others come to pursue a remedy for their problems."

  If the inmates could not be healed, they would continue to age until they died, so V'Rendal had told me. For the Zhid, this could be a very long time. The enchantments that had taken their souls had also made them incredibly long-lived. For J'Savan, a young man of twenty-three, life would stretch only an ordinary life span—long enough when facing those years without hope.

  The warden paused at a door. "Are you sure you wish to do this? I'll warn you that the sight will wrench your heart. And it will be no small danger to sit with the boy. He has no control of his tongue or his limbs. Three of his friends lay dead and five others wounded before he was taken captive, and you wouldn't want to know what he'd done to them. He was sitting calmly in the midst of the bodies like a rock in a river of blood."

  "I must try, Warden. Our histories must be complete, even if the tale is painful."

  The stooped man bobbed his head. "All right, then. I must bind him before I can leave you." He passed his hand along the smooth edge of the door, which swung open silently. A snap of the man's fingers illuminated the cell, and we stepped in.

  It was indeed heart-wrenching to see the handsome young man, so near Gerick's and Paulo's age, lying in the sterile cell unmoving. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over his boyish face. No sound or smell or breath of movement stirred the dead air.

  From the warden's belt hung a variety of slender bars, wooden sticks, cups, and keys. He unhooked one of the wooden sticks, unfolded it into a backless stool with a gray fabric seat, set it beside one wall, and motioned me to sit still. As I watched, he lifted the youth's limp body into the chair and secured it there with leather straps, binding his hands and feet with silver cords as well. "Tan y sole, J'Savan, " he said, not unkindly, laying a hand on the young man's forehead.

  J'Savan's eyes blinked open. Flicked to the warden and then to me. Lost. Confused. His gaze encompassed the bleak walls. The leather straps on his arms, thighs, and breast. A slight movement as if to test that they were real. He glanced up again quickly . . . frightened.

  My heart knotted. Surely someone had made a terrible mistake.

  But even as I opened my mouth to protest, a hard-edged gleam erased the baffled terror in his eyes. His pale skin darkened, first red and then purple, dark veins popping out on his forehead and neck, and he strained at his bindings until blood spotted his yellow tunic, and the flesh of his arms turned black where it bulged between the silver cords. "Well, well, well," he said, half singing, his voice soft, playful. "A woman comes calling … a scholarly woman. Wise perhaps. Are you wise? Not young, not old. Come to see me, have you? Are you not afraid? Afraid, afraid, afraid. Be afraid . . ."

  "Are you sure you want to be alone with him?" asked the warden. "I've duties to see to, so I must lock you in. He can't get free, but it'll not be pleasant to see or hear. You're not going to get sense from him."

  "Yes," I said. "It's necessary." My conviction was stronger than ever.

  "Knock on the door when you're ready to go."

  The warden closed the heavy door behind himself, setting the magical wards on it, too, no doubt. The walls glowed with a flat yellow light, leaving no shadows. I swallowed hard.

  J'Savan writhed in his bonds. "Talk, talk, talk. Going to heal me, lady? Put my head together? Going to kill me, kill me, kill me? Burn it away. Burn it. Dig it out . . ."

  Then followed such a stream of epithets and vileness that would have made my ears burn when I was a girl of seventeen, even though I'd grown up around soldiers.

  Oddly enough, as the young Dar'Nethi spewed forth this verbal sickness, his body fell limp, his eyes gone dead and his limbs flaccid, his jaw slack and drooling. It was as if a demon had been trying to get out through his skin, but only succeeded when it found his mouth. "J'Savan!" I said softly. "J'Savan, can you hear me?" I'd come here to see him against the recommendation of everyone who knew of his case. The boy who had encountered the Lady was gone, they said. Better to let the one who remained sleep away his life and bring no more horror to the world. The Healers had found no disease in J'Savan, no cause for the transformation that over the space of a single day had changed a handsome, friendly youth who loved his work and enjoyed flirting with girls into a monster. Of course there was no connection with the Lady. His madness had struck him more than a month after his encounter with her.

  But my unspoken fears, the remote, nagging belief that there were no such things as coincidences, had forced me to come and see for myself. I would stay only long enough to ask one question that I knew had not been asked of the youth. "J'Savan, did the Lady D'Sanya do this to you?" The young man's sky-colored eyes fixed on me, and I thought I saw in them one brief flash of perception in the storm of his madness. But I could have easily been mistaken, for his face grew hard and vicious, and he wriggled and strained against the cords and straps, taking up his odd singsong. "Dig, dig, dig in the garden. Make the desert live. Draw the spring, but not too close . . . not too close. Stay away, away, away. Speak tenderly to the rootlings. The roots go deep, deep, deep into the darkness. Bury it deep. In the dark where the springworms dwell. Dark, dark, dark. So dark. Ah . . ." As he struggled, a groan of such agony came from him, one would think his body was on the verge of disintegration.

  The Healer who had worked with J'Savan had said she'd come near going mad herself in the chaos of his thoughts. This violence that wrenched his body was the most devastating pain she had ever encountered. Even the Lady D'Sanya had been unable to ease him. The Lady had recoiled in horror at a single touch, almost ill herself when she saw his condition.

  J'Savan shook his head and twisted and his cry dissolved into words once again. "Lady, lady, lady. Most perfect lady. Perfect eyes. The desert blooms with eyes. Not grass, not trees, not vines. No, no, no. What grows so deep where the roots delve? Such eyes. Old, old shining. Eyes in the desert. Bury it. Bury it. Nurse the rootlings. Tender, tender, tender. Make them live. Draw the water from where the springworms dwell. Danger, danger, danger . . ."

  With an explosion of spittle, the meandering words were replaced by mumbled curses, by descriptions of the defilement J'Savan's hands wished to perform on me and the mutilation and murder they could wreak on the warden or anyone
else who fell within their reach. And as he spewed this filth, those same hands fell slack once more, his body still and his face numb. Dead.

  I raised my voice so perhaps he could hear beyond his own mumbling.

  "J'Savan, I'm sorry this is so hard for you, but I must know about the day you met the Lady. You were afraid until you saw she was not Zhid. You gave her water and offered her more, and you took her back to Eu'Vian and your friends at the Gardeners' camp: C'Mir, D'Arlos, Kedrin . . ."

  I was floundering, grasping at will-o'-the-wisps. To put this young man's body and mind through such torment for my whim was cruel. But in the moment I spoke the names of the dead Gardeners, I knew that somewhere within the wretched being before me some spark of J'Savan yet lived. Even as the stream of muttered obscenity flowed from his drooling mouth, tears welled up in his dead eyes, rolling unfettered down his cheeks.

  I knelt in front of him. "What is the danger, J'Savan? You're trying to tell me. What happened to you?"

  Again the transition, again the instant of awareness, of pleading, I thought, of horror as his face shriveled into the snarling mask and his body pressed against the cords of dolemar, craving release. His voice was harsh and desperate now. "Round and round and round. Danger, eye of danger. Deep in the roots. Rootlings dying, dying. Eyes shining in the darkness. Ah, it burns, burns, burns. Round, round. Bright eyes in the dark. Danger, danger, danger . . ." Gasping, fighting, wrenching his head in frenzy, J'Savan battled his madness. Blood dribbled from his bound wrists. His tears mixed with the rivulets of sweat coursing down his snarling face.