Son of Avonar

by Carol Berg

  D’Natheil stared into the growing flames. “Survived.”

  The word took me aback—he was so grimly serious. “Probably so. It never seems likely at the time, though. And this is far better.”

  “Would that the Preceptors could see it,” Baglos mumbled to no one in particular, as he passed around his silver flask of sweet, potent wine that always seemed to appear when there was most need.

  Thunder rumbled. The rain pounded harder, causing spits of moisture to bounce through the opening in the rock and hiss as they pelted the fire. “Baglos, tell us about the Preceptors . . . about this Dassine,” I said. “Do you know him well?”

  As always when I asked a question about the other world, Baglos deferred to the Prince. “Would you have me answer, my lord?”

  “Have you learned nothing, fool of a Dulcé? Clearly this woman is inextricably entwined in our fate. Without her assistance and counsel, we would have been defeated long ago, and so whatever instruction you’ve been given about circumspection should not and will not apply to her. Is that clear?”

  “As you will, Giré D’Arnath.” Baglos quickly bowed his head, hunching his narrow shoulders.

  But for once the Prince’s annoyance bore no more weighty consequence than the reprimand. D’Natheil’s mind was somewhere else altogether. Though his eyes were on Baglos, he was not truly looking at the dark head lowered so humbly before him. “You must follow her lead, Dulcé.” His voice had fallen so quiet, I could scarcely hear him. “Answer her questions. Do as she commands you whatever the circumstance.”

  “Yes, my lord. As you say.” As always when D’Natheil issued a command, the Dulcé’s face went blank for an instant before resuming its normal animation. I wondered if that moment was when he retrieved his scattered knowledge and brought it to the fore, but the question seemed too intimate to ask.

  And so, as D’Natheil’s fire burned brightly, its enchanted fuel as inexhaustible as the dreary downpour, the Dulcé told us of the voice from the other world.

  “The Preceptors are seven men and women who are considered the most wise and powerful among the Dar’Nethi, appointed by the Heir to aid him in his work of teaching and guiding the Dar’Nethi in the Way and opposing the Lords of Zhev’Na. They serve until they die or withdraw from service or are asked by the Heir to step down—this last a rare occasion. Master Dassine is a Healer, first named to the Preceptorate by D’Natheil’s grandfather. He is frequently at odds with the other Preceptors, as I have told you, and often refuses to consult with them when he ought. He has studied the lore of the Bridge and championed our duty to preserve it at all costs, until many accuse him of being more concerned with mundanes and this world of yours than with our own.”

  “What is Dassine’s disagreement with the other Preceptors? Was it only the decision to send D’Natheil onto the Bridge when he was twelve?” I asked.

  “The conflict centers on the conduct of the war. Many years ago when D’Natheil was a child, Master Dassine was chosen to venture into the Wastes to learn more of the Lords and the Zhid. He was gone for three years. Everyone assumed he was slain or enslaved, which are much the same. But to our astonishment he returned to Avonar, crippled in one leg and asserting that he had escaped from slavery. No one has ever managed such a thing—the slave collars of Zhev’Na prevent any use of Dar’Nethi power—and Master Dassine refused to say how he had accomplished it. Even before he was fully recovered from his ordeal, he called a meeting of the Preceptorate that resulted in much argument and strife.”

  Baglos shifted closer to the fire, and his speech took on a greater urgency, as if the heat that warmed his flesh inflamed his story as well.

  “You must understand our situation. The Catastrophe was an enchantment gone awry. It sucked our rivers dry, burned our meadows and forests, and left most of our world a reeking ruin. Those Dar’Nethi who stood in its path were likewise devastated, the fortunate killed outright, the others become Zhid. But in the years when the Heirs of D’Arnath and J’Ettanne preserved the Gates and walked the Bridge, the Wastes began to heal, and the power of the Lords and the Zhid declined. But when J’Ettanne’s people failed us, no longer walking the Bridge as they were sworn to do, and D’Arnath’s Heir tried to maintain the Bridge alone, this progress was reversed.

  “As the Zhid grew stronger again, the Dar’Nethi were forced to become warriors, the Heir first among them, so as to uphold his oath to preserve and defend the Bridge. In his pronouncements to the Preceptorate, Dassine claimed that the Lords were more terrible and the Zhid more numerous than anyone had ever suspected, and that the Dar’Nethi must reverse their thinking on how to contain them. The argument was never explained to me, but many called Dassine a traitor. Master Dassine has often been heard saying he might not have gone to the trouble of his journey for all the good it did.”

  Baglos glanced at D’Natheil and reddened a little as he continued. “The matter of the young prince compounded their disagreements. It was while Master Dassine was away from Avonar that D’Natheil was named Heir and Master Exeget appointed as his mentor. Master Dassine proclaimed that Master Exeget was the greatest fool who was not Zhid and that he had done his best to destroy our last hope. He had no right to speak of Master Exeget so. Master Exeget is the head of the Preceptorate, a man of great talent and the highest influence. The terrible mistake of D’Natheil’s too-early encounter with the Bridge grieved him greatly.”

  “You don’t like Dassine,” I said.

  “The Dulcé serve all as our gifts permit.”

  “You were surprised when Celine released his message.” He had stumbled out of the room when Dassine’s message was unfolding in our heads.

  “I was not told of Dassine’s enchantment—his message, or the locking and unlocking of the Prince’s voice, or this harm to his memory that Master Dassine must have caused as well. Master Exeget did not know of these things, or he would have told me.” Baglos flushed. He took a hurried sip and stowed the silver flask away in his pack. “There are many things I wasn’t told.”

  I could sympathize with that. “How could Dassine know me, Baglos? I’ve wondered about it since that day. How did he know to send D’Natheil to me?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Dulcé. “My preparation was so hurried. I heard no mention of a mundane woman. Since his return from the Wastes, Master Dassine had speculated that the Exiles were all dead. He was proven wrong when they opened the Gates, as I have told you. But Master Exeget did not believe we could expect help from the Exiles on this journey. My master knew no one that could help . . . no one . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Your master . . . this Exeget was your master, then. You were his Guide?”

  Baglos shifted uneasily, glancing up at D’Natheil, but the Prince was not listening any more. He stood in the opening of the niche with his back to us, staring out into the rain. So the Dulcé answered me as he had been commanded. “I was Master Exeget’s madrissé for eight years. I accompanied him to D’Natheil’s crossing. When Bendal was wounded by the Zhid, Master Exeget commanded me to take the madris with D’Natheil.”

  And so Baglos, sworn to obey his linked madrisson, had been given little choice in the matter of this journey.

  Water poured from the heavy clouds. Baglos was reluctant to continue his story without the Prince’s attention, and so our conversation moved back to the Writer’s diagram. I didn’t even have to look at the journal any more, but traced the familiar lines and symbols in the damp earth while we considered the land we traveled. Could Pell’s Mound be one of the marks on the diagram? Or the ruined castle or the Glenaven River? Was there significance in the names? Baglos maintained his position that the diagram made no sense as a map. It was discouraging to feel we were on the brink of what we needed to know, yet were no closer to deciphering it than Karon and I had been ten years previous.

  My head grew heavy, the warmth and smoke sapping my energy and making it increasingly difficult to think. I had the sleepy impression of the Dulcé s
noring, and D’Natheil disappearing through the cleft in the rock, back into the storm. I wondered vaguely if the man ever slept.

  When I woke to watery sunlight and birdsong, it took me a moment to sort out where I was. So many different sleeping accommodations in the past weeks, so many varieties of discomfort. The quiet was disconcerting until I realized it meant only that the storm was past. A small grove of birch trees fronted our refuge, and a breeze rustled the gold-rimmed leaves, sprinkling a last shower of sparkling droplets on the grass. Baglos was snoring, slumped against the rock. D’Natheil’s fire still burned, its fuel not at all diminished. Paulo sat close to the fire, his chin on his knees, his eyes fixed on me intently, as if he were trying to will me awake.

  I stood up from the damp ground and stretched my cramped muscles. Noting the hollow growl in my stomach, I thought I might understand Paulo’s unspoken message. “Are you hungry?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  “Set some stones to hold our pot, and we’ll make something hot. We’ll surprise Baglos.”

  I wrestled with the sodden leather pack attached to my saddle, pulling out pot and provisions. As I filled the pot with water, Paulo was peering idly at the lines and symbols I had drawn in the dirt.

  “Paulo, if you can unravel that little puzzle, I’ll keep your stomach full until you’re twenty,” I said, as I crouched by the fire and set the pot on the three stones the boy had found to hold it.

  “I was never no good at the riddle game,” he said. “Everybody always I said was too stupid to play.”

  I almost poured the water into the fire. “What do you mean—the riddle game?”

  Paulo poked his bare toe at the diagram. “Looks like it. You know.”

  “No, I don’t. Tell me.”

  “Picture tells what riddle has to come first. What one next. Stupid game.”

  I tried to contain my hopes. “I’ve never played. Could you tell me how?”

  “Well, everybody makes up pictures, and one draws the lines in between to tell which picture comes first, which next. This foot means the one who plays first has got to tell a riddle about a foot. And if nobody guesses it right, then the same person gets to tell the next one about . . . well, whatever that thing is . . . and then about the face, and so on. If somebody gets it right, then that person gets to tell the next riddle. The one who fools the last, wins. I wasn’t no good at riddling.”

  Riddles . . . Riddles that would tell us where to go. The Writer’s children had played all sorts of games. He was always telling of them. One of his daughters had a special talent for riddling.

  “Baglos! Baglos, wake up!” I shook the sleeping Dulcé, not caring if I frightened him out of a year of his life.

  “What is it?”

  “Get the journal, Baglos. Hurry! Paulo has solved the mystery.”

  Baglos shook off his sleep and dug deep in his pack to retrieve the book, mumbling to himself. “The boy solved the puzzle? Surely not.”

  I hovered at his shoulder, while Paulo gave me such a look as to say that adults were not quite sensible when they would abandon cooking for the riddle game.

  “It’s a children’s game,” I said, willing Baglos to hurry. “We must find where he writes of his daughter and her talent for riddles. The entry comes only a few days before he drew the diagram. We never had a reason to make the connection.”

  Baglos turned the pages to the familiar one, then leafed backwards until he found the passage I named. In his musical voice, he read the Writer’s words.

  Lilith hath taken herself to riddling, and a clever wit she is at it. Mori and I wonder if it be the girl will show herself a Word Winder or mayhap even a Speaker. I must inquire of Siddhe when next I work the fen country and have her tell me the signs. Mori says that Lilith yet be too young to show her gift, but JonThe and C’Netha of Isfan were no more than eleven, and C’Netha a Word Winder herself. Regretful, too, would I be, if the need for mentoring were to take my bright Lilith so far from her home, but such is the Way. Mori doth not prod the girls to show, as she doth for Tekko and Garnath. I must admonish her, for the girls must make their way in the world every bit as much as their brothers. Well should Mori know, for were not she the strong woman she is, how ever could I take this endless road that calls me?

  But enough. Lilith riddling. Before I journeyed this day, we sat and played at it. I must record her tally for when she is a Speaker, to prove that she came forth when only ten.

  Karon had not bothered to decipher the little girl’s riddles, thinking the barriers of time, language, and culture would make the task impossible. We had prized the passage for its revelation of the Writer’s life, and his love for his family and his calling, but never had we made the connection with the diagram.

  I hung over Baglos’s shoulder and pointed to the page. “Look. You see, he’s added these lines. The pages are so worn, and he was forever adding notes, or marking things out, or changing them. You wouldn’t notice, unless you knew to look. He would always leave space between his text, so he could go back and add things he had forgotten. See how close these lines are, and some were written with a pen having a wider tip. Paulo, you’re marvelous. You’ve really done it.”

  There followed a whole page of short puzzles, but I had no trouble picking out the ones that had been added later. There were five of them, just as there were five symbols in the diagram, and a short additional passage written at the same time.

  It is the lesser brother’s portion that brings the greatest wealth, and the lesser passage that finds its destination.

  Though he cannot see it, the hunter knows his prey, for it speaks to his heart whether he turns right or left.

  When the wall births the flood, it is wiser to be the rabbit than the fish or the goat.

  A journey begins on the road that never sleeps and whose travelers have no feet.

  When one ascends the ancient face that weeps, one sees that it brings forth the fruits of youth from its decrepit pores.

  Is the child not a marvel? The day will come when men will cry out the name of our race, and it is my Lilith that will shine in their memory.

  “So we might solve these puzzles to find our way?” said Baglos.

  “The Writer says that this diagram is his map to the stronghold. Paulo says that the pictures in the riddle game tell the player what the riddle must be about, and the lines between tell the order in which to solve them. So if we can match the riddles with the pictures in the diagram we should have a list of clues to get us to the stronghold. Then we just have to solve the riddles. First, the one about the foot.”

  “A journey begins on the road that never sleeps and whose travelers have no feet.” Baglos crinkled his face as if seeing only part of the words might make them clearer. “That is the only one of the texts that talks about a foot. I hope you’re skilled at solving riddles, for this is as big a mystery to me as the other.”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve done my share. I’ve been told I’m very good at riddles. But I never played as a child, never this way.”

  Paulo sat by the fire, mournfully watching the pot boil dry, his hopes for supper drifting away on the vapors, not even a good smell left behind. “Here is our hero starving,” I said, “and I’ve promised to fill his stomach until he’s twenty.”

  “I will take on that duty proudly,” said Baglos. “The most excellent ferocious boy will not starve!”

  While Baglos stirred up the pot, I wandered out past the birch grove seeking D’Natheil to tell him the good news. But the Prince was nowhere in sight, and the chestnut stallion was gone. By the time we ate the hot porridge and packed up everything again, D’Natheil had not yet returned. Excitement faded into concern as the afternoon hours waned. Baglos began to fidget. I told myself that D’Natheil was scouting ahead, finding the direction to take us back to the road, perhaps solving the mystery of Yennet. I tried to concentrate on the riddles, but as the pale sun faded and night crept over the downs, I feared that something terrible had happened. And when D�
��Natheil’s fire went out, I was convinced that the Heir of D’Arnath was not coming back.

  CHAPTER 29

  I was confounded. Be rational, Seri, I told myself. Don’t panic. I stood outside the cleft in the rock and listened, but only the cry of a hunting owl interrupted the soft rustling of birch leaves in the moonless night. Alternatives. Think.

  Had he been taken by the Zhid? If so, he was most likely dead by now—or victim to whatever they planned for him—and it didn’t matter what we did. I looked down at the cold ashes of his fire. A last spark flared bright orange, then dulled to gray. That alternative was unacceptable.

  What else then? Had he been injured in some ordinary mishap—a fall, an accident, bandits? If so, we’d not help him by hiding in the crevice of a rock. The rain had stopped about the same time as he had disappeared. As soon as there was daylight, we could follow his tracks.

  Could he have decided that companions were unnecessary? That didn’t seem likely. He had welcomed my help, expressed confidence in me, and he valued Baglos. Why would he leave us behind?

  That left only the uncomfortable speculation that he had abandoned his mission altogether. Since the day of the fire he had carried the burden of two worlds on his shoulders, with very little to aid him. No memory. No understanding of himself. Asked to risk his life and what remained of his reason for a world he could not remember, for duty and loyalty he could not feel. Celine had said there was no person inside him. What must it be like to live with such emptiness? Many people would run away from such a burden. Yet even that could not be the whole of it, for when I’d managed to involve him in the investigation, he was willing, and he’d done what he could to keep us safe on our way.

  The night passed slowly. Boiling clouds laced with pink and green lightning erased the midnight stars and doused us with a quick frenzy of rain. Even after I turned the watch over to Paulo in the midnight hour, I could not sleep. I stood by the entrance to the cleft, my damp blanket wrapped about my shoulders, and I fretted over the muddy hoofprints that would now be washed away.