Son of Avonar

by Carol Berg

  Neither D’Natheil nor Baglos questioned my judgment, though I questioned myself often enough as we left Yurevan behind us and raced through the dark countryside. But luck rode with us, for we saw no sign of pursuit. The parkland and orchard were silent as we slipped into Ferrante’s stableyard, the cherry trees as still and somber as grave-stones in the night. D’Natheil carried the insensible Tennice through the kitchen garden, back the way we had come only one long day before. The house was dark and deserted. Still no sign of Ferrante’s servants. I tried not to think about the professor, frozen in his death terror just up the stairs.

  D’Natheil laid Tennice on the tidy white bed in the steward’s bedchamber, neatly tucked away next to the kitchen, while I collected candles, water, brandy, and clean towels. Baglos set about lighting the stove, promising to put water on to heat as soon as he had the fire going.

  When I returned to the bedchamber, D’Natheil was sitting on the bed beside Tennice, studying him intently, brushing the graying hair from Tennice’s thin face. The wavering candlelight revealed the burdens of the day written on D’Natheil as clearly as the bloodstains drying on his shirt. “He’s fevered.” The young man’s voice was hoarse and soft.

  Fever . . . so soon. “Let’s get his shirt off.” Using Celine’s little knife, crammed in my pocket and still bearing the blood of prince and healer, I cut away Tennice’s shirt. The wound in his side was a ragged, ugly gash, the skin around it red and fiercely hot, very like the injury D’Natheil had had when he first came to me. As I sponged the wound with brandy and water to loosen the last stiff fragments of linen, Tennice moaned pitifully. Worrisome to remember how ill the young, strong D’Natheil had been. Tennice must be past fifty and had never been robust. I covered the gash with a clean towel and ripped another in half to tie the first in place.

  “I need to see if they have medicines here,” I said. “Stone-root or woundwort, willowbark for his fever. Ferrante’s cook used herbs from Kellea’s shop. Maybe they have other things.”

  Baglos hovered like a worried moth at his master’s side. “I would seek out these things for you,” he said, tapping his fingertips together rapidly, “but I have no knowledge of them today.”

  D’Natheil touched the Dulcé’s shoulder. “Detan detu, Dulcé. Find the medicines for the lady.”

  Such a transformation came over Baglos in that instant that I could have been no more surprised if he had grown two heads taller. No longer hesitant, no longer unsure, the almond-eyed man bent his knee to D’Natheil and said with calm confidence, “Detan eto, Giré D’Arnath.”

  “You’ve remembered,” I said, as Baglos left the room.

  “Not precisely,” said D’Natheil, as he watched me wipe Tennice’s brow with a damp cloth. “I know the words to command the Dulcé, which I did not know this morning or yesterday, but I cannot say I remember. Nothing tells me that I ever knew how.”

  “But Baglos will bring what I want?”

  “If any such thing is to be found here.”

  I spooned a few drops of brandy into Tennice’s mouth, then shot another glance at D’Natheil, who had stepped away from the bedside, his hands clasped behind his back, and was examining the furnishings of the room. “Do you know other things that you didn’t before?”

  “No. Except for your language, as you see. Before tonight it was like the speech of animals—nothing recognizable. Only the words you taught me had meaning. Dassine’s message was like a key inserted into a lock, all the tumblers falling into place about it. But that is not ‘remembering.’ ”

  “So you didn’t learn the rest of his message or what made Celine laugh before she died and say . . . the words she said?”

  “I know no more than you.”

  While I cleaned blood and soot from Tennice’s face and hands, D’Natheil leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching me. I urged him to have some of the brandy for himself, so he would not lose what little voice he had regained, but he shook his head, indulging in the surer remedy of silence.

  Soon Baglos returned and genuflected to his master. “It is done, my lord.” Then he presented me with two paper packets. One held small heart-shaped leaves and was marked “for lacerations, scrapes, burns, festerings, mortifications.” The other held strips of rough, gray bark.

  “They’re exactly what I wanted,” I said. “Thank you. Both of you.”

  D’Natheil nodded. Baglos beamed, his delight dimmed only when Tennice moaned in his sleep.

  “When your water is boiling, we need to soak the bark. . . .” I instructed Baglos on how to prepare willowbark tea and what I would need to make a poultice of stone-root leaves for the wound. An hour later the bark was steeping, and I was tying a bandage over the dressed wound.

  “Is there anything else to do for him?” Baglos asked, fussing about the sheets and pillows as Tennice’s breath came harsh and uneven.

  “Someone needs to stay with him. Give him the willowbark tea, if he settles or wakes. Later, when he can take it, we’ll need broth or gruel to sustain him. It’s all I know to do.”

  We agreed that I would take the first watch. The Dulcé said he would find ingredients for broth and start it simmering, and then get some rest until I called him to take my place.

  I glanced around the bedchamber, orderly and spare as one would expect for the room of the steward of a well-run household. A clothes chest with a stack of clean, folded linen set on top of it, a wooden chair and footstool in the corner and a candle table beside—now littered with cups and spoons—a small desk holding a crisp ledger, pens, paper, and stoppered ink bottle, a washing stand set with comb, razor knife, and a stack of small leather boxes of the type to hold collars and belts, buckles and fasteners.

  Rummaging in the steward’s clothes chest, I found a clean nightshirt, soft and thin from years of wearing. I asked D’Natheil to help me lift Tennice and get the shirt on him. The young man did as I directed. As I peeled the remains of Tennice’s shirt from his back, D’Natheil’s eyes narrowed. “What is this on the back of him? He is no warrior. Nor slave, nor servant either, by his manner.”

  On Tennice’s back were the knotted, ugly telltales of my friend’s captivity. Shy, scholarly, brilliant Tennice . . . My stomach clenched with anger and revulsion. “He was beaten,” I said. “Cruelly beaten, put to the sword, and left for dead. Those in power wanted him to betray his friends, to tell our king that my husband and our friend were planning to steal his throne. Tennice didn’t want to say anything that would make our fate worse. He tried very hard.”

  “But he did as this king wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Betrayed his comrades—your husband, your friends?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He should have died in silence. With honor.” The Prince sounded as though he needed to scour his hands. “How is it you still care for him?” His scorn was hot on my own back.

  After we settled Tennice on the pillows, I tied the loose neck of the nightshirt and drew up the blanket. “It wasn’t Tennice’s fault. Karon forgave it, and I know the others did, too.”

  “To forgive such a betrayal—”

  “Forgiveness has nothing to do with the offense or its consequences, only with the heart. They needed no proof of Tennice’s love, and they’d have done anything to spare him this. They were going to die anyway. There was no honor in any of it.”

  “You must hate the ones responsible for such deeds.”

  “For many years I hated them, but now . . . I don’t know. Hatred won’t undo what’s been done.”

  D’Natheil gazed down at the sick man for a moment. Then he walked out of the room.

  I watched Tennice long into that night, holding him as he thrashed and moaned in delirium, sponging his face and hands when he sank into a feverish stupor. While he was quiet, I occupied my thoughts with the incredible events of the evening. It was impossible to grieve for Celine. She had been so full of joy in her going. I could not regret bringing her purpose and laughter at the en
d of her life. Kellea was a different matter. To leave her loose with the knowledge and anger she bore—and so close to the Zhid—was a risk. But the girl was surely capable of defending herself. We couldn’t take her prisoner.

  And Dassine . . . such an incredible story. Two worlds, reflections of each other. What had made J’Ettanne’s people forget their duty? Corruption? Fear? Perhaps simply living in a world that was not their own had dulled and destroyed their memory. I could understand that. Perhaps they had felt what was happening to them, and created their stories and traditions, Av’Kenat and all, in an attempt to remedy it. Whatever they had done, it seemed it had not been enough.

  Storytelling had been such a part of Karon. How he would have relished this one. So much explained about his people. A tale of wonder, he would say, and his eyes would slip out of focus and he would lose himself in the imagining, building his power as he experienced every adventure for himself.

  As the night slipped away, my thoughts lingered on Karon as they had not since the day I had walked out of Evard’s palace. For all these years I had refused even to think his name, though reminders of him lurked everywhere like thorns waiting to draw blood: a dew-laden rose, the whisper of rain moving across the meadow, the morning sun at just the angle he had declared to be the most perfect—

  The floor creaked. Startled from dreamy dozing, I almost leaped out of the chair I’d pulled up to Tennice’s bedside. The candles had gone out, and someone stood poised at the edge of the shadows. “I came to see if all was well with you and your friend.”

  “Yes. Thank you, D’Natheil,” I stammered, smoothing my tunic and pushing the hair out of my eyes. “Tennice is asleep. I must have fallen asleep, too. I need to fetch Baglos.”

  He was already gone again. As I walked into the kitchen to wake the Dulcé, I shuddered slightly. The scent of roses still lingered from my dreaming.

  CHAPTER 23

  For more than a week, Tennice hovered between life and death. Baglos and I got enough tea and broth into him to sustain him through the bouts of madness that battered him like waves in an ocean of terror. The wound itself should have been well on its way to healing in a week’s time, but it swelled and seeped black fluid just as D’Natheil’s had done. Baglos swore it was tainted by Zhid poison. He had seen such wounds often, he said, with exactly the same symptoms. Unfortunately his people knew no remedy except to seek out a Healer.

  Baglos seemed to take Tennice’s illness as a personal affront, and he expended hours of tender care on the sick man. Over and over, as he redressed the wound, I would hear him murmuring indignantly, “Why, why, why Zhid poison? Those men were not Zhid. They did not want him dead. . . .”

  Not Zhid, no. The attackers had been ruffians with brawn enough to smash shop windows, but so little skill they could be outfought by one warrior, a girl of twenty, and an aging scholar with poor eyesight. True, Graeme Rowan, a man I knew to be a Zhid informant—still a puzzle in itself—had been in the street nearby. Yet, if the attackers were Graeme Rowan’s men, then why was Rowan so ill prepared for our escape? Maceron was there, too. He had hunted Karon and betrayed him to Darzid . . . Darzid who had been hunting D’Natheil. But if the attackers were Maceron’s men, out to destroy a den of sorcerers at Darzid’s behest, then why Zhid poison on their blades? No arrangement of alliances and evidence made sense.

  My companions were no help in clearing up my confusion. Though D’Natheil had found his voice, he was more aloof than ever, as if the breach in his wall of silence made companionship less necessary. He refused to be drawn into conversation with me beyond the plan for our current meal or setting the watch. Poor Baglos fared little better, despite his frequent attempts to engage his master in discussion of the future. D’Natheil would either interrupt him with a rude command or bolt outdoors. For either of us to see the Prince except at mealtime was an event worthy of remark. Strangely enough, Tennice’s illness was the single thing that drew him into our company.

  On our third night at Verdillon, Tennice became so violent in delirium that neither Baglos nor I could control him. We were struggling to keep him still, when his flailing hand sent Baglos sprawling. The loud crack when the Dulcé’s head struck a table said nothing good about the his ability to come to my aid. I was desperately trying to prevent Tennice from kicking over the lamp when he cried out in mindless terror and one of his hands smashed into my eye. Temporarily blinded and losing my hold, I felt hands drag me away and thrust me firmly into a chair.

  I pushed back my hair and wiped my watering eyes to see D’Natheil sitting on the bed behind Tennice, wrapping his arms around my friend’s writhing body. One by one the Prince captured the flailing limbs, trapping them within the confines of his own long arms and legs. “Tassaye, tassaye,” he whispered. Softly, softly. Before very long Tennice gave a shudder and fell still, though his haunting moans and terror-glazed stare yet tore at my heart. I grabbed a damp cloth and blotted Tennice’s face, using the opportunity to spoon willowbark tea between his dry lips. Soon it seemed the worst was past.

  “You can lay him down now,” I said. “I’ll tend him.”

  D’Natheil shook his head. For another quarter of an hour he held the sick man. Only when the moaning and the racking shudders had stopped completely and Tennice slept did he untangle himself and slip the older man’s body onto the sheets.

  “That was well done,” I said, noting several bloody scratches on his arm. “Let me take care—”

  “Call me if he is in need again.” D’Natheil hurried out of the room.

  Though I chafed in frustration at D’Natheil’s reticence, I hesitated to push him too much. It had been easy to patronize him when he was only a lost youth with an annoying temper. But now I had begun to think of him as a prince, and, though rank held no awe for me, his position as the last scion of a magical race from another world could not but separate him from the ordinary. He had a great deal to think about. As did I.

  That Dassine meant for me to aid D’Natheil in his mysterious task seemed certain. Yet I was not sure I was willing. If Karon’s dying and its mortal consequences had presented the Dar’Nethi with a chance to win their war, then I had already given all one woman could be expected to give. Perhaps it was time to get on with my own life and leave this brute of a prince to deal with his. Besides, he seemed uninterested in my help.

  Baglos refused to enlighten me on any matter regarding the Prince’s mind, claiming that a Dulcé Guide’s bond with a Dar’Nethi precluded it. The link between them was of such an intimate nature that it demanded inordinate trust, he said. When a Dulcé participated in the madris, the rite of bonding, he permitted his knowledge, his actions, his very perception of the world to be shaped by his madrisson’s command. And whenever the Dar’Nethi partner invoked his power to access his madrissé’s store of information, he, in essence, left his own mind open and vulnerable to the Dulcé’s insatiable craving for information. Thus, when the madris was performed, the Dar’Nethi madrisson swore never to misuse his power of command, while the Dulcé madrissé vowed never to betray his master’s privacy. Because D’Natheil had not commanded Baglos to tell me anything of their discussions, the Dulcé could not and would not do so.

  All right. I could understand such an arrangement, but the subject of the future must be broached, whether it suited His Grace or not. On the evening of the fifth day since the fire, I decided the time had come. Baglos was watching Tennice while D’Natheil and I ate the simple supper the Dulcé had prepared. Perhaps if I spoke before the Prince finished eating, he wouldn’t bolt.

  I set down my cup. “Do you believe the things this Dassine told us?” I began.

  D’Natheil pushed a bit of turnip about his bowl with a chunk of bread. “I know very few things, but that I can say. Dassine did not lie.”

  “Have you decided what to do?”

  “I must try to accomplish what’s needed.”

  “Do you understand what that is?”

  “I’ve had no magical insights.
” His curt response seemed nothing more than the rudeness I had come to expect. Yet, as I searched for some reason to keep on caring about him, I noted how tight his skin was stretched and how long and thin were the new lines about his eyes. The shifting candlelight made him look deathly tired.

  “Have you been sleeping?”

  “Some.” This declaration was in no way convincing.

  “What prevents you?”

  “I watch.” He tossed the half-eaten bread into his unfinished soup and shoved the bowl away.

  “But we’ve all taken our turns watching. There’s been no sign of anyone. Why—”

  “The Seeking comes almost every night. Your friend’s suffering draws it. I can . . . divert it . . . if I’m awake. They know we live, but they don’t know where we are. It must stay that way.”

  “The Seeking . . .” I had taken my turns walking the garden and the front courtyard. How could I have missed the insidious dread, the sensory horrors? But then I recalled D’Natheil staring into the fire back in Jonah’s cottage, listening to things the rest of us could not hear. Perhaps the essence of the Zhid Seeking was not the alteration of light or the wafting stench. “You should have said something. We can share that watching as well as the other.”

  “You and the Dulcé care for your friend.”

  “We can do both. You don’t have to bear these burdens alone.”

  He shrugged.

  “All the more reason we must decide what to do next,” I said. “If the Zhid are so close, we need to be away from here as soon as we can move Tennice.”

  “But I don’t even know where to begin.” He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair. I expected him to storm out of the kitchen, but instead he began to circle the table, words pushing and crowding themselves past his reserve like a sudden cloudburst on a quiet afternoon. “A thousand times I’ve gone over it. This Bridge—I have no concept of its nature or form, no clue as to its location. No one knows anything of the Breach it spans, save that its horrors drive people to madness and ‘unbalance the universe’—whatever that means. Baglos tells me that the Heir of D’Arnath walks upon the Bridge and performs some enchantment to prevent its corruption by the forces of the Breach. Clearly I am expected to do this ‘walking,’ but no one can tell me of the enchantment I must work, and my own people doubt that I am capable. Oh, yes, and these Zhid likely want me dead. The Dar’Nethi assume that my death upon the Bridge will destroy it.”