by Carol Berg
“Because this Darzid is not a man!” The floor rumbled with the same fury that had shaken the council chamber, but his anger was not directed at me. He gripped his hands together until I thought he must crush his own fingers. “We do not know who or what he is any more than you do. We know that he has at least one ally among the Preceptors. Even if we were willing to endanger the child’s life when we know so little, we dared not challenge the Lords in the very heart of Avonar. This city is our last defense. This battle must take place outside these walls. Better to appear stupid and corrupt and ineffective. Let them think they have all the time they need. And that, madam, is where you come in.”
“I don’t understand.”
He released his hands, his shoulders sagged, and a woeful grin worked its way through his oversized gloom. “We planned to find you. A blessing to be sure that you dropped into my not inconsiderable lap—though we were fortunate to keep you from being divided among our covetous Preceptors.”
“I wouldn’t have gone with Exeget. I’d kill him first.”
He sighed deeply. Gar’Dena did nothing small. “Such was not an unguessable reaction, madam, though killing Exeget would not be at all simple. But since we so fortunately avoided that particular ugliness, we wish to proceed. There is a plan and help to be had if you will accept it. If you consent, we will send you to Zhev’Na to rescue your son.”
Astonishment and anger would not release me as yet. “I still don’t understand. If you’re so worried about my son, then why, in the name of all gods, didn’t you send someone to rescue him weeks ago? You don’t need me.”
Gar’Dena’s good humor went the way of his rage, leaving only a serious intelligence that one might more properly expect from a Preceptor of Gondai. “Because we cannot send a Dar’Nethi. The rescuer must be someone from your world. You will see why as we prepare. You were the most reasonable choice and came highly recommended. Yet, we had to judge you for ourselves—to make sure that you were not overwhelmed by our world, that you were not rash or stupid and likely to make things worse instead of better. When we saw how carefully you moved, we came to believe you would do. And too, our plan was not possible before tonight. Treacherous waters must be carefully navigated. That’s all I can tell you. To say more would compromise our plan.”
At last I began to listen. He waited patiently as I tried to think. “Was this Dassine’s design?” I said.
“Dassine knew nothing of this plan. But he would agree that we have no other possibility.”
“Who are the others included in this ‘we’?”
“You will not know that.” A finger of anticipation tickled my spine.
“Then tell me, Master Gar’Dena—did Karon know of your plan? Was his action . . . the knife . . . what he did . . . was that part of your plan? Did you drive him mad or did he consent to it? I need to know.”
Paulo shot a glance at me, curiosity flashing across his dirty, tear-streaked face.
The big man closed the doors of his broad face and laid one ponderous fist upon his heart. “Of course the Prince’s death was not part of our plan. We had hoped—But the examination was ruinous. We thought we had shown him alternatives . . . convinced him . . . Ah, Vasrin Shaper, I cannot speak of the matter. His death is a grievous blow to Gondai and our people. If we cannot retrieve his son, we are undone.”
Why could I not feel Karon’s loss, even after such sober speech as this? Gar’Dena’s voice was near breaking. I had seen the knife and the blood and the terrible wound. I had seen Karon fall, and with the others watched life desert his pain-ravaged face. But in that precious instant we were together, he was not mad and not desperate. And if he was not mad, then I could not believe he would ever, in the farthest extremity, take his own life.
So I put him away for a while, laid aside my grief and regret and mourning. I only whispered an answer to the sweet echo that lingered in my head. You have no need for forgiveness. I embrace your life, beloved, all that you were and all that you remain. “Tell me your plan, Preceptor.”
CHAPTER 24
Karon
The Dulcé say that life is a tapestry, the warp and weft laid down by Vasrin Shaper—the female half of the duality that is our god—and we who exist in the world are assigned our position and shading to perfect its marvelous pattern. The Valloreans say that life is a garden, each of us planted in our proper row so as to nurture or shelter those who grow beside us, or to wind ourselves about each other in mutual companionship or mutual destruction. But I think we Dar’-Nethi have it right, that life is a path laid down as you walk it and taken up behind you as quickly as you pass. That is why it does no good to look back and say “if only . . .” for where you have traveled is already unclear, and it does no good to say “tomorrow . . .” for where you are going is not yet laid down. Better to savor each moment as if it were the first or the last. Perhaps we’ve come to this conclusion because that is the source of our power . . . the savoring.
I had never considered myself a remarkable man, but as I sat before the Dar’Nethi Preceptorate, knowing what I did of my own life and contemplating what I was about to do, I believed I could say truly that no experience in the history of two worlds had rivaled my own. That of D’Arnath himself, perhaps—the sorcerer and king become warrior, powerful enough to build a link between worlds, reverenced so truly by his people that his successors never took his own title, but considered their highest honor to be named his Heir. But even D’Arnath had lived only one life. I had lived two, each of them twice through, once in the proper order of time as all men do and once in memory. And for ten years I had been properly dead, my orphaned soul linked to an artifact of power—a small black crystal pyramid—by the enchantments of an audacious Healer. And next . . . I could not think of next.
My trembling was quite real on that occasion, both as a result of what I had been through and in anticipation of its sequel, and when I said, “Ten breaths more and I will be unable to stop screaming,” I believed that to be the literal truth.
I had known I would have to follow Dassine’s instructions to give myself to the Preceptorate. All I could offer the Lady Seriana and her companions were a bit of power and a strong sword arm, and neither appeared sufficient to their needs. The problem of the child was too complex, and Dassine, the one who understood such complexities, was dead. My mentor’s legacy was my life, and the only thing he had ever asked in return was my trust. I could not refuse him.
Once I had decided on my course as we sat in the Guesthouse of the Three Harpers, I considered what to tell the lady, but I couldn’t think what she would want to hear from me. How stupid I was. How blind. She was so angry, and I thought it was because I couldn’t be what she expected, because I kept falling off the edge of the world in front of her. And so, in the end, I said nothing but to my madrissé. I abandoned the lady, walked into the grand commard of Avonar, and told a sleepy baker’s boy my name.
Dassine had not said to keep my going secret, and I hoped the crowd might provide some measure of safety. It became a much larger spectacle than I had envisioned. We Dar’Nethi are a romantic people, much given to ceremonies and rituals that draw out our emotions. Over that long night I had also decided to surrender myself to Madyalar instead of Exeget. Our meeting at Dassine’s house had left me with a good impression of her.
“Come with me, my lord,” said Madyalar, proceeding briskly between the columns of the portico. Her shoes clicked on the flagstones. The palace gates clanged shut behind us.
“Pause a while, good lady,” said Exeget, spitting venom as he held his ground by the gates. “Despite this charming little pageant we have just witnessed, the protocols of the Preceptorate are not suspended. I, as head of the Preceptorate, will carry out the first examination of the petitioner.”
“Master Exeget is correct,” said Ce’Aret.
“The Prince surrendered himself to me and no one else,” said Madyalar. “All saw it. Come, my lord.” She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward a side doo
r, tucked away under the portico beside the great entry doors.
“You overreach, Madyalar,” shouted Gar’Dena. “The subject’s choice has no bearing. I think that Ce’Aret, as the eldest . . .”
As Bareil had warned me, presenting myself to Madyalar instead of Exeget had caused an uproar. Each of them chimed in, wrangling over prerogatives and precedence. Meanwhile I was barefoot and shirtless, shivering, and faced with the undignified prospect of being unable to wipe my dripping nose because my hands were still bound with their confounded ribbon. And truly, there was no dispute.
“I submitted to Madyalar,” I said, causing all of them to stop in mid-argument and stare at me. For me to interrupt or to speak at all was quite improper, according to Dar’-Nethi ritual. “She will determine what is best, else I will determine some other way to accomplish my purposes.” I wrenched my hands free of the silver ribbon and used it to blot my nose.
All discussion was immediately ended. Being the Heir of D’Arnath had its privileges.
Madyalar was pleased, of course, and Exeget was livid, which pleased me. He bowed. “I leave you to the viper, my lord.” I thought his teeth might turn to powder from his grinding them.
Madyalar led me on a long trek through the passages of the east wing, the part of the palace given over to the Preceptors who desired work space in the most secure building in the city. Her lectorium was a businesslike chamber, windowless and chilly, as were most such workrooms devoted solely to magical pursuits. Flasks and boxes of potions and powders were neatly arranged on her worktables. Small chests and painted cabinets that would hold bits of glass and metal, stones and gems were set square against the dark-colored walls. She gave me a green linen tunic and a pair of sandals to put on, as my shirt and boots had not found their way through the palace gates with us. Then she motioned me to a chair facing her across a low table.
“I’m gratified, but curious as to your course of action this morning, D’Natheil. After so long away and so soon after your mentor’s death, to submit for examination seems strange. I presume you understand the depths to which you have humiliated Exeget. We all know of the unease between you, but this . . . it’s most likely irreconcilable. Why me?”
“I believe you are honorable and care deeply about the future of Avonar and its people,” I said. “Exeget is not and does not.”
She dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“And I’m in somewhat of an awkward position.”
“Go on.”
“Dassine sent me to you—well not to you precisely, but to the Preceptorate.”
“Dassine?” She jumped up from her chair. Her tone was sharp as a razor knife. “I understood his wounds were mortal.”
“I was with him when he died.”
She stepped back a bit and put her hands inside the rainbow folds of her robe. “What did he tell you?”
“Only that if certain things were to come about, I was to surrender myself to the Preceptorate for examination. No other explanation. I hoped you might understand what he meant.”
She considered my words briefly. Then she sat down again. “Dassine and I were good friends, not intimate, as I’m sure you know, but allies. We had . . . business . . . together. Perhaps if you were to tell me of these ‘certain things’ to which you refer . . .”
“A boy has been taken by the Zhid. Dassine said that if the child was taken to Zhev’Na, then I had to do this. The child must be rescued.”
She threw back her tousled gray hair and laughed uproariously, though her laughter seemed shallow and out of proportion to her amusement. “Is that all? It sounds just like Dassine. ‘I’ve taken the Heir and kept him hidden for ten years, letting him out only long enough to preserve the Bridge, and, oh, by the way, tell him how to rescue an unknown boy from Zhev’Na.’ Tell me, my lord, what is it you want from me? Are we playing games here? I’m not a fool.”
What did I want? Advice? Help? I didn’t understand her laughter, but then she probably couldn’t imagine the limits of my knowledge. Dassine had said I must go to the Preceptorate for examination, not for help. He had trained me well to listen to him, and he would have chosen his words carefully, knowing he had so few left. I had to believe that whatever I needed to know would be revealed by the examination—even if it was only that I was too damaged to continue.
“I wish to proceed with the examination, but I want Exeget to have no part in it.”
Pleasure suffused her wide, plain face. “You realize that in the examination I will enter your mind. You’ll not be able to refuse my questions or tell me anything but truth. Is that your wish?”
“Yes . . . I suppose so.”
Everything happened very quickly after that. Madyalar unlocked a small mahogany cabinet sitting on her worktable and pulled out two crystal flasks. One contained a liquid of such deep red as to be almost black, and the other a substance that was clear, but thick like honey when she poured it into a silver goblet. She measured the dark liquid carefully and poured it into the same goblet, then left it for a moment while she turned down the lamps and struck a fire in a small pottery brazier that sat on the low table between us. A handful of gray powder dropped into the flames snapped and sparkled and gave off a heavy scent—agrina, an herb which enhanced one’s receptivity to many enchantments. Another, subtler fragrance, almost undetectable, wafted behind the sharp, pungent odor of the agrina. Cennethar, I suspected, a powerful agent used to relax control of the muscles. From the heart of the little fire a thin trail of smoke twined its way toward me. Madyalar motioned me to move closer and breathe it in.
I almost changed my mind. Bareil had told me that Dassine trusted none of the Preceptors, yet here was I, with wounds not yet healed from earlier battles, ready to expose them to an untried physician. Leaving myself so vulnerable . . . The cennethar unnerved me. But if I were to refuse, what else would I do? Lacking any answer to that question, I released my held breath and took another, allowing Madyalar’s smoke to fill my lungs.
The fumes soon had me light-headed. I was so tired . . . stupid to come after a night without sleep. I had needed quiet time to think, and so had offered to watch while my companions slept. Once I had come to my resolve, I’d wanted to get on with it—before the Lady Seriana could wake and talk me out of it or leave me a voiceless idiot once again. But here in Madyalar’s dark study, watching the rising flames and breathing the choking smoke, I felt soggy and drowsy. I tried to tell Madyalar that we might better wait until I got some sleep, but I couldn’t get the words out.
She stood in front of me. “Manglyth,” she said, holding out the silver goblet, “the potion we use for examination.”
The two liquids had not mixed. The dark one hung suspended in the clear, so that the drink looked like an egg with a dark red yolk, encased in the silver shell of the goblet. Drink it all, Madyalar motioned, holding the cup to my lips. The clear liquid was icy cold and sweet, coating my tongue and my throat, but the dark one boiled away the sweet coating and scalded my very bones. Panicked, I wanted to push it away, but my hands lay on the arms of the chair like tide-dropped seaweed, and the big woman relentlessly poured the rest of her potion into me. Enough of the sweet liquid remained in the cup to soothe my mouth and throat a bit, leaving them throbbing and sore, but not blistered. As for the rest of me, flesh and thought and memory were turned inside out, exposed to anyone who should desire to inspect them.
“Uncomfortable, I know”—I heaved and gasped for breath, unable to move to help myself—“but necessary. Now we begin. Your secrets . . . Dassine’s secrets . . . now belong to me, as do you, in a sense. You cannot imagine. . . . And to have you present yourself to me willingly!” Madyalar sat opposite me once again, her expression that of a moneylender introduced to a wastrel baron. Not at all motherly. I began to suspect that I had made a dreadful mistake.
Quickly, brutally, Madyalar wrenched open the gates of my mind. No sound disturbed her chamber save the snapping of the flames in the brazier. Rather, her questions appear
ed directly inside my head. Though I could formulate my responses, she retrieved them in the same way, with no artifice of voice or limitation of words to obscure their truth. I could neither withhold an answer nor could I lie.
Came her question: Who is the child in Zhev’Na?
Came my answer: He is the son of Dassine’s friend, a mundane child stolen from his home five days ago.
A mundane child! Why have the Zhid taken him?
I do not know.
And what is your interest in the child?
Dassine instructed me to find him. He said if the boy was taken to Zhev’Na before I found him, then I should surrender myself to the Preceptorate for examination.
Nothing more?
Nothing more.
And you are accustomed to taking direction from Dassine without understanding any more than this?
Yes.
Why is that?
I do not know.
She was puzzled, and I couldn’t blame her, but I was unable to volunteer any information. I could only answer her questions. She rubbed her lips with an idle finger.
What have you been doing with Dassine in these past months since your return from the Bridge?
I have been regaining my memory.
Your memory . . . lost? You did not know . . . what? The deeds of a night? The happenings of a week?
I knew nothing of myself.
Nothing! Did this happen when you walked the Bridge these few months ago?
Dassine said that whatever happened at the Bridge worsened damage that was done earlier.
From the first attempt, she said. I knew it. So Dassine the Healer was restoring your memories. Fortunately for you, he was a talented man. And so now you are restored.
I wasn’t sure whether the last was a statement or a question, but as long as there was doubt, I was compelled to answer.
