Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

  Logic and history forbade belief. “You violated the madris, commanded Baglos, your madrissé, to kill me.” Seri had prevented the foolish Dulcé from poisoning me when Dassine had sent me across the Bridge to prevent its destruction, and the other preceptors tried to trade my life for the safety of Avonar.

  “That was an act of desperation. I didn’t trust Dassine after his sojourn in the Wastes, and I didn’t know what he’d done to you. The D’Natheil I knew could never have succeeded in the task that had to be done. As long as the Bridge exists, the world has hope. I believed you would destroy it. And so I believed you had to die. Thankfully, that was not necessary.”

  “And Madyalar…”

  “Madyalar has served the Lords since before you were born. Happily for us, she is stupid and the Lords know it.”

  “You told her that the boy is my son.”

  “She would have learned it from her mentors eventually. There’s no point in hiding what will be known anyway. It’s how I have survived. For that same reason I sent the boy and his captor on their way and have convinced the other Preceptors that he is safely tucked away with trustworthy friends of mine. Lacking sufficient power to prevent the Lords’ hold on the boy, I appear to aid them. Meanwhile, I bide my time.”

  “So what are we to do?” Whether or not I could accept his honesty seemed superfluous. I wasn’t going to be able to help anyone. I couldn’t wrestle a bird. “I’m in no condition-”

  “-to fight? On the contrary, your condition is perfect. It’s one reason we must move quickly. You are in shambles, yet quite competent to take part in the test of parentage. When the Preceptors examine you, they’ll see the truth.”

  “No use putting off what will happen anyway.”

  “Exactly. The boy will be proved. The Lords will think they’ve won.”

  “My life will not be worth much after that.”

  “Also true. But we will control the situation. As you said, no use putting off what will happen anyway. I’m sorry, my Prince…” And then he proceeded to tell me his plan, and how it was I would have to die.

  CHAPTER 26

  Gerick

  “Why did he kill himself?” I asked. “If he hates us so much, why wouldn’t he fight? What was wrong with him?”

  Darzid paced up and down my sitting room. His eyes flashed red-true ruby red-right in the middle of the black. “He was mad. A coward who could not face his own disintegration.”

  I didn’t see how a coward could do such a thing to himself, but perhaps if he was mad… “I don’t understand him at all. There was something-”

  There’s no need for you to understand, said Parven. This is only a momentary diversion. The Lords were crowding each other in my head. Ziddari’s anger hung inside me like a stomachache.

  The fools, to allow him to have a weapon at hand! That was Notole.

  “I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like I expected.” I wanted them to explain things.

  I knew about Avonar. It was one of the soft, beautiful places-D’Arnath’s place, where his Heir guarded the Bridge he had made to corrupt the world where I was born. The man who greeted us when we stepped through the magical portal into someone’s study looked soft, too, and was almost bald. Ziddari had told me that this man was a secret ally of the Lords. “A useful man, one who hates well. While you should never truly trust them, those like Exeget are worthy of an alliance, because you can always predict what they will do.” Ziddari had also told me that neither Exeget nor the Lords’ other allies in Avonar knew that Darzid the Exile was truly the Lord Ziddari, and that he planned to keep it that way a while longer.

  The soft-looking man inspected me rudely. “Astonishing,” he said, touching my ear. “He is almost not recognizable as the same child. And I see he has found favor with the Lords. Matters progress quickly.”

  “Gerick knows his place in the worlds and embraces it with courage and determination,” said Darzid. “The Lords of Zhev’Na take his words seriously. Indeed, I would not like to stand between him and the one on whom he plans to wreak his sweet vengeance.”

  “His opportunity is at hand,” said Exeget. “Once the boy is proved, we will hand over the Prince. He’s half mad. Only the audacious fool Dassine would think of cramming the scraps of two souls into one mind. Now as to the boy…”

  Exeget wanted to “examine” me in some way before the test of parentage, but Darzid refused. They argued about it for a long time. Parven had instructed me to be silent while in Avonar so that no Dar’Nethi could sneak into my head, so Darzid did all the talking. I trusted him to watch out for me. Our interests were the same. Our enemies were the same… the Prince… my father. The Dar’Nethi.

  While Darzid and Exeget talked, I wandered around the room, looking at all the things. Shelves and long worktables held flasks and tins, packets and bundles, measuring instruments and glass lenses, small brass mechanisms of all kinds, and a hundred other interesting things.

  At least a thousand books were stacked on the shelves, as well. I ran my fingers over the bindings. A few were written in Leiran. Most in the language of this world. The longer I looked at them, the more I understood. I had realized several weeks before that I no longer used the language of Leire. Even before I knew that I was living in another world, without even realizing I was doing it, I had started speaking the Dar’Nethi language. It was certainly easier to learn things here. I thought of the question about why there were no books in Zhev’Na, but neither Parven nor Notole answered me. Darzid was still arguing with Exeget.

  In between two of the bookcases was a tall, narrow window with lots of small panes and an iron latch. When I first walked past the window, I could have sworn I saw a face pressed up against it-a boy’s dirty face. I looked at the books for a little while, then wandered past the window again. The face was gone. It didn’t seem worth mentioning.

  I forgot all about the boy at the window when Exeget left the room, and Darzid called me over to the table. “Would you like to watch what goes on?” he said. “Catch a glimpse of our enemy?”

  I wasn’t sure I did, but didn’t want to seem a coward. Darzid picked up a round, smoky glass and passed his hand over it. It was splendid! In the glass I could see Exeget crossing a room to stand before a raised platform where five other people sat. In front of the platform was a single chair with someone seated in it. The hood of his white robe was drawn down low just as I had seen him in the garden at Comigor-the Prince D’Natheil.

  When he uncovered his face, his hands were shaking badly, but his face didn’t look like he was afraid. Nor did he look proud or disdainful or anything like I expected. He looked more like one of the tenants of Comigor-I couldn’t remember the man’s name. The tenant had fallen ill, getting thinner and paler every day for half a year until he couldn’t lift a scythe any longer. Papa called in a physician for fear of fever or plague, but the physician told Papa that a disease was eating away the man inside, and nothing could be done for him. The man kept on working through harvest, the other tenants carrying him to the fields so he could earn his family’s winter sustenance, but every time I saw him, I wondered what part of him the disease had eaten away. The Prince looked just like that man. I believed it when the people in the room said he should be dead. The Prince looked like he believed it, too.

  When the time came, Darzid motioned me through the door into the room where my father was. I tried to look like a sorcerer prince with powerful allies and a blood debt to repay. One of the Lords whispered inside my head. Have courage, young Gerick, and do not be afraid of what transpires. But I couldn’t recognize which one of them was speaking.

  Everything the Prince said… during the testing and then after he got the knife and threatened everyone away from him… it all sounded very nice. He claimed that he and Seri had cherished me, cared about me, and he said how he had been sorry he had to die before I was born. But the knife he held was the same one I’d seen in my dreams, the knife that had killed Lucy. The crest with the lions and the a
rch and the stars-D’Arnath’s coat-of-arms-was engraved on it. The same crest I’d seen on the sword that had killed Papa.

  The Lords had explained to me how the Prince had killed Papa to protect D’Arnath’s evil Bridge and keep the true powers of sorcery all to himself. What kind of warrior would pretend honorable combat when he knew it wasn’t possible? Papa wasn’t a sorcerer. I hated D’Natheil-this man Karon-for being my father instead of Papa, and I hated him for making me evil like he was. And so I spat at him and told him how I’d sworn an oath to destroy him.

  I was sure he would laugh at me then, because he was so big and powerful and I was not. Or maybe he would get angry and tell me why he wanted me dead. But instead he told me that he hadn’t done what I thought, and that he was sorry. Only then, when he said he was sorry, did he first look me in the eye. Only for that one moment. Then he slit himself open right in front of me.

  I guess it was Darzid who pulled me away, though the Prince was no threat any more. I stood there like a fool watching him fall to the floor and bleed everywhere, while everyone else was running around and screaming. A woman cried out the Prince’s name-my father’s name, Karon-and about the time Darzid dragged me through the door back into the workroom, I realized that the voice was Seri’s.

  “Wait!” I said. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to see Seri again, so I could decide what I thought about her. I wanted to make her tell me whether or not the Prince had known I was their son and if she had really set him to carry out her revenge. I wanted to ask her what it was the Prince had been trying to tell me in that instant before he died. No one had ever looked at me the way he did, and I didn’t understand it.

  Nothing that had happened in Avonar had made any sense…

  You did well, young Lord, said Notole. Even though she was talking to me, I could feel her trying to calm Ziddari and Parven’s anger. You left no doubt in anyone’s mind that you repudiate your father and his restrictions on our freedoms. I would have encouraged you to behave just so if it had been possible to communicate with you. The Preceptors protect their chambers well. Even your jewels were closed. Our next meeting will be on ground of our choosing.

  So that was why the Lords didn’t answer my questions while we were in the chamber. But then-I thought back carefully-who kept telling me to have courage and not to be afraid?

  Who was what? whispered Notole.

  “Nothing. It was just confusing. Everyone was shouting.”

  You were afraid?

  “No. Not really. I didn’t want to see the Prince or listen to him. But I wanted to learn about him, and why he does such terrible things.”

  “Well, there’s no need any more. We’ve had a great victory this day.” Darzid was leaving, beckoning my slaves to fill my bath. He didn’t sound happy. “D’Natheil is dead. And it was so much easier than we could ever have guessed it would be. Only one regret. The mad Prince has robbed you of your revenge. We were going to let you kill him tonight.”

  From the next day my training took up again as if nothing had happened. With Parven helping me feel how to move and how to see my opponents’ openings and strategies, I improved rapidly at swordplay and hand combat. Two different slave boys had to be taken away when I damaged them. I asked Calador if they were all right after, but he said it was none of my concern. When I said that perhaps he should let my partners wear leather armor like my own, now that I was getting more skilled, he said no. The Lords had commanded that my partners would wear no armor.

  Parven came into my mind, then, and said that a warrior had to know that every stroke meant something. Your hand must know the sensation of steel on flesh, and not quail from it. Your eye must see beyond blood and determination, knowing clearly which strokes will damage and which will not. These slaves could have no higher value than to aid in making their new Prince invincible. Now, continue, and do not even think of holding back, for I will know of it. The opponent you spare will be dead before another dawn. And so I told Calador and Harres to look for more skilled opponents for me. Then I’d be less likely to injure them.

  Some of my opponents were Zhid, and some were slaves. There was a third kind of servant in the fortress called Drudges. Drudges were stupid and dull and never spoke, even though they weren’t forbidden it like the slaves. Drudges never fought as practice partners. They weren’t allowed to touch weapons, because they didn’t know what to do with them.

  “They’re not Dar’Nethi, thus have no true power,” Ziddari told me, “so we have no need to collar them. They breed, and so make more of themselves. That can be useful. If they don’t work, we kill them. They have so little intelligence that it’s better for all. A mercy, in fact. They are nothing.”

  I’d never thought of killing people as being a mercy, but if the person was too stupid even to know what to do with a knife, it made more sense.

  My training in sorcery continued, too. Notole taught me how to call my horse from anywhere within the training grounds, how to prevent my sword from getting dull, and how to make my knife cut into a rock. I asked her how I could get more power for sorcery, and if it could enable me to do bigger things. She said that someday I would be able to do anything I wanted.

  CHAPTER 27

  Seri

  Fourteen days, Gar’Dena promised, only fourteen days of living under the very noses of the Lords of Zhev’Na. Time enough to learn where Gerick was being kept. Time enough to let the other players work their way into position. Then would come a signal I could not mistake, even though I could not be told of it in advance, and together these other players and I would snatch my son to safety. I could survive Zhev’Na for fourteen days. For my son and the future of the worlds, I could do it.

  The venture would be dreadfully risky. There existed only three ways to enter Zhev’Na, Gar’Dena lectured us as we sat in his exotic sitting room on the day after the terrible events in the council chamber. The first was as a Zhid. Of course, to retain enough of one’s soul to perform a selfless deed after being transformed into a Zhid was an all but impossible hope. And only the most powerful of Dar’Nethi captives were made Zhid. It was not a practical way to sneak spies into Zhev’Na.

  “Unless one could counterfeit a Zhid,” said Kellea, eagerly abandoning our aimless activities of the past weeks in favor of Gar’Dena’s plot. “Is that possible?”

  “I know of only one man who ever has managed such an impersonation,” said the Preceptor. “To live as one of them, performing acts of cruelty and vileness every hour… how does a person with a soul reconcile it? Only a person of tremendous strength and dedication. And only one who was once a Zhid himself. No one else could know the life they lead, the words they speak, or how to work the Seeking or transform another into a Zhid.”

  “So, what are the other two ways?” I asked.

  “The second is as a captive. Dar’Nethi of lesser power or those considered expendable are made slaves. The Zhid use weaker slaves as a source of power, leaching away the poor souls’ life essence to augment their own power. They forbid the stronger slaves all use of their true talents and force them to spend their lives in unending degradation…” He faltered. “You are not Dar’Nethi, and so that way is not for you.”

  “And the third?”

  “The third possibihty is yet another kind of servitude, for the Lords of Zhev’Na permit no life but servitude. Before the Catastrophe, when our worlds were closer linked, people from your lands occasionally wandered into ours. Those trapped in Ce Uroth by the Catastrophe fell under the sway of the Lords. Unlike the Zhid, who have lost the ability to reproduce, and the Dar’Nethi slaves, who are forbidden it, these unfortunates beget children. They now number in the thousands, but they have no power, nowhere else to go, and have been in the Wastes so long they know no other life. They live in desolate villages throughout the Wastes, breeding horses or food beasts for the Zhid, or they serve in the war camps or the fortress.”

  “And I am to be one of these?”

  “We are in contact with a bra
ve man, the one I referred to earlier, a Zhid who was restored to himself by Dassine during his imprisonment in the Wastes. This man has chosen to remain in Ce Uroth all these years, living as a Zhid in order to aid our cause as he is able. He can get you a place in the fortress of Zhev’Na itself, an ordinary duty assignment that will not be remarked. From this position you should be able to discover the whereabouts of your son, his daily routine, how he is guarded, and what possibilities exist for removing him. If we train you well before you go, and you play your part with the same courage and intelligence we’ve seen in you thus far, then you should be able to do what no Dar’Nethi could ever accomplish.”

  “This is why you needed someone from my world-a mundane,” I said.

  “Exactly so.”

  “That means I can go, too,” said Paulo. He had been listening intently while munching raspberries from a silver bowl.

  Gar’Dena was taken aback. “We’ve no plans to send anyone else. The dangers-”

  “The Prince and the Lady Seri saved my life twice over. I’ve sworn to pay ‘em back for it, and the only way I can see is to get their boy back safe. I’ll go, if I have to walk all the way on my two good legs.”

  The giant sorcerer did not laugh as many might have done at a boy of thirteen whose ferocious loyalty was sworn with red juice smeared over his freckles. Rather he laid his wide hand on Paulo’s knee and responded soberly. “The success of the plan can be our only consideration. For now, that requires the lady to go alone. But we will think on how best to use such courage as yours. As for you, young woman”-he glanced tentatively at a thunderous Kellea- “you must see that your road cannot lead to Zhev’Na. Not yet. You are Dar’Nethi, a fact that cannot be masked. Any Zhid can lay his hand on you and know what you are. But, as with this daring young man, I promise we will find ample use for your skills.”

  Over the next days, Gar’Dena set me to work in his kitchens, scrubbing and washing up, and to digging in his garden so as to roughen my hands. As I worked, he helped me build a new identify, to forge new habits and thoughts and patterns of speech, tempering them with constant review. I asked Gar’Dena if Bareil could perhaps be brought in to help me learn my role, but the sorcerer scoffed at that idea, saying that the Dulcé had taken no new madrisson and was therefore useless. “A Dulcé unlinked is little more than a child, you know. Young Paulo here has more knowledge at his bidding than would Bareil.” I disagreed, but Gar’Dena would not budge.