Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 16

Seri

Though I tried to brush off Karon’s refusal to speak with me as a passing pique, he didn’t make it easy. As we left the snowy meadow, he vaulted into the saddle and rode out with Kellea before I’d even closed up my pack. When nightfall mandated the next halt, I tried to sidestep our disagreement. “Though the weather’s no warmer, at least the sky’s stayed clear,” I said, sitting down on the log next to him as Kellea doled out our supper, “but a night in Iskeran would still feel better.”

“Indeed.” His porridge might have been the most delicate roast quail for the close attention he paid it.

I jumped up. A mistake to sit too close. Even so near the fire, I felt the chill. “Would you prefer ale or wine? We’ve a bit of both left.”

“Wine, if you please.” He raised his head at that, but his gaze flitted from woods to sky to muddy earth as if I had no physical substance.

Surely this was D’Natheil’s reaction to my scolding and not Karon’s. Dassine had warned me that the lingering echoes of the temperamental Prince would remain with Karon forever. But I would not apologize. I had been right to keep him focused. We had to keep moving.

On the next morning, Paulo discovered the remnants of a camp just off the road. Kellea confirmed that Gerick had been there. Karon said the fire was more than two days dead. Though we rode harder after that, no one pretended optimism. The greater the gap between us and Gerick, the more difficult for Kellea to follow.

Late in the afternoon of the second day from the bandit cave, Kellea called a halt in order to take her bearings. We had ridden all day on a narrow road that was half overgrown with birch saplings and tangled raspberry bushes. Carved stone distance markers, broken and toppled over well back in the dense undergrowth, testified that the road had once been well traveled and much wider. Indeed, when we emerged from the thinning trees onto a broad slope, carpeted with winter-brown grass, the faded ruts and indentations showed the roadway to have been more than forty paces wide, sweeping up and over the top of a gentle ridge. A snowcapped peak was just visible beyond the hilltop, but my uncertain geography gave no clues as to our destination, and I’d found no inscription remaining on the shattered distance markers.

Kellea dismounted and knelt to examine two paths that split off of the main track. Karon did not wait for her direction, however, but pushed on up the hill, halting only when he reached the top.

“He’s chosen the right way,” said Kellea at last, motioning us after him.

We joined Karon on the hilltop and found a view that was indeed worth a pause-the broad valley I’d seen from the bandit cave, no fire-shot frost plumes hanging over it any longer, only heavy gray clouds that promised snow before morning. The valley was much larger than I had imagined, a sweeping vista of grasslands and woodlands, small lakes and streams. The wide-thrown arms of the mountains were softened by leagues of rolling hillsides clad in winter colors, on that day a hundred shades of gray and blue. The valley’s beauty seemed virginal-unscarred by human activity. But for the contrary evidence of the road, I might have believed we were the first to look on it.

Yet the longer we gazed, the more disturbing the quiet. No bird chirped; no insect buzzed. Nothing at all dripped or trickled, hopped, or scurried. And somewhere just beyond the center of the valley was a line of demarcation, straighter than anything nature could devise. Whatever lay beyond that line was dark and indecipherable in the gray light. Uneasy, I turned to ask the others if they knew the place. Paulo, Kellea, and Bareil were staring at Karon, who gazed unblinking on the valley, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. And then I knew.

By more than twenty years he had outlived his family and his birthplace. Before I could speak, he urged his mount forward, moving slowly down the hill.

As we followed Karon into the valley, we saw remnants of human habitation: stone houses overgrown with brambles and dark windows like hollow black eyes, a lone chimney standing in a bramble thicket, rotting fences, fields gone wild, roadside wells and springs so wickedly fouled that only black-and-green sludge lay within twenty paces on any side. But these sights were benign compared to the view as we passed beyond the barrier we had seen from the ridgetop.

A desolation of frozen mud, no remnant of twig or leaf or stubble saying that anything had ever grown in these fields. A few stunted thistles poking through the crumbled highroad seemed to be the only living things within a half a league of the city. Charred and broken towers stood starkly outlined against the heavy clouds. Bare white walls rose from the center of the wasteland like the bleached bones of some ancient beast. Everything dead. Everything destroyed. And lest one retain some hope that some remnant of life had escaped their wrath, the destroyers had set tall poles to flank the gate towers, and upon each one had strung a hundred heads or more-now reduced to bare skulls.

“Demonfire!” Paulo muttered under his breath.

Karon halted just outside the walls at the point where a faint track branched off from the main road. His gaze remained fixed on the eyeless guardians. “Our destination is a small valley in the foothills beyond the city,” he said softly. “I’m sure of it. But to make use of what we find there, I must go into the city. Take this path outside the walls and wait for me where it meets the main road once again. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“Let us ride with you,” I said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Bareil spoke at the same time. “I think I should be at your side, my lord.”

A rueful smile glanced across Karon’s face. “This is my home. I’ll see nothing I’ve not imagined a thousand times over. Power awaits me in its contemplation, just as in those things I might prefer to look on. Ours is a perverse gift.” He clucked to his mount, but immediately pulled up again, turning to Kellea. “Come, if you wish. This was your home, too.”

Kellea wrenched her eyes from the grisly welcomers atop the poles. “My home was in Yurevan with my grandmother. Horror holds no power for me.” But her cheeks were flushed, and she would not meet Karon’s gaze.

“Don’t blame yourself that you’re not ready,” he said, “or even that you may never be. I believe it’s taken me a very long time to come back here.” He spurred his horse toward the black gash in the wall that would once have been the wooden gates.

The cold wind gusted across the barren fields as the rest of us rode around the mournful ruin. I rued my angry words that had increased the distance between Karon and me. Long ago I had promised him that I’d go with him to Avonar when he was ready, a promise lost in the past he did not yet own.

The leaden evening settled into night as we rounded the city’s eastern flank and picked up the road again close to the boundary of the desolation. Once Kellea had made sure of the way, we dismounted to stretch our legs. After only a brief wait, an agitated Bareil said he was going back. “He should not be alone in such a place,” said the Dulcé. “Not in his fragile state.”

I touched his hand before he could mount up. “Let him be, Bareil. He said he could manage it. In this…I think it’s important that we trust him.”

When the time had stretched far longer, I was on the verge of contradicting my own judgment.

But just as the first glimmer of the rising moon broke through scudding clouds beyond Karylis, the weak light outlined a dark figure riding toward us at a gallop from the east gate of the dead city, such urgency in his posture, I bade the others mount and be ready. In moments Karon shot through the clearing where we waited, crying out, “Ride! We’re racing the moon!”

Half a league up the road, he turned north into a narrow vale. The moon danced in and out of the clouds as we rode, revealing smooth slopes, broken by groves of slender trees and great boulders of granite, tumbled and stacked atop each other. As we followed the faint track, the faithless moon was swallowed by thickening clouds. Soon snowflakes stung my cheeks. We slowed to a walk in the uncertain light. But a burst of enchantment swept over us, and the horses surged forward, sure-footed again as if the way had been lit for them. After half an hour, perhaps a little more, Karon pulled up suddenly, all the beasts halting at the same time. I had never even tightened the reins.

“Quickly,” Karon whispered as he dropped from his saddle, drawing us close as we did the same. From his hand gleamed a faint light, revealing his face ruddy with the wind and the cold, his eyes shining. “They’re just ahead of us. The enchantment requires the proper angle of the moon, so we’ve a chance to take him. But you must be prepared to follow. Leave everything behind. Paulo, unsaddle the horses and bid them wait in this valley. They’ll find grazing enough here, even in winter.” Paulo nodded and hurried to do as he was asked, Bareil assisting him. Karon looked at Kellea, jerking his head to our right. “Does your sense agree with me?”

“Yes. Up the hill.”

“Then follow me, quickly and quietly.”

As Paulo shoved the last saddle under a bush, tied our blankets tight over them, and patted the last horse’s rump, we started up a gentle slope alongside the stream, rippling and bubbling in its half-frozen shell. Karon let his light fade. Soon, from ahead of us, yellow light nickered from a triangular opening formed by two massive slabs of granite set into the hillside. To the right of the doorway stood a riderless horse, and to the other side was a pile of boulders.

Something about the place teased at my memory. Karon had once mentioned an incident with his father…

Karon gathered us together again, whispering, “We must draw them out here at least as far as the opening. It’s too cramped to attack him inside-a risk to the boy. Count to ten, my lady, then call the man out. Be convincing. I’ll take him from the left. You,” he said to Kellea, “be ready to grab the child. Bareil and Paulo, help us where it’s needed most.” Without waiting to hear an acknowledgment, he disappeared into the darkness.

When the interminable interval had passed, I stepped from the sheltering trees and stood before the torchlit entry. “Darzid!” I called. “Bring him out. I know who he is. You can’t hide him.” My plea sounded futile and stupid, even to me. “Please, just come and talk to me.”

“Our time for conversation passed many years ago, Lady.” His laughter rippled from inside the doorway just as the moon broke through the clouds, its beams shooting straight through the opening in the rock. The dim yellow light inside the cleft flared to eye-searing white, and every other sound was lost in a low rumble like a buried waterfall. Earth and sky-a Gate to the Bridge!

“Karon!” I screamed.

The Breach between the worlds was a boundless chasm of nightmare and confusion, of the corrupted bits and pieces left from the beginning of time, of horrific visions and mind-gnawing despair. Even if this Gate was open, how could Darzid and Gerick survive the passage or pass the wards D’Ar-nath had created to bar easy crossing? Only the Heir of D’Arnath could pass, so I had been told. Only the most powerful of sorcerers could control the terrors of the Breach.

“Hurry! Stay close!” Karon shouted as he leaped from the boulder pile. Sprinting across the patch of light, he disappeared through the doorway.

With Paulo, Bareil, and Kellea, I followed him through the cleft in the rock and down a brilliantly lit passage toward a wall of white flame. Karon was barely visible beyond the blazing veil, moving rapidly away from us. I hesitated. A few moments on the Bridge at Vittoir Eirit had almost destroyed my reason.

“He’ll shield us,” shouted Bareil over the roar of the fire. “Don’t be afraid.” The Dulcé took Paulo’s hand in one of his; Paulo reached for Kellea; and together the three stepped through the curtain of fire. With a fervent plea to any benevolent god that might take an interest, I followed.

Pits of fire and bottomless darkness yawned beside my feet. Murmurs, growls, wailing laments, and monstrous roaring tore at my hearing. Shadowy figures took shape at my shoulders, one of them a woman with rotting flesh. She flicked her tongue toward me-a tongue the length of my arm with razor-sharp spikes.

My steps faltered; my hand flew to my mouth. A glance in any direction revealed horror in a thousand variations. From the left an ocean of blood rose up in a towering wave, threatening to engulf my three companions.

Kellea hesitated, shielding her eyes with one arm; Paulo flung his arms around her, ducking his head into her shoulder.

“Look straight ahead!” shouted Bareil, urging them onward with his small hands. “Nothing will harm you.”

A cobra with the girth of a tree towered over me, spreading its hood, its hiss like a finger of ice caressing my spine. Shuddering, fighting my urge to retreat, I dragged my eyes from the vileness to either side and fixed them in front of me.

A smooth band of white light stretched before us into the gloom, and as if his arms had reached out and enfolded me, I felt the embrace of Karon’s protection. The wave of blood fell short. The spiked tongue did not reach so far as my face. When a blood-chilling scream pierced the tumult, and a shrike with a wingspan wider than my arms sailed toward us through the tempest, its hooked beak ready to tear the flesh from our bones, the scream was quickly muted, and no horror touched us.

The journey seemed to take an eternity. But eventually, ragged and breathless, Bareil, Kellea, Paulo, and I stepped through another fiery veil into a circular chamber of white and rose tiles. The ceiling was lost in a soft white brilliance high over our heads. So familiar… yet I was enormously confused. I would swear that we were standing in the Chamber of the Gate in the ancient mountain stronghold where Karon had fought the Zhid and my brother had died. Why did we remain in the human world after traversing the Bridge?

I whirled about in panic, only Bareil’s silencing gesture preventing my cry. Karon was nowhere in sight.

In the far wall, a thick wooden door clicked shut softly. The Dulcé tiptoed across the empty chamber and pulled open the door. Distant running footsteps echoed in the passage.

“He’s gone after them,” whispered Bareil, motioning us to hurry. “We must stay together and keep close if we can do so without being seen.”

The passage emptied, not onto the gallery overlooking the cavern city of the lost stronghold, but into a network of increasingly wider passageways-smooth stone walls, veined with vibrant yellows and blues, softly lit by no source that we could see. Our direction was always up, though we traversed no steps, and I felt no ache in my legs to tell me that the slope was anything but illusion.

Before very long, I heard no footsteps but our own. Bareil sighed and drew us into a sheltered alcove. “Vasrin Creator,” he said, panting, “never has my heart pounded so. But we’ve lost them in spite of it. Can you lead us?” he asked Kellea.

The girl shook her head in disgust. “You’d do better to ask Paulo. I’ve lost all sense of the boy since we stepped past the fire. There’s… too much here. It’s as if someone dropped a bag over my head and stuffed it with noise.”

“Well, we can either return to the Chamber of the Gate or proceed to a hiding place where D’Natheil and I have agreed to meet if ever we are separated.”

No. No. No. “No retreat,” I said, forcing my voice low, but firm. “Not until Gerick is safe.” Dread weighed in my belly like an anvil.

“I agree,” said Kellea. “And I prefer a place that has more than one usable exit.”

The Dulcé nodded. “Very well. Then you must do exactly as I say. All right?” Though he wrinkled his face seriously at Paulo, a smile danced in his almond-shaped eyes. “This place may seem strange.”

The boy shrugged and pulled down his hat. “I’ve been about. Seen lots of things lately nobody’d believe.”

“We’ll not be remarked if we seem sure of ourselves and don’t gawk.” The Dulcé led our ragged group through passageways and deserted kitchens and dusty storerooms to an iron gate. Past the gate was a dimly lit, cloistered courtyard, the sheltered walkways lined by a double row of slender columns. A few trees grew in garden beds, thick-branched evergreens with long needles, but of no variety I recognized. Their light dusting of snow sparkled in the glow of white lanterns mounted on the cloister walls.

I grabbed the Dulcé‘s arm. “Before we go further, Bareil. Tell us. Where are we?” I needed to hear him say it before I could believe.

“Have you not guessed, my lady?” He smiled. “We’ve come to Gondai. You walk in Avonar.”