Restoration

by Carol Berg

  After savoring a few mouthfuls of the warm, murky water, forcing myself not to gulp down the entire contents of the slow-to-replenish pool, I lay back under the glossy green leaves of the ancient tree and tried not to think. No use. I needed to walk away; I couldn’t even protect Aleksander from myself. I closed my eyes and threw my sweaty arms across my face. If only I could recapture the peace of the desert evening.

  As if in answer to my desire, Gaspar’s slow footsteps approached, stopping just beside me. The boy was not with him. “You’re not afraid?” I said when I felt him sit down beside me. The leaves rustled tiredly in the hot wind.

  “Not so much as you.” The old man’s voice was different than I’d ever heard it. Not teasing, not querulous, not reverent, but sharp. Resonating with authority. “My hand does not hold the life and death of the world.”

  I sat up and stared at him. In an instant the day was swallowed by a star-shattered midnight, so cold that I yearned for the sun’s harsh blaze. “What are you, Gaspar?” I said.

  “I could ask you much the same.” His blind, golden eyes were fixed on me. Though his voice did not quaver, whatever he envisioned beyond the realm of human sight was indeed frightening him. “But then, you know already what you are. I have named you.”

  “The one of darkness.”

  He did not agree or disagree, only pressed on as if his words were in a hurry to be spoken. “To strike terror into the hearts of those you love is a difficult thing. One of many difficult things. To embrace the darkness of your dreaming is the most difficult of all. To give name to the nameless and stand across the fathomless gulf from the light.”

  “It is not me,” I said as my heart shrank, not asking how he knew, not questioning his surety, not bothering to think how foolish it was to beg the universe to change what I had known all these months. “Please, it is not me.”

  “This is your true path, the one you have chosen. For good or ill, for death or life.”

  “No. Say something else.” As if his saying would change it.

  “I cannot unsay these things or pronounce a lie that might sound more pleasing. To protect a soul from the moment’s evil oft condemns it to an eternity of evil.”

  But if I could not protect those I loved or those I had sworn to defend, then what was the point of anything? If I was truly destined to destroy the world, then perhaps it would be best to end my own existence first. And yet of all things, I abhorred self-murder—the ultimate denial of life’s worth. “Help me understand,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You walk the path you’ve chosen. For the light to triumph, there must be darkness.”

  And so, in the end, this moment’s mystery gave me nothing new. Whatever the source of his words—gods or prophecy or an old man’s ravings that happened to touch upon a festering sore—matters still came down to yielding control of my future, to setting my foot upon the path and following wherever it led. But I knew where it led. Through a pillared gateway into a fortress that bled, to where a man with wings ... a man with my face ... raged and swore to destroy the world.

  “We can help you find balance, warrior. Before you begin the last battle, you must end this war with yourself.”

  But I did not want to hear any more. I buried my head in my arms and fortified the barriers I had built to hold my demon at bay, smothering him with spells and enchantments, locking him in a fortress of my power. Surely if I could remain myself, hold back the demon and remain on this side of the portal, refuse his craving to return to Kir‘Navarrin, none of this would happen. It is not me. I will not. It is not me.

  When next I looked up it was early evening and I was alone. Scented smoke hung faintly on the air. I must have been asleep or stricken by the sun, I thought. Gaspar was just a blind old man. No bone-reader or stargazer was going to give me answers.

  “He’s asking for you, Ezzarian!” The call came from Sovari down beside the nagera grove. I waved a hand in acknowledgment and hurried down the path.

  CHAPTER 9

  Aleksander was propped up on one of the Derzhi saddles, grimacing as Sarya fed him some thick brownish liquid with a wooden spoon. “Demonfire, woman, have you nothing that doesn’t taste like dung? If I’m going to live in this cursed world, then decent food might be pleasant.”

  “Cassiva will nourish you well, warrior. Better than meat for the wounded. Heals the bones.” The old woman jammed another spoonful in his mouth before he could complain again. Despite his belligerent manner, he could not seem to muster the strength to push her hand away. He glared at me ferociously over the old woman’s head.

  I sat beside one of the walls that formed the sheltered corner and waited. Sovari had vanished after summoning me, and Malver was nowhere to be seen. Likely the quiet soldier was planning to stay out of my way until he saw I wasn’t going to kill him at the next opportunity.

  When the cup was empty, Sarya set it aside and pointed to a clay bowl that sat next to the Prince. “Shall I help you with this now you’re awake, warrior, or do you prefer your friend to do it, or will you lie in your own puddle?”

  “I’ve been pissing on my own for a fair number of years. I need no wretched hag and no cowardly Ezzarian to manage it.”

  “I think we have his blood running again,” said Sarya, flashing her three brown teeth at me. “They never name me wretched hag until the fever’s fair gone. Manot will come see to the poultice after a bit.”

  Aleksander mumbled at her retreating back. “What kind of healer leaves a man smelling like a beggar’s hovel? Next thing they’ll be bandaging me with goat liver or rotted cabbage.” He began fumbling with the bowl and the tail of his filthy, bloodstained shirt, but in trying to maneuver, he jarred his leg, bound tight into its cage of wood from thigh to foot. His head dropped back onto the saddle, and he closed his eyes. “Bloody Athos,” he whispered, losing the bit of healthy color he had regained.

  “You wanted to see me?” I said, moving around to where I could support his splinted leg and roll him smoothly to his side so he could take fair aim at Sarya’s bowl.

  Even in this less than dignified position, with his jaw clenched at the effort of movement, he managed to sound like a Derzhi prince. “I wished to tell you that you’re free to go. Take wing, fly away, whatever it is you do.”

  “A bold dismissal from one who can clearly not take a piss on his own at the moment.”

  “Your duty is done. You’ve always told me that your interest is not to protect my empire. Good enough. It might take me a little while to regain the confidence of my nobles after running away from a fight like a peasant farmer.” He grimaced and swore as I rolled him back and adjusted the saddle to support him more comfortably.

  “You were going to die. That wasn’t going to inspire much confidence, either.”

  The pain in his eyes told of more than a wounded body. “You’ve put this damnable burden on me—to see the world as you see it. I tried, and where has it left me? When I take back what’s mine, do you think I’ll be able to afford the slightest suggestion of weakness? Do you know what I’ll have to yield to pull in allies?”

  I had no answer, of course, and he well knew it. What use to argue alternatives, when none had existed for either of us? So I let him yell at me for as long as he had strength to do so, regaling me with how little I knew of Derzhi warfare and how stupid I had been to think that just because the Hamraschi had encircled his men and killed half of them, he had been destined to lose the battle. Then he told me in gruesome detail how he would punish the traitors who had failed their Emperor.

  Only when he finally lay back and closed his eyes did I speak again. “So what will you do now, my lord?”

  “Go begging, I suppose. Grovel before the Gorusch and swear I did not kill my father. Grovel before the Fontezhi and tell them they can have half of my horses, my lands, and my firstborn son if they will but do their sworn duty. Tell the Nyabozzi I was mistaken—they can take whomever they please as slaves again and cut out the wretches�
�� eyes and sell their children if it makes the first lord happy. Then perhaps I can get them to skewer Edik before he gets thinking my empire is his for the taking. But here I am laid up like a kayeet in a leg trap, while the snake is likely sleeping in my bed. By Druya’s horns, has ever a man been in such a vile predicament?”

  “You should probably sleep a bit more before you go groveling.” I pulled his stained white cloak over his legs.

  “Weeks ... it will be cursed weeks before I can ride.”

  “If you want the limb straight, you must stay off it until it grows together.”

  “There’s a man in Zhagad who makes riding boots for broken limbs ... steel bars in them, foot to thigh. I’m going to send Malver to have one made for me. He can take my old boot to use for the measure.”

  “But, my lord, you can’t allow—”

  “Malver knows how to be cautious. And he and Sovari will have to carry my messages until I can get moving again. I’ve got to find out who’s with me.”

  Night had fallen as we talked. The moon was new and rising late, and soon Aleksander’s face was but a pale smudge in the darkness. Our conversation dwindled away, my mind returning to the strange midnight I had experienced that afternoon, when Gaspar had spoken of light and dark and fate and choices. As I watched the glimmering sky above the spiked silhouettes of the nagera grove, I longed to be among the stars, cold and detached from all this pain. I needed to be about my leaving. But worries kept nagging and I could not begin. If Aleksander dispatched Sovari and Malver on errands, he would have no one left to protect him...

  “Malver told me what happened with you this afternoon.” Aleksander’s voice came softly from the shadows. I had thought he’d fallen asleep. “Was it what you told me of, this mind-sickness that has you so worried? The demon?”

  I should have known he would remember all I told him on the day Sovari and Malver set his leg. “I need to get away from Drafa before I doze off and cut your throat,” I said, bitterness welling up within me like the stinking octar that seeps from desert rocks.

  “Was that why you didn’t fight beside me? Were you afraid you would kill the wrong people?”

  “There were a number of reasons.”

  “Tell me, Seyonne. I believed you would stand with me if I asked. For me, not my father. Why would you not help until the day was lost?”

  The question was born of love, for his pride would never have allowed him to ask it. And so I overcame my own pride and gave him the answer, the thing I could not and would not tell any other person in the world. “Yes, I worried about this cursed demon and my annoying habit of attacking anyone who happens to be within reach. But even without that ... I can no longer wield a sword without pain, my lord. A well-placed blow to my right side, and I cannot even raise my arm, much less hold a weapon.” A difficult thing for a warrior to reveal, especially to a friend who believed that strength was everything.

  “Ah, bloody damn ... the knife wound.” Aleksander had seen Ysanne’s work. He and Blaise and Fiona had rescued me from the brink of death that day.

  “The namhir nearly took me with a stick of wood. Fortunately he was mostly dead when he got in his hit. You could say this madness saved me; I don’t seem to feel the pain when I’m hacking bodies apart. But if you had relied on me in the battle, it could have cost you everything. I had to wait and be ready to save your life.”

  “You won’t mind if I withhold my thanks for that?”

  “I never expected your thanks.”

  “I’m sure not.” He laughed a bit, but when he spoke again, he was very serious. “You’ll stay with me now? We’ll have the others keep wary—they don’t know what to make of you anyway—and it’s been months since I’ve slept without a knife in my hand. But I don’t believe you would ever do me harm, even if you were mad.”

  His trust was humbling, but only the conviction that he was a dead man otherwise held me there. “If you’re willing to risk it,” I said, “unless I get worse, I’ll stay.”

  The days in Drafa were very long and very hot. The season was moving toward summer, when even the dune-runners and sand-deer came out only after dark. We slept a great deal in the daytime, especially Aleksander, for the women plied him with herbs and teas to ease his pain and heal his wounds. In the days following my attack on Malver, the swelling in the Prince’s leg began to recede and the dreadful tear in his flesh to knit. No further sign of sepsis showed itself, and Manot replaced her poultices with ointment made from pine bark.

  As he had planned, Aleksander dispatched Sovari and Malver with well-crafted messages for the lords of several powerful hegeds. I persuaded him to have the two men speak first with Kiril. That he held out so long against this was a measure of his unspoken pessimism.

  “Your cousin awaits your word, my lord,” I argued for the tenth time. “He may already know the information you seek. You’ve no stronger ally.”

  “I don’t want Kiril dead. If old Hamrasch gets the slightest idea—”

  “You shame Lord Kiril by not accepting what he offers. Even I know enough of Derzhi honor to understand that.”

  With deep misgiving, he at last relented, sending Sovari to Kiril and Malver to the boot-maker. Malver left me his bow, and I shouldered all the hunting duties, taking the stringy chukars feeding at the spring—no more than one in ten, Gaspar told me, else the birds would stop coming—and a sand-deer. The old ones could no longer hunt easily, and Qeb would not leave Gaspar’s side. At least we were able to repay some of their kindness with provisions.

  The old women flitted about us day and night, cleaning and dressing Aleksander’s wound and re-splinting his leg as the swelling went down, making sure to pad the wood carefully with leaves and ointments to prevent skin sores. They held very little conversation beyond the moment’s business, leaving the difficult task of Aleksander’s amusement to me. In less than a day our blades were in danger of disappearing from his excessive honing. He fidgeted and cursed and complained at my attempts at distraction: discussions of geography and weather, my recent employment as a scribe in Karesh, and how difficult farming was when landlords refused to give their tenants any tools. Peasant farmers were among the most courageous of his subjects. Ezzarian sword making and the differences in fighting demons and humans interested him somewhat more. But the only thing that truly intrigued him was the story of my banishment from Ezzaria: the search for my son that had led me to Blaise, my long sojourn in the demon realm of Kir’ Vagonoth, the Warden Merryt, long-captive in the demon realm, and the accumulation of evidence that had led me to believe that my people and the demons had been split apart in fear of something or someone imprisoned in Kir‘Navarrin.

  “And you don’t know what’s inside this Tyrrad Nor?” he said one wakeful midnight.

  “To my mind, a fortress is more likely to hold a prisoner than some formless danger,” I said. “Merryt certainly believed so and called him ‘the Nameless,’ referring to the Nameless God, a figure in Ezzarian myth. I suppose it’s not out of possibility that our god-story has grown from some real incident in our history.”

  So then I had to tell Aleksander the story of Verdonne, the mortal maiden beloved of a god, and how the god had grown jealous of their half-human, half-divine son, Valdis, and tried to kill him and all the humans who loved the child. Despite her husband’s rage, Verdonne had stood firm between the god and the mortal world, protecting her child and her people. “When Valdis was grown to manhood,” I said, “he defeated the god in single combat, but could not bring himself to kill his own father. So he imprisoned his father in a magical fortress and took away his name so that no one could worship him anymore. The story concludes with a warning: ‘Woe to the man who unlocks the prison of the Nameless God, for there will be such a wrath of fire and destruction laid upon the earth as no mortal being can imagine. And it will be called the Day of Ending, the last day of the world.’ Not a warning to take lightly.”

  Aleksander paused in the middle of devouring a fist-sized chunk o
f deer haunch. “So you think that a god is sitting in this fortress called Tyrrad Nor, waiting to destroy the world. And you believe that somehow he is you.”

  “He’s not a god. No. Nor a rai-kirah. He understands how to use dreams, and rai-kirah don’t dream. A sorcerer, perhaps, one of my own people—a joined rai-kirah and man.” I tapped my knife idly on the haunch bone. “Sometimes I think he’s taunting me ... telling me that what I’ve already done will allow him to be free ... or that somehow he can force me to do his work for him. I don’t know.”

  “Do his work ... destroy the world? I won’t believe it.” He started eating again. If appetite was any sign of healing, Aleksander would be riding within a month. “It’s your blasted care for all the world that keeps tearing up my life. You held onto yourself through everything we Derzhi did to you, and then through torture and enchantment in that fiendish Kir‘Vagonoth. What could make you alter the very nature of your soul? Nothing.” He waved a piece of flatbread at me to make his point. “As you said, he’s likely taunting you, trying to make you doubt yourself. Perhaps he knows you’re the only one who can destroy him.”

  But, of course, I had altered the very nature of my soul. I didn’t remind the Prince of that, and I didn’t tell him of my strange encounter with Gaspar at the spring. I was still trying to convince myself that Gaspar’s insights were naught but an old man’s ramblings, and my odd perceptions merely sun exposure.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ll make you the same promise that you swore to me on the day I cut off your slave rings. If you ever become this monstrous villain, I’ll come after you. You’ll die by my hand and no other. Does that make you feel better?”

  I laughed. “Much better.” I didn’t mention that if I became the thing I feared, neither prince nor warrior nor sorcerer would be capable of facing me.

  The old man and Qeb came to sit with us every evening, unrolling their mats when the breathless furnace of the day yielded to shivering night. Gaspar drank endless cups of nazrheel and told us endless stories of Drafa and its history, of the days when the Derzhi were wandering warriors who protected the other desert peoples from the invasions of barbarians. “The wild men came looking for our horses and our sheep, our salt and our women,” he said, inhaling the stinking fumes of his tea with deep satisfaction. “But the warriors chased them away and kept vigil in their wanderings throughout the land. The desert people named the Derzhi tribesmen lords in thanks for their protection, and they named the greatest of them king of their land that they called Azhakstan.”