One reluctant exception the bishops made to the general condemnation of Deryni magic, and that was to permit Healers to continue to function, though under far more rigid regulation than they had known hitherto. Philosophers and theologians had long agreed that Healing came of God—but the Healers were also Deryni, and therefore at least suspect of having other, darker allies than the Lord of Hosts. Eventually, it was hoped that even Healers could be phased out of practice, but none of the bishops was really ready to think out all the implications yet. In any event, Healers were few, and their services had always been somewhat limited to the aristocracy of both races; so as long as the bishops and regents could call upon Healers when they needed them, they decided not to worry too much about the common people. It was also judged appropriate to continue the use of Deryni collaborators to hunt down other Deryni, for nearly anything may be justified in time of war.
The impropriety of Deryni magic finally defined, the bishops next considered nonreligious sanctions against Deryni in general. While even Hubert would not go so far as to advocate the wholesale annihilation of all Deryni at this time, he was very much in favor of rigid controls. All high-born Deryni were to be stripped of their titles and ranks. Henceforth, no Deryni would be permitted to own land, except under the strictest of supervision. Deryni could not hold offices of any kind, or marry or inherit without the express leave of their liege lord. And any Deryni discovered to be teaching his evil abilities to another would be summarily executed.
The Council of Ramos met each day of Christmas week, the bishops returning to their quarters at the cathedral complex only to sleep, except for Archbishop Hubert, who still occupied his suite in the keep, and who dined each evening with his fellow regents and briefed them on the day’s accomplishments. The young king was permitted to join them for the meal and the first part of the briefing, to make him feel he was a part of the policy-making process, but liberal amounts of strong wine served with the meal always set him to nodding by the time more serious discussions began, and he was bundled off to bed by a few squires. Javan and Rhys Michael were not included at all.
This exclusion, as the days wore on, bothered Javan and Tavis more and more, for rumor was spreading of the general tone the bishops were taking in their daily meetings, and Javan was beginning to fear for Tavis’s safety. Tavis found himself being watched very closely whenever he went out of Javan’s quarters, for he and Oriel and a few other collaborators were now the only Deryni at large in the keep. He took to staying in Javan’s rooms in the daytime, but often he would disappear at night and even Javan did not know where he had gone, though he always covered for him. The Healer made a thorough exploration of the walls and passageways deep in the bowels of the keep. By Saturday night after Christmas, he had made several interesting discoveries and several difficult decisions. His heart was heavy as he talked with Javan late that night.
“I just don’t see what we can do to stop them, Javan,” he concluded, after he had reviewed all he had managed to glean of the bishops’ rulings of the past week. “Hubert has gone mad with power, and he’ll use it as a scourge against every Deryni he can track down. It’s a miracle that I’m still allowed to be with you. I can only surmise that it’s an oversight, because of the bishops still being in conclave, since the only other Deryni in the castle are under heavy guard almost all the time, even Oriel. Either that, or they’re simply not ready to contend with you.”
Javan stood and began to pace back and forth, in and out of the window embrasure where they both had been sitting. Under the long, fur-lined dressing gown he wore, his limp was hardly noticeable. He had grown several more inches since the fall, and was now taller than his twin.
“I won’t let them take you from me, you know that,” he said solemnly.
Tavis shook his head. “I know that you don’t want to let them take me, but you may not have much choice, my prince. What we have to decide, I think, is what to do if they do try it. Do I let them take me, or do I escape? In either case, I leave you to their less than gentle ministrations—and that’s the last thing I want.”
“Or I. Find another option. You know I can’t—wait a minute! You said escape—you mean, from Valoret? How?”
“Through a Portal.”
It took an instant for the import of Tavis’s words to sink in. Then, all at once, Javan was scurrying back to crouch at Tavis’s knee, grabbing the Healer’s one good hand in his two and staring up in excitement.
“A Portal? Then, we could both escape! Oh, Tavis, do you think we really could?”
“We?” Tavis looked at the boy with a stricken expression. “My prince, you can’t go. You’re the heir-presumptive. If I left, and you went with me, it would be taken by the regents as a renunciation of your claim to the throne—and that’s exactly what they want. They could manage Rhys Michael; they can’t manage you. Oh, I know it doesn’t seem that important now, but think about it. Who else can hope to undo what the regents and bishops are doing now, except you? Do you think Rhys Michael can, or would?”
As Javan’s shoulders slumped, he shook his head, and Tavis continued, laying his handless forearm along the boy’s right shoulder in comfort.
“All right, then. We’re agreed on that point, in any case. Your place is here, regardless of whether or not I can stay with you. Once you’re king—or even once you’re of age—you can have me brought back to Court. For that matter, if and when I do have to leave, I’ll try to come back for brief visits as long as the Portal isn’t discovered.”
“But, you will go, rather than be taken?” Javan whispered. “I couldn’t bear to see you killed by them.”
“Yes, I’ll go. But not before it’s necessary.”
“And I can’t come along?”
“No.”
With a sigh, Javan bowed his head over their joined hands for a moment, touching them to his forehead, then got up and moved to the window without looking at the Healer. He stood there with both hands resting on the stone tracery for several seconds, staring out at the darkness, then dropped one hand and turned slightly toward Tavis, though he still did not look at him.
“Have you any idea how difficult it is to be a prince?” he asked in a low voice.
“Very little,” Tavis whispered, shaking his head slightly. “I wish it were something that you did not have to learn, and so young.”
The prince glanced at the floor, at his clubbed foot in its special boot, protruding from beneath the hem of the fur-lined robe, then looked back at Tavis. The young Haldane face was now composed, every inch the prince that he must be.
“This Portal that you mentioned—I take it that you don’t mean the one in the archbishop’s apartments, since that’s impossible to reach with Hubert there now; and you said Bishop Kai destroyed the one in the cathedral. Where—”
“Beneath the King’s Tower,” Tavis replied. “There are probably several more, in other portions of the castle which were built during the Interregnum, but this is the only one I’ve managed to locate. Stories say that on the night Imre was taken in his tower room, his pregnant sister darted through a secret opening in the king’s chamber and made good her escape. I was hardly older than you at the time, but I remember thinking that she must somehow have gotten to a Portal. So I’ve been searching all the likely hiding places all week. I don’t know whether what I found is the one Ariella used, but it is a Portal. I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous to use one, these days. I know the location of several Portals, but I don’t know their status. They may not be working, or they may be set as traps. I’m afraid to try the few that still seem to be operational, for fear I can’t get back.”
“What do you mean, ‘traps’ and ‘can’t get back?’” Javan asked in amazement.
Tavis sighed. “Well, you can Transfer into them, but then you can’t leave, even to go back where you came from, unless someone at that end releases you. I’ve also heard stories of other things t
hat can be done to Portals so that you—never come back anywhere. No one knows where those unlucky souls go.”
“Would they do that at Dhassa, or would they just have destroyed it?” Javan asked, after a thoughtful pause.
“At Dhassa? Why do you ask?”
“Just answer my question,” Javan said evasively. “Would they do that at Dhassa?”
“Well, no. Not that last, at any rate. No reputable Deryni would. It isn’t destroyed, either. I’m almost certain they’ll have set it as a trap, though. That’s probably where Rhys and the others went, when they escaped from the cathedral. Dhassa’s under siege now, you know.”
Javan was silent for several minutes then, but Tavis could not penetrate beyond the boy’s rigid shields to find out what he was thinking—not without forcing and revealing his intrusion. After a little while longer, Javan looked up. The grey Haldane eyes were quicksilver cool and compelling.
“Tavis, I want to go to Dhassa,” the prince murmured. “Will you take me?”
For just an instant, Tavis almost said yes. Then, with a blink and a shake of his head to loose the boy’s spell, he stared at Javan in amazement.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“What you just—never mind.” He took a deep breath and remarshalled his thoughts. “Why do you want to go to Dhassa? Haven’t I just told you how dangerous it is? Do you even understand what you’re asking?”
“I understand exactly what I’m asking.”
“But—Javan, you’re far more than an ordinary human, God knows, but you’re not Deryni! For God’s sake, you’ve never even been through a normal Portal. If that is a Trap Portal at Dhassa, we could wait a long time, and it might be very unpleasant in the waiting.”
“It won’t be long,” Javan said confidently. “Under the circumstances they’ll have it manned at all times. Tell me about the unpleasant part.”
He could not counter the boy’s logic about the waiting. Grimly he racked his brain for a description that would mean something to Javan’s limited experience.
“Do you remember how you felt the night I made you sick? The mental part of it, not the physical illness, though it could also have physical manifestations.”
Javan shuddered a little. “Yes.”
“Well, it could be worse than that, depending upon what they’ve done. Besides, why do you want to go to Dhassa?”
Javan clasped his hands and glanced down at them. “First of all, I want to apologize to Archbishop Alister,” he said in a low voice. “I think we were wrong about him. I want him to know that we see now what he and Rhys and Joram and the others were trying to do all along. And I want to make certain that Rhys is all right. I’ve had an uneasy feeling about him, ever since you told me about seeing him fall.”
“I see.” Tavis rubbed the end of his stump in an unconscious gesture of uneasiness. “Javan, I understand your feelings, and I’d like to be reassured, too, but it is dangerous. We could get caught at any of a number of points right here in the castle, we don’t know what the Portal situation is like, and once we get there, if we get there—well, after what we did to Rhys, we may not be terribly welcome.”
“I know that, but it’s too late to undo it. That’s another reason I think it’s important that we go.”
“Suppose I go,” Tavis offered. “I probably exaggerated about the danger of the Trap aspect of the Portal. They wouldn’t dare make it too dangerous, for fear of catching one of their own people trying to make an escape. At worst, they’d keep me prisoner, which has to be better than being the regents’ prisoner. You shouldn’t have to—”
“No! I won’t send you where I wouldn’t go myself!” Javan interrupted. “Princes don’t do that. I want to go, Tavis. And if the archbishop wants to be angry with us because of Rhys, then I guess we’ll just have to bear his anger. But we have to let him know that we’re on his side now, and that we’d never have done what we did to Rhys if we’d only understood that we’re all fighting parts of the same battle, against a common enemy.” He sighed resignedly. “And if they don’t want me to know what happened to me the night my father died—well, I guess I’ll just have to wait until it’s time.”
“It may not be that long a wait,” Tavis said tentatively. “The two of us might be able to dig it out on our own, now that we’re both recovered. You have a right to know.”
Javan shook his head. “Maybe I don’t. In any case, that’s not the issue here. I want to go to Dhassa, Tavis. Now. Tonight. Will you take me there?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It is the part of a brave combatant to be wounded, yet overcome.
—Polycarp 1:14
Half an hour later, having made provisions to cover their absence as best they could, Tavis and Javan eluded several guard patrols and then slipped along an intramural passageway and down a stair beneath the King’s Tower. Around the curve of another passageway, they came to what at first appeared to be an ordinary garde-robe—except that the floor was solid. Javan began trembling as Tavis paused before the opening, but he stepped in boldly when Tavis gestured for him to enter.
“Are you sure this is a Portal?” he whispered incredulously, as Tavis took the torch and urged him further into the dank closeness.
“Well, it’s hardly in a class with the one in the cathedral, but yes, it’s a Portal. I’m going to put the light out now. Don’t move.”
The end of the torch continued to glow for several seconds as Tavis straightened and slipped his right arm around Javan’s neck from behind, the hand resting lightly at the base of the throat. His left forearm he slid along the other shoulder so that his wrist touched the side of the boy’s neck. Javan tensed under his touch, for he knew that this was going to be different from the workings they usually did with Healing magic.
“Now, remember what I told you about the need to relax and let yourself go completely, so that I can carry you through,” Tavis whispered, his lips directly beside Javan’s left ear. “Take a few deep breaths and let them out slowly, as if we were going to work a Healing. Open and let things drift. Come on, you can do better than that.”
Javan tried, but he was too nervous to relax the way Tavis had taught him. He reached out and brushed the damp wall with his fingertips for reassurance as he took another deep breath and let it out, repeated the process—even sensed the tentative touch of Tavis’s mind reaching out to float against his shields. He could not seem to make himself let go.
“Tavis, I don’t think I can do it,” he whispered, beginning to shake his head. “Maybe you were right. You should go on without me. I’ll wait here. I promise, I won’t make a sound.”
“No, that won’t do,” Tavis breathed, the tone still infinitely patient. “Let’s try something else. Don’t fight it, just let it happen. I’m stronger than you, and you couldn’t get away even if you wanted to—which you really don’t.”
As he spoke, he shifted his hand upward on Javan’s neck and began to exert pressure on either side, gentle but firm, and increasing as Javan became aware of what he was doing and started to tense up even more.
“Relax!” Tavis commanded. “This is just for a moment, to get you through the Portal. You won’t lose consciousness for more than a few seconds. Believe me, it’s easier this way.”
Javan could breathe, but he could feel the blood pounding beneath Tavis’s fingers, sensed his vision beginning to blur, even in the stark darkness of the alcove. Now he forced himself to exhale deeply and let his arms fall heavily to his side, even leaning farther into Tavis’s pressure to speed the process, though it was against all instinct. In only an instant, the darkness of the alcove was replaced by an even greater darkness which was but prelude to an odd, stomach-stirring sense of vertigo and falling. He felt Tavis’s arms supporting him as he passed out.
In Dhassa, Camber hastily threw on a dressing gown which Joram held for him and then followed him and Niallan down a series of corridors to the chapel. There he found Jebediah and a han
dful of Niallan’s Deryni elite guards surrounding a shimmer of purplish light which stood over the Portal in the side chapel. Inside the shimmer, Camber could just make out the forms of Tavis O’Neill and Prince Javan. Both Healer and prince looked tense and apprehensive, and more so when they saw Alister Cullen approaching, but there was no place they could go, trapped in the Portal as they were. For some reason, they were both wearing black tonight.
With a hand-signal, Camber bade Niallan release the Trap and dismiss the guards. Tavis gave an audible sigh of relief as the purplish light died around him, waiting until the guards had gone out and closed the door before making a short bow to Camber.
“Thank you, Your Grace. Before you chide me for bringing His Highness here, please let me explain that he insisted. We’ve been gathering information which we thought you should have, and this seemed to be the best way to get it to you. Where is Rhys?”
Camber stiffened at the name, feeling both Joram and Jebediah reverberate psychically with the shock, seeing Niallan’s inadvertent expression of sorrow—quickly masked, but not quickly enough. Dhassa’s bishop had grown closer to all of them in the past week, in many ways beginning to fill some of the void which Rhys’s absence left.
The reaction of a previous stranger was not lost on prince or Healer’s searching eyes. As Tavis took an involuntary step toward them in surprise, Javan caught his arm and followed.
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