Daughter of Ancients

Chapter 39

Paulo had brought wine, water, bread, bandages, towels, a clean white shirt for Gerick, and a clean green tunic for me. I didn't complain that the tunic bagged out of my vest and reached all the way to my knees as if it were an elder brother's. Rather I almost fell into overe-motional foolishness again at the thought of washing my face. Perhaps if I could get clean, I could form a clear thought.

When Paulo asked if I could warm the washing water, I clenched my dead fingers as if I could hide their incapacity. I told him my mother had taught me that cold washing was healthier. He very kindly did not refute the lie by mentioning my adamant insistence on hot water for cleansing Gerick's wounds back in the desert.

After we had washed and changed, we sat in the middle of the patterned rug and shared out the provisions. Paulo left the food to Gerick and me, as he had eaten more recently, but he shared the wine and gave us a brief summary of his adventures while we ate.

Evidently Aimee had raised an image of witness so harrowingly clear and indisputable that Je'Reint and his commanders had been jolted into immediate action. Je'Reint's legion had ridden to the succor of Avonar through half a day and most of a night without stopping. From Paulo's account, I estimated that the Dar'Nethi had fallen on the Zhid from the rear only a few hours after Gerick had broached the Gate fire.

"We found more Zhid out there than flies in a dairy herd," Paulo said, "but everyone marveled how so few Zhid were already inside the walls. Most of the Zhid were still in their camps, waiting for orders to move. Some said a Lord was commanding the Zhid. . . ."

Paulo waited for Gerick to say something. But Gerick was spreading a thick bean paste onto his portion of the chewy bread with Paulo's eating knife. He just shrugged and motioned Paulo to go on, then threw the knife down and ate as if he'd never tasted food before.

The battle had been joined immediately, Paulo said, and continued through the tumultuous night. ". . . then the whole world went dark, a lot like in the Bounded when you stopped the firestorms. But this time I could see maybe three paces from my nose, and nothing else. I was glad I didn't have a light, as I just knew that if I was to shine it past what I could see, nothing would be there. Just nothing. The ground shook so hard, I can't figure how anything in the city is still standing. But when the shaking stopped, and the world came back, the Zhid couldn't fight any more. Some threw down their weapons and flopped down on the ground. Some waved swords around, but as if they'd forgotten what to do with them. Some just took off running. While the Dar'Nethi started taking prisoners and chasing after the runners, Je'Reint and Aimee and me took out straight through the city to the palace. Aimee told us the Bridge was gone, and Je'Reint was afraid everyone was dead in there."

We had scarcely swallowed the last morsels when Paulo stood up and reached for his cloak, well before the critical hour could expire. He offered me his hand, but spoke to Gerick. "The Preceptors want to question you and to take you to the Chamber of the Gate to have you explain what's there. But we have to go downstairs first. People are gathering."

I refused his help. Thoughts of what might come made me instantly regret that I had eaten anything.

Gerick wiped his hands on one of the towels and got to his feet. As Paulo held the door open, Gerick touched my arm gently, staying my steps. He studied my face, starting to speak several times and then stopping himself. His expression had been tight and sober since he had yielded to Paulo. Now his mouth twitched and his eyes kept meeting mine and then glancing away again. The moment seemed very long. "Perhaps it would be best if you—"

"Don't you dare say it!" I wrenched my arm from his grasp. "Don't you dare smile at me as if I were some stupid, naive country maiden and think you can turn my knees to mush and make me do whatever you like. You're not going to leave me behind when I can give evidence that might help you. Do you think I'm afraid of those people down there?"

"Well, you're certainly no naive country maiden," he said, "and you're certainly not stupid, so I think you must be afraid. I certainly am. I've not a scrap of power, and I don't want to die. There's so much . . . I've just never . . . until recently . . . You're a fine teacher, Jen'-Larie, and I'd not see you brought to account for my deeds."

One person shouldn't feel so many things all at once. In the main, I felt as if I were tangled in a briar thicket and would never find my way out. A fine teacher . Next he would call me a competent sweeping girl or a healthy child-minder. "Let's just get this over with," I snapped. "We both have people we need to see to. You're not the only one who makes difficult choices."

The expression that took shape amid his weariness and his worries was neither the patronizing smile I feared, nor was it the grin he reserved for Paulo in better times, but rather something different that just touched his dark eyes and the corners of his mouth. I doubted he even knew he'd smiled. The briar thicket tangled me tighter. He bowed quite formally. "Shall we go then?"

His smile vanished as we followed Paulo down the stairs.

To get Gerick to the Chamber of the Gate in one piece was going to take every bit of skill, persuasion, diplomacy, and authority that Ven'Dar possessed. People crammed the lawns and gardens of the Precept House—which I finally recognized as we descended the stairs and crossed the broad foyer. They had spilled out into the street beyond the grounds and were exactly as Paulo had described. Some were grieving. Many were wounded. All were disheveled and dirty and very angry.

Flanked by four people wearing Preceptors' robes over their own untidy garb, and a few other people carrying torches, Ven'Dar stood on the Precept House steps, shouting to be heard over the noise, reiterating arguments he had clearly propounded until he scarcely had a voice left. The Zhid were in complete confusion, as if they had forgotten how to fight or why, he told them. Je'Reint's legion was guarding the walls. No one was being transformed into Zhid. The Lords had not manifested themselves. Though not dead, the Lady D'Sanya was incapable of performing the duties of the Heir . . . however changed those might be now that the Bridge was gone. As always, the Preceptors would determine who would hold D'Arnath's chair. No one knew what had become of the mundane world, but there was no reason to believe it had fared worse than Gondai, which was wounded but not by any means destroyed. Reports were still coming in. The commanders in the east and north reported their own battles won and the Zhid in chaos. Avonar would endure.

Paulo slipped through the door and whispered in Ven'Dar's ear. The prince responded quietly, and Paulo came back inside. "He's got to show you to them," he said to Gerick. "He'll try to protect you, but asks you please not to . . . do . . . anything."

Gerick, sober again, nodded and offered Paulo his hands, wrists together.

Paulo blanched. "No . . . demonfire, no. Of course not. No need for that."

"People, hear me!" cried Ven'Dar. "The world is changed, but we must all search for the truth and light that can be hidden beneath slander, rumor, and shadows. Prince D'Natheil's son, accused of treason, murder, and consorting with our enemies, has submitted himself to the judgment of your Preceptors, claiming that the deeds of this terrible day have saved us from chaos even though the Bridge has fallen. In these past hours, I doubted as you do. I was angry and in despair as you are. But I have seen evidence that his claims are truth."

Paulo stuck his arm in front of me, so I could not follow Gerick through the doors. "Best he do this alone," he said. "He knows we have his back."

I found a window from which I could see Gerick take a position on the broad steps at Ven'Dar's right. His fists were clenched, his body taut. A rabbit's wrong blink would make him run.

As the people realized who he was, sound and sensation struck me like a flaying wind, threatening to strip my bones bare of flesh and my spirit of all harmony. I could hear every word of the crowd as if it had been spoken into my ear and feel every emotion as if each person were a Soul Weaver living in my skin. The devil! The Destroyer! Why does he live when my son . . . when my father . . . when so many . . . do not? He commanded the Zhid! We all saw him! What's happened? My power . . . My talent . . . Beware the demon Lord . . . The Bridge fallen . . . It's the end of the world . . . Chaos … I was one of them and all of them. Curses, oaths, and questions flew, a fury thundering louder than the Zhid ram and shaking the very stone beneath my feet as if the end had come the second time in one day.

"What's wrong?" Paulo grabbed my arms as I wobbled.

"They're so afraid," I said, willing my knees firm and struggling not to weep. "He mustn't do anything. They're just afraid." Fear made crowds dangerous, of course, so I willed Gerick to keep his temper and stay quiet.

As the storm raged about him, he raised his head, leaving his eyes in some nonthreatening, neutral focus. He clasped his hands loosely in front of him—clearly visible to all. He did not flinch. Did not move again.

Minutes . . . half an hour . . . passed as Dar'Nethi and Dulce vented the emotions of this terrible day. But I saw no evidence of violence, mundane or enchanted. Of course, if the people believed their power destroyed, then they'd not be able to muster enchantments. Belief was a key to power. Everyone knew that. I looked at my hands that had failed to make a light and tucked that thought away for later exploration.

Eventually Ven'Dar's words of calm, and Gerick's demeanor, quieted the torrent of anger and abuse enough that Ven'Dar could speak again. "The Preceptors and I will summon the finest minds and talents in Gondai to investigate the events of this night," he said. "But I exhort each of you to listen and feel the changes in the universe, for every succeeding moment convinces me that something extraordinary has come to pass—not our doom, but rather our salvation. Dar'Nethi power is not destroyed. Behold …"

Ven'Dar raised his right arm and a beam of white light shot out from his fingers, reflecting from broken window glass and shattered lamps, from a toppled bronze warrior maiden, and from hundreds of fearful eyes. The crowd gasped as one when he cupped his hand and the light fell back, flowing into his palm like liquid silver. "Good people, I have not felt such innocence of power . . . such joy and completion . . . since I conjured my first light."

Gerick lifted his head to watch Ven'Dar's magic and his eyes opened wide and his lips parted as if on the verge of speech.

"That's exactly the way I felt when I sang my children to sleep not an hour ago," said a sturdy woman in the front ranks, whose face was streaked with soot and mud.

Ven'Dar motioned her to come up the steps, and had her repeat it where the enchantments of the house could amplify her report for the mass of people. ". . . and that's why I came here," she said. "To see if the tales I heard could possibly be true, for I'd never made such a song as could take their fear away and send them into a dream."

A few others stepped forward and recounted similar experiences, and before very long the mass of bodies had split apart, the fearful citizens gathering around more witnesses and peppering them with questions.

"Share your stories," said Ven'Dar, "and then help each other. Believe. We will come to you when we know more."

As Ven'Dar motioned everyone on the steps back into the Precept House, a tall, graying woman with a sword at her belt stepped forward, her arm about a young man's shoulders. "I'll keep them talking, sir. My son is a Scribe, and he'll take evidence from those who have demonstrated power. I knew Prince D'Natheil, and I know you, Prince Ven'Dar. I trust your word."

"I'm sorry to put you through that," Ven'Dar said to Gerick, as soon as guards were posted and the doors closed and barred behind us.

"Better than I had any right to expect," said Gerick, rubbing his forehead for a moment before folding his arms, allowing his right arm to support his wounded left. "But you were right—" He whipped his head toward me. "No, you were right. They were just afraid. I don't claim to have much judgment just now."

Ven'Dar nodded. "Indeed they were. We diffused some of the rumors, at least, to give ourselves time to work."

"And your power," said Gerick. "I didn't think anyone— I don't understand it, but I'm glad."

"Clearly there's much to understand. Come," said Ven'Dar, brisk and serious. "I would like to offer you some rest, but we've some difficult hours ahead of us. Preceptor K'Lan is off working with the wounded; Preceptor J'Dinet is working with the city administrators to provide shelter and food for those who need it. W'Tassa is with the legion in the east. Je'Reint is rounding up Zhid, who seem entirely stripped of their ferocity and purpose—quite differently from five years ago. But these four others and I have decided we .must put off other responsibilities. You've left a path of destruction behind you well worthy of a Lord of Zhev'Na, Gerick, and before we can begin to rebuild in earnest, we must understand what you've done and why. And we must know what we face in the future, if it is not you."

Ven'Dar led us down the short wide flight of steps into the council chamber. Two women and two men in dark blue Preceptors' robes had already taken their places behind the long council table that fronted a massive hearth. Only one of them, Mem'Tara the Alchemist, did I recognize. The ancient, plain wooden chair in front of the table—King D'Arnath's own chair, so children were told—sat vacant. Four other chairs had been placed in a semicircle before the table. One was occupied.

Aimee popped to her feet as soon as we entered the chamber, beaming first in Paulo's direction, and then at Gerick and me. "Oh, Jen, and my good lord—Gerick— to find you safe is beyond happiness."

"We're as happy to be in one piece as you are to find us that way," I said, wondering how she had known our identities before we had spoken. We joined her, and she threw her arms around me and kissed me on each cheek, before turning and extending her palms to Gerick. Paulo took a position close to her right shoulder. It would take another earthquake to budge him.

Gerick returned her gesture of greeting. "Mistress."

She bent her head toward him as gracefully as if he had kissed her hand.

Ven'Dar motioned us to take our seats beside Aimee. He himself remained standing. "We need to hear your story from the beginning, Gerick," he said. "Every detail. It's the only way we'll be able to judge you fairly."

Gerick nodded, and as soon as we were settled, he closed his eyes for a moment, as if to compose his thoughts. Then he looked up at the Preceptors. "If I'm to start at the beginning, then we must go very far back indeed. For this cannot be merely a recounting of my own deeds—or crimes, as many of you consider them— but the story of my family. It begins with a king who was a card cheat and a gambler, who loved his family only slightly less than he loved his marvelous kingdom, and it tells of his three children, and his beloved cousin who is my own ancestor, and the three sorcerers who defied his wisdom, to their own ruin and his and very nearly to ours . . ."

He assembled the pieces—D'Arnath and the Bridge, D'Sanya and her tragic coming to power, the horror of her captivity in Zhev'Na, and her father's desperate attempt to salvage his terrible mistake—and laid them in a magical pattern like the tiles and silver bars of a sonquey game. And then he spoke of his own childhood, and his own dreadful coming of age, and the blight of memory he had retained long after his mentors had vanished beyond the Verges. And he spoke frankly and clearly of his guilt and his doubts and what he considered to be his failure in uncovering D'Sanya's madness. ". . . When my father and Prince Ven'Dar asked me to investigate the Lady D'Sanya, the last thing I expected was that I would grow to love her—or rather, the image that I made of her. I feared the seductions of my past, the power I did not fully understand, the memories I had inherited, but the true danger lay in a direction I had no capacity to imagine . . ."

For hours he spoke, softly, telling his tale without averting his eyes. The Preceptors questioned him intensely, often brutally, but never once did this most private of souls bristle or withdraw or attempt to hide his own culpability. ". . . Yes, I knew Dar'Nethi would die in the assault, but I was not strong enough—no one was strong enough—to face D'Sanya alone … I had to get to the Bridge and break the link, and I believed the Dar'Nethi would slay me before I could do so . . . and that was before I knew that she was, herself, the link. Yes, I was tempted to take power for myself … I chose not. Yes, I fully intended for the Zhid to destroy the Bridge if I failed. If they were capable of doing it at all, then they would, at the same time, destroy their own connection to each other—the avantir. Then perhaps one of you could have picked up the pieces and made the worlds live again … I hoped . . ."

As Gerick spoke, scenes flashed through my head in vivid display, people and places and torments excruciatingly real and complete, far beyond his unadorned words. Only when he paused could I shake my head clear of them, feeling foolish at my presumption that I could envision the past through his eyes. Exhaustion had made me silly, for I'd even seen myself—and in a way no mirror could ever show me. Neither foolish, cowardly, nor awkward. Yes, I had a good mind, and I knew how to put two words together to make some sense of matters. But admirable? Insightful? Beautiful? I slumped in my chair and covered my face with my hand, attempting to smother my snickering before someone noticed and read my thoughts. Mind-speaking, limited for so long to only a few of us . . . Ven'Dar hinted that it might be revived in this new world. An uncomfortable consideration when one had thoughts too ludicrous to see daylight.

Aimee's chair was slightly behind my own, so that when I noticed Ven'Dar nodding at her I turned to look. Her hands were raised and held flat in the air a short distance from her temples, a look of exquisite concentration on her face. Aimee the Imager. So, what I had envisioned was her image, drawn from Gerick's words and the knowledge and belief underlying them. . . .

"Mistress Jen!" Ven'Dar. His voice rang sharp and impatient on the ancient stones.

A cold sweat signaled my guilty panic that he had done exactly the thought-reading I feared.

"Would you please give your testimony now?"

"Sorry . . ." Concentrate, Jen . As I recounted what I had seen from the moment Gerick had spilled my raspberries in the hospice corridor until I found him slumped beside the crystal wall, a clerk brought us wine. I was pleased because I could focus my eyes on my cup and keep Aimee's images out of my head. Knowing what she was doing made me feel awkward, and I worried that certain muddled thoughts that had no bearing on the case might show up in her work. But no one gaped or snickered, and a sideways glance told me that Gerick was gazing at the floor, expressionless, his mouth buried in one hand.

As most of my tale merely confirmed Gerick's account, the Preceptors had few questions for me. Only a bit about my years in Zhev'Na, and how I could possibly allow someone I feared and loathed to crawl inside my soul.

"By that time I trusted him," I said, impatient with their insistent skepticism. "I can't explain more than that. He didn't trick me, and I'm not entirely an idiot. His testimony is true and complete. You can believe him."

"We thank you for your testimony, Speaker," said Preceptor Mem'Tara, bowing her head quite formally. "The value of your judgment of truth cannot be measured."

"I'm not— I've no such talent. I've no talent at all. I'm a Speaker's daughter !" I stammered and fumbled. Were they trying to humiliate me? Or had I somehow misled them? To impersonate a Speaker was very serious. In such a matter as this, it would be considered criminal.

But they had already begun questioning Paulo. And soon they turned back to Gerick, probing to understand the results of what he'd done.

"I remember nothing beyond what I've described," he said. "I saw images … my family … my friends . . . my homelands . . . and I tried to help them endure what was happening, to survive. I knew the Bridge was gone, as I didn't feel the disharmony any longer. I also couldn't feel anything under my feet. And then .. . nothing. I can't tell you more than that. I just don't know."

The proceedings were abruptly adjourned to the Chamber of the Gate. My good intentions of setting my credentials, or lack of them, straight fell by the wayside as we gazed in awe upon the crystal wall, even I who had seen it before. The wall pulsed and gleamed with light, as if it had captured every handlight cast since the world was young.

"I didn't create this," Gerick said, as he walked up and down beside it, the glow illuminating his wonder. "I've never made anything like this … so beautiful."

"The Lady says you carried her through it," said Ven'Dar.

"I don't remember that. Is she—?"

"We've taken her away to be cared for. She cannot tell us anything more for the time being."

A scrawny, odd-looking man with thinning hair had been in the chamber when we arrived. Wearing a ragged, dirty robe that had once been yellow, he sat on the floor between two protruding faces of the wall, gazing intently into the smooth surface. It seemed odd that neither Ven'Dar nor the Preceptors acknowledged him. They just carried on with Gerick's interrogation. I wondered if I should mention his presence, in case I was the only one who'd noticed him.

But after a while the man unfolded his long thin legs and popped to his feet. Still facing the wall, he produced the most incongruous of sounds, thoroughly interrupting the dignified Preceptor L'Beres' latest declaration of mystification. A robust, bellowing laughter penetrated my bone and blood. I would have sworn the light of the crystal wall glimmered in rhythm with it.

"By Shaper and Creator," said the ragged man, wiping his eyes with the filthy corner of his robe as everyone fell silent, "do you know what he's done? Have you even looked, my dear and befuddled L'Beres? Come here, young man! Come, come, come." He waved a hand at Gerick, and it felt as if the air itself reached out and drew Gerick from my side to stand beside him.

Though the odd-looking man had yet to even look at any of us, the others seemed to know him. Preceptor L'Beres rolled his eyes. The two I didn't know retreated a few steps, clearly uncomfortable, while Preceptor Mem'Tara, a tall robust woman with an iron-gray braid and a sword at her side, stood her ground, curious and interested. Ven'Dar's solemnity relaxed halfway to a smile.

Gerick looked at the man, curious. My blood rippled with inexplicable hope.

"Touch the wall, Gerick yn Karon," he said. "Go on. It is not painful, especially for one who has known pain in so many forms. At worst its power will repel you as it does the rest of us, but I believe . . . Well, try it. Show us."

Gerick reached out and pressed his hand to the glassy surface . .. and ripples of brightness shimmered outward. He brushed his fingers across the smooth face.

"There, you see? It knows you in the same way the locks on a man's treasure house know him."

"What does that mean, Garvй?" asked Ven'Dar softly, watching Gerick traverse the convoluted length of the wall, dragging his hand across its edges and faces, causing a cascade of light.

Garvй . . . the Arcanist! Though tempted, I did not step away. Not from someone who laughed as he did.

"First tell me of your talent and power, Ven'Dar . . . L'Beres … all of you . . ." The man spun like a dancer, sweeping a pointing finger at all of us. I felt as if a stripe of music had been painted across my breast. He stopped his spin at the exact point at which he'd begun, facing the wall. ". . . and if you've not felt their return, then believe, look inward, and you will find them. I am not diminished, but alive as I have not been in my eighty-seven years, my talents become one with my flesh, balanced, stable, more like another sense than a separate skill to be mentored and grown like playing the viol or dancing or climbing sheer cliffs with ropes and hooks."

"I've felt something like," said Ven'Dar, "but I didn't dare hope … Is the Bridge not destroyed, then? Or has our understanding been so wrong?"

"D'Arnath's Bridge is gone," said Garvй. "As to what is here, that study may take many hours . . . years, even. For tonight, report to the people the story you've heard in these past hours and what you've seen here—mystery and beauty, the very essence of hope."

He peered over his shoulder. A kind face, smiling, piercing gray eyes that darted from one to the other of the company in the chamber. "But, of course, if you were to forbear a bit longer and service an old man's whims, then perhaps we could learn a bit more. Many talents we have assembled here: Word Winder, Soul Weaver, Alchemist, Speaker"—I would have sworn the man winked at me—"Balancer, Effector, Navigator, and, ah, an Imager. You, Mistress Imager … if you would be so kind . . ."

"Sir," said Aimee. He took her hand as she stepped forward, and drew her close.

"So," he said, touching her eyelids with a bony finger. "The unseeing one who perceives so accurately. I've heard reports of your skills. Will you trust me, mistress, and indulge my whims?" He opened his palm, laid her hand on it, and waited.

Aimee dipped her head and used her other hand to fold his fingers around hers.

Garvй then led her around the great chamber, turning her this way and that, retracing steps, until the poor woman could be nothing but confused.

"Take all you know of the Bridge, young woman," said Garvй, when they came to a halt halfway across the room. "Delve deep into your knowledge of all that it has meant for Gondai, and the Breach, and the world beyond, of D'Arnath's great heart as he constructed it, of his Heirs' courage in defending it, of all you know of our people and their will and their bravery throughout this long fight. And I wish for you to build an image of the Bridge—an image we will not see, of course, for the Bridge is an enchantment, thus its essence is not visible. But as your talent allows you to match the image in your mind to the reality it shadows, perhaps you will be able to tell us if the link that binds the universe and maintains its balance yet exists or not."

Aimee held her flattened palms in position, close to but not touching her temples as if shielding her mind from noise and distraction. Paulo stood poised like a cocked catapult, ready to run to her aid if she should falter. All of us had been drawn into Garvй's test; every eye was on Aimee, and when she lowered her hands and lifted her head, we held our breath as if of one mind. Her brow was drawn up in a most puzzled knot.

"Tell us, mistress," said Garvй softly. "Where is it?"

Aimee turned almost a complete circle before she came to a stop, raised one finger, and pointed. "There. The Bridge is there."

Her finger pointed directly at Gerick.

Surely it would take Garvй and Ven'Dar and the Preceptors hours or months or years to understand what Aimee's magic told them. For most of us in the chamber, it was a wonder and a consolation; for one or two, perhaps, it was only a young blind woman's whimsy unworthy of belief. Gerick was not reduced to an enchantment, nor did anyone assert that chaos would descend if he were to die. But certainly in my own mind, the existence of the Bounded gave credence to the concept of a man who embodied the binding of the worlds, a Soul Weaver who had loaned us all his strength and would hold us together until we could do it on our own. Poor mad D'Sanya had understood it first. He held them. Loved them. Saved them .

When Gerick, as mystified as any of us, pressed his hand firmly to the surface of the wall and his arm vanished to the elbow, the skeptics were surprised. When he stepped through entirely and then returned a short time later, claiming that he had existed in the mundane world, the skeptics mumbled to themselves. Though none but he could pass the wall or even bear to touch it, he took their hands and escorted them one by one either to the mundane world or to the Bounded and back again. The skeptics were silenced.

After he had brought Preceptor Mem'Tara back, Gerick offered me his hand. "Would you like to see?"

I nodded, speechless since he had first disappeared into the crystal.

The passage through the wall felt like breaking the cool surface of water. He led me through a crystal pathway, glittering with light. We stepped out to stand beside a frozen lake surrounded by snowy peaks. Behind them, the sky was the color of lapis. The air frosted my lungs, but exhilaration and beauty and wonder could have held me there freezing until I was as fixed in place as the mountains themselves.

"This is the place where the Exiles built their stronghold," he said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to slow my shivering, "and where my father came back—" He released me and stepped back toward the wall, his glow of pleasure vanished. He pressed his fist to his forehead as if a lance had struck him there.

"Are you all right?" I said.

"Gods—" He grabbed my hand and turned back to the cliff where the crystal wall appeared as an exceptionally polished sheet of ice. "It's my father."

"I must go," he said, as soon as we stepped back into the Chamber of the Gate. "I'll come back, if you want, answer more questions and help you understand this, but I need to be at the hospice now. Please, Ven'Dar. My father is dying. Send guards if you wish. Bind me if it suits you. But you've more than enough to think about for a few hours while I'm gone."

Ven'Dar answered first. "Of course, you should be free to go. We've had enough for now."

The Preceptors had not embraced Gerick, but somewhere along the way, they had come to believe in him. Since we had come to the Chamber, they had spoken nothing of punishments or prison, only of study and investigation. The four agreed that Gerick could go, two of them somewhat reluctantly, but they insisted he return to Avonar as soon as possible and work with Garvй and others to determine what this new order might mean. "You have much to answer for," L'Beres pronounced.

Gerick would have agreed to anything to be gone. Even the brief delay as Ven'Dar shut down the portal to the palace and rebuilt one to the hospice had him grinding his teeth. But as he stepped to the threshold, he turned back and extended his hand. "Jen'Larie, would you … ?"

"They don't need me here," I said. Even if he had stayed in Avonar, it was time for me to go. I'd been away from my father long enough. I turned to Ven'Dar.

The former prince—whom I suspected would be our prince again—tipped his head toward the portal. "Your service has been incalculable, Jen, both in your testimony and in deep and abiding ways that no story of these days will ever report. Go. Do as you need. And believe."

The night was warm and still as Gerick and I stepped out of the portal at the main house of the hospice, just in front of the porch where D'Sanya had greeted her guests in her filmy white gowns. As we ran up the steps and through the deserted passages, I wondered, unworthily, if Gerick would ever be rid of the image of her. Of course, his thoughts were elsewhere now. The sound of women singing hung on the air as we cut through the unlit library and through the upper courtyard gardens, down the few steps past the fountains and rose arbors, and into the lower gardens. One glance, and I knew he was too late.

The lower garden was a sea of white lights, the small round handlights that Dar'Nethi used in funeral processions. Fifty people or more stood amid the overgrown roses and graceful willows. The men joined the singing with a countermelody. The Song of the Way , intertwined melodies of grief and joy, was always sung to celebrate the passing of the Heirs of D'Arnath.

Na'Cyd stood well apart from the crowd, on the steps near the fountain that marked the lower garden. He neither cast a handlight nor did he sing. But he bowed wordlessly to us and led us through the mass of people, parting them briskly with his hand.

Prince D'Natheil lay still on the soft grass, his blue robes gracefully arranged, peace on his handsome features. Lady Seriana sat beside him, holding his hand to her forehead. One might have thought them a Sculptor's creation, set in that garden to remind us of love and mortality.

I hung back as Gerick hurried across the circle of mourners to his parents. As he knelt and laid his forehead on his father's breast, I scanned the faces in the crowd, missing the one I needed most to see. I turned quickly.

"He remains in his apartment," said Na'Cyd, his eyes fixed on the three in the grass.

I sped through the gardens and courtyards, suddenly unable to move fast enough to get there. No lights burned in either garden or residence as I slipped through Papa's door. His breathing, quick and shallow to manage his pain, led me to the open window where he sat in the dark, crooked and bent. The glorious song drifted on the cool air like a promise of spring, though my heart ached with all the griefs of winter. What was happening to me? I said nothing as I knelt in front of him, laid my head in his lap, and let his hand on my ugly hair Speak to me of love.

One year from the day my father died, my mother stood before two hundred scholars in the history lecture hall at the University in Valleor wearing the billowing black robe and blue sash of an Honorary Lecturer in Ancient History. With the strong, clear voice of a woman of intellect, education, and experience, and with an intensity that demanded every mind in the room open and every ear hear, she spoke of an extraordinary event in the history of the Four Realms—the day four hundred and seventy years in the past when the King of Leire, one Bosgard by name, had issued a decree that every member of a single race was to be exterminated. They were to be hunted down and burned to death, their lands and fortunes forfeit, their homes laid waste, their names forever obliterated from the councils of the land. Any man or woman who consorted with members of the condemned race or failed to report them was likewise condemned.

By the grace of His Majesty, Evard, the late King of Leire, had this decree been lifted, and at the command of Her Majesty Roxanne, Queen of Leire, had one Karon yn Mandille, a historian, archeologist, and physician of Valleor been required to prepare a history of the decree of extermination, its origins, and its results. On this day, said my mother, she would present the first of twenty-six lectures on the work he had completed before his death.

For two hours, she held the room spellbound in the grip of her story—my father's story—my story—and she had scarcely even begun. When she closed her notes and said, "Until next week," the room erupted into the chaos of excitement and discovery. From every side came questions, demands for more time, more words, more of the truth they had never even suspected.

She remained an island of serenity in the center of the storm, patiently telling them to come back and hear more. They would hear the truth of a universe that was larger than they had ever imagined. They would understand.

Throughout all of this, I sat on the back row of the lecture hall and watched as the circle of admirers and skeptics drifted away, still chattering and murmuring. My mother's eyes roved the empty chairs until they landed on me, not surprised in the least to see me there, though I'd not told her I was coming and had not seen her for almost half a year.

Her smile banished the shadows. "What questions would my students have had if they'd known the King of the Bounded, the most powerful sorcerer in three worlds, was sitting in the hall?"

"A small wonder beside the first woman ever to give a lecture at this University," I said. "Someday we may have a university in the Bounded, and I needed to know if a woman could teach men anything."

She laughed. "This is all your doing, isn't it? How else could Roxanne have known to command the Chancellor to allow it? For me to stand here . .." She waved toward the vaulted ceiling and the tall windows of colored glass, to the ancient lectern, and to the rows of seats where every scholar of the Four Realms had sat at one time or another. Where my father had once sat.

"I only mentioned it to her. It wasn't my idea." I strolled down the long flight of steps, the stone worn into concavity by the generations of students who had trod them, each step a little too wide to take in one stride, a little too shallow to require two. "But I had to be here. I was asked to give you something when this day came."

Into my mother's hands I placed the long, thin parcel I'd brought with me, wrapped in green silk and tied with a green velvet ribbon. For one instant her cheeks lost their flush of exhilaration, but as she unwrapped the parcel, her graceful fingers ever so slightly trembling, her soft smile drew the sweet coloring back again. The dew-drops on the soft petals that were just on the verge of opening seemed a reflection of the tears in her eyes.

But her tears did not fall. Rather she inhaled the scent of the flower and glowed with happiness. "He still cheats death," she said after a moment, laying her hand on my cheek. "To see you is to see his best self. He lives."

I had only begun to understand the magic that could create a rose of such glorious perfection and lasting beauty. This one had lived a year already. My father had designed it to bloom fresh and fragrant at my mother's bedside, the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing she saw at night, for as long as she drew breath.

"So tell me all your news," said my mother, as she directed me to gather and stack up her papers. She would not relinquish the rose.

"Paulo sends his best. He wanted to be here today in the worst way, but he won't leave Aimee and little Seriana and is terrified to take them traveling as yet."

I put a hand under my mother's elbow as we started up the stair, but she didn't need it. I felt the strength in her steps. "I don't know if I can wait until Seule to see them," she said. "A granddaughter . . . earth and sky . . ."

"You should have seen Paulo's face when Aimee told him she was in that way." I grinned, as always when I remembered that moment. "I don't know whether he was more embarrassed that someone might guess what he and Aimee had been up to since they came back to the Bounded, or more terrified at the prospect of being a father to a human child instead of a foal. He's been working so hard at his schooling for fear of this child being born better read than he, he'll likely be giving lectures here next year."

"And Aimee is happy in the Bounded?"

"She says so. I think she would be happy in a pit if Paulo were there with her. The Singlars adore her, calling her 'the Golden One who Sees All' and she gives them so much—showing them how their ideas could change the world."

We left the lecture hall and crossed the foyer to the heavy outer doors.

"And what of the good king of your land? How does he fare?"

I knew my mother worried excessively, afraid that D'Sanya and the deeds she had forced me to had left scars worse than those the Lords had given me. I had caused my father's death and driven D'Sanya into madness. Avonar would forever bear the scars of my war, and the Dar'Nethi would always fear me. My memories had not vanished and would not. When I worked sorcery, the temptations of power would always require me to choose the light again.

Yet, I had tried to reassure my mother that I had at last begun to understand the Dar'Nethi Way. Pain is life. Scars are life. Guilt and dreadful memory . . . those, too, are part of the pattern we weave as we walk this world. But somehow, when viewed in the vast perspective of a life lived fully, they take on less overpowering significance. Still, she worried, and so on this visit I had brought evidence I thought might alleviate her concerns a little.

I stayed determinedly somber. "Some things have happened. Serious things."

She stopped at the door and looked at me with her stubborn stare that allowed no hiding. All my plans of subterfuge and clever misdirection evaporated, and I started laughing as I shoved open the door and nudged her through it into the autumn afternoon. "He fares exceedingly well, as it happens. On my last visit to Gondai, I devised a way that a few of the most powerful Dar'Nethi, ones that Prince Ven'Dar chooses, can traverse the wall without my help. Well, a few weeks ago, Je'Reirit came for a short visit to explore the Bounded and to discuss how we should manage it all. And he brought a companion who had stormed the palace, stubbornly demanding to accompany him. His companion, a Speaker of growing influence, drove us to distraction for three lights gathering information and experience for a solid judgment of our land, and then refused to leave the Bounded when Je'Reint returned to Gondai. . . ."

My traveling companion was perched on the top of an ancient brick wall, her knees drawn up, and her eyes closed as the golden sunlight bathed her face. She didn't even move before she started in on us. "And why should I go back when the Bounded is far more interesting, and clearly in need of someone with some proper organizational skills? And certain royal persons seem sadly lacking in the disciplines of mathematics and natural science, not to mention some of the rudimentary applications of true talent."

She blinked her eyes open and smiled at my mother as if I weren't present. "Je'Reint promised to bring Papa on his next visit so that I would be properly chaperoned. Did you hear, my lady, that some mysterious person came to Gondai behind my back and enabled Papa . . . strengthened him … so that he was able to endure a healing for his back, and then left again before we could even thank him? That same person has aided every survivor of the hospice in like manner, and even poor J'Savan the Gardener, who now tends a small farm in Lyrrathe Vale. Papa will adore the Bounded. A new life, born of our trials. I can hear him say it even now." She turned her face back to the sun, and though she closed her eyes again, she could no longer hold in her teasing smile.

"Thank you for waiting," I said as I encircled her waist with my hands and lifted her down, kissing the eyes she stubbornly held closed. "Mother, you remember Jen'Larie?"

I watched them together for an hour, and listened to Jen describe the marvels of Gerick's world and the intelligence, strength, and compassion he brought to his work, as if I had never recognized the gifts of my beautiful son. Gerick said little, as usual, but his eyes never left her and his mouth seemed perpetually on the verge of a smile.

When it came time for them to go, Jen kissed my cheek and whispered, "He sleeps well, my lady, and is at peace. Is he not gloriously dear?"

And then Gerick kissed my other cheek and whispered, "She has brought light to the Bounded, Mother. Is she not a wonder beyond wonders?"

Then Gerick made a small gesture with his hand, and they waved and walked into a burst of light that warmed the day.

They didn't need any answer from me. But I called after them, "Yes!" And as the light of their enchantment faded, I smiled, inhaled the sweet scent of Karon's rose, and strolled down University Hill. Friends were waiting; I had things to do. Life was not done with me yet.