Daughter of Ancients

Chapter 36

"The southeast portal has been opened, Lord Dieste, but the legion has not yet moved through it. Gensei Senat asks if he should prompt Wargreve Pavril?"

Somewhere to the east my warriors blasted another structure to rubble. The messenger's horse snorted and rolled its eyes, dancing backward and sideways, forcing the chinless warrior to shout even louder than the scattered combat and the roar of destruction required. My own mount had pretensions to the same kind of indiscipline. I quashed his hopes with a heavy hand on his mouth and insistent pressure on his flanks.

"Absolutely not," I said. "Pavril will answer his command at the proper time. Clearly he has not yet seen the triggering movement from the Dar'Nethi. Tell the gensei his Lord commands patience and attention to his own orders."

"Gensei Senat says his wing is almost in position, Lord."

"Then he will wear his skin for another hour, won't he?"

An explosion of blue-and-gold light and a sour gale from the advance curtailed further discussion. The messenger raced off toward the northwest, or perhaps his terrified steed decided on its own to return the way he'd come and the messenger just rode along.

Another blast of sound and light came from the eastern bank of the river, and a jagged crack split the sides of a stepped wall. Great shards of masonry crashed to the sloping ground, exposing a modest house with a wide porch—a fragile structure, sad and drooping in the continuing drizzle.

The porch exploded in orange flames. I choked up on the reins and shoved my heels deep in the stirrups. "Steady, beast," I said, through clenched teeth, trying to concentrate.

Beyond the visible combat another battle raged, warring enchantments that writhed in the ether, eroding flesh and spirit, driving warriors to desperation. On the rugged western bank of the river, a screaming man threw himself into the water, his skin glowing with yellow and silver sparks. If I remembered correctly, that particular enchantment felt like a rain of biting spiders.

My recalcitrant horse and I sat atop First Bridge, the grandest of the six promenades across the Sillvain. As it was entirely built of stone, incendiary spells posed little threat to me there. My bodyguards had riddled the structure with enchantments that would slow incoming arrows, were there any competent archers in Avonar to loft them, and would divert spears and lances from their courses, were there any Dar'Nethi fighters who could approach so near as to launch them. My retinue comprised three cadres—thirty warriors—under orders to protect me from intrusive enchantments. When I chose to move forward and my banner was no longer seen over the river, my warrior Zhid would crush First Bridge into pebbles. The power was in my word.

To wield such power, to see my banner flying again, was intoxicating. We'd had no sewing women to make the pennon, but an aide had conjured one as it had existed in Zhev'Na, its field black, its device very like the shield of D'Arnath: two golden lions rampant supporting the arch of D'Arnath's Bridge and the starry worlds it joined. But on the Fourth Lord's banner the arch was missing its center span, and in the gap stood a beast engulfed in flame, crushing the starry worlds in its hands. Lord Ziddari had said the beast was me.

Gensei Kovrack was doing his job well, driving our advance through the city virtually unhindered. Ironic that after a thousand years, all it had taken was a few of D'Sanya's Restored to open the gates of Avonar to the warriors of Zhev'Na. The Dar'Nethi defenses were in tatters. Without their walls to protect them, the shopkeepers, boys, and cowards could not face our soulless legions. When their commanders—more of the reverted Restored—turned on them, they broke and ran. All to the good. Wholesale death had never been our objective. Slaves yielded more lasting pleasure.

Only where D'Sanya led the defense did we have to fight. I had caught sight of her twice, racing from one end of the front to the other, beautiful and valiant, rallying her straggling, inexperienced fighters, conjuring barriers and shields of enchantment, expending her extraordinary power without thought for the cost. Somewhere in the morass of tangled feelings I embraced upon this night, I pitied D'Sanya.

All I had to do to counter her workings was to send word of the new obstacle to Gensei Felgir, one of my five senior commanders, who was ensconced safely on the ramparts of Mount Siris. He would touch the master avantir in the way I told him, and a hundred Zhid would veer from their present course, tear down whatever she had built, and savage those foolish enough to rely on it. She could not stay to defend her workings, as she had already moved on to counter another assault. No matter how strong, how powerful, or how valiant she was, the Lady could not fight the entire battle on her own, not when her own perverse sorcery gave life and coherence to her enemies through the avantir. Eventually we would wear her down. I was counting on that.

Against custom for a Zhev'Na high commander, I kept close behind the front line, moving from one watchpost to another as we advanced. The Three had never been physically present in combat. But I could not afford to be far away when D'Sanya broke and ran for the citadel. Though vast swathes of the city remained in Dar'Nethi hands, our wedge of fire and destruction had reached almost to the grand commard. We would have both palace and princess before midnight.

No Zhid questioned my loyalties any more. In less than a day, I had brought the plans of five contentious gensei together. Over the past few years, the five, strong enough and wily enough to survive the passing of the Lords, had quietly gathered the remnants of their legions into the deep and hidden places of Gondai's wastelands. The only circumstance that had preserved Avonar for so many months was the lack of a single will to lead them. If Kovrack had not been temporarily diverted by D'Sanya's flawed healing, he might have risen to it. But what they had needed was a Lord's will. Now Dar'Nethi were fleeing and Avonar was ours for the taking. If I were to unleash the warriors at my command—those here, those aimed at the northern Vales, those in the east—no blade of grass in all of Gondai would survive two days longer.

I spoke in Gensei Felgir's mind and had him touch my three armies through the avantir, reminding them that their only duty was my desire. I reiterated my simple strategy: First, I would take the palace of the Tormentor King and recapture his daughter; second, I would destroy his Bridge; and only then would I unleash the holocaust upon the Dar'Nethi and their land.

"Lord Dieste, Wargreve Raskow begs confirmation that you wish every house destroyed along the watercourses. His cadres cannot give chase to the escaping Dar'Nethi if they are required to attend these enchantments." The grevet with blood streaks on his arms stood with bowed head at my right.

I examined him closely. His fouled weapons were still warm. The full lips smirked at his own clever depravity in finding ways to trap and kill fleeing Dar'Nethi. His tongue had licked the salt of terror from Dar'Nethi skin not half an hour ago. Minor officers such as grevets always overvalued themselves. I closed my eyes and reached out through the avantir into the murky ocean of Zhid minds until I found the man … and I touched him.

His pupils dilated with horror, and he slapped a hand to his face. His scream emerged as only a gurgle in the sea of blood that gushed from his mouth.

"Tell the Wargreve Raskow … or show him, whichever you wish . . . how I rebuke those who question my commands. Remind him that with increasing rank my rebukes grow more severe."

Still mewling, the grevet backed away, raced down the span of the bridge, and vanished into the night.

And so I waited. Listened. Watched. It was almost time to move forward again.

An hour before midnight, the bells of Avonar stopped ringing. I stood at the foot of the sloping parkland fronting the Heir's palace, and signaled the aide who held my horse to bring the animal closer. I tested the girth straps and had the aide tighten them and shorten the stirrup height. An occasional rumble of the ground and frequent flashes signaled skirmishes to east and west of my position.

D'Sanya had withdrawn to the palace gates after her battle lines stretched too thin. I had forbidden my warriors to pursue for the moment, commanding our forces to solidify their positions on the corners before taking on the Lady. And so she and some hundred fighters had taken their stance before the gates of her father's citadel, sheathed in her blue-and-green fire. The archers atop the palace walls were skilled, diffusing the light about their positions so that we could not return fire accurately or see where they moved next. But they were forced into this tactic because their numbers were far too few for the expansive front of the palace. The archers were not a concern. Nor were the clustered fighters. Only D'Sanya could face us.

Gensei Kovrack and three hundred Zhid fanned out across the commard behind me, swords and axes blazing with blue fire, enchantments of rending and destruction hovering about each man like the stench about a three-day corpse. The gensei chafed at my withholding, especially now the bells were silenced, as near rebellion as he dared go with my eye on him and my fist wrapped about his heart.

Another half-hour passed. A horseman raced toward my position.

"Lord Dieste." He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Gensei Senat reports a hardening of the defenses at the shrine. A shield wall has gone up, interfering with communication, and obscuring sight. He asks that you hasten the summoning of his reserve troops."

Warmth flooded my skin, but I permitted no change in my demeanor. "Tell the gensei that my plan was flawless. If his own weakness gives breath to the defenders, he must deal with it."

"Of course, Lord Dieste. As you say."

Not daring to consider what his report signified, I glared at the warrior as he slunk away. If I could but get a confirmation . . . "Grevet Gen'Vyl!" I called.

A tall man with a knobby bones, one of the Restored from the hospice, separated from the cluster of aides standing ten paces away. He hurried to my side and genuflected, his cold eyes devoid of the kindness he had shown to D'Sanya's guests for so many months. "Lord."

"Have we new reports from Wargreve Pavril?"

"Only that the ruined quarter around the bathhouse appears to be abandoned. He believes the last Dar'Nethi have withdrawn, and he is hastening his troops' passage through the portal. He will be ready when your signal is given. We didn't think such a minor matter—"

I backhanded the babbling Zhid, shoved him to the dirt, and swung into the saddle. "You are not commanded to think. Nor are you qualified to judge what is minor."

"Now!" I yelled at the red-haired general who sat his pied stallion on my left. And into the dark void where the gnarled Gensei Felgir fingered our instrument of doom, I screamed the same command, all the while praying to gods I had scorned that I didn't mean what I was about to say. "Onward to the world's end!"

My mount, free at last, raced gleefully across the commard toward the palace. Timing was everything. And yet timing was the least certain of all the elements of this battle. Out of harsh necessity, some of the participants fought blind. But the defensive hardening at one entry point and the suspicious quiet at the other indicated that someone had heeded my message.

I rode as I had never ridden, flying ahead of the assault, trying to dodge the initial defensive shock that would be aimed at Kovrack and his warriors, a huge enchantment laid far enough from the defenders themselves that their eardrums and night vision would remain intact. Explosive light and shattering noise erupted behind me. Zhid and horses died.

Plowing through the perimeter of the defensive arc, I allowed the force of my charge to part the unmounted defenders. I hoped that my horse would survive long enough to get me through. My primitive diversion spell worked well enough that the Dar'Nethi defenders' eyes slid past me, and I carried only a knife in my boot, a weapon small enough and far enough from my hand that it would not trigger their perceptions. The Lords had taught me that trick. As with everything they taught, I had learned it well.

The few of D'Sanya's little band who noticed me could not afford to confront a lone, unarmed rider, as the bulk of Kovrack's assault force swept across the commard like a hurricane right on my heels. I dodged a few late strikes, my enchantments misdirected a few more, and I was through.

D'Sanya stood at the top of the palace steps, her golden hair standing out from her head with the charge in the air. Her silver rings and pendant gleamed in the murky light as she wove enchantments meant to give her warriors strength, accuracy, far-seeing, and steadfast hearts. Even now, after a long and terrible day, her strikes blasted and scraped both spirit and flesh like a desert whirlwind. Horrific death lay in her wake.

"Stand fast," she shouted. "We will hold this gate until the end of all—"

Her startled eyes met mine. "You!"

Her hand flew to her breast as I leaped from the saddle and raced up the steps. But I ripped the silver pendant from her grasp before she could invoke its particular violence, snapped the chain that circled her neck, and flung the pendant into the melee behind me, wrapping it in a spell that would cause anyone who touched it—even D'Sanya—to throw it away. As she clenched her fists to focus power, I gripped her waist and spun her in my arms, relieved to discover that her mail vest carried no enchantments more dangerous than any warrior's protections. Crushing her wrists to her breast, I snatched the knife from my boot and pricked the pale skin of her throat. "I would not slay you, Lady. But I will not hesitate if you disregard even the least of my commands."

"Kill him," she screamed, as I dragged her backward, pressing my undefended back against one of the gate towers. "Kill us both."

But there was no one to aid her. Throughout the past day and night she had been their rock, the commander who had needed no protection, for hers was the overwhelming power that had shielded them all from fire and wrath. And now her tired, brave warriors were desperately engaged with two hundred and fifty Zhid who slavered at the promise of accomplishing the destruction I had promised them.

"Strip off your rings or I will remove your fingers." She writhed in my arms, but I tightened my grip on her wrists and my knife bit deeper into her smooth flesh. "Now!" I screamed in her ear. I could yield her no time to think or plan. I was already relying far too much on exhaustion and confusion to slow her reactions and dampen her power.

"Lady!" A horrified Dar'Nethi warrior saw what was happening and ran toward us, only to be cut down from behind by a bellowing Zhid.

D'Sanya cried out as if the slashing blow had cut her own flesh. "Curse you forever, you soul-dead devil!" she spat over her shoulder. "I'll never—"

I whipped my blade across the back of her graceful hand, leaving a trail of bright blood, as I felt the first fire of her magic sear my flesh and claw at my heart. Her cry of pain almost caused me to lose focus. But her enchantment cooled, and my heart kept beating on its own.

I dug the knifepoint into one of her knuckles. "Remove the ring and drop it to the ground."

Sobbing softly, she pulled off the delicate band of silver and let it fall to the ground. I wrapped it in my own power so she could not use it again. I had to hurry. The Dar'Nethi were steadfast . . . but they would not hold for long. I could smell their blood. Their fear. Their despair. My veins pulsed with blood-fever as my warriors hissed in contempt. Focus. Remember who you are .

I shifted my knifepoint to the next knuckle. "And now the next. Quickly."

When her hands were bare, I dragged her toward the center of the steps. "Open the gate."

"Never!"

I pulled her ear close to my mouth. "If you open it now, I will allow you to lock it again behind us, secure until my warriors break it for themselves. And once inside, you will have only me to deal with. You might even get the better of me. But if you wait, I will bring five thousand Zhid into your father's house alongside me, and no hand in any world will stop what is to come. Choose the lesser evil, D'Sanya."

"I will not serve you, Destroyer," she said, trying again to wrench free.

I summoned a wind to clear the smoke for one moment. From the steps we could see down the great slopes of Mount Eidol, the foundation of Avonar. Tongues of orange flame ate their way through the darkness in every direction. Dense plumes of smoke bore the thunderous cries of the dying city into the lowering clouds.

"Look on Avonar, D'Sanya! You have served destruction since the first day you yielded to the Lords' will. You know this. You've always known it. This day is your doing as well as mine, and no hollow swearing will alter what we have done. We were children, and they corrupted us. We are their instruments. But our choices this day can change the destiny they planned for us. Lay your hand on the lock. You are the anointed Princess of Avonar. The locks of your palace gates know you."

Her weary body betrayed her. After only a moment's struggle, I pressed her hands onto the great steel plates that centered the leftmost gate. The wood-and-steel slab had scarcely begun to swing open when I dragged her through and shouted to the confused guards to slam it shut behind us. When they saw my knife at their sovereign's throat, they jumped to obey.

The closure of the palace gate triggered the next wave of Kovrack's assault as I had designed it to do. At the shrill bleating of the Zhid warhorns and the trumpeting of the Dar'Nethi alarm, every Dar'Nethi in the palace precincts was summoned to the walls. Shielded by the distraction of battle and the simple spell of not-seeing that I'd learned from Jen, we left the battle behind and entered the palace.

The routes to D'Arnath's Gate were not guarded. My father had told me that in a thousand years, the ancient king's palace had been broached only by individual treachery, never by war, and never at the Gate itself. The wards opened only to the Heir's command. The confusing passages were untraversable by any who had not been shown the way to the Chamber of the Gate. Centuries of safety had left the Dar'Nethi complacent about the greatest treasure they possessed.

As the battle for the palace raged, I dragged D'Sanya down the path and forced her to open the wards. Shoving her toward the brass lion, I slammed the doors behind us. The wrongness of the Bridge enchantment threatened to rend my spirit.

"Why have we come here?" she asked, clutching her bleeding hand, backing away from me, her eyes blazing. The light of the Gate fire—no longer the searing white purity of D'Arnath's enchantments, but the livid color of dead flesh—made the edges of her hair gleam. "You daren't touch the Bridge. Only the—"

"What did you do here, D'Sanya? Were you so mad to repair your crimes that you had to pervert your father's marvel? Did you even think what you were doing? Did you even consider the consequences, the risk?"

"I don't know what you mean." Hoarse. Defiant.

With a roar of rage, I summoned the power of a battering ram and slammed it against the bronze lion. The deafening crash as it toppled to the rose-and-gray stone might have been the gates of doom closing behind us. The gold orb and the silver, the villainous baubles she had cast in her lectorium, dropped from the air, then clattered and bounced across the cracked floor.

Anger filled me to bursting, fed by the soul-shredding dissonance of the perverted magic, fed by the blood-thirst that raged in me and my horror at my deeds of this day and their unyielding necessity. "Every artifact you create is connected to every other, D'Sanya. Each ring and pendant, each lock and statue and slip of metal that you place in walls and floors and doors is imbued with your power. Some objects focus power. Some devour it. Some pieces are of your own design. Some are of the Lords' contrivance. But you are the Metalwright, and your magic binds them to you and to each other as L'Clavor taught you, All of them, am I right? So that you can make larger workings than each device would support."

She retreated until her back rested against the fallen lion. Her expression of confusion infuriated me. "Yes, but I don't know—"

"You didn't have enough power for all your good works, did you? And so you made the orbs and put them here, and then you worked some magic to link them, and thus all of your devices, to the Bridge itself—the artifact of your father's power to which you believed you had a right. You've drained its power for your own uses."

"I did no such thing. How could I? The lion . . . the orbs . . . are to glorify him, so that none who come here forget who made all this. I am my father's Heir, and I bear the power he gave me. Of course I have the right to walk the Bridge and to maintain it as he taught us.

But I would never use it for myself. I wouldn't know how to do that." She knelt on the floor and scooped up the golden ball. Her mail shirt was streaked with blood, her trousers stained with mud and soot. "How dare you touch these things?"

"You made the oculus and the avantir, knowing full well they were artifacts of Zhev'Na, designed by the Lords. As you used the Bridge to feed your own power, you empowered those devices as well. D'Sanya, you've linked the Bridge to the Lords' devices. That's how the Zhid have risen. That's why the enchantments of this world crack my skull, why they twist back upon themselves and go awry."

"Designs cannot be evil." Her denial was weaker now. "I had so much work to do. To heal the things they did. The things they made me do . . ."

Feeling her soften, I pressed on less brutally. I had to learn what kind of link she had forged. "I read my father's history of the Dar'Nethi, about their joy, their kindness, their grace even after such horrors as the Catastrophe in Gondai and the Extermination in the mundane world, about their largeness of mind and heart and their willingness to build the Bridge and suffer this war to keep the universe in balance, to shield the mundane world from the Lords. You told me of your father's strength, his courage, his love and good humor in the most terrible of times. But what do we see now? This passionate hatred of those who were Zhid, whose restoration once caused purest rejoicing. The suspicion and mistrust of those who were slaves—unthinkable a year ago or ten centuries ago. Look anywhere in Gondai and you'll find fear, jealousy, despair, madness even to murder, people abandoning the Way that has sustained them for centuries. And the worst of it has happened since your return, so subtle, so pervasive, the Dar'Nethi themselves cannot see or feel their change … because you've tainted the foundation . . . the Bridge itself."

She set the golden ball carefully back on the floor and wrapped her arms about her middle. Her radiant skin had gone gray in the morbid light. Her extraordinary eyes seemed the size of my palms. Perhaps she was beginning to understand what her willful blindness had caused … so I wouldn't have to force her to the next step. Earth and sky, how I had loved her. "You have to stop it now, D'Sanya. Break this link so we can undo what you've done. Please, you must—"

Her dagger struck me in the left shoulder. My wards had triggered a warning and made me twist at the last moment or it would have pierced my heart. I staggered backward, fighting to breathe through the pain, through the enchantments that flooded my chest and limbs and caused the muscles to spasm uncontrollably. As I yanked the enchanted weapon from my shoulder, the room began to spin lazily, the air thick and glassy like cold honey.

"You are wrong, Destroyer. You are the being who poisons Gondai. I'll prove it. But I'll take your suggestion. I'll walk the Bridge and draw upon my father's magic to save Avonar. I'll destroy you before you and your demon Zhid destroy the world." She adjusted her belt where the empty sheath hung. Then, in a flash of silver mail and golden hair, she vanished beyond the Gate fire.

I fell back against the wall of the Chamber of the Gate, fighting for clarity, commanding my body to obey my will. Can't let go now. Too much to do .

I had joined the Zhid assault on Avonar in hopes that I could live long enough to bring D'Sanya to the Bridge and force her to repair what she had done. If I could break her link to the Bridge, perhaps I could end the war for good. But I wished fervently that some other Dar'Nethi could see what was happening. Why couldn't they feel it?

Fighting to control the painful spasms that wracked my limbs and heart and back, I pushed away from the wall and staggered toward the fallen statue. I worried about what D'Sanya might be doing on the Bridge, but first things first. If fortune was kind, I could cut off the flow of power to the avantir within the hour.

A quick probe revealed that the lion itself was magically inert, so I would need to destroy only the orbs. I was grateful for that.

First, consider the need . No difficulty there.

Second … I used the bloody dagger to draw a circle around the golden orb. My blood was the only possession I had available to assert ownership.

By the time I had shattered the two orbs, my hopes of a quick resolution were demolished as well. Woozy, nauseated, I knelt on the blood-marked floor, ripped a wad of cloth from my cloak, and pressed it to my bleeding shoulder, strapping my belt around to hold it in place. Nothing had changed. The Gate fire still pounded and thrummed, making my teeth ache, my bones ache, my soul ache. The fading light in the chamber was not some visual consequence of my injury, but a further discoloration of D'Arnath's enchantment . . . now a sooty gray. One test to be sure . . .

Felgir ! I called.

Master? Where —?

Maintain the assault according to plan. Gensei Kovrack is field commander for the present.

As you command, Lord Dieste.

No question. No hesitation. The avantir yet held. So I had accomplished nothing. I wanted to scream.

I threw D'Sanya's knife to the floor and tried to take a full breath without passing out.

"Are you mad?" The door crashed open and Prince Ven'Dar strode into the room, his fury surrounding him like an army. But his only companion was a bedraggled Jen, wet hair sticking up, dark eyes wary, darting between the prince and me.

"D'Sanya has damaged the Bridge," I said, as I rose to my feet amid the gold and silver shards. "She's been drawing its power through the lion and the oculus and her other artifacts, linking it to the Lords' devices. I just don't know how. We must—"

"You've destroyed Avonar! Zhid are in the citadel. Dar'Nethi are dying." Ven'Dar held folded hands in front of his breast, as if in pleading or prayer, but I was not fooled. A Word Winder's hand could move quicker than lightning, and the former Prince of Avonar's cast would not be gentle.

I extended my own hands in front of me, pale flames flickering eagerly from my fingers so he would not mistake the blood on my shirt for a sign of weakness. "I've blunted the Zhid attack as best I could, Ven'Dar, and we've no time to discuss how I might have done that better or differently. I took away D'Sanya's jewelry and destroyed the magic of this lion, but I must have missed something else. She's on the Bridge, saying she's going to draw on its power to stop the attack. We must stop her."

He circled between me and the Gate fire as if to see what I might be hiding behind my back. I shifted my position as well. Only a fool would allow Ven'Dar at his back.

"I should slay you here and now," he said, as if he'd heard no word I'd spoken. "The Fourth Lord. The Destroyer. Since the beginning I have relied on your parents' testimony as to your motives and objectives, your feelings, your character, all these things you keep so tightly reined. But what if we've all been wrong about you? The immortal Lords can bide their time to take us down paths of seeming truth. Look at you! Look at what you've done! Do you even know what you are?"

And of course his question pricked my own remaining doubt. All this—the Lady and her folly, my father's illness, the necessity of war—had proceeded with an aura of inevitability, and now I stood at the Bridge with the fate of Avonar in my hands. After strenuously avoiding power and memory for nine years, I had slipped quite easily into this role, the very role designed for me when I was ten years old. You are our instrument. . .

For that moment, a chasm yawned beneath my feet, revealing a bottomless night where the deceptions of reason and intent formed in the light would be stripped away, yielding to a more fundamental . . . and less welcome . . . truth. But then another spasm wrenched my back and shoulder, sending jolts of pain down my spine—D'Sanya's poison. I was certainly not immortal.

I had relinquished that along with all the rest of the Lords' gifts.

"You've not misjudged me, Ven'Dar," I said, clenching my jaw so as not to reveal my vulnerability. "I still choose the light. Every day, every hour is a new choice, and sometimes the choice is easy and sometimes it involves more pain than seems bearable. But since the day I followed my father out of Zhev'Na, I have denied the Lords, and if a man cannot determine his fate by his own choice, then what hope is there for any of us? Believe what I say about D'Sanya and the Bridge, or cast your winding and let us decide the matter that way. But by all that you value, do it quickly."

Ven'Dar paused in his circling, the graying fire of the Gate behind him. His presence was enormous and dangerous—righteous anger and royal authority and the power of a Word Winder of prodigious capacity and talent. I felt his indecision. How could I blame him, when I fought this incessant battle with my own doubts? His fingers twitched. I raised an enchantment ready to flatten him.

"Speak your name!" The clear command halted the gathering violence. A small person to so fill a room, like a skittish bird who fluttered between walls and ceiling and the two of us, shoving aside doubts and uncertainties with her pointed chin.

I almost smiled as I answered. "My name is Gerick yn Karon, known in my own land as the Bounded King."

Jen jerked her head, as if she had expected nothing else. "Now speak the name of your master."

This, too, was easy. "In the world of the Bounded, I am sovereign, with right and honor and the service of my people as my guidestones. In my birthplace of Leire, my sovereign mistress is Roxanne, queen, ally, and friend. In the world of Gondai, my only master is the rightful ruler of Avonar, the Heir of D'Arnath—at present the Princess D'Sanya, whose ill judgment and scarred mind are hurling us all to ruin. As her loyal subject, I must prevent her from destroying this realm she loves so desperately. Everything—everything—I have done these few days, whether vile or foolish or praiseworthy, is to serve that end. On my father's life and my mother's spirit, I swear it."

Jen looked supremely satisfied. She would be most annoyed when I told her that only Zhid and slaves were bound to truth in answer to those questions. The Lords' memories had taught me that they/I could ignore even the binding of names and heart's loyalties. But the clarity she demanded seemed sufficient to serve the moment. Though he did not soften his grim visage or move from his position, Ven'Dar lowered his hands.

Jen stepped between Ven'Dar and me, grabbing my hands without regard to the flames dancing on my knuckles. "But, as it happens, D'Sanya is not the rightful Heir," she said.

I quenched my enchantment before setting her skin or clothes afire, and she proceeded to pour out the news my mother had given her.

"Listen to the exact words," she said. "Truth is power, Gerick, and you'll hear it. This is the writing of Mu'-Tenni the Speaker, bound to Truth, in the matter of King D'Arnath's girl child: After the Catastrophe made grim the days, the King's favor rested upon his youngest heir . . ." She recited the damning passage, fixing the words in my mind as if she had scribed them on my skull.

The puzzle rearranged itself again. D'Sanya's power was linked to the Bridge, not by an artifact, not by some shaped enchantment of her design, but by the very structure of the Bridge. D'Arnath had disowned her to prevent her corruption from damaging his creation, but the Dar'Nethi, as hungry for redemption and healing as D'Sanya herself, had anointed her anyway . . . had brought her back into D'Arnath's family and undone her father's warding.

Existing in the giant statues under the cold stars of our temple, reveling in the ponderous weight of power, I/we contemplated our enemy . . . Unsearched-for memories floated out of the past. "We will degrade thy innocent. . . use her talents . . . break her . . . destroy her . . . We

shall unmake her and remake her in our image, our daughter, not thine. Woe and ruin will be thine only grandchildren . …"

I remembered: I/we had corrupted her power and twisted her heart with death and despair so that everything she touched might service our desires. When I had embraced the Lords' memories at the hospice, I had examined the past and confirmed that it was only D'Sanya's enchantments, her metalworking, her loving that we had tainted. But we hadn't known about her link to the Bridge. D'Arnath had kept that dreadful secret well; surely no accident of battle had destroyed the Royal Library. Throughout this thousand years of war, the seed of our triumph lay buried under our fortress, growing, blossoming, bearing its wicked fruit, given life by the Tormentor King himself. All we'd had to do was keep his corrupted child alive to reap the harvest of his folly. We had done it for our own reasons, but had accomplished more than we ever understood.

"We'll go after her," said Ven'Dar, facing the steadily darkening fire. "I can still protect us. We'll bring her off the Bridge, assess the damage. Once the Preceptors decide the succession, the new Heir can set out to repair it. But you must stop the assault first, Gerick. No one will believe you. I cannot believe you—even after your declaration—if Zhid under your command are killing Dar'Nethi and destroying this city."

I looked up at him as if he existed in a different world … as he did, in a way . . . the world of past belief. Everything was changed now, made clear by this new information. Ven'Dar, the most perceptive sorcerer in Gondai, didn't feel the danger. Didn't see that it was far too late for Preceptors and judgments and repairs.

Once upon another day, Ven'Dar had told my father how sorely the Dar'Nethi were diminished since the time of D'Arnath. The goal of Ven'Dar's reign, of his generous heart and talented hands, had been to return his people to their glory. But the deterioration of the Dar'Nethi that had begun in D'Arnath's time had never truly been reversed. And since D'Sanya's arrival and accession, it had accelerated. Five years ago Ven'Dar had been able to read my truth for himself, had witnessed and understood what my father and I had done to destroy the Lords. Now he couldn't even perceive that his mistrust, his difficulties with power, his flawed enchantments, and his inability to reverse the disharmony and prejudices among his people were not temporary aberrations, but signs of his own corruption … as they were signs of a pervasive, fundamental corruption in the world.

At last I could put a name to the wrongness of the world: the hopeless confusion, the creeping evil, the soul-scraping enchantments, the bondage of the spirit that destroyed peace and trust, the withering dark lurking just beyond every object in my sight that made ugly what should be beautiful. It was Zhev'Na. It was the Bridge.

"What is it, Gerick?" Jen laid her hand on my bare arm, her touch and my name connecting me for a moment to the old world.

"I can't stop the assault yet," I said, averting my gaze as I gently pushed her hands away. No explanation could possibly suffice. "I'll go after D'Sanya. I'll do what has to be done." And if I failed, my Zhid would have to do the work for me.

Ven'Dar spun to look at me, as if he read my thoughts. But before the horrified Word Winder could raise his hands again, I released my waiting enchantment. He crumpled to the floor, stunned, eyes still wide open.

"Gerick! Wait! No!"

I closed my ears to Jen and to my own doubts and fears. Taking a firm grip on my mind and soul, I stepped through the Gate of fire.