Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

  Even more amazing than the room itself was what occupied it. Mostly nothing at all for a place so big. But straight across the room from the doors stood three giant statues, two of men and one of a woman, all carved of dull black stone. I thought they must be images of kings or gods, for they were seated on thrones with their hands in their laps. The smallest finger on any one of them was far bigger than me. Even seated, each was as tall as the walls of Comigor. They were the most fearful things I had ever seen.

  The woman’s face was old and stern, and her carved hair was drawn up in a knot on top of her head. The only color on the statue was her eyes, which were dark green like emeralds, though I had never heard that emeralds could be so large. The middle statue was of a man with a long arched nose, a wide mouth, and a forehead so broad that the rest of his face seemed small. His hair hung down to his shoulders, and his eyes were deep purple, like amethyst. The third statue was even more fearsome than the others, for it had no face at all, only blood-red rubies for eyes.

  I wished that my boots didn’t echo so loudly on the dark floor. This didn’t look like a place where one ought to make noise. The messenger glided across the floor without making a sound.

  From deep in the black floor at the very center of the room came a faint blue glow. The messenger motioned to me to stand over it. When I did so, a low hum came right through my boots and into my very bones. I didn’t like it, but I stayed put. The Lords of Zhev’Na were sure to be watching me, and I didn’t want them to think me a coward.

  When I turned to the messenger to find out what to do next, he had gone. I waited for a while. Nothing else happened. I decided that if the statues were the gods of the Lords, or their ancestors or heroes, then the thing to do would be to show respect, so I gave a very formal bow, like I would to the king of Leire. When I straightened up again, I almost yelled, for I could have sworn that the middle statue had moved.

  The floor was still thrumming through my boots, and the pools of darkness and strange blue light kept tricking my eyes. I tried to watch without blinking, to see if the statue moved again, but I couldn’t hold my eyes open long enough. When I finally had to blink, the three statues had vanished. Or, well… actually they were there… the three… but they were normal size, not giant. They were three people dressed in black and sitting on black stone thrones of more ordinary size.

  The woman sat on the left. She looked almost exactly the same as the statue, only the knot of hair on her head was gray, and her hands and face were very pale. Over her eyes she wore a gold mask that covered half her face, each eyehole filled with an emerald.

  Like his image, the man in the center had long hair, a big arched nose, and the broad forehead that made the rest of his face look small. His hair was brown, and he, too, wore a gold mask; his had amethyst eyes.

  I almost didn’t look at the third person, because I was afraid he would have no face, like the statue. But I swallowed and turned to the third throne. Again, I almost cried out, I was so surprised. He wore black robes like the others, and as I watched, his face shifted in the strange light. He wore a gold mask, too, with rubies where the eyes should be. Even though the mask covered the middle of his face, from his eyebrows halfway down his cheeks, I recognized him. It was Darzid.

  “Welcome, Gerick. Welcome to Zhev’Na on behalf of the three of us.” He smiled in his private, sneaking way. His voice sounded different-larger than a normal voice, as if he were speaking into a deep well.

  “He gapes like a fish,” said the woman. “Perhaps you should have warned him.”

  “He is only a child,” said the man with the amethyst eyes. “Yet he does not flee from us in terror. I read curiosity in him more than anything. And amazement. A good start, I think.”

  “He is exceptional, as I’ve told you,” said Darzid. “Blood will tell.”

  I didn’t like them talking about me while I stood in front of them. Mama always did that.

  “Gerick, Duke of Comigor, come to wait upon the Lords of Zhev’Na,” I said, remembering how important visitors would greet Papa. “Is it the Lords of Zhev’Na that I address?”

  The man with the amethyst eyes raised his eyebrows above his mask. “Why, yes. You must forgive us our rudeness, my lord. We are old and forget our manners. I am Parven the Warmaster. To my right sits Notole the Loremaster, and to my left… I believe you are acquainted with Ziddari the Exile, who has so recently returned to us after an immensely long time… abroad.”

  I bowed at each introduction, though it felt awkward to bow to Darzid who had been my father’s hired lieutenant. “I wish to thank you all, my lords, for the hospitality you’ve shown me. I owe you a debt of honor, for I’m certain you’ve saved me from brutal murder. I hope to redeem my debt as soon as I’m able.”

  “Prettily spoken, my lord duke,” said Parven. “It is our pleasure to grant you sanctuary. Consider Zhev’Na your home, and Ce Uroth as your own country. We think it is very likely that you will be able…”

  “… to redeem your debt of honor quite easily.” Now it was Notole speaking. “We are old and selfish, and we do not step out of our way to aid young noblemen-even those so worthy as yourself-with no hope of return. Our enemies are the same as yours, and we hope to join together…”

  “… to make common cause against them.” Darzid was speaking now. The three of them took up each other’s thoughts and speech without even pausing for breath, like one person speaking out of three mouths. “You’ve begun your training in the skills necessary to accomplish your purposes-to fulfill the blood oath you’ve sworn to avenge the deaths of the man you called father and the woman you called friend. Perhaps that will be enough for you, and you will choose to return to the soft lands where your mundane king wants to burn you. But if you truly mean what you say about your life debt, then we will give you full opportunity to repay it. If you choose to make a new life here as our ally, then we will train you in other arts, and tell you truths of yourself and of the world that will change everything you know.”

  “It will be dangerous and exciting and difficult.” Parven was speaking again. “You’ll have to hear things you’ll not like, and do things that are unpleasant. There will be no going back to what you’ve left behind. But it will be the life you deserve and your own choice. How does this strike you?”

  The Lords seemed very stern, but kind, too, and respectful. My weapons felt good at my side, and I liked how strong I was becoming and how much faster I could run now. And, too, I thought of the sun-baked ugliness and the jagged red cliffs, and how the only place I felt really warm was out in that desert sun, sweating and fighting. In Leire they burned sorcerers and killed those who had anything to do with them. “I think this is the place I belong,” I said. “I’d like to hear whatever you have to tell me and learn whatever you have to teach.”

  “Such a wise young man!” said Notole. “Let us seal our alliance, my young Lord. We are old and mistrustful and must be convinced that you take this as seriously as you seem to do. Come to me.”

  I climbed up the wide black step to stand in front of her. I was amazed to see that her gold mask was a part of her face, grown right into the pale, dry flesh. Each eye was a single, huge emerald. What could she see through them?

  “Everything, my young Lord. Everything.”

  I looked away quickly. It was rude to stare, even at something so strange. Notole must be used to it, since she had guessed what I was thinking.

  “We’ve found something that belongs to you, young duke, and have been waiting for a proper time to return it.” Her hands were very dry, and the flesh hung on her long bony fingers as if it weren’t connected to the bones at all. She held out a small green silk bag and dropped its contents into her hand. It was the Comigor signet ring, the one Seri had brought to me when she came to tell me lies about Papa’s death. The Lords must have found it in my clothes when I first came to Zhev’Na. I had forgotten all about it.

  “Thank you,” I said, and reached for it.

  B
ut Notole yanked it back out of reach. “Wait one moment. As I said, we must be convinced that your heart lies here in Zhev’Na, that you will not desert us when times get hard… or when your pillow is wet with a child’s tears.”

  My face got hot… and my blood, too. If Sefaro had seen my weakness and told the Lords of it, I would kill him. Then the Lords would know for certain that I was not a child. “I’ve sworn on my family’s honor to avenge my father and my nurse,” I said, trying to stand tall. “I consider my debt to you of equal weight. I do not swear lightly, even though I’m young.” I pulled out my sword and laid it at Notole’s feet. “I will serve you until you consider my life debt satisfied. Your enemies are my enemies, and I will do whatever is in my power to sustain you against them.”

  Notole laughed gently, her breath ruffling my hair. “We do not want your sword, young Lord. Not yet… though that may come when you are older. What we want is your loyalty, your allegiance… your soul. We want you to exchange this signet ring, a symbol of a life you have forsworn, for this”-she opened her other hand to reveal a small gold triangle, embedded with an emerald, an amethyst, and a ruby-“the token of our alliance. Else how can we trust that you will consider our common interests in preference to those about which we care nothing? A life debt cannot be half repaid or served only when there is nothing better to do.”

  She held out both hands then, the signet ring in one and the Lords’ token in the other. “You must choose.” The palms of her hands were horribly scarred, as if they’d been burned long ago.

  Though none of the three moved from their thrones, I felt as if they were all hovering about me-waiting, suspending breath until I would choose. Maybe they thought it would be difficult. But my dreams had already revealed enough of the truth. There was nothing for me at Comigor, and I wanted revenge more than anything in the world. I touched the signet ring for a moment and tried to think what to say about it. I’m sorry, Papa. If I weren’t evil, I could be like you. But I am what I am, and if those who are wicked can have any honor, mine will have to be what I make it. And then I moved my hand to the Lords’ token, picked it up, and felt such a sigh in the room that it made me think of a thunderstorm that breaks a summer’s drought.

  “Well chosen…”

  “… we are honored…”

  “… our young friend and ally. Come let me show you how to wear it.”

  Ziddari took the jeweled token, and before I realized what he was doing, a sharp, hot pain stabbed my left ear. “There,” he said, before I could protest. I touched my earlobe, and the jeweled pin was affixed firmly to it like the bolt through a gate.

  Now we can teach and guide you…

  Help make you more than you are.

  My hands flew to my ears. Parven’s and Notole’s voices were not in my ears, but inside my head.

  Any question you have, just think it or speak it, and one of us will answer. Ziddari’s lips didn’t move. It was amazing!

  They sent me back to my house after that. Sefaro and two other slaves were waiting at the door as always. They bowed as I walked through the gate and across the courtyard. When they straightened up, Sefaro’s eyes fell on the jewels in my ear. He laid his hand on the other slaves’ arms and nodded toward me. Their faces grew pale and their eyes wide when they saw, and all three of them dropped to their knees. I thought that their race must be weak and cowardly to be afraid of me just because I was a friend of their Lords.

  Indeed it is a truth, Gerick. Dar’Nethi are soft and corrupt-afraid of their own enchantments, their own power-wanting every sorcerer to be as weak as they. They must be strictly controlled or they are worthless to anyone. We use them as slaves so that we can free our own kind to concentrate on battle. This was Ziddari whispering in my mind. Try them. See how they quake when faced with strength greater than their own.

  “So they are sorcerers, too?” I said, just as if I was talking to him in person. That was a new consideration. I couldn’t imagine it. I pushed Sefaro with my foot, and he fell from his kneeling position into a heap on the floor. He didn’t move, just stayed there in the dirt looking up at me until I told him to get up. I would have melted with shame to look like that. “Why don’t they use sorcery to free themselves? Are they too cowardly even for that?”

  The collars prevent them. They are Dar’Nethi, subjects of Prince D’Natheil. They and their Prince have forbidden us to grow and use our power efficiently. We use the collars to let them know what it is like to be crippled. It’s the purest torment we can offer them. And very just.

  To prevent them using their sorcery did seem just. But I couldn’t help but remember how it was to be afraid all the time, and so later, when Sefaro came to unstrap my weapons and take off the silver chains and the fine suit, I told him that he did me good service. He bowed a bit, but didn’t ask permission to speak. I wondered if somehow he guessed that I’d thought about killing him when I was with the Lords.

  When I went to sleep in my huge bed, I didn’t dream at all.

  My life changed on that night, more clearly even than it had when I’d first come to Zhev’Na. One of the Lords was always with me, just at the edge of my thoughts-a voice in my head that wasn’t me. It seemed as natural as breathing or using the sorcery that could make toy soldiers march or flowers bloom whenever I wanted.

  Sometimes the voice was very clearly one or the other of them. Notole whispered about grand things like how the universe worked and of magical power. Parven lectured me like a military tutor, teaching me attacks and defenses, and tactics and strategies that had been used in their thousand-year war. Ziddari was-well, Darzid-and he would talk about everything else, from how to treat slaves to the names of our enemies and our friends.

  Sometimes I didn’t hear any voice, but if I thought of a question about swordplay, Parven spoke up, or if I wondered how to use sorcery to make my bath hotter, Notole answered.

  Over the next few days the Lords began to teach me about the origins of the war with Prince D’Natheil, of how everyone in their land could do sorcery, only some were better at it than others. Notole told me how D’Natheil’s ancestors, most particularly the ancient Dar’Nethi king called D’Amath, forbade those who were better at sorcery from trying new things, or from doing any magic that everyone in the land could not do just as well. It seemed like a terrible injustice, like saying that Papa could not fight with a sword, just because he was better than everyone else.

  Exactly, said Notole, inside my head. D’Arnath was afraid of losing his power to those with more talent. And still we struggle with the results of his cowardice. We fight to be allowed to use our talents as we wish. The Prince has inherited immense powers from D’Arnath, but he uses them to keep us in bondage, fearful that we will outshine his own family.

  And, of course, in all this learning that I was doing, I found out that there was more than one world. I was living in the world called Gondai, while Comigor, and all the people and places I had ever known, were in the other one-the mundane world, they called it.

  That, of course, is why sorcery is such a great evil in your world, said Parven. It doesn’t belong there. D’Natheil and the followers of D’Arnath call our works evil, yet what could be a greater evil than introducing sorcery where it was not intended? Great injustices resulted from it; learn the history of the heir and Rebellion and you’ll understand.

  At first I was sad and a little bit scared to think I wasn’t even in the same world where I had been born, but that feeling went away quickly. The Lords were teaching me so many new things, and besides, I almost couldn’t remember Comigor any more, or the faces of anyone I’d known there, except the dead ones-Papa and Lucy. Those I remembered very well.

  The Lords answered any kind of question except one, and that was anything about themselves. I wondered about their masks and why they wore them. I wondered why Ziddari had lived in my world for so long, and why he served as Papa’s lieutenant, and why he had saved me, when he helped kill all the other evil sorcerers who lived ther
e. When I asked those questions, I could feel the three of them with me, but no one answered. Just as well. My head was bulging with everything I was learning-and it was all so easy. I never forgot anything they taught me.

  A week or so after my meeting with the Lords, Darzid came to my house. Well, of course he was Ziddari, but he looked like the ordinary Darzid again. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with you, my young Lord-one best talked about in person, I think, though you have adapted well to our new ‘arrangements.’ ” We were standing on the wide balcony outside my apartments. Like every window and door in the Gray House, the balcony looked out over the desert. “Our first skirmish with Prince D’Natheil is about to occur, and in order for you to play your part in it, you must learn one of those bits of hard truth of which I spoke.”

  For just a moment, I glimpsed the light of rubies in his eyes. He was very excited, and that made me excited, too. I wanted to get on with the war, now I had committed myself to be a part of it. “Have you ever wondered how you happen to have the powers of a sorcerer?” he said.

  “I thought it just happened when you were born.”

  “Like green eyes or large stature or red hair?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Tell me, Gerick, how likely is it that a child has red hair and yet his mother has brown hair and his father black?”

  “I don’t know. Not likely, I guess.”

  “Then what if I were to tell you that it is far less likely that a boy is born with the powers you have to parents who have none, than it is for a black-haired child with dark brown skin to be born to parents that are blond and fair?”

  My stomach tied itself into a knot, and my skin felt cold again, though it wasn’t even night. The red sun shone hot and bright on my skin. “Would it be true?”