by Carol Berg
"Are you all right?" I said.
"Gods—" He grabbed my hand and turned back to the cliff where the crystal wall appeared as an exceptionally polished sheet of ice. "It's my father."
"I must go," he said, as soon as we stepped back into the Chamber of the Gate. "I'll come back, if you want, answer more questions and help you understand this, but I need to be at the hospice now. Please, Ven'Dar. My father is dying. Send guards if you wish. Bind me if it suits you. But you've more than enough to think about for a few hours while I'm gone."
Ven'Dar answered first. "Of course, you should be free to go. We've had enough for now."
The Preceptors had not embraced Gerick, but somewhere along the way, they had come to believe in him. Since we had come to the Chamber, they had spoken nothing of punishments or prison, only of study and investigation. The four agreed that Gerick could go, two of them somewhat reluctantly, but they insisted he return to Avonar as soon as possible and work with Garvй and others to determine what this new order might mean. "You have much to answer for," L'Beres pronounced.
Gerick would have agreed to anything to be gone. Even the brief delay as Ven'Dar shut down the portal to the palace and rebuilt one to the hospice had him grinding his teeth. But as he stepped to the threshold, he turned back and extended his hand. "Jen'Larie, would you … ?"
"They don't need me here," I said. Even if he had stayed in Avonar, it was time for me to go. I'd been away from my father long enough. I turned to Ven'Dar.
The former prince—whom I suspected would be our prince again—tipped his head toward the portal. "Your service has been incalculable, Jen, both in your testimony and in deep and abiding ways that no story of these days will ever report. Go. Do as you need. And believe."
The night was warm and still as Gerick and I stepped out of the portal at the main house of the hospice, just in front of the porch where D'Sanya had greeted her guests in her filmy white gowns. As we ran up the steps and through the deserted passages, I wondered, unworthily, if Gerick would ever be rid of the image of her. Of course, his thoughts were elsewhere now. The sound of women singing hung on the air as we cut through the unlit library and through the upper courtyard gardens, down the few steps past the fountains and rose arbors, and into the lower gardens. One glance, and I knew he was too late.
The lower garden was a sea of white lights, the small round handlights that Dar'Nethi used in funeral processions. Fifty people or more stood amid the overgrown roses and graceful willows. The men joined the singing with a countermelody. The Song of the Way , intertwined melodies of grief and joy, was always sung to celebrate the passing of the Heirs of D'Arnath.
Na'Cyd stood well apart from the crowd, on the steps near the fountain that marked the lower garden. He neither cast a handlight nor did he sing. But he bowed wordlessly to us and led us through the mass of people, parting them briskly with his hand.
Prince D'Natheil lay still on the soft grass, his blue robes gracefully arranged, peace on his handsome features. Lady Seriana sat beside him, holding his hand to her forehead. One might have thought them a Sculptor's creation, set in that garden to remind us of love and mortality.
I hung back as Gerick hurried across the circle of mourners to his parents. As he knelt and laid his forehead on his father's breast, I scanned the faces in the crowd, missing the one I needed most to see. I turned quickly.
"He remains in his apartment," said Na'Cyd, his eyes fixed on the three in the grass.
I sped through the gardens and courtyards, suddenly unable to move fast enough to get there. No lights burned in either garden or residence as I slipped through Papa's door. His breathing, quick and shallow to manage his pain, led me to the open window where he sat in the dark, crooked and bent. The glorious song drifted on the cool air like a promise of spring, though my heart ached with all the griefs of winter. What was happening to me? I said nothing as I knelt in front of him, laid my head in his lap, and let his hand on my ugly hair Speak to me of love.
Gerick
One year from the day my father died, my mother stood before two hundred scholars in the history lecture hall at the University in Valleor wearing the billowing black robe and blue sash of an Honorary Lecturer in Ancient History. With the strong, clear voice of a woman of intellect, education, and experience, and with an intensity that demanded every mind in the room open and every ear hear, she spoke of an extraordinary event in the history of the Four Realms—the day four hundred and seventy years in the past when the King of Leire, one Bosgard by name, had issued a decree that every member of a single race was to be exterminated. They were to be hunted down and burned to death, their lands and fortunes forfeit, their homes laid waste, their names forever obliterated from the councils of the land. Any man or woman who consorted with members of the condemned race or failed to report them was likewise condemned.
By the grace of His Majesty, Evard, the late King of Leire, had this decree been lifted, and at the command of Her Majesty Roxanne, Queen of Leire, had one Karon yn Mandille, a historian, archeologist, and physician of Valleor been required to prepare a history of the decree of extermination, its origins, and its results. On this day, said my mother, she would present the first of twenty-six lectures on the work he had completed before his death.
For two hours, she held the room spellbound in the grip of her story—my father's story—my story—and she had scarcely even begun. When she closed her notes and said, "Until next week," the room erupted into the chaos of excitement and discovery. From every side came questions, demands for more time, more words, more of the truth they had never even suspected.
She remained an island of serenity in the center of the storm, patiently telling them to come back and hear more. They would hear the truth of a universe that was larger than they had ever imagined. They would understand.
Throughout all of this, I sat on the back row of the lecture hall and watched as the circle of admirers and skeptics drifted away, still chattering and murmuring. My mother's eyes roved the empty chairs until they landed on me, not surprised in the least to see me there, though I'd not told her I was coming and had not seen her for almost half a year.
Her smile banished the shadows. "What questions would my students have had if they'd known the King of the Bounded, the most powerful sorcerer in three worlds, was sitting in the hall?"
"A small wonder beside the first woman ever to give a lecture at this University," I said. "Someday we may have a university in the Bounded, and I needed to know if a woman could teach men anything."
She laughed. "This is all your doing, isn't it? How else could Roxanne have known to command the Chancellor to allow it? For me to stand here . .." She waved toward the vaulted ceiling and the tall windows of colored glass, to the ancient lectern, and to the rows of seats where every scholar of the Four Realms had sat at one time or another. Where my father had once sat.
"I only mentioned it to her. It wasn't my idea." I strolled down the long flight of steps, the stone worn into concavity by the generations of students who had trod them, each step a little too wide to take in one stride, a little too shallow to require two. "But I had to be here. I was asked to give you something when this day came."
Into my mother's hands I placed the long, thin parcel I'd brought with me, wrapped in green silk and tied with a green velvet ribbon. For one instant her cheeks lost their flush of exhilaration, but as she unwrapped the parcel, her graceful fingers ever so slightly trembling, her soft smile drew the sweet coloring back again. The dew-drops on the soft petals that were just on the verge of opening seemed a reflection of the tears in her eyes.
But her tears did not fall. Rather she inhaled the scent of the flower and glowed with happiness. "He still cheats death," she said after a moment, laying her hand on my cheek. "To see you is to see his best self. He lives."
I had only begun to understand the magic that could create a rose of such glorious perfection and lasting beauty. This one had lived a year already. My father had des
igned it to bloom fresh and fragrant at my mother's bedside, the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing she saw at night, for as long as she drew breath.
"So tell me all your news," said my mother, as she directed me to gather and stack up her papers. She would not relinquish the rose.
"Paulo sends his best. He wanted to be here today in the worst way, but he won't leave Aimee and little Seriana and is terrified to take them traveling as yet."
I put a hand under my mother's elbow as we started up the stair, but she didn't need it. I felt the strength in her steps. "I don't know if I can wait until Seule to see them," she said. "A granddaughter . . . earth and sky . . ."
"You should have seen Paulo's face when Aimee told him she was in that way." I grinned, as always when I remembered that moment. "I don't know whether he was more embarrassed that someone might guess what he and Aimee had been up to since they came back to the Bounded, or more terrified at the prospect of being a father to a human child instead of a foal. He's been working so hard at his schooling for fear of this child being born better read than he, he'll likely be giving lectures here next year."
"And Aimee is happy in the Bounded?"
"She says so. I think she would be happy in a pit if Paulo were there with her. The Singlars adore her, calling her 'the Golden One who Sees All' and she gives them so much—showing them how their ideas could change the world."
We left the lecture hall and crossed the foyer to the heavy outer doors.
"And what of the good king of your land? How does he fare?"
I knew my mother worried excessively, afraid that D'Sanya and the deeds she had forced me to had left scars worse than those the Lords had given me. I had caused my father's death and driven D'Sanya into madness. Avonar would forever bear the scars of my war, and the Dar'Nethi would always fear me. My memories had not vanished and would not. When I worked sorcery, the temptations of power would always require me to choose the light again.
Yet, I had tried to reassure my mother that I had at last begun to understand the Dar'Nethi Way. Pain is life. Scars are life. Guilt and dreadful memory . . . those, too, are part of the pattern we weave as we walk this world. But somehow, when viewed in the vast perspective of a life lived fully, they take on less overpowering significance. Still, she worried, and so on this visit I had brought evidence I thought might alleviate her concerns a little.
I stayed determinedly somber. "Some things have happened. Serious things."
She stopped at the door and looked at me with her stubborn stare that allowed no hiding. All my plans of subterfuge and clever misdirection evaporated, and I started laughing as I shoved open the door and nudged her through it into the autumn afternoon. "He fares exceedingly well, as it happens. On my last visit to Gondai, I devised a way that a few of the most powerful Dar'Nethi, ones that Prince Ven'Dar chooses, can traverse the wall without my help. Well, a few weeks ago, Je'Reirit came for a short visit to explore the Bounded and to discuss how we should manage it all. And he brought a companion who had stormed the palace, stubbornly demanding to accompany him. His companion, a Speaker of growing influence, drove us to distraction for three lights gathering information and experience for a solid judgment of our land, and then refused to leave the Bounded when Je'Reint returned to Gondai. . . ."
My traveling companion was perched on the top of an ancient brick wall, her knees drawn up, and her eyes closed as the golden sunlight bathed her face. She didn't even move before she started in on us. "And why should I go back when the Bounded is far more interesting, and clearly in need of someone with some proper organizational skills? And certain royal persons seem sadly lacking in the disciplines of mathematics and natural science, not to mention some of the rudimentary applications of true talent."
She blinked her eyes open and smiled at my mother as if I weren't present. "Je'Reint promised to bring Papa on his next visit so that I would be properly chaperoned. Did you hear, my lady, that some mysterious person came to Gondai behind my back and enabled Papa . . . strengthened him … so that he was able to endure a healing for his back, and then left again before we could even thank him? That same person has aided every survivor of the hospice in like manner, and even poor J'Savan the Gardener, who now tends a small farm in Lyrrathe Vale. Papa will adore the Bounded. A new life, born of our trials. I can hear him say it even now." She turned her face back to the sun, and though she closed her eyes again, she could no longer hold in her teasing smile.
"Thank you for waiting," I said as I encircled her waist with my hands and lifted her down, kissing the eyes she stubbornly held closed. "Mother, you remember Jen'Larie?"
Seri
I watched them together for an hour, and listened to Jen describe the marvels of Gerick's world and the intelligence, strength, and compassion he brought to his work, as if I had never recognized the gifts of my beautiful son. Gerick said little, as usual, but his eyes never left her and his mouth seemed perpetually on the verge of a smile.
When it came time for them to go, Jen kissed my cheek and whispered, "He sleeps well, my lady, and is at peace. Is he not gloriously dear?"
And then Gerick kissed my other cheek and whispered, "She has brought light to the Bounded, Mother. Is she not a wonder beyond wonders?"
Then Gerick made a small gesture with his hand, and they waved and walked into a burst of light that warmed the day.
They didn't need any answer from me. But I called after them, "Yes!" And as the light of their enchantment faded, I smiled, inhaled the sweet scent of Karon's rose, and strolled down University Hill. Friends were waiting; I had things to do. Life was not done with me yet.
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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