by Carol Berg
“Tomorrow, after I’ve had a little sleep, I’ll see what I can do for him,” he said as we strolled down the gravel path between the muddy beds of struggling violets and summerlace. “Kellea says she’s already tried all the simple painkilling things I know how to do. So that leaves the soul weaving business. I’ll do it, but it’s just . . . if I try it now, I might never get back to my own body. We scarcely slept all the way down here.”
As the only Soul Weaver known outside of Dar’Nethi legend, Gerick could actually leave his own body and enter another, either taking control of that body or lending his knowledge, skills, and strength to the other person. When his purpose was accomplished, he could slip back into his own skin, leaving his host whole and undamaged.
“Will you be able to help him?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. He doesn’t think so. But perhaps he’ll be able to guide me into something useful once I’m joined with him. I just don’t know.”
At twelve, Gerick had been one of the most powerful sorcerers in any world, the prodigy of the murderous Lords of Zhev’Na. But since he had rejected the life they had planned for him, he rarely spoke of sorcery and, according to Paulo, used it even less.
We returned to the house, poked up the fire, and sat with Karon for an hour. Gerick and Paulo fought off sleep and told us of the heavy snows and freezing rain that clogged the roads from the north. Their failure to see a single thriving field along their route boded ill for the coming winter. Their own land’s always-unstable weather had taken a turn for the worse in the past months as well. Paulo had been on his way to Yurevan to find someone who could teach them to engineer drainage canals to control the Bounded’s unusually severe barrage of storm waters when he’d stopped at the inn called the Two Thieves and found my message.
Kellea soon shooed us all to bed. Everyone needed rest, and she didn’t want three more patients to take her time. On that night it was Gerick who helped his father sit up and who whispered comfort as Kellea’s herbs worked their mercy.
None of us watched as Gerick left his own body and entered his father’s on the next morning. It seemed too intimate an act for public display. I sat in an upstairs window seat with an open book and tried not to hope. Just as well. After an hour Gerick burst out of the front door below me and vomited violently into the undergrowth. For a long while after, he stood beneath a tree, hands clasped behind his neck, his elbows squeezing his bowed head. He didn’t need to tell me his attempt had been fruitless.
And so we settled in to wait. As so often happens, grief unleashed a reservoir of laughter. We played lively games of chess or draughts at Karon’s bedside where he could listen to the progress of the game.
Kellea astonished us by singing in a rich contralto a variety of Vallorean folk songs, a repertoire she had apparently acquired as a child. She admitted sheepishly that no one had ever heard her sing until her husband surprised her at it when she thought no one could hear.
Gerick and Paulo recounted more tales of their struggle to make the Bounded live. The past months had seen their first large-scale harvest, but also some worrisome failures of the glowing sunrocks that enabled them to grow food enough for all in their sunless world.
I passed on greetings from dear Tennice, Gerick’s tutor who had been forced to cancel a journey to visit Karon by a lingering lung fever, and I reported on their friend, our young Queen Roxanne, and her continuing struggle with the Leiran nobility. Four years after her father’s death, my old enemy’s daughter had at last succeeded in wresting professions of fealty from every member of the Council of Lords, who had once sworn that an ox would rule the Four Realms sooner than a woman. I hated to think of her hard-won concessions tested by a hungry winter.
But all that was before a rain-washed sunset four days after Gerick’s arrival, when a sharp knock on the door announced two visitors from Gondai. For a short while, I thought my summoning prayers had been answered after all.
“As soon as he wakes in the morning, we’ll take him home.” The slender man in robes of dark blue silk gazed down at a sleeping Karon. Though his ageless complexion and fair hair and beard could leave one guessing, Prince Ven’Dar had seen his sixty-fourth birthday. The network of fine lines on his open face had been carved by laughter, but on this night his gray-blue eyes seemed uncharacteristically shadowed, as if he, too, had not been sleeping well.
Ven’Dar lifted his hand from Karon’s brow. After dispatching his Dulcé companion back across the Bridge to prepare for our arrival, the prince had cast a winding, an enchantment shaped from the nuances of words, to send Karon to sleep without the ajuria for the first time in a month. “Unfortunately, he cannot be in this state when I take him across the Bridge. As we’ve found out, strange things happen when minds lie fallow during a Bridge crossing. And I am not—Well, walking the Bridge is difficult of late.”
“I’ll give him ajuria then,” said Kellea, who was settling the blankets around Karon’s wasted body. “He’ll need something if you’re going to move him.”
“No. Whether induced by enchantment or potions, he cannot be asleep.”
“I can take care of it,” said Gerick, quietly. “I can’t cure this disease, but I can help him bear it for long enough to cross the Bridge and get him wherever he needs to go.”
“So be it,” said Ven’Dar. “We’ll let him rest through the night—and you as well, lad—then at sunrise we’ll go. Strange for all of us to be together again. Would it were a happier occasion.”
As the stars pricked the deep blue sky outside our windows, Gerick and Paulo spread pillows and blankets by the hearth, Kellea retired to her room, and I escorted Ven’Dar to the bedchamber upstairs. It had occurred to me, even as the flurry of greetings flowed, that Ven’-Dar’s arrival four months earlier than usual was not truly a response to my nightly wishing. Even the Dar’Nethi ability to speak in the mind could not span worlds. And so, once the matters of towels and washing water and other rituals of hospitality were taken care of, I paused at the bedchamber door and broached the question. “So tell me, my lord prince, what’s brought you here? If the power of my desires can reach all the way to Avonar, I’d like to know of it.”
Ven’Dar stood at the window I had opened to air the room. “Only a curiosity. I was hoping Karon might have some advice for me. We’ve had a bit of interesting news in the realm.” He turned his back on the window, his arms folded across his breast. “But for now all that must wait. Don’t trouble yourself.” No amount of wheedling gained me any more than that.
Karon woke before dawn, before anyone else in our suddenly crowded house was stirring. “Who is this lovely wench who comes to warm my bed? I thought they all had been refused.” His cold fingers traced the line of my cheek.
“I’ve set myself to guard against these intruding maidens,” I said, trying to waken my tingling arms and ease out of the bed without jarring him. Unable to sleep, suddenly sensing the too-rapid approach of the inevitable, I had slipped in beside him. “Now what of you? How does Ven’Dar’s remedy?”
“It lingers a bit. And while I still benefit from it, I’d like to see Martin’s gardens once more before I go.”
I fumbled in the dark to find his shoes, then helped Karon sit up and get them on. I threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders, and we picked our way around the sleeping Gerick and Paulo, emerging into the predawn stillness. The seasons had gone backward. Instead of the scents of grass and fading lilacs, a frosty mist floated over the garden.
Halfway across a grassy square between two bowers of blighted roses, Karon stopped and closed his eyes, a smile, not a grimace, crossing his features. “How I love this place,” he said. “Cold or not . . . feel the life. Smell it. Taste it. You know, sometimes I feel the others here—Martin, Julia, Tanager. I wonder . . .” Holding his arms tight about his middle as if willing the pain to stay away a little longer, he lowered himself to a stone bench. “I’ve thought it could be that L’Tiere is not so far away. Perhaps the boundary between thi
s life and the next is less formidable than the Breach, and we can find our way back to the places we love most. Who knows? I may come back here again.”
I wrapped my arms about his wasted shoulders, unable to answer. Ven’Dar found us there as dawn touched the eastern sky.
“Time to go home, my friend,” said Ven’Dar. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t promise to be fast. No chance you’ve a winding to put all but my mind to sleep?”
“Sadly not. But you’ll not be alone.” He motioned toward Gerick, who had just stepped out of the garden door, conferring quietly with Paulo.
Paulo was drinking something that wreathed his face with steam, and Kellea soon came to us with a similar mug. She sat down beside Karon. “You’re not leaving before breakfast,” she said in mock severity, holding it to his lips. “Only a little to warm you on your way.”
After two sips, Karon took her hand, kissed it, and pressed it to his forehead, a gesture of affection from the land of his youth. “I’ll never forget, dear Kellea. Never. Go back to your children and your good sheriff and live in joy.”
While Kellea embraced each of us in turn, Karon looked up bleakly at Gerick and Paulo. “If I’m to do this, I’m afraid I’ll need an extra hand or two.”
“We’ve come up with a better way. Maybe a little easier on you,” said Gerick, hesitating. “If you’ll permit me . . .”
Karon understood immediately. “Are you sure?”
Gerick nodded. And so, when Karon signaled he was ready, Gerick laid an arm about Paulo’s shoulders. As the first pink and orange sunbeams bathed the garden, Gerick’s body slumped, saved from falling by Paulo’s firm grip around his waist.
Karon shuddered and sat up a little straighter. Then we stood, and his voice sounded stronger than I’d heard in weeks. “Lead us, lord prince. My wife and my son—my two sons—bear me upon their shoulders, and I would not burden them longer than need be.”
Kellea stood watching in the garden, her hand raised in farewell. Her image faded as our strange procession passed into the sunrise. Ven’Dar walked in front, his fair hair shimmering in the light, and behind him a gaunt Karon wrapped tight in his black cloak, leaning on my arm, Gerick’s strength enabling him to bear each step. Paulo came next. Over his shoulder he’d slung the slender body that belonged to his best friend and his king, whose soul was temporarily housed elsewhere. A strange procession setting out to journey along the strangest of roads.
CHAPTER 2
D’Arnath had built the Bridge after a magical cataclysm had driven his world of Gondai and the human world apart, separating them with a chaotic void the Dar’Nethi called the Breach. The Breach upset some balance in the universe that drained away enough of the human world’s excessive passions that we would not destroy ourselves, while fueling the extraordinary magic—the Hundred Talents—of the Dar’Nethi. Somehow the Bridge maintained this balance, rescuing my world from the consequences of unmitigated violence, and preserving the very souls of the Dar’Nethi, which were inextricably entwined and illuminated with their sorcery. This did not mean that crossing between the two worlds was ever easy.
It seemed so at first on the day we took Karon back to Gondai. The dreadful visions of the Breach seemed to have lost their fearsome reality since the last time I had crossed. The rivers of gore, the bottomless caverns, the legions of the dead, all a traveler’s foulest nightmares and deepest fears brought to life in the formless matter of chaos, had less substance than the monsters a child sees in the shifting clouds of a stormy sunset. It was good to think these changes had come about because of Karon and Gerick and some healing that their victory over the Lords had brought to the world.
Yet by the time we stepped beyond the wall of white fire into Gondai, the relentless barrage of enchantment had left my spirit in tatters. Karon was shattered. His breathing was harsh and shallow, and Ven’Dar and I could scarcely keep him upright.
With a grunt of effort, Paulo leaned against a smooth column and set Gerick’s feet on the ground, allowing the pillar of rose and gray stone to help support Gerick’s limp body.
“I’ll put you to sleep. But I’ll cast only when you’re ready. Do you hear me?” Ven’Dar gripped Karon’s shoulders and peered into his eyes, speaking loud enough to be heard over the low rumble of the Gate fire. “Tell me, my friend. Give me a sign.”
“Of course, he’s ready,” I said. I couldn’t understand Ven’Dar’s delay.
But only after a long few moments did Karon jerk his head, his mouth clenched to suppress a cry. At the same moment Gerick shuddered and stiffened with a sharp intake of breath. Ven’Dar touched Karon’s forehead, and my husband slumped heavily in our arms. We lowered him to the floor, and I took his head in my lap.
Gerick breathed deeply, shoulders hunched and arms wrapped about his stomach. He waved his hand and Paulo stepped away, leaving him to stand on his own.
Now I understood. The prince had been waiting for Gerick to leave Karon before casting his spell of oblivion.
The circular chamber was cold; the wall of fire that hurled itself to the pearl-gray dome above us—the Heir’s Gate—was enchantment, not true flame. Someone had erected a monumental bronze sculpture in the vast chamber, a rampant lion, the symbol of the ancient king who had built the Gate and the Bridge. The sinewy beast, twice the height of a man and almost growling in its vigorous presence, balanced globes of gold and silver on its upraised paws—symbols of the two worlds linked by D’Arnath’s Bridge, I guessed. Though the piece was inarguably impressive and beautifully rendered, it felt out of place in a chamber of such enchanted antiquity.
The door to the outer passage burst open and two men, vastly differing in height, hurried in. “My lord prince”—the taller of the two bowed to Ven’Dar, and then turned to me and did the same—“and Lady Seriana, Bareil has told me . . . such a grievous circumstance for our reunion.” He squatted down beside us, took Karon’s limp hand, and bowed his head over it, closing his eyes. “My good lord,” he whispered, “I am so sorry.”
If someone told me that the sculpted figures that graced the gates of Avonar, proclaiming the Dar’Nethi ideals of physical perfection, had taken human form, I would avow that Je’Reint was one of them. Long elegant bones defined his features and his tight, lean body. He was descended from a rare Dar’Nethi family group almost entirely wiped out in the Catastrophe; his skin gleamed a rich mahogany in color. Even the scar of his slave collar—he had spent the last three years of the war in bondage—had faded into his deep coloring.
Ven’Dar had sent Je’Reint to us for a month-long stay the year before, so I knew that the young man’s intelligence and talent were a match for his appearance. He was a Perceiver, one who could hear and feel the emotional nuances in speech and communicate his own with clarity. We had been delighted to hear that the childless Ven’Dar had named the thoughtful young man his successor.
I took Je’Reint’s proffered hand and felt his sympathy and willingness to be of service take palpable form around me, building a wall of comfort and inviting me to lean on it.
Behind Je’Reint waited a neat, diminutive man with a well-trimmed black beard and dark, almond-shaped eyes. In Karon’s years as Prince of Avonar, the Dulcé Bareil had served as his madrissé—a repository of knowledge and wisdom accessible only to his linked Dar’Nethi partner—as well as his faithful friend and companion. “We’ve brought a litter,” he said.
Ven’Dar led us up the sloping way of a softly lit passage into a bare, musty chamber. “I’m going to take you out of the palace,” he said. “Though I’d be honored to have you stay here, you’ll be more comfortable and more private elsewhere.”
I understood. To protect our anonymity would be difficult in the bustling royal residence. The Dar’Nethi believed that the last direct descendant of King D’Arnath, Prince D’Natheil, had been killed in the final battle with the Lords of Zhev’Na five years before. And truly the last remnants of D’Natheil’s soul had died that day. Only a handful of
people knew that D’Natheil’s body still lived, inhabited by Karon’s soul and spirit as it had been for eleven years now. Karon, stripped of the Heir’s powers when he abandoned D’Natheil’s soul beyond the Verges, had joyfully yielded D’Natheil’s office to the man he had anointed as his successor. Together they had chosen to let the people believe that D’Natheil had died to save them and that Gerick had remained the Fourth Lord of Zhev’Na, corrupted in childhood and executed by his father in that final battle. Unraveling the complex layers of deception that had been required to lure the Lords to their destruction would be far too distracting for a people who needed to remember what their life had been before the ancient Catastrophe had almost destroyed them. Our public reappearance could not fail to open old wounds and old fears. Karon needed peace and care, not to be the center of an uproar.
Ven’Dar scribed a circle on the floor of the chamber with a beam of light from his hand, stood in its center, and began working some enchantment. While I sat beside the litter, stroking Karon’s brow, Bareil conversed quietly with Gerick and Paulo. Je’Reint stayed apart, leaning against the doorway, arms folded and eyes fixed on Gerick. Je’Reint knew our son’s story, of course, and had expressed an eagerness to meet him, so his coolness was a bit surprising. To be fair, Gerick did not invite introduction. Our son’s nature was anything but gregarious.
After a tedious half-hour, a wavering distortion hung in the air above the circle. The prince exhaled slowly, rubbing his forehead. “My apologies for the delay. I must be more tired than I thought.”
Gerick, Paulo, Bareil, and Je’Reint carried Karon’s litter through the enchanted portal.