by Carol Berg
“Holy stars!” It seemed like half a month until I caught a breath.
“It is fine, is it not? My best vintage ever.”
“Bareil?”
“The same, my lord. May I make a light?”
“If it’s necessary.” With the glimmering candle flame came the intrusion of the world and all the burdens I had shed in my days of oblivion. “Oh, gods, Bareil . . .” I bent forward and dragged at my hair with my fingers, as if enough pain might make reality vanish again.
“I know, my lord. It is difficult. I wish it could have been slower, easier for you.”
“You were there? You were the other hands?”
“Yes, my lord. Master Dassine had given Master Exeget a directive with which to summon me and command my assistance. And when I saw what he was doing with you—completing Master Dassine’s work—I was happy to be of service. I hope it did not contradict your wishes.”
“No.” I pushed shaggy, damp hair from my brow and felt several weeks’ growth of beard bristling on my chin. “Thank you.”
“You must eat, even though you may not feel like it yet. I’ll bring something. I’ve scarcely managed to get anything down you in all these weeks. And, my lord, Master Exeget is desperate to speak with you. Though he asked me to wake you, he waits just outside.”
“Exeget . . .” What was I to think of him?
“It is astonishing, is it not? I was terrified when I saw you in his power. But my lord, I must tell you that never was Master Dassine so careful in his work. I have watched many of the Dar’Nethi masters work, and none other could have brought you through this as he did.”
“Give me an hour.”
Bareil bowed and left the room. Huddled in the corner of my pallet, I forced myself to consider the state of the world. At what I guessed to be the precise expiration of my hour, the door opened and my old enemy sat himself in the chair in the corner. He began examining his hands, turning them this way and that in the weak light, showing no sign of agitation at my delay. He would sit so all night before confessing his urgency.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” I said, conceding the minor struggle in the hunger for understanding.
His hands came to rest in his lap, one laid calmly upon the other. “I did what was necessary. I don’t expect you to thank me. Upon full consideration, you will most likely decide this is only another crime to add to my account.”
“You never told me what was to come after.”
“It would have made no sense at the time and may not yet. It depends on whether you were able to analyze the present situation while you lived your life again or in these past days as you lay here in your self-made tomb.”
“While I journeyed, I was wholly in the past. While I lay here, I was trying to bury it all again. But in the hour just gone, I’ve put a few things together.”
“Do you understand about the child? Who he is?”
“Yes.” Seri’s son. My son.
“And you see that because of your . . . unique . . . circumstances—this thing Dassine has done to you—your son is the next Heir of D’Arnath?”
“I guessed it.”
Exeget’s dark eyes blazed far brighter than my candle. “Do you have any concept of what it means if the Heir comes of age in the hands of the Lords?”
“The Three will control the Bridge.”
“Not only the Bridge, but all the powers of D’Arnath. Only Dassine and I, of all Dar’Nethi, ever grasped their full extent. D’Arnath was able to create the Bridge because he could manipulate the forces of the Breach, forces which are the antithesis of order, the bits left over from the creation of worlds because they were defective, too odd or corrupt or broken to be included in the weaving of the universe. Before the Catastrophe, this corruption was dispersed, incohesive. But the workings of the Three, the immense increases in power they believed they created by their superior cleverness, were in fact drawing upon these broken bits and gathering them together, until, in their last disastrous working, the Breach was formed and the corruption trapped within it.
“Only D’Arnath’s anointed Heir inherits his control over the Breach. One of our race at a time. The universe cannot seem to support two with such power. And so, if the Lords corrupt the Heir and control him—become one with him as they are one with each other—then, on the day he comes of age, they will be able to command the legions of chaos. None will be able to stand against them.”
“The test of which you spoke with Madyalar—it is the test of parentage?”
“Yes. You are D’Natheil. Your blood and bone and spirit are indisputable witness to it. You are also the father of the child. Your wife knows it; now you know it. He is Dar’Nethi. There is no other possibility. He and this man Darzid were able to cross the Bridge. Do you understand what that requires? Yes, the way was left open, but only the boy’s bloodlines—your own deeds in the mundane world bear witness to unquestionably powerful bloodlines—and whatever gifts this Darzid brings to bear could enable them to cross so easily. The man knows the boy is your son. We must assume he also knows something of what has been done to you, for he has exposed his own abilities and sympathies in order to bring the child to the Lords. Which means the Lords know the boy’s heritage, as well. If you and the boy undergo the test of parentage before the Preceptorate, the boy will be proved the son of D’Arnath’s Heir and must therefore be acknowledged as your successor.”
I fought my way through the confusion. “Then why—if you are indeed what you wish me to believe—why, in the name of all that lives, did you return my memory? If you had left me the way I was, or driven me mad with it—not a long or difficult road as you saw—or if you had killed me, the test of parentage would fail.”
His shoulders relaxed a bit, and he sighed as will a teacher who has just heard the first rudimentary evidence of progress from a recalcitrant student. “If no Heir is competent to sit for the test of his child or to name a new successor, then the Preceptorate must decide whether there is some other living descendant of D’Arnath. The only way to test a person is to send him or her onto the Bridge and see what transpires. We cannot allow what happened to you when you were twelve to happen again. We have no Dassine to make us a new and better man from a broken child. So we must keep both you and your son whole if it is possible.”
How could this man be Exeget? Why had he not felt this way when I was a child?
Evidently he was still monitoring my thoughts. “I did not vote to send you onto the Bridge when you came of age. Rather, I tried my best to stop it. There was no possibility you could survive the attempt.”
Nothing you believe is immutable. . . . “Perhaps if I’d received better teaching.”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “I had to discover what you were. Many in Avonar said you were touched by the Lords, destined, even at nine years of age, to be their tool. If you were, I had to know. If you were not, then you would survive and be the stronger for it. My purpose was not to make you love me.”
“And what was the truth?”
“I don’t know. You were sent to the Bridge at twelve, and it almost destroyed you. Your soul was twisted beyond repair. My surmise is that the Lords had indeed reached you.”
The room was so cold. My head throbbed, and my hands would not stop shaking. I gathered a blanket around my shoulders. “I don’t know what to believe. You sent my son and his abductor to Zhev’Na. How do you know so much about all this?”
I hadn’t thought Exeget could look any more disagreeable, but his smile could have wilted a dead lily. “I am the man you know. You just don’t know everything. Nor did Dassine until the days before he died. Nor do those who lurk in Zhev’Na, believing I am the most faithful of servants, who has sold his soul to preserve the remnants of his power, and who so diligently carries out their plans to destroy his world and his people.”
Logic and history forbade belief. “You violated the madris, commanded Baglos, your madrissé, to kill me.” Seri had prevented the foolis
h Dulcé from poisoning me when Dassine had sent me across the Bridge to prevent its destruction.
“That was an act of desperation. I didn’t trust Dassine after his sojourn in the Wastes, and I didn’t know what he’d done to you. The D’Natheil I knew could never have succeeded in the task we set him. As long as the Bridge exists, the world has hope. I believed you would destroy the Bridge. And so I believed you had to die. Thankfully, that was not necessary.”
“And Madyalar . . .”
“Madyalar has served the Lords since before you were born. Happily for us, she is stupid and the Lords know it.”
“You told her that the boy is my son.”
“She would have learned it from her mentors eventually. There’s no point in hiding what will be known anyway. It’s how I have survived. For that same reason I sent the boy and his captor on their way and have convinced the other Preceptors that he is safely tucked away with trustworthy friends of mine. Lacking sufficient power to prevent the Lords’ hold on the boy, I appear to aid them. Meanwhile, I bide my time.”
“So what are we to do?” Whether or not I could accept his honesty seemed superfluous. I wasn’t going to be able to help anyone. I couldn’t wrestle a bird. “I’m in no condition—”
“—to fight? On the contrary, your condition is perfect. It’s one reason we must move quickly. You are in shambles, yet quite competent to take part in the test of parentage. When the Preceptors examine you, they’ll see the truth.”
“No use putting off what will happen anyway.”
“Exactly. The boy will be proved. The Lords will think they’ve won.”
“My life will not be worth much after that.”
“Also true. But we will control the situation. As you said, no use putting off what will happen anyway. I’m sorry, my Prince. . . .” And then he proceeded to tell me his plan, and how it was I would have to die.
CHAPTER 26
Gerick
“Why did he kill himself?” I asked. “If he hates us so much, why wouldn’t he fight? What was wrong with him?”
Darzid paced up and down my sitting room. His eyes flashed red—true ruby red—right in the middle of the black. “He was mad. A coward who could not face his own disintegration.”
I didn’t see how a coward could do such a thing to himself, but perhaps if he was mad . . . “I don’t understand him at all. There was something—”
There’s no need for you to understand, said Parven. This is only a momentary diversion. The Lords were crowding each other in my head. Ziddari’s anger hung inside me like a stomachache.
The fools, to allow him to have a weapon at hand! That was Notole.
“I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like I expected.” I wanted them to explain things.
I knew about Avonar. It was one of the soft, beautiful places—D’Arnath’s place, where his Heir guarded the Bridge he had made to corrupt the world where I was born. The man who greeted us when we stepped through the magical portal into someone’s study looked soft, too, and was almost bald. Ziddari had told me that this man was a secret ally of the Lords. “A useful man, one who hates well. While you should never truly trust them, those like Exeget are worthy of an alliance, because you can always predict what they will do.” Ziddari had also told me that neither Exeget nor the Lords’ other allies in Avonar knew that Darzid the Exile was truly the Lord Ziddari, and that he planned to keep it that way a while longer.
The soft-looking man inspected me rudely. “Astonishing,” he said, touching my ear. “He is almost not recognizable as the same child. And I see he has found favor with the Lords. Matters progress quickly.”
“Gerick knows his place in the worlds and embraces it with courage and determination,” said Darzid. “The Lords of Zhev’Na take his words seriously. Indeed, I would not like to stand between him and the one on whom he plans to wreak his sweet vengeance.”
“His opportunity is at hand,” said Exeget. “Once the boy is proved, we will hand over the Prince. He’s half mad. Only the audacious fool Dassine would think of cramming the scraps of two souls into one mind. Now as to the boy . . .”
Exeget wanted to “examine” me in some way before the test of parentage, but Darzid refused. They argued about it for a long time. Parven had instructed me to be silent while in Avonar so that no Dar’Nethi could sneak into my head, so Darzid did all the talking. I trusted him to watch out for me. Our interests were the same. Our enemies were the same . . . the Prince . . . my father. The Dar’Neth.
While Darzid and Exeget talked, I wandered around the room, looking at all the things. Shelves and long worktables held flasks and tins, packets and bundles, measuring instruments and glass lenses, small brass mechanisms of all kinds, and a hundred other interesting things.
At least a thousand books were stacked on the shelves, as well. I ran my fingers over the bindings. A few were written in Leiran. Most in the language of this world. The longer I looked at them, the more I understood. I had realized several weeks before that I no longer used the language of Leire. Even before I knew that I was living in another world, without even realizing I was doing it, I had started speaking the Dar’Nethi language. It was certainly easier to learn things here. I thought of the question about why there were no books in Zhev’Na, but neither Parven nor Notole answered me. Darzid was still arguing with Exeget.
In between two of the bookcases was a tall, narrow window with lots of small panes and an iron latch. When I first walked past the window, I could have sworn I saw a face pressed up against it—a boy’s dirty face. I looked at the books for a little while, then wandered past the window again. The face was gone. It didn’t seem worth mentioning.
I forgot all about the boy at the window when Exeget left the room, and Darzid called me over to the table. “Would you like to watch what goes on?” he said. “Catch a glimpse of our enemy?”
I wasn’t sure I did, but didn’t want to seem a coward. Darzid picked up a round, smoky glass and passed his hand over it. It was splendid! In the glass I could see Exeget crossing a room to stand before a raised platform where five other people sat. In front of the platform was a single chair with someone seated in it. The hood of his white robe was drawn down low just as I had seen him in the garden at Comigor—the Prince D’Natheil.
When he uncovered his face, his hands were shaking badly, but his face didn’t look like he was afraid. Nor did he look proud or disdainful or anything like I expected. He looked more like one of the tenants of Comigor—I couldn’t remember the man’s name. The tenant had fallen ill, getting thinner and paler every day for half a year until he couldn’t lift a scythe any longer. Papa called in a physician for fear of fever or plague, but the physician told Papa that a disease was eating away the man inside, and nothing could be done for him. The man kept on working through harvest, the other tenants carrying him to the fields so he could earn his family’s winter sustenance, but every time I saw him, I wondered what part of him the disease had eaten away. The Prince looked just like that man. I believed it when the people in the room said he should be dead. The Prince looked like he believed it, too.
When the time came, Darzid motioned me through the door into the room where my father was. I tried to look like a sorcerer prince with powerful allies and a blood debt to repay. One of the Lords whispered inside my head. Have courage, young Gerick, and do not be afraid of what transpires. But I couldn’t recognize which one of them was speaking.
Everything the Prince said . . . during the testing and then after he got the knife and threatened everyone away from him . . . it all sounded very nice. He claimed that he and Seri had cherished me, cared about me, and he said how he had been sorry he had to die before I was born. But the knife he held was the same one I’d seen in my dreams, the knife that had killed Lucy. The crest with the lions and the arch and the stars—D’Arnath’s coat-of-arms—was engraved on it. The same crest I’d seen on the sword that had killed Papa.
The Lords had explained to me how the Princ
e had killed Papa to protect D’Arnath’s evil Bridge and keep the true powers of sorcery all to himself. What kind of warrior would pretend honorable combat when he knew it wasn’t possible? Papa wasn’t a sorcerer. I hated D’Natheil—this man Karon—for being my father instead of Papa, and I hated him for making me evil like he was. And so I spat at him and told him how I’d sworn an oath to destroy him.
I was sure he would laugh at me then, because he was so big and powerful and I was not. Or maybe he would get angry and tell me why he wanted me dead. But instead he told me that he hadn’t done what I thought, and that he was sorry. Only then, when he said he was sorry, did he first look me in the eye. Only for that one moment. Then he slit himself open right in front of me.
I guess it was Darzid who pulled me away, though the Prince was no threat any more. I stood there like a fool watching him fall to the floor and bleed everywhere, while everyone else was running around and screaming. A woman cried out the Prince’s name—my father’s name, Karon—and about the time Darzid dragged me through the door back into the workroom, I realized that the voice was Seri’s.
“Wait!” I said. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to see Seri again, so I could decide what I thought about her. I wanted to make her tell me whether or not the Prince had known I was their son and if she had really set him to carry out her revenge. I wanted to ask her what it was the Prince had been trying to tell me in that instant before he died. No one had ever looked at me the way he did, and I didn’t understand it.
Nothing that had happened in Avonar had made any sense. . . .
You did well, young Lord, said Notole. Even though she was talking to me, I could feel her trying to calm Ziddari and Parven’s anger. You left no doubt in anyone’s mind that you repudiate your father and his restrictions on our freedoms. I would have encouraged you to behave just so if it had been possible to communicate with you. The Preceptors protect their chambers well. Even your jewels were closed. Our next meeting will be on ground of our choosing.