Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

Where did I belong? I had lived my allotted span of years, and the Way had led me to the fire. I had accepted my fate as I had been taught-as I believed was necessary. But in doing so, I had abandoned Seri and my son and my friends to despair and death. To drown in such guilt would be easy. To run from it was tempting; beyond the Verges, perhaps, I could forget. But if I had followed any other course, made other choices, been someone other than myself, the Gate-fire might never have burned white, and the boy D’Natheil might not have been sent onto the Bridge and been destroyed by it.

  I knew D’Natheil now, not everything, but enough, and D’Natheil could never have defeated the Lords of Zhev’Na. I had met the Lords in physical combat, in the slave pens of Zhev’Na, and in the battleground of my son’s mind, and Dassine had been right. Exeget had been right. The Lords were the enemies of all life, a darkness more profound than the emptiness between worlds or the universe before its creation. They were a disease that gnawed on the healthy body of humankind, and what was needed to eradicate them was a Healer. Somewhere in me was the way to defeat them.

  An aurora of blue and rose and violet burst into a shimmering fountain that rained fragments of light upon me like rose petals showered on a bridegroom. Such glory… such music from beyond the range of my vision as the luminous fragments floated through my transparent self. I reached for one of them and heard faint, echoing laughter, and the whole mass of them embraced me in a whirling nebula of joy that would transport me beyond the Verges to where unknown wonders lay waiting. My soul was filled with their beauty and with such overarching desire that I cried out. But with a soft breath I blew on them, and they drifted away regretfully like dry snowflakes, leaving me in the cold and the darkness. “Not yet,” I said, and I turned my back on the Verges and set my feet upon the path that awaited me.

  My eyes opened to the green and silent world. “Come, Bareil,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

  Seri

  I stand upon the graceful balcony of Verdillon watching Gerick and Paulo wrestling on the grassy lawn. They’ve been going at it for an hour. As they separate and sprawl on the green, panting and sweating and laughing, I smile and finger the rose-colored stone that hangs about my neck, wishing, as always, that it could send my thoughts to Avonar.

  “Would that you could see these moments, my love,” I would say. “They are rare, but so precious, and they give me such hope. The black moods plague him as much as ever, and nights are still the worst. His cries are terrible when he dreams. One of us is always close by to comfort him, though he’ll not allow it once he’s awake again. But he’s begun to study history with Tennice and show interest in Kellea’s herb lore, and he appreciates that neither one coddles him. With Paulo he jests and teases and allows himself to be a boy again.

  “Yesterday he asked me about this house, and why your name appears in the old journal that lies open in Ferrante’s study. I told him, then, about his father who was a student here, and how he immersed himself in beauty, art, and history long before he became a warrior or a prince. Perhaps it will encourage him to be less shy of you.

  “Peace has settled into all of us for the moment. Sometimes, though, when I hear news of the human war that rages in Iskeran, or I think of the horrors you face beyond the walls of Avonar, or I see a trace of darkness in Gerick’s eyes, I believe we are like the Guardians of Comigor-you, Kellea, Paulo, and I-standing at the four corners of the keep and waiting for the enemy to ride over the horizon. We three will stay awake, my love. No harm will come to him while we watch. Keep yourself safe, and come to us soon.”

  Turn the page

  for an exciting preview of

  THE SOUL WEAVER

  BOOK THREE OF

  THE BRIDGE OF D’ARNATH

  BY CAROL BERG

  Available February 2005

  from Roc Books

  Karon

  My senses were deafened by Jayereth’s pain. Desperately I fought to maintain my control, to prevent her agony from confusing my purpose. We were bound by an enchantment of Healing, our mingled blood linking our minds in the realm of flesh and spirit. If I shut out the experience of her senses, then I was powerless to heal her, but if I could not quiet her enough to see what I was doing, she was lost just as surely. Dark waves already lapped on the shores of her life.

  Jayereth, hear me… Hold fast… for your daughter, newly born to grace your house… for T’Vero who cherishes you… for your Prince who is in such need of your service… With everything I knew of Jayereth I commanded her to hold quiet-just for the moment it would take me to see what I needed to see.

  She understood me, I think, for there came the briefest ebb in the death tide, an instant’s clearing in the red mist of her pain and madness that let me perceive a host of things too terrible to know: ribs smashed, lungs torn, blood… everywhere hot, pooling blood and fragments of bone, her belly in shreds… Earth and sky, how had they done this? It was as if they knew every possible remedy a Healer could provide and had arranged it so I could do nothing but make things worse.

  Another instant and I was awash once more in Jayereth’s torment, feeling her struggle to breathe with a chest on fire and a mind blasted with fear. I could not give her strength or endurance, only my healing skill and few pitiful words of comfort. But even as I fought to knit together the ragged edges of her heart, her last remnants of thought and reason flicked out. Her screams sagged into a low, flat wail… and then silence. I had lost her.

  Let her go, I told myself, you can’t help her by traveling the only road she has yet to travel. That road is not for you… not yet. Forcing aside the wave of enveloping darkness, I gritted my teeth and spoke the command, “Cut it now.”

  My companion cut away the strip of linen that bound my forearm to Jayereth’s, allowing our mingled blood to feed my sorcery. The cold touch that seared my flesh was not his knife-his hand was too experienced for that-but the sealing of a scar that would forever remind me of my failure in my young counselor’s last need.

  The red mist vanished with the death tide, and my bleary eyes focused on the ravaged body crumpled on the stone floor of my lectorium. The only sound in the candlelit wreckage of the chamber was my shaking breath as I knelt beside my fallen counselor and grieved for the horror she had known. Cross swiftly, Jayereth. Do not linger in this realm out of yearning for what is lost. I’ll care for T’Vero and your child. On D’Arnath’s sword, I swear it.

  I envisioned Jayereth as she had been, short and plain, with brown hair, a liberal dash of freckles across her straight nose and plump cheeks, and the most brilliant young mind in Avonar tucked behind her eccentric humor. When I summoned Jayereth’s young husband, T’Vero, I would try to keep this image in mind and not the gruesome reality.

  “Was there nothing to be done, my lord?”

  Two small, strong hands gripped my right arm and helped me to my feet. Bareil always knew my needs. Unable to speak as yet, I shook my head and leaned on the Dulcé’s sturdy shoulder as he led me to a wooden stool he’d set upright. Padding softly through the wreckage, he summoned those who huddled beyond the door.

  One by one the four remaining Preceptors of Gondai crept into the chamber, gaping at the devastation. The oak-paneled walls were charred, the worktables in splinters, the shredded books in jumbled heaps. No vessel remained un-shattered, no liquid unspilled; every surface was etched by lightnings more violent than any storm of nature’s making. The acrid smoke of smoldering herbs mingled with blue and green vapors from pooled liquids to sting noses and eyes. Most fearful, of course, was the corpse sprawled in the midst of the destruction-Jayereth and the rictus of horror that had been her glowing face.

  “How was it possible, my lord prince?” one whispered.

  “Who could have done this?”

  “In the very heart of the palace…”

  “… treason…”

  The word was inevitable, though I didn’t want to hear it.

  “… and her work, of course…”

  “All lost,
” I said. I had known it in the instant I’d heard the thunderous noise.

  Jayereth’s discovery should have been secured the previous night. I was her Prince. It had been my responsibility. But my own selfish desires had lured me into a night’s adventure, and so I had put off duty until this morning. Too late. Before I could protect Jayereth or her work, our enemies had ripped her apart and left no place for me to heal.

  With a furious sweep of my hand, I cleared the tottering worktable of chips of plaster and broken glass, then kicked the splintered leg and let the slate top crash to the floor. Only when the dust had settled again had I control enough to address my waiting Preceptors. “Search every corner of the palace, every house, ruin, and hovel in the city. No one is to leave Avonar. Ustele, you will watch for any portal opening. We will discover who dares murder in my house.”

  Useless orders. Useless anger. No common conspirator had wrought such destruction fifty paces from my bedchamber. The protections on the palace of the Prince of Avonar were the most powerful that could be devised. For a thousand years no enemy had breached these rose-colored walls, and no Dar’Nethi thought-reading was required to understand what every one of the wide-eyed Preceptors saw. No soulless Zhid had slain Jayereth-no lurking stranger. The murderer was one of us.

  Bareil went to summon Jayereth’s husband. The Preceptor Gar’Dena, a giant of a man resplendent in green silk and a ruby-studded belt, brusquely dispatched the other Preceptors to the duties I had detailed. When Gar’Dena and I were left alone, he looked down at Jayereth. “Has there been any disruption in the Circle? Any sign from Marcus or the others? This event leaves me wary of all our enterprises.”

  I shook my head. “No ill word from the Circle.” As far as we knew the Lords had not yet noticed our most powerful sorcerers taking up positions on the boundaries of the Vales, ready to form an expanding ring of impenetrable enchantment around the healthy lands of my adopted world. “As of yesterday, Ce’Aret had almost two hundred in place. And we’ve had no news of our agents in Zhev’Na, but, of course, we’ve no way to know if they’ve been taken. Maybe that’s what this is-the notice of their failure.”

  We both knew it wasn’t so. The elimination of Jayereth and her work was no blind strike of retaliation, but clearly aimed. Someone knew what she had discovered and knew that she’d not yet passed on all of her knowledge. Only six people in the universe knew the secret-and to every one of them I would entrust my life.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Though Carol Berg calls Colorado her home, her roots are in Texas in a family of teachers, musicians, and railroad men. She has a degree in mathematics from Rice University and one in computer science from the University of Colorado, but managed to squeeze in minors in English and art history along the way. She has combined a career as a software engineer with her writing, while also raising three sons. She lives with her husband at the foot of the Colorado mountains.

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