Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 15

Karon

I knew our destination. From the moment I followed the lady and the Dulcé out of the cave and saw Karylis baring its hoary white chest to the blue of the northern sky, I knew it. Karylis, where I had learned to hunt, to climb, and to heal, the mountain that spread its mighty arms and embraced the fertile valley where I was born.

Hundreds of years in the past, my people-Dar’Nethi sorcerers exiled from a world they had forgotten and condemned as outlaws in this world-sought out places where they could begin a new life. Three families, including that from which I am descended, came to Karylis with its sweet air, rich soil, and clear rivers, and from their settlement grew a city of grace and beauty that they called Avonar. No man or woman of them could remember why they revered that name, only that it was a part of each one of them, so precious that it came to every tongue unbidden. They had long lost their memories of the other Avonar, the royal city of the world called Gondai, whence their ancestors had been sent here to maintain D’Arnath’s Bridge.

We were never very many. Of the thousands who lived in Avonar when I was a youth, probably fewer than three hundred were sorcerers, but you could not walk through the streets without seeing the wonders our people had created there: the gardens that bloomed long after frost, graceful roads and bridges that did not age or crumble, a society of generous people who lived in mutual respect and civilized discourse.

I had been away at the University on the day my city died. Reports said the valley had been completely surrounded by Leiran troops just after dawn, and that by nightfall every sorcerer-man, woman, and child-had been identified by informers, tortured, and burned. Every other resident had been put to the sword. My father, the lord of the city, had been the last to die. The Leirans would have made sure that he witnessed the completeness of their victory. At midnight they had torched the city, so that as far away as Vanesta, people could see Avonar’s doom written in the heavens.

I had not gone back after the massacre. Even for a Dar’Nethi there are limits on the sorrow that can be inhaled with the breath of life. I wanted to carry with me the image of a living city, not the funeral pyre of everyone I loved.

I had embraced the grief of that terrible loss as was the way of our people, and yet, I think I always knew that someday I would have to look on Avonar again. From what I could remember of my life in this world, I had never yet done so.

Only one thing would draw a Zhid sympathizer like this Darzid to the ruins of my home. Was it possible he had learned the secret revealed to me just before I left for the University? My father had said we were going hunting that day, but I’d found it odd that he invited me alone, without any of my brothers who enjoyed it more…

The soft folds of Karylis’s foothills were draped in mist. The trail was new to me, and I found myself increasingly reluctant to penetrate the sweet-scented vale. “There’s nothing here, Father,” I said. “We’ve seen no sign of any game, large or small. There are a hundred more likely trails.”

“Not for what we hunt today,” he said, riding onward, his strong back and broad shoulders commanding me to follow, even as my hands itched to tighten the reins and turn back.

The white-trunked birches were scattered over the grassy slopes, the glades open and smoothly green, and as the morning waxed, the sun banished the mist into the rocky grottos that stood as reminders that it was Karylis’s domain we traveled. The mountain itself was hidden by trees and swelling ground. A sheen of dewdrops lay on the grass and quivering leaves.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” said my father, when we came to a stream of deep blue-green that emerged from a towering granite wall.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I said as we dismounted, whispering as if my voice might divert some unwanted attention our way. “What is this place?”

My father laid his hands on my head, saying, “Be easy, my son. We’ve come to a place most precious and most secret. Only the one who bears the sign of the sovereign can know of it… no, do not protest. I am not rebelling against the Way laid down for us. Though of all my sons, I would entrust our future to you, I know that the thread of your life draws you along another path. Christophe is young yet, but he’ll be a fine lord, and I’ll bring him here when it’s time. But you, Karon… you cherish our history and our Way as no one else, and I cannot but think that this is a place you should know.”

At his touch my reluctance vanished, and we climbed alongside the stream until we came to two massive slabs of granite embedded in the hillside. They leaned together, leaving a triangular shadow of indeterminate depth between them. Power pulsed from the shadow, throbbing in my blood like the noonday sun in high summer.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is our birthplace, one could say. From this place, some four hundred and fifty years ago, stepped three families seeking a new life.”

“The portal from the stronghold! But I thought all the portals were destroyed.”

Somewhere, in a place far from this hillside, lay the fortress where our people had held out in times of trouble. In the time of the Rebellion, when the extermination laws were passed, even the fortress had not been safe enough. Imminent discovery had forced our people to scatter, leaving behind a mystery, so our legends told us, something precious and holy that had existed since before our oldest memory. Though drawn to the secrets of the stronghold since I was a boy, I had assumed the portal destroyed.

My father traced the cracks and seams of the great stone with his strong fingers. “Those who remained in the stronghold said this portal was a link to the holy mystery and hoped that someday we would be able to practice our arts openly again and discover its true purpose. And so, to my distant great-grandsire they entrusted the words with which it could be opened, words in a language we didn’t know, a secret to be guarded until times would change. We’ve waited all these years, scribed the words in stone so that time and faulty memory would not alter them-I’ll show you where they’re hidden. But, of course, times have not changed.”

I stuck my hand into the opening and felt nothing out of the ordinary. “Have you never been tempted to venture the passage, Father? To discover whether anything remains of the stronghold? Perhaps we could unravel the mystery, learn more of the past, make things better…”

“Yes, I ventured it once, as did my father and his.” He shook his head. “We found only this cleft in the rock. Perhaps our power was not enough. Or perhaps there is nothing to find any more. But you… who knows? You should try, I think.” He whispered the words in my ear, and his hand on my back urged me forward.

And so I stepped into the small alcove of granite. To an observer who could not sense the power of enchantment, the place would have been unremarkable, save perhaps for the feel of the air. While springtime lay a soft breath on the vale outside, within the alcove it was winter. Or perhaps the cold frost was only my first reaction to an enchantment that was not meant for me. As I walked the narrow passage that led me deep into the rock and ran my hands over the rough surfaces of the walls, speaking the words my father had whispered, the scars on my left arm began to sting as if newly incised. The longer I stayed, the more a bitter frost spread from my arm to the rest of me. Enchantment was everywhere, thrumming, pounding, swelling, filling my veins as if I had twice the blood of a normal man. So close… I summoned my power, drawn from life and healing and the beauties of the mountains and the morning… releasing it into the enchantment. So close… I could feel the walls thinning. So close…

But something wasn’t right. The enchantment would not yield, and soon I was shivering so violently that I couldn’t think. I ran back up the passage and into the daylight. “We’re missing something,” I said, my teeth clattering like a woodpecker’s beak on dead wood. “We need to learn what the words mean.”

Quickly my father bundled me in his cloak and built a fire.

“I’m all right,” I said, “except that I feel like I’ve spent the night naked on Karylis in midwinter.” I had no feeling in my left arm-or so I thought. When my father ran his fingers over my scars, I cried out, for his touch felt like hot iron. My left arm stayed numb and lifeless for almost a week… numb and lifeless and so cold…

I sat up abruptly. I must have fallen asleep as I lay in the winter sunlight. Idly, I rubbed my left arm where it had gone numb and looked about for my companions.

The boy Paulo was communing with the horses that grazed on a few patches of brown grass exposed on the stream bank. When he noticed my eye on him, he grinned at me and performed a hopping dance step, a spin, and an awkward bow. I could not remember ever receiving so winning a thanks. I grinned back at him.

The boy had been in tremendous pain when I joined with him, and in such a case, the relationship of Healer and patient can be very intimate. His fears were exposed for me to share: the terror that he would be more a cripple than he was already, more of a burden on the friends he so admired, beside which dying was of no matter at all. Yet he demonstrated an absolute trust in me. And as I worked and his pain eased, his thoughts kept returning to a horse called Sunlight… as if I might know the beast. This boy knew me.

The girl, Kellea, a Dar’Nethi girl, born in Avonar just before it fell-what a wonder that was-she had recognized me, too, and the Lady Seriana… The lady had called me Aeren when she looked on me that first time in her garden.

Dassine had told me that Aeren was another of my names, but that it was only an alias, not a third life to be remembered. I was grateful for that. The name was connected with my recent history-my mysterious second journey to the Bridge. Perhaps all three of them knew me from that time.

Lady Seriana… earth and sky, who was she? On this morning, when she was so angry with me, jagged rents had again appeared in the span of my vision. Through the terrifying gaps of darkness had poured such an oppression of guilt and sorrow that I would have done almost anything to escape it. But for Bareil nudging me to action, I might never have moved again. No, best not think of the lady.

I lay on my sunny rock as mindless as a cat, half asleep when Bareil came, bringing oatcakes and wine. “Is there some other service I may offer you, my lord?” The lines of worry carved so deep on his brow grieved me sorely.

“I can ask no more than you’ve already done today.”

“I do only as Master Dassine instructed me. Are you fully recovered?”

“For now. You were quick.”

“Then perhaps… The Lady Seriana would very much like to speak with you.”

Speak with the lady? The sunlit meadow suddenly wavered before my eyes, as though I gazed through the heat shimmer of a fire. “No. Not now. Tell her…”

How could I tell her that I was afraid of her? Clearly she knew more than she was telling me, yet I had to trust her, because Dassine did so. But whatever she knew and whatever she was drove me to the brink of madness. Any further along that course, and I would have to abandon the search, just to get away from her. Then I would be left with only the disturbing task of avenging Dassine. Better she think me a boor.

“Just tell her I won’t speak with her now. Perhaps later.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more.”