Guardians of the Keep

by Carol Berg

  “The Lords hound you so sorely because they know they have failed,” Karon gasped, as he helped Gerick across a roaring river of black water. “You held back a part of yourself, and they didn’t think you could. You are stronger—much stronger—than they believed. . . . Take whatever you need of me. They cannot follow us here. They cannot touch you here. Endure and you will be free. I swear it upon my life. You will be free of them. . . .”

  As the hours passed, my arms grew too heavy to lift, and so my only defense against a hail of burning rocks was to turn and let them hit my back. Paulo’s grin had long faded, and even Karon’s voice fell silent as bitter rain lashed our raw skin.

  Gerick stumbled. Half bent forward, holding his head, he gave an agonized cry and crumpled into the morass.

  “Keep moving,” said Karon in a hoarse whisper, as he gathered Gerick into his arms and staggered onward. “She’s out there. But if I stop . . . can’t find her . . . can’t hear . . .”

  I didn’t understand him. A shivering Paulo and I clung to each other, supported, dragged, and prodded each other to take each step. We dared not lose sight of Karon through the murk.

  My thoughts slipped into villainous dreaming: of the sewing women, of the slave pen, of Ziddari’s blood-red eyes watching my husband burn. The vicious screams of the crowd, the stench as the flames consumed his mutilated body . . . all seemed as real as the day I lived them. Then Gerick was burning in the marketplace. . . . No, no, I cried, you have been beloved from the day we knew you. . . . And the executioner’s fire became the flames of the Gate-fire where Giano the Zhid had dragged me into madness to force the Prince of Avonar to destroy the Bridge.

  On that terrible, glorious day, Karon had called me back to him, over and over again. Seri, love . . . stay close . . . come back. . . . On this day, I heard him again, so clearly above the tumult. The voice from the vision of my past. Frayed. Worried. At the limit of his endurance. Almost there . . . soon, love . . . hold on. . . .

  All of them lost . . .Tears flowed and merged with the hot rivers of blood and fire, and I was alone again . . . dead again . . . empty again. . . .

  Another voice. Follow my thread, my lord. Can you feel it? Hold on, I’ll guide you in . . . “Seri, follow my voice. . . . Is it really you?”

  “. . . Oh, my lord Prince . . . Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath . . . and the most excellent boy . . . and my dear lady . . . Vasrin Creator be praised for his glories . . . Vasrin Shaper be thanked for her mercies. . . .”

  “Paulo, child, how I’ve missed you . . . and Seri . . . oh, goddess mother, Seri, what’s happened to him?”

  Kind voices, gentle hands . . . blankets . . . cool, sweet water . . . brandy that scalded my throat and seared my stomach . . . I could hear and feel them, but I could not see and could not answer for the fire and desolation in my eyes. Then the horrific visions were brushed away, as if with some sweet magic, and I slept without dreams, except for one of strong arms that held me close as if they would never let me go. When I woke on a crisp green morning alone in my blanket, I wept, for I thought the strong arms had been only a dream.

  CHAPTER 46

  Paulo

  I never heard of nobody from Dunfarrie ever having an adventure. Old Jacopo, the Lady Seri’s friend and mine, who was killed by the Zhid—he’d been a sailor, and that was something that was talked about for a long time. But he told me about sailoring, and it didn’t sound no different from working in a stable or on a farm. Work all day and half the night, bad food and never enough, folks yelling at you to do this or do that. But I guess Jacopo loved sailoring the way some folks love farming, or the way I take to horse-keeping, and that made the difference. As for adventure, though, my travels with the Prince and the Lady Seri beat all he could tell, but I’d had just about all a person could take of it.

  Thanks to the Prince, we’d come back safe to the green world all together again. I recognized the place where we came out of the doorway in the rock, even though it was daytime and spring instead of night and winter like it was when we’d gone through it before. We weren’t two leagues from Avonar—the dead one—and the cave in the rock was the one where we’d followed the Prince through the Gate-fire into the magic city. Kellea had guided us to the portal with her finding magic, and she and the Dulcé Bareil were waiting for us. I wanted to kiss every blade of grass, wallow in the streams, and eat Bareil’s cooking until my belly popped from it.

  Saving the Prince had been a near thing. I just barely heard the Prince’s call in my head when I was combing Firebreather on that night, wondering if the young master was going to come for me or not. The Prince was half asleep—half dead actually—because the Lords had put a spell on everyone in the Gray House, sending them to sleep so they would never wake up. The Prince had figured it out almost too late. He’d managed to get loose of his chains with his new-grown magic, but I’d found him trying to drag himself out of the fencing yard and not making a good job of it at all. I had to get him away from the house and help him stay awake until the spell wore off. That’s why we were late and the young master ended up in such a wicked way. But between us all, we’d gotten loose of the Lords and through the Breach, and I’d never been so grateful for anything in my life.

  I think I slept for a whole day straight through after Kellea dragged us through the Gate and the cave. I might have done longer—I’m good at sleeping—but the Prince woke me up. “Paulo, how are you this morning?” He was crouched down by me, whispering. He looked wicked tired. The Lady Seri was rolled in a blanket, sleeping close by the fire.

  “I got no complaints. Except—”

  “You’re hungry, right?”

  I never knew somebody could smile with his whole self like the Prince, even when he was worn flat and worried.

  “Are you looking in my head?”

  “No need. Friends know these things about each other. Bareil has hot porridge over there, but once you’ve eaten, I need your help.” Never thought I’d hear a prince say that to me. Made me being hungry not near so important. “I need you to stay with Gerick a while.”

  “How is he? Have you . . . ?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve not been able to help him yet. I’ve looked at him a bit and tried a few things, but I’ll need everything I can muster to attempt it. So, I’ve got to sleep for a while. But I don’t want him left alone. Seri isn’t going to wake for hours yet, and he doesn’t know Kellea or Bareil.”

  “Sure, I’ll come. Is he awake then?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure he can sleep any more. He’s not eaten or drunk or anything since we’ve come here. And he’s spoken not a word. Hardly moved.” The Prince rubbed his head. “Get yourself something to eat, then come to us.”

  They had pitched a tent under the trees to shelter the young master. Bareil said they were keeping it dark inside as he seemed a little easier in the dark. All I could see at first were two white lights. Then, as I got used to the dark, I saw him sitting up in the corner, huddled up to his knees, his hands clenched into tight fists. The white lights were the jewels they had given him for eyes.

  The Prince sat beside him, watching, talking to him quiet-like. I didn’t know whether to say anything or not, but the Prince looked up and smiled. “Come in, Paulo. I’ve told Gerick that you’re going to be with him for a while. Bareil will wake me at sunset. Call me instantly if you need anything.” He laid his hand on the young master’s head. “We’ll take care of you,” he said, and then he left us alone.

  I wasn’t sure whether I ought to talk or not. My usual is not to say anything unless I have to. More troubles can happen to you from talking too much than from not. But the young master and I had done some talking in Zhev’Na, and even though he was thinking he was going to be a Lord and had to make himself hard and alone so as not to hurt anybody by it, we had a time or two. If we’d both been born low, or both high, then one might say we’d come to be friends.

  There at the last, when I thought he’d for sure turned hims
elf evil and was killing the Prince with his magic, I went crazy and jumped him, expecting he would blast me to the ceiling—and half hoping he would. But he talked in my head, the way the sorcerers do, and told me to keep hitting him hard. He said that if the Lords were to get distracted then maybe the Prince would have a chance to stay alive. He kept telling me he was sorry, so sorry, that he hadn’t understood that V’Saro was the Prince until too late, and that he’d never meant for the Lords to kill V’Saro or me. He said he couldn’t hardly feel anything any more, except that he couldn’t let us die—the Prince and the lady . . . and me. While we wrestled there on that glass floor, I talked back to him the way Kellea had taught me. I said that none of us would leave him in that wicked place. And I told him that if he could keep that one bit of feeling he had left, then maybe he could find all his other feelings again. I was as surprised as the Prince and the lady when he pulled me up off the floor and came with us. But now it looked like he was in a worse fix than he was before.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” I said, squatting down beside him in the tent. “I thought you’d be all right if we got you out. Shows you what an ignorant horse-keeper knows.”

  It was just odd talking to him when you could see only part of his real face, the rest of it that mask. He couldn’t blink or show that he heard you at all. But I went on babbling about horses and such stuff, thinking it might be as well if he had something to think on that wasn’t fearful. He was terrible afraid. So bad it was killing him. The Prince didn’t have to tell me that. The tent was busting with his fear.

  When the Prince came back at sunset, he carried a handful of linen and a small leather case. I was eating some jack Bareil had brought me, and I offered to share it. The Prince shook his head. “I can’t yet. It’s that stuff they fed us—the graybread. It’s fixed it where anything else makes me sick. I’ll have to find something later.”

  He set down the linen and his case. “Right now we have to take care of Gerick. Light the lamp, if you would.”

  I did it.

  “This won’t be easy, Paulo,” he said. “You’ll have to hold him still. I’m going to try to get the mask off, and I won’t be able to do it one-handed. Are you willing?”

  “He saved my life back there. More than once.”

  “Mine, too.”

  He settled himself next to the young master and opened the leather case. I knew what was in it. It was his tools that he used when he healed my busted leg and put right the other one so that I hardly limped at all any more. I hoped he could do the same for his boy as he had for me.

  “Remember, unless I tell you it’s all right, you mustn’t touch me at any time once we’re bound and I’ve said the invocation. If you need help, call Bareil. He’ll be waiting just outside.”

  “You can trust me.”

  He grabbed a handful of my hair and waggled my head with it, smiling. “I do. It’s why you’re here.” Then he got on his knees and spread his arms and said his prayer that always started his healing magic. “Life, hold. Stay your hand . . .”

  Neither of us was expecting what happened when he cut the young master’s arm. I’d not heard such a terrible cry since the night I was sent to Zhev’Na and heard the Zhid putting the collars on the Dar’Nethi slaves. The Prince looked like someone had stuck a knife in his gut. But while I tied their arms together, he held his boy tight to keep him from hurting himself from his thrashing about. As soon as the knot was made and the words were said, the young master quieted.

  I remembered how it had been when I was hurting so wicked and the Prince did this to me. White fire had blazed inside me, making me warm and easy, and the Prince talked to me every moment inside my head about how things were with me, so that I wasn’t afraid. I hoped the young master could feel it that way, too, but I knew the things wrong with him were a lot worse than a busted leg or two. I didn’t see how we were going to get that mask off. It was a part of his face, growed together with it. Made me sick to see it.

  It took an awful long time. The Prince had closed his eyes so you might think he was asleep, except that he had the same fierce look as was on his face when he was sword fighting. The young master began to shake and moan, and the Prince spoke to me. “Hold him, Paulo. Just don’t touch me.”

  And so I did. When the young master quieted a bit, the Prince had me take the jeweled pin out of his ear. It was burning hot when I took it off.

  Sometime much later the Prince took his right hand and started to run it real slow around the edges of the gold mask. Over and over it he went, and after a time you could see the metal begin to separate from the young master’s face. Finally the Prince said, so soft that you almost couldn’t hear him, “Cut the binding.”

  And when I’d done that, he said, “Dim the light and have one of the towels ready.”

  I did that, too.

  “Now hold his arms while I remove the mask. Carefully. Please, carefully.”

  I’ve never seen such a fearful sight. There was nothing there in the young master’s eyeholes. When I’d seen his changes before, his eyes had turned dark in their color, but now he didn’t have eyes at all, nor anything else there that I could see—just dark holes. The Prince covered him up real quick, as soon as he had the mask off.

  “Take the other towels and cut them into strips.” He almost couldn’t talk.

  I did as he told me, and we wrapped the strips of linen around and around the young master’s eyes. Then the Prince eased himself into the corner of the tent, shut his eyes, and held his boy close in his arms. I poked my head out of the tent and asked Bareil if he would bring the Prince something to drink. I knew he had to be thirsty after all that, but I didn’t dare go myself without the Prince’s leave.

  It was the Lady Seri that brought a cup of wine and a water flask. She knelt down beside the Prince and asked if he could drink. His eyes came open, and it was a fine thing to watch when he saw it was her. He took a sip of the water, then his eyes closed and he went to sleep, and the Lady Seri sat with them through the night. I stayed just by the door.

  It was a week before we knew anything. Three more times the Prince worked his healing on the young master. “I can’t tell you if I’ve done enough,” he said to us after the last one. “I think the Lords’ hold on him was released when we took off the mask and the jewels in his ear, but he doesn’t speak . . . doesn’t answer my questions or respond in any way when I’m with him. He has some places walled off so tightly that I can’t touch them. I don’t know if he has set the barriers himself, or if it’s some part of what the Lords have done to him. All I can do is try to banish those things that don’t belong, heal the places where it looks like he’s been damaged. As for his eyes . . . Something exists there now. Whether he will allow them to see, I don’t know.”

  The young master was never left alone. Though he just sat there not saying anything or even moving, either the Prince or the lady was always there talking to him or holding him, even if it was just touching his hand. Sometimes I would sit with whichever one was watching. One night the Lady Seri was coming into the tent, and she told the Prince how it was a fine night with a full moon such as they’d not seen in more than a year, as you could never see the moon in Zhev’Na. I said why didn’t they go see it together, as I could stay with the young master for a while and call them if there was any change. I knew the Prince and the Lady hadn’t taken any time alone together to speak of. They were shy of each other, more like two who were courting than ones who knew each other so well as they did.

  They took my offer, and so I was left with the young master alone. I started talking to him as I had before—about Dunfarrie and how the folks what had called me donkey would be fair surprised when they saw me walking straight, if his lordship would ever get himself together so I could go home, that is.

  “And what would you do if you got there? The village horses will have forgotten you after all this time.” It was so quiet I almost missed it.

  “Oh, they’ll rem—Blazes! Is tha
t you talking to me or is it my own self?”

  “We don’t sound all that much alike most times.”

  “Blazes! Damn! I got . . . I got to tell them . . . the lady and the Prince.”

  “Don’t leave.” He reached out and grabbed my arm. “Please . . . “

  “No. Not a bit of it. I’ll just stay right here. I might just holler out then, if that’s all right.”

  “No . . . I mean . . . if you’d just wait a little.”

  He was scared. Not in the way he’d been scared of the terrible things in his head. And cowardly scared. He told me how strange it was that he knew me better than he knew his parents, and how the Prince had been inside his head, but such wasn’t like really meeting him in his own body or anything.

  I agreed it was strange. My parents had been dead or run off since I was a nub. I couldn’t imagine having them walk in on me, knowing more about me than I did about them, and having all sorts of blood oaths and killing between us. “All I know is that you don’t have to be afraid of them,” I said to him. “They care about you more than anything.”

  We talked about other things for a bit, about horses and sword fighting, and about how I had worked in the stable at Comigor and he never even knew it, and how he had seen me outside the window in the council chamber in Avonar, while I’d been watching him inside. And while we talked, the tent flap opened, and the lady and the Prince came in. The young master turned his head that way even though his eyes were still bandaged up. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I think I’m all right.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Karon

  He wasn’t all right, of course. It would be a long time until we knew what the result of Gerick’s ordeal would be. We weren’t even sure he was mortal, for he had neither eaten nor drunk anything for nine days. But we took the bandages off that same night, and he did indeed have eyes again, beautiful brown eyes just like his mother’s. To our joy and relief, he could see with them, too.