Daughter of Ancients tbod-4

by Carol Berg

  Jen looked supremely satisfied. She would be most annoyed when I told her that only Zhid and slaves were bound to truth in answer to those questions. The Lords' memories had taught me that they/I could ignore even the binding of names and heart's loyalties. But the clarity she demanded seemed sufficient to serve the moment. Though he did not soften his grim visage or move from his position, Ven'Dar lowered his hands.

  Jen stepped between Ven'Dar and me, grabbing my hands without regard to the flames dancing on my knuckles. "But, as it happens, D'Sanya is not the rightful Heir," she said.

  I quenched my enchantment before setting her skin or clothes afire, and she proceeded to pour out the news my mother had given her.

  "Listen to the exact words," she said. "Truth is power, Gerick, and you'll hear it. This is the writing of Mu'-Tenni the Speaker, bound to Truth, in the matter of King D'Arnath's girl child: After the Catastrophe made grim the days, the King's favor rested upon his youngest heir . . ." She recited the damning passage, fixing the words in my mind as if she had scribed them on my skull.

  The puzzle rearranged itself again. D'Sanya's power was linked to the Bridge, not by an artifact, not by some shaped enchantment of her design, but by the very structure of the Bridge. D'Arnath had disowned her to prevent her corruption from damaging his creation, but the Dar'Nethi, as hungry for redemption and healing as D'Sanya herself, had anointed her anyway . . . had brought her back into D'Arnath's family and undone her father's warding.

  Existing in the giant statues under the cold stars of our temple, reveling in the ponderous weight of power, I/we contemplated our enemy . . . Unsearched-for memories floated out of the past. "We will degrade thy innocent. . . use her talents . . . break her . . . destroy her . . . We

  shall unmake her and remake her in our image, our daughter, not thine. Woe and ruin will be thine only grandchildren . …"

  I remembered: I/we had corrupted her power and twisted her heart with death and despair so that everything she touched might service our desires. When I had embraced the Lords' memories at the hospice, I had examined the past and confirmed that it was only D'Sanya's enchantments, her metalworking, her loving that we had tainted. But we hadn't known about her link to the Bridge. D'Arnath had kept that dreadful secret well; surely no accident of battle had destroyed the Royal Library. Throughout this thousand years of war, the seed of our triumph lay buried under our fortress, growing, blossoming, bearing its wicked fruit, given life by the Tormentor King himself. All we'd had to do was keep his corrupted child alive to reap the harvest of his folly. We had done it for our own reasons, but had accomplished more than we ever understood.

  "We'll go after her," said Ven'Dar, facing the steadily darkening fire. "I can still protect us. We'll bring her off the Bridge, assess the damage. Once the Preceptors decide the succession, the new Heir can set out to repair it. But you must stop the assault first, Gerick. No one will believe you. I cannot believe you—even after your declaration—if Zhid under your command are killing Dar'Nethi and destroying this city."

  I looked up at him as if he existed in a different world … as he did, in a way . . . the world of past belief. Everything was changed now, made clear by this new information. Ven'Dar, the most perceptive sorcerer in Gondai, didn't feel the danger. Didn't see that it was far too late for Preceptors and judgments and repairs.

  Once upon another day, Ven'Dar had told my father how sorely the Dar'Nethi were diminished since the time of D'Arnath. The goal of Ven'Dar's reign, of his generous heart and talented hands, had been to return his people to their glory. But the deterioration of the Dar'Nethi that had begun in D'Arnath's time had never truly been reversed. And since D'Sanya's arrival and accession, it had accelerated. Five years ago Ven'Dar had been able to read my truth for himself, had witnessed and understood what my father and I had done to destroy the Lords. Now he couldn't even perceive that his mistrust, his difficulties with power, his flawed enchantments, and his inability to reverse the disharmony and prejudices among his people were not temporary aberrations, but signs of his own corruption … as they were signs of a pervasive, fundamental corruption in the world.

  At last I could put a name to the wrongness of the world: the hopeless confusion, the creeping evil, the soul-scraping enchantments, the bondage of the spirit that destroyed peace and trust, the withering dark lurking just beyond every object in my sight that made ugly what should be beautiful. It was Zhev'Na. It was the Bridge.

  "What is it, Gerick?" Jen laid her hand on my bare arm, her touch and my name connecting me for a moment to the old world.

  "I can't stop the assault yet," I said, averting my gaze as I gently pushed her hands away. No explanation could possibly suffice. "I'll go after D'Sanya. I'll do what has to be done." And if I failed, my Zhid would have to do the work for me.

  Ven'Dar spun to look at me, as if he read my thoughts. But before the horrified Word Winder could raise his hands again, I released my waiting enchantment. He crumpled to the floor, stunned, eyes still wide open.

  "Gerick! Wait! No!"

  I closed my ears to Jen and to my own doubts and fears. Taking a firm grip on my mind and soul, I stepped through the Gate of fire.

  Chapter 37

  "D'Sanya, where are you?" The rain-battered plain stretched in every direction. Nothing moved. No monstrous birds or ravening beasts. No shrieking spirits or vicious skeletons. Nothing but unceasing rain. A mud-hole sucked insistently at my boots. I could not lift either foot without sinking further.

  I didn't panic. Instead of fighting such horrors as pits of quicksand, I had learned to shift my direction, to fear something else that would then manifest itself as the world. I turned to my left and found a desert, so bleak an expanse of sun-blasted rock that I knew instantly that D'Sanya was nowhere within earshot. I took a step into the scorched barrens, my feet free of the vanished mudhole.

  For hours I had searched down paths of mud and slime, across rocky wastelands, and into desolate valleys, hours of holding my mind together, of resisting the insistent madness of unreality. How did one organize a search when every new direction opened up a different landscape of death? Chaos . . . the Breach.

  Yet even the quality of madness in the shifting dimension of the Bridge was changed from my previous experience of it. How was I able to think at all or to travel this realm without the protection of D'Arnath's Heir? Rather than vivid horror—spiders' eyes the size of shields, bats with wingspans broader than kingdoms, tumultuous riots of naked warriors with razored fingers or barbed tongues—I perceived only deadness.

  Occasionally I believed I heard sharp breaths or panting over my shoulder. But when I turned, I merely existed in yet another, equally desolate place. Alone.

  "D'Sanya, I've something I must tell you." No one answered, not even an echo. A single, rasping locust shot into my face. I brushed it away, detritus no more living than the rock beneath my feet.

  I changed course again and this time trod a barren shore. The charcoal-colored lake reflected only bleak storm clouds and sunless sky. At the far end of the lake a mountain peak rose into clouds that flickered with blue-and-purple lightning. The mountain . . . the shaping DArnath had taught his beloved girl child . . .

  I ran, soon abandoning the graveled shore for a smooth track that wound across the mountainside, relentless in its upward bent. The path steepened, but I would not slow. A hot rain, the droplets sharp like tiny blades, left blood streaks on my arms.

  She stood on the rocky pinnacle, hands upraised, wind gusts whipping her hair, sleeves, and trousers. Her fingers were spread wide as if to reach the thick clouds threaded with darkening fire. As I struggled up the last near-vertical pitch, a faint white glow pulsed from her fingertips and faded to gray wisps, indistinguishable from the cloud. A despairing sob racked her slim back.

  "D'Sanya."

  She whirled. "How can you be here?" she cried, as if fate had betrayed her once too often.

  She cupped her trembling hands between us, but no ball of fir
e appeared, only a smudge of gray that drifted upward. Tears and raindrops dribbled down her cheeks.

  "I don't know how it's possible." I climbed the last few steps, treading carefully on the barren rock, the wind a constant threat to my balance. "Perhaps because I am not your enemy. Please believe I'm not here to hurt you. We must talk, just for a little while. Find a solution to this disaster."

  "They're all dying," she said. "You took my rings and pendant, destroyed the oculus and the orbs, too, and now I can't help them. The worlds . . . the people . . . are my responsibility. If I could just clear away this storm . . . the chaos …"

  She raised her hands again. A thin, wavering thread of white fire stretched from her hands to a looming cloud. The thick gray wad exploded into more droplets of mist that pricked my exposed skin like needles. Yet, for the moment, I could not heed anything but the landscape that sprawled before us. It halted my breath.

  From the base of the mountain to the horizon unfolded all of Gondai, the ocher-and-bronze wastelands centered by the lush green and brilliant white of the fertile Vales and the snowcapped Mountains of Light. Blue-gray oceans rippled at its boundaries. In its very heart huddled the dark blight of Avonar, burning and dying. From that once-bright center dark veins of poison spread into the green lands and the red-brown desert, carrying sepsis to the whole of the land.

  If I turned a little to the right, I saw what was surely the mundane world spread out as far as I could see, uncountable cities and villages, mountains and plains— a land trapped in unending winter. Tree boughs sheathed in ice and bent to breaking, grain fields buried in snow, mill wheels frozen, cattle and sheep dead or starving. Bands of ragged men and women rampaged through villages and towns, tearing, burning, killing, ravaging cellars and grain stores. Whole cities were ablaze.

  Yet another turn and I gazed out on my chosen homeland of black-and-purple sky, the dark landscape jeweled with golden light—the precious sunrocks that signaled life and growth. Torrential rains battered my virgin world. A cliffside gave way, drowning a cluster of towers in an ocean of mud. One by one the points of light winked out.

  In the gap of gray sky cleared by D'Sanya's work another cloud already swelled with coming chaos. I wished desperately to turn my back on this wondrous and terrible display, for I had no faith that even my dreadful solution could heal any of it. "D'Sanya, you must stop. The Bridge is broken. Irretrievably corrupt—"

  Her fist gripped my heart. Searing, grinding pain began in my chest and threatened to encompass the universe. As I countered her spell, forced to focus all my power to stay living, the distant, brilliant heart of the Bounded, a yellow ocean of living light, dimmed and faded. "Lady, wait," I gasped. "Please listen to me. . . ."

  "This is all your doing!" she yelled, sobbing angrily while blasting another cloud from the sky. Immediately a new cloud bulged in its place, darker and thicker. The rain scalded my skin. "You're destroying my father's work."

  I had to stop her. But even after all she'd been through, her power was daunting. Choking on bile and blood as heart and lungs struggled, I struck with the only weapon sure to draw blood. "Do not call D'Arnath father, D'Sanya. Didn't you guess? He disinherited you. Disowned you. Struck your name from the—"

  "Liar!" Her hand cracked into my cheekbone. The shrill edge of her scream spoke of long suspicion and denial.

  I grabbed her wrist and held her tight, gathering power and weaving enchantment into the words Jen had given me. "This is the writing of Mu'Tenni the Speaker, bound to Truth, in the matter of King D'Arnath's girl child lost in the great war . . ."

  To my surprise, the words came not in a choking rasp, but in a stern, clear voice that sounded more like my father than like me.

  "For after the Catastrophe made grim the days, the King's favor rested upon his youngest heir above all others in his realm for the solace she brought him …"

  A story undeniable in its truth. Did my enchantment make it so, or was it the power of the words as the Speaker had written them, or, perhaps, some magic of the one who had passed the words to me? D'Sanya stood paralyzed, one hand pressed to her lips, her hair limp and streaming with hot rain.

  ". . . Yet the King dared not allow the Lords' captive to inherit his power and the fate of the Bridge. Indeed her talent had come mightily as he had foreseen, and she

  had become a sword in the Lords' hands, striking at the very soul of the Dar'Nethi. Came the day when D'Arnath saw the vile neck binding the Lords used to enslave his people and reive their souls, and knew that his own child had devised it, he wept bitter tears for that child of his heart and struck her name from his life and descent forever …"

  As I described Prince D'Alleyn's refusal to speak her name on his deathbed, D'Sanya sank to the ground at my feet, her hands clamped over her ears, flinching as if each word were a blow. When I finished, she drew up her knees and bent her head over them.

  "Papa . . . why won't you come for me? I said I'm sorry. So sorry. I did my best. For so long I wouldn't listen to their horrid tales. I sang and I wrote and I drew. But the days were so long … so lonely . . . and you didn't come. . . ." She raised her head and peered into my face, twisting her own countenance into a childlike puzzle. "The Three made me do dreadful, disgusting things with them . . . and with the Zhid . . . and do other horrid, wicked things that made people scream. They said that if Papa truly loved me, he would come and take me home where I wouldn't have to hear the screaming. I tried so hard. . . ."

  "I know. It wasn't fair at all." I crouched in front of her and grasped her cold, limp fingers that had woven white fire. "D'Sanya, we have to destroy the Bridge. The worlds are dying."

  She shook her head and wrapped her arms about her knees, shrinking from me. "I won't betray him. I won't. I won't. I won't. He'll come for me. He is the High King of Gondai, and he loves me as the earth loves the sky. He would never leave me in this awful place. .. . Papa?" Blood leaked from the cuts I had left on her hand. She licked the blood, leaving scarlet smudges on her lips, shuddered in pleasure, and rested her head on her arms, releasing neither sobs nor wails, but a low keening that was the very essence of misery and madness.

  I had run out of time to think or to analyze or to seek counsel or solace or the encouragements of love and faith that had carried me through my most difficult decisions of the past. D'Sanya's anointing had changed the course of our decline from a downward slope to a precipice, and we were very close to smashing against the hard bottom. I had to choose.

  Standing on that mountaintop in the driving wind and knife-edged rain, I looked out on the lands joined by the Bridge and saw no alternatives.

  Destroyer . . .

  I ignored the sly whisper and bent my mind to the work, focusing instead on a clearer voice, one given its rich timbre by strength and courage and a trust uncolored by blood ties or friendship. A voice that spoke truth. Consider the object to be destroyed… the need. .. the use or misuse that justifies destruction . Not difficult at all. I had been thinking of nothing else for two days.

  Now, ownership … I, who had been born in one of these encircling worlds, nurtured and corrupted in another, and given, in the third, the first inkling of the reason for my own being, could well assert my ownership of this place.

  Disrupt containment . The flaw in the Bridge was already there for me to exploit. I settled myself on the ground beside D'Sanya and touched her hair. Forgive me, Lady .

  She did not look up.

  My soul moved quickly into her body, reaching through the harrowing morass of guilt and denial to find the hidden link with the Bridge—a silver thread buried deep, long tarnished, the bent and broken fragment of her father's working. I took it from her and felt her last defenses crumble. I wove that flaw into my spell of breaking, then withdrew, grieving for the cold and lonely barrenness of a spirit once so bright.

  As soon as I had reclaimed my own senses, I gathered power. Yes, Jen'Larie, as you taught me —everything I feel, everything I am, everything I remember . I reached
into the deepest places of my soul and fed power into my enchantment. . . .

  The air about me shimmered as if I viewed the triple landscape through the heat haze of the desert. I opened my arms and spread my legs and raised my head, allowing the power to flow through me unhindered, a torrent sufficient to drain an ocean of magic. Too quickly I was struggling with the effort, my extended arms quivering, my knees threatening to collapse. And nothing had happened.

  Gods, had I not worked the spell correctly? I'd been so sure I could do this. The enchantments of the past days, of the battle—portals and threats and deceptions had been so easy once I had opened myself to the past. Yet D'Arnath's Bridge had taken twenty-one years to build . . . the extent of my whole lifetime. How could I imagine I could destroy it in one moment or one hour or one day?

  Best be ready for a long siege . Using the discipline I had learned in Zhev'Na, I spread my fingers, angled my feet, and settled more deeply into my position. With eyes closed, I set free memories and visions to come and go in my head. Comigor . . . Verdillon . . . Zhev'Na . . . the Bounded … I felt and lived and embraced past and present.

  Creeping darkness threatened to suffocate me…. Madness lurked in the shadows . … I held on. Gave more. There passed what seemed like an age of the world. . ..

  Cold … As you can only feel when exhaustion saps the last of your inner fire. Dizzy . . . and so thirsty . . . I'd not had a sip of anything for hours. The rain had stopped, but a warm flow tickled my chest and side— my shoulder bleeding again. Would the end of the world be halted by a damnable puncture wound?