by Carol Berg
Her cheeks were flushed; her windblown hair settled around her face like a golden cloud; and her clear eyes reflected the sun that poked angled beams through the thinning clouds. “You sit fair yourself, sir. Where did you learn to ride?”
Would that I could have said “in my father’s house” or “in my village in the Vale of Maroth” or even “on the bare green hills of Comigor in the mundane world across the Bridge.” But I had not come here to make her smile at me. “I’ve ridden since I can remember,” I said, “but I only mastered it in Zhev’Na.”
And before I could prevent them, the images filled my head: of Fengara, the Zhid riding master, forcing me to ride my bad-tempered mount between blazing desert scrub, of endless hours in the scorching desert with sand in my mouth and bruises upon bruises from being thrown because she wouldn’t let me use the reins or she’d driven the horse mad with visions of slavering wolves. I saw myself riding a gauntlet of screaming Dar’-Nethi slaves who had been lashed until their flesh was in ribbons and their bones bare, just so I could learn how to control my mount when the blood madness was upon it. I tried to concentrate on the green meadow sparkling in the returning sunlight.
“So I was right,” she said softly. “I knew it when I saw you. How long were you there?”
“Almost two years,” I said. “I was taken when I was ten. Rescued when I was twelve.” Though bound to the Lords for four more until my father set me free. But I wasn’t ready to tell her about the unique nature of my association with the masters of Zhev’Na.
“Rescued,” she said, her lips parted in an expression of wonder, even as her eyes filled with tears that did not fall. “I didn’t know anyone was rescued from Zhev’Na. I prayed for it, hoped, wept for it every night for three long years. My father was the High King of Gondai, the most powerful of all Dar’Nethi, and he loved me as the earth loves the sky. But he never rescued me.”
“I was fortunate.”
Her gaze swept over me with the intensity of desert noonday. “You were not Zhid, not if you were taken so young. And you were not a slave, not if they taught you to ride. . . .”
“No.”
She searched my face, her own so filled with sorrow and pity that I wanted to look away for shame at the lies I would tell her. But I kept my gaze steady.
“I heard them plan to steal Dar’Nethi children,” she said, “to turn their souls without devouring them as they did those of the Zhid. They said it would be their sweetest revenge. I never knew whether they were successful at it.”
“The Lords succeeded at most things they tried.”
“Indeed.”
She clucked her tongue, and the gray took off at a slow, easy walk up a narrow rift into the surrounding foothills. The path followed a grass-bordered brook that poked like a crooked finger of green through the barren crags. After a last steep climb, we came to a level spot where the stream rose from under the rocks, pooling in a rocky depression before splashing down the gorge we had just traveled. A few willows leaned over the pool, and starlike white flowers on long stalks grew out of the rocks. To one side of the track a jumble of rocks piled one upon the other towered over us. To the other side, beyond the pool and the willows, a huge boulder, cracked by millennia of freezing and thawing, hung out high over Grithna Vale.
“I like to come to this spot to remind myself I’m not there any more.” She dismounted and knelt beside the pool, scooping a handful of water to drink. “Fifty paces farther up the trail and you’re looking out on the northern Wastes. The sight of it forces you to remember. But here the water is pure and sweet, and you can see only beauty and life.”
I slipped from the saddle and walked out on the boulder. The Vales lay like deep folds of green, stretching all the way back to the mountain-ringed city of Avonar, invisible in the distance. Though every instinct told me it was beautiful, the green-and-blue vista of tree and valley and sky repelled me. The Lords had nurtured and honed my senses and instincts for war, nothing more. Nine years of discovering how badly they had warped my perceptions had done nothing to correct them.
However, I had decided long before that I reaped no profit in worrying about such things. The important matter was that if D’Sanya could see beauty where my senses found only ugliness, then what had been done to her was different than what had been done to me. I needed to understand it, and after what I’d already revealed, I had the right to ask.
I turned back to face her, but remained where I was on the rock. “I know everyone in Avonar has asked you questions . . . made you prove who you are. But have you ever told anyone all of it: about Zhev’Na . . . what it was like . . . what happened to you there?”
She trailed her hand idly in the silky water. “How could I? I remember so little. I lived there for three and a half years. Then the Lords tired of me and sent me to sleep for a thousand. And who, except for one like you, could possibly understand what I had to tell? I’m not there any more. I’m not what they wanted me to be. Nothing else is important.”
“My father told me that if I kept it all hidden, I could never be rid of it.”
Her lips parted and eyes widened. “You told him? The things you’d done, the things they made you do?”
“Yes.”
“He forgave you for it?”
“He said no forgiveness was necessary.”
“And did you believe that?”
I wanted to answer her. My father was the most generous of spirits, and he loved me very much, a grace I could not yet fully comprehend. But even he could not understand everything. The question hung heavy, like a sodden pennant waiting for a gust of wind to unfurl it.
D’Sanya stretched and stood up, wandering over to her horse and stroking his neck while he nuzzled her pockets. The sun glared behind her hair like a fiery corona. “It’s late. I should get back to my guests.”
The things I’d done, the things they made me do . . . I gave her a hand up, mounted my own horse, and followed her slowly down the path, wishing she would break the silence so I would have an easier time dismissing the vision of a Zhid warrior I’d lashed until his flesh spattered on my clothes, or the ones with blackened lips and swollen tongues who had died raving in the desert when I withheld their water to test their loyalty.
Neither of us spoke until we reached the bottom of the rift.
“You intrigue me, sir.” Tilting her head to look at me, D’Sanya smiled, reigniting the joy and mischief in her eyes. Perhaps she’d been seeing visions, too. “You seem to take it in stride that I am ten centuries old, yet can best you in a horse race. I’ve met no one else who can do that. I’ll have to learn more of you.”
“Only if I may request the same privilege,” I said, a vibrant warmth spreading like plague to my every bone and muscle. “And I can best anyone in a horse race except my friend Paulo—especially a woman of such advanced age.”
I dug my knees into Nacre’s flanks and took out across the meadow at a gallop, shouting wordlessly for no reason, relishing the smooth surge of muscled power beneath me and the stretch of thigh and back as I leaned into the wind, winning by surprise what I could never have won by plan. She took the jump over the last fence no more than a tail’s length behind me. Flushed and laughing, she almost leaped off the stallion when I offered her my gloved hand.
“When will you return for a rematch?” she said.
“I’ll be here every day for a while. I’ve thought to stay in Gaelie for several weeks so I can be with my father often . . . to be sure . . .”
“Will you see him before you leave today?”
“I planned to bid him good night.”
From the direction of the main house, a tall gray man—Na’Cyd, the consiliar—hurried toward us, a Dulcé at his side. “My lady, we have—”
D’Sanya held out a hand to stay him before he could reach us. She fixed her eyes on me, and I felt the blood racing to my face yet again. Her expression was never static, but shifted in subtle ways, soft, engaged, not smiling, yet pleased and filled
with anticipation. If a man could grow wings and stand the first time on a cliff top, he could not feel such a mixture of promise and peril as I felt under D’Sanya’s eye. “May I come with you? I’d like to become better acquainted with your father, I think. Would my intrusion disturb him?”
“Not in the least. He’ll welcome it.” Surely my father could do better than I in the matter of investigation.
The stableman took my horse, promising to have him ready to leave in half an hour. The impassive Na’Cyd stood beside a grape arbor, arms folded, watching as the Lady and I left the stableyard. We strolled through the golden light, across a wide lawn and through the steep angled shadows of courtyards and cloisters to my father’s door.
“I’ve brought a lady to say good evening, Father,” I called out as I tapped on his door and pushed it open wider. “I told her you wouldn’t mind.”
“Certainly not!” He was sitting in the chair by the far windows again and jumped up as we walked in.
“Your son does not grant you the same courtesy you gave him, sir,” said the Lady, laughing, “but presumes to answer for you. I only wished—”
The Lady’s words fell to the side like a dropped anvil when my father stepped into the evening glow from his windows, extended his palms, and bowed to her. Her hand flew to her throat.
“You were a slave.” Her voice sounded dead, all gaiety fled in a instant’s change.
My father looked puzzled, until his own hand touched the red scar from the slave collar glaring unmistakably above the loose neck of his shirt. “Yes,” he said softly.
“I was.”
“I’m sorry,” said D’Sanya, softly. “So sorry. I didn’t know.” Tears rolled down her pale cheeks, all the flush of the day’s enjoyment vanished.
“What is it?” I said.
“Please forgive me. I just—I shouldn’t intrude. Good night to you both.” She nodded and hurried away, leaving us both staring after her.
I told my father briefly of our ride and our conversation, and we puzzled at her behavior. A great number of ex-slaves lived in Avonar. Surely the Lady had seen the scars before. She’d certainly seen the truer horror; the scars were benign beside the reality of slavery in Zhev’Na. By the time I needed to leave, we’d devised no likely explanation.
“Ride carefully, son.”
I bade him good night and set out for the stable and the road to Gaelie.
When I reached the inn, Paulo was loitering about the fringes of the guesthouse’s crowded common room, where almost the whole town had gathered to talk about disturbing news. “Another village attacked,” he said after working his way across the crowded room to join me by the door. “They’re thinking it looked like Zhid work. Do you think that’s possible?”
I shrugged and threaded a path toward the stairs. I was here to help my father. Anything else was the responsibility of the Dar’Nethi.
“This time all the bodies were still there.” He followed me up the stair. “It was crazy, looked like they’d done for each other: men fallen with their knives in each other’s guts, women who’d smothered their children then slit their own throats . . .”
... hangings . . . houses burned with the occupants locked inside . . . murder between brothers . . . neighbors . . . husbands and wives . . . hatred and madness erupted into destruction and slaughter. I knew exactly what he described. I’d seen it. Powers of earth and sky forgive me, I’d caused such things to happen and then fed on the hatred, terror, and despair I’d caused, until my power was so monstrous I could melt rocks with a flick of my eyelash.
“What is it?” As we walked into our room, he took a breath and examined me. “You look like you’ve eaten something rotten.”
“Nothing. Nothing I can help with.”
I was not a Lord of Zhev’Na. Twice I had chosen to leave the Three and their gifts of power and immortality behind. My father and I had risked death to destroy them. The last strikes of failing Zhid were not my responsibility.
I dropped my packs on the floor. “Tomorrow I’ve got to go back to the hospice. See what this damnable woman is about, so we can go home.” I had my own people, my own kingdom, to worry about.
“What do you want me to do?”
I undid the straps on the saddlepacks and pulled out a bundle of letters and a list my father had given me. “If you can force yourself to return to Mistress Aimee’s house, take these letters to my mother and give the list to Bareil. Ven’Dar said he would send Bareil back to Windham to retrieve anything my father needed, and this list describes where he can find all my father’s notes on Dar’Nethi history. He said that as long as he wasn’t dying, he might as well have something to do.”
Paulo knew exactly what all of this meant for my father, how he would prefer to be dying than to be sitting in D’Sanya’s house neither dead nor alive. Yet, the thought of him gone . . . “Shit.”
Exactly.
Darkness had fallen as I rode down Grithna Vale toward Gaelie, but it wasn’t as dark as my dreams that night. As I suspected might happen, they took me back to Zhev’Na, deep into the heart of the horror I had lived. When gray dawn woke me the next morning, the last voice to fade was Lord Ziddari’s, repeating the farewell he’d whispered as I left him beyond the Verges: “Heed my last word, Destroyer. You will never be free of us. No matter in what realm we exist at the end of this day, you will not escape the destiny we designed for you. You are our instrument. Our Fourth. Every human soul—mundane or Dar’Nethi—will curse the day you first drew breath.”
CHAPTER 7
For three days running, I rode the two hours up Grithna Vale to D’Sanya’s hospice, spent the day with my father, then rode the two hours back to Gaelie without so much as a glimpse of the Lady. My father saw her only rarely and discovered nothing we didn’t know already: She was beautiful, kind, powerful, generous, discreet, charming. He felt no further change in his own condition, and I detected none. He was numb, and our investigation was going nowhere.
In Gaelie I tried talking to the proprietor of the guesthouse, but the granite-faced Mistress A’Diana could tell me nothing but that those who brought their kin to the hospice were the happier for it. Who wouldn’t be, she said, to have a loved one living free of pain and disease when it was thought all hope was past? No, she’d never heard of anyone wanting to leave the hospice once they’d lived there, nor anyone who’d thought they’d made a mistake to send their friends or kin to the Lady. No, she’d never spoken to the Lady, only seen her kindness, and now would I get on with my own business for she, the innkeeper, had a full house of linens to wash.
Every evening that Paulo was gone I spent alone in the common room feeling awkward and useless. The same people were there every day: the parties of Tree Delvers from the Wastes, the two Gardeners, brothers it appeared, who stopped in for supper every night, and the dark-haired youth hunched over his table alone in the corner by the stair. The young man and wife sought endless consultations with endless streams of people over their painted cards—something about the prospects of talents in an expected child.
Inheritance was a magical thing to the Dar’Nethi. Adoption, disinheritance, and mentoring could influence a child’s magical abilities as decisively as blood relationships. That’s why my father’s revival in D’Natheil’s body had made me the prospective Heir of D’Arnath with all the power and control such descent implied, even though I was not born of D’Arnath’s blood.
Paulo returned in three days, riding in after I’d completed yet another fruitless venture up the Vale. On the next morning I was able to take my father a stack of books and notes from the writing he’d abandoned when he’d fallen ill and another bundle of letters from my mother. She must be doing nothing but writing letters.
“Perhaps now I can think about something other than the state of my belly,” said my father as I pulled the bundles of journals and papers from the bags and dropped them on his table. “Constant self-examination is unutterably boring, whether the result is pleasing or otherw
ise. At least when I was ill I had people fussing over me.”
As before, his first activity was to read my mother’s letters, the first of many readings, I guessed. He sat in his chair and broke the seals one after the other. I tied up my empty bags and poured myself a glass of wine.
“Your mother’s not happy being cooped up at Gar’-Dena’s house,” he said, waving the current missive at me, his spirits noticeably improved. “Ven’Dar doesn’t think she should be seen about the city, in case anyone should recognize her or get too curious about Aimee’s guest. But she’s already wheedled Aimee into taking her to hear a Singer who comes to Avonar next week.”
“Mistress Aimee doesn’t have a chance,” I said, sitting on one of the hard chairs beside his eating table and propping my boots on the other one. “She’s too nice.”
“I don’t know. Maybe the girl has more grit than we know. Your mother’s been trying to find out her feelings about Je’Reint. She says that the cook is certain that Aimee has an understanding with Je’Reint and that they’re just waiting to announce it until ‘the matter of the succession is settled.’ But Seri can’t get Aimee to reveal anything, and it’s about to drive her mad. She writes: ‘The girl just blushes and says Je’Reint is a noble gentleman whose Way will lead him to great honor, even if he is not to be Heir.’ Poor Paulo.”
“Better not tell him. If he gets any lower about Mistress Aimee, he’ll have to reach up to shoe his horse.” I wanted to shake the woman. “If she could just see him . . .”
“I think she sees better than people credit,” said my father. “But she’s young and generous, and believes she should offer her best to everyone, no matter her personal feelings. And she must be conscious of her position, the daughter of powerful family. For a Dar’Nethi to consider an attachment outside her—”
“To a mundane, you mean. A fellow with no power, who can’t read, and who’d be happy living in a stable, but who just happens to have the best heart.”