Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 21

One morning after I’d been in Zhev’Na for many weeks, Calador received a message in the middle of my lesson. I was sparring with a slave who was considered one of the best fighters of my age. The swordmaster immediately stuck a pole between us to halt the match and kicked my opponent out of my way. I was furious. Though I had cut the boy several times, he hadn’t yet touched me with his weapon. I was sure to defeat him at any moment. “I don’t want to stop,” I yelled.

“When you are summoned to wait upon the Lords of Zhev’Na, you do not delay,” said Calador. He commanded my two slave shadows to bathe me and dress me to be presented to the Lords. A messenger would be sent when it was time.

The hot water felt good. I liked a bath really hot, and, even though I was excited to meet the Lords, I had the slaves fill the pool three times. After so many weeks, I was at last getting accustomed to being undressed around the slaves and having them wash me. I was definitely growing taller, and I wasn’t so scrawny as I had been. I even had a few scars. And these slaves weren’t like the servants at Comigor who talked to you, or played games if you wanted, or were interested in you as ordinary people might be. I didn’t even know their names except for Sefaro. I thought perhaps they didn’t have any.

I wanted to stay in the hot water for a fourth refill, but Sefaro hurried me out of the bathing pool and dressed me in a new outfit of black and silver. He strapped my weapons on and hung several silver chains about my neck. Mama would have liked to see me like that. She had always been more interested in what I was wearing than in anything I did or said. I thought it odd that Darzid had talked about her “renowned intelligence.” Mama was pretty, but everyone knew she was not at all clever.

Though I was ready by midday, nothing happened for hours. I was so anxious and excited, I felt like to explode. My summons finally came at sunset, brought by someone in a long gray robe with a drooping hood that hid his face. Sefaro fastened a black cloak around my shoulders with a silver clasp in the shape of a wolf. The wolf’s eye was a ruby.

Sefaro touched the back of his hand to his mouth, which was a slave’s way of asking to speak. “You look quite fine, my young Lord,” he said, when I nodded my permission.

I thanked him, and he bowed. Then the messenger led me away. I wanted to ask what the Lords of Zhev’Na were like. No one had told me anything about them. But it wasn’t something I could ask a slave, and the messenger didn’t speak as we crossed the wide courtyards that separated my house from the keep. The air was cold, something that had surprised me about night in the desert. As soon as the sun set, the wind picked up, and the heat disappeared like snow on a south slope. I was cold a lot in Zhev’Na, almost all the time except when I was out riding or running or fighting in the sun.

The keep of Zhev’Na was far larger than Comigor’s, and very different. Where Comigor had thick walls and broad towers, everything at Zhev’Na seemed thin and lightweight. I wondered how the towers could stand up so tall or hold out against the wind, much less against an assault. On either side of the outer gates to the keep were the most amazing carvings of beasts and slaves and soldiers, all taller than life. I hadn’t ever had a chance to look at them so close, but the messenger beckoned me to hurry, and truly, the carvings were nothing to what waited inside.

The messenger led me into a chamber that was round and huge, with great tall columns around the outside. You could have laid the tallest tower of Comigor across the floor and it wouldn’t have reached the other side. The walls and columns were black. The floor was black, too, and shiny as if it were made of black glass. At first it made me feel dizzy to look in it, as if I might fall through it. And the ceiling… Well, I wasn’t sure the room even had a ceiling, for above me was a moonless sky filled with stars. But I couldn’t see the Great Arch or the Wolf or the Warrior or any other familiar pattern in the stars, and the air around me felt like inside, rather than outside. So I couldn’t say whether there was a roof or not, even though I was sure I had seen one from outside.

Even more amazing than the room itself was what occupied it. Mostly nothing at all for a place so big. But straight across the room from the doors stood three giant statues, two of men and one of a woman, all carved of dull black stone. I thought they must be images of kings or gods, for they were seated on thrones with their hands in their laps. The smallest finger on any one of them was far bigger than me. Even seated, each was as tall as the walls of Comigor. They were the most fearful things I had ever seen.

The woman’s face was old and stern, and her carved hair was drawn up in a knot on top of her head. The only color on the statue was her eyes, which were dark green like emeralds, though I had never heard that emeralds could be so large. The middle statue was of a man with a long arched nose, a wide mouth, and a forehead so broad that the rest of his face seemed small. His hair hung down to his shoulders, and his eyes were deep purple, like amethyst. The third statue was even more fearsome than the others, for it had no face at all, only blood-red rubies for eyes.

I wished that my boots didn’t echo so loudly on the dark floor. This didn’t look like a place where one ought to make noise. The messenger glided across the floor without making a sound.

From deep in the black floor at the very center of the room came a faint blue glow. The messenger motioned to me to stand over it. When I did so, a low hum came right through my boots and into my very bones. I didn’t like it, but I stayed put. The Lords of Zhev’Na were sure to be watching me, and I didn’t want them to think me a coward.

When I turned to the messenger to find out what to do next, he had gone. I waited for a while. Nothing else happened. I decided that if the statues were the gods of the Lords, or their ancestors or heroes, then the thing to do would be to show respect, so I gave a very formal bow, like I would to the king of Leire. When I straightened up again, I almost yelled, for I could have sworn that the middle statue had moved.

The floor was still thrumming through my boots, and the pools of darkness and strange blue light kept tricking my eyes. I tried to watch without blinking, to see if the statue moved again, but I couldn’t hold my eyes open long enough. When I finally had to blink, the three statues had vanished. Or, well… actually they were there… the three… but they were normal size, not giant. They were three people dressed in black and sitting on black stone thrones of more ordinary size.

The woman sat on the left. She looked almost exactly the same as the statue, only the knot of hair on her head was gray, and her hands and face were very pale. Over her eyes she wore a gold mask that covered half her face, each eyehole filled with an emerald.

Like his image, the man in the center had long hair, a big arched nose, and the broad forehead that made the rest of his face look small. His hair was brown, and he, too, wore a gold mask; his had amethyst eyes.

I almost didn’t look at the third person, because I was afraid he would have no face, like the statue. But I swallowed and turned to the third throne. Again, I almost cried out, I was so surprised. He wore black robes like the others, and as I watched, his face shifted in the strange light. He wore a gold mask, too, with rubies where the eyes should be. Even though the mask covered the middle of his face, from his eyebrows halfway down his cheeks, I recognized him. It was Darzid.

“Welcome, Gerick. Welcome to Zhev’Na on behalf of the three of us.” He smiled in his private, sneaking way. His voice sounded different-larger than a normal voice, as if he were speaking into a deep well.

“He gapes like a fish,” said the woman. “Perhaps you should have warned him.”

“He is only a child,” said the man with the amethyst eyes. “Yet he does not flee from us in terror. I read curiosity in him more than anything. And amazement. A good start, I think.”

“He is exceptional, as I’ve told you,” said Darzid. “Blood will tell.”

I didn’t like them talking about me while I stood in front of them. Mama always did that.

“Gerick, Duke of Comigor, come to wait upon the Lords of Zhev’Na,” I said, remembering how important visitors would greet Papa. “Is it the Lords of Zhev’Na that I address?”

The man with the amethyst eyes raised his eyebrows above his mask. “Why, yes. You must forgive us our rudeness, my lord. We are old and forget our manners. I am Parven the Warmaster. To my right sits Notole the Loremaster, and to my left… I believe you are acquainted with Ziddari the Exile, who has so recently returned to us after an immensely long time… abroad.”

I bowed at each introduction, though it felt awkward to bow to Darzid who had been my father’s hired lieutenant. “I wish to thank you all, my lords, for the hospitality you’ve shown me. I owe you a debt of honor, for I’m certain you’ve saved me from brutal murder. I hope to redeem my debt as soon as I’m able.”

“Prettily spoken, my lord duke,” said Parven. “It is our pleasure to grant you sanctuary. Consider Zhev’Na your home, and Ce Uroth as your own country. We think it is very likely that you will be able…”

“… to redeem your debt of honor quite easily.” Now it was Notole speaking. “We are old and selfish, and we do not step out of our way to aid young noblemen-even those so worthy as yourself-with no hope of return. Our enemies are the same as yours, and we hope to join together…”

“… to make common cause against them.” Darzid was speaking now. The three of them took up each other’s thoughts and speech without even pausing for breath, like one person speaking out of three mouths. “You’ve begun your training in the skills necessary to accomplish your purposes-to fulfill the blood oath you’ve sworn to avenge the deaths of the man you called father and the woman you called friend. Perhaps that will be enough for you, and you will choose to return to the soft lands where your mundane king wants to burn you. But if you truly mean what you say about your life debt, then we will give you full opportunity to repay it. If you choose to make a new life here as our ally, then we will train you in other arts, and tell you truths of yourself and of the world that will change everything you know.”

“It will be dangerous and exciting and difficult.” Parven was speaking again. “You’ll have to hear things you’ll not like, and do things that are unpleasant. There will be no going back to what you’ve left behind. But it will be the life you deserve and your own choice. How does this strike you?”

The Lords seemed very stern, but kind, too, and respectful. My weapons felt good at my side, and I liked how strong I was becoming and how much faster I could run now. And, too, I thought of the sun-baked ugliness and the jagged red cliffs, and how the only place I felt really warm was out in that desert sun, sweating and fighting. In Leire they burned sorcerers and killed those who had anything to do with them. “I think this is the place I belong,” I said. “I’d like to hear whatever you have to tell me and learn whatever you have to teach.”

“Such a wise young man!” said Notole. “Let us seal our alliance, my young Lord. We are old and mistrustful and must be convinced that you take this as seriously as you seem to do. Come to me.”

I climbed up the wide black step to stand in front of her. I was amazed to see that her gold mask was a part of her face, grown right into the pale, dry flesh. Each eye was a single, huge emerald. What could she see through them?

“Everything, my young Lord. Everything.”

I looked away quickly. It was rude to stare, even at something so strange. Notole must be used to it, since she had guessed what I was thinking.

“We’ve found something that belongs to you, young duke, and have been waiting for a proper time to return it.” Her hands were very dry, and the flesh hung on her long bony fingers as if it weren’t connected to the bones at all. She held out a small green silk bag and dropped its contents into her hand. It was the Comigor signet ring, the one Seri had brought to me when she came to tell me lies about Papa’s death. The Lords must have found it in my clothes when I first came to Zhev’Na. I had forgotten all about it.

“Thank you,” I said, and reached for it.

But Notole yanked it back out of reach. “Wait one moment. As I said, we must be convinced that your heart lies here in Zhev’Na, that you will not desert us when times get hard… or when your pillow is wet with a child’s tears.”

My face got hot… and my blood, too. If Sefaro had seen my weakness and told the Lords of it, I would kill him. Then the Lords would know for certain that I was not a child. “I’ve sworn on my family’s honor to avenge my father and my nurse,” I said, trying to stand tall. “I consider my debt to you of equal weight. I do not swear lightly, even though I’m young.” I pulled out my sword and laid it at Notole’s feet. “I will serve you until you consider my life debt satisfied. Your enemies are my enemies, and I will do whatever is in my power to sustain you against them.”

Notole laughed gently, her breath ruffling my hair. “We do not want your sword, young Lord. Not yet… though that may come when you are older. What we want is your loyalty, your allegiance… your soul. We want you to exchange this signet ring, a symbol of a life you have forsworn, for this”-she opened her other hand to reveal a small gold triangle, embedded with an emerald, an amethyst, and a ruby-“the token of our alliance. Else how can we trust that you will consider our common interests in preference to those about which we care nothing? A life debt cannot be half repaid or served only when there is nothing better to do.”

She held out both hands then, the signet ring in one and the Lords’ token in the other. “You must choose.” The palms of her hands were horribly scarred, as if they’d been burned long ago.

Though none of the three moved from their thrones, I felt as if they were all hovering about me-waiting, suspending breath until I would choose. Maybe they thought it would be difficult. But my dreams had already revealed enough of the truth. There was nothing for me at Comigor, and I wanted revenge more than anything in the world. I touched the signet ring for a moment and tried to think what to say about it. I’m sorry, Papa. If I weren’t evil, I could be like you. But I am what I am, and if those who are wicked can have any honor, mine will have to be what I make it. And then I moved my hand to the Lords’ token, picked it up, and felt such a sigh in the room that it made me think of a thunderstorm that breaks a summer’s drought.

“Well chosen…”

“… we are honored…”

“… our young friend and ally. Come let me show you how to wear it.”

Ziddari took the jeweled token, and before I realized what he was doing, a sharp, hot pain stabbed my left ear. “There,” he said, before I could protest. I touched my earlobe, and the jeweled pin was affixed firmly to it like the bolt through a gate.

Now we can teach and guide you…

Help make you more than you are.

My hands flew to my ears. Parven’s and Notole’s voices were not in my ears, but inside my head.

Any question you have, just think it or speak it, and one of us will answer. Ziddari’s lips didn’t move. It was amazing!

They sent me back to my house after that. Sefaro and two other slaves were waiting at the door as always. They bowed as I walked through the gate and across the courtyard. When they straightened up, Sefaro’s eyes fell on the jewels in my ear. He laid his hand on the other slaves’ arms and nodded toward me. Their faces grew pale and their eyes wide when they saw, and all three of them dropped to their knees. I thought that their race must be weak and cowardly to be afraid of me just because I was a friend of their Lords.

Indeed it is a truth, Gerick. Dar’Nethi are soft and corrupt-afraid of their own enchantments, their own power-wanting every sorcerer to be as weak as they. They must be strictly controlled or they are worthless to anyone. We use them as slaves so that we can free our own kind to concentrate on battle. This was Ziddari whispering in my mind. Try them. See how they quake when faced with strength greater than their own.

“So they are sorcerers, too?” I said, just as if I was talking to him in person. That was a new consideration. I couldn’t imagine it. I pushed Sefaro with my foot, and he fell from his kneeling position into a heap on the floor. He didn’t move, just stayed there in the dirt looking up at me until I told him to get up. I would have melted with shame to look like that. “Why don’t they use sorcery to free themselves? Are they too cowardly even for that?”

The collars prevent them. They are Dar’Nethi, subjects of Prince D’Natheil. They and their Prince have forbidden us to grow and use our power efficiently. We use the collars to let them know what it is like to be crippled. It’s the purest torment we can offer them. And very just.

To prevent them using their sorcery did seem just. But I couldn’t help but remember how it was to be afraid all the time, and so later, when Sefaro came to unstrap my weapons and take off the silver chains and the fine suit, I told him that he did me good service. He bowed a bit, but didn’t ask permission to speak. I wondered if somehow he guessed that I’d thought about killing him when I was with the Lords.

When I went to sleep in my huge bed, I didn’t dream at all.

My life changed on that night, more clearly even than it had when I’d first come to Zhev’Na. One of the Lords was always with me, just at the edge of my thoughts-a voice in my head that wasn’t me. It seemed as natural as breathing or using the sorcery that could make toy soldiers march or flowers bloom whenever I wanted.

Sometimes the voice was very clearly one or the other of them. Notole whispered about grand things like how the universe worked and of magical power. Parven lectured me like a military tutor, teaching me attacks and defenses, and tactics and strategies that had been used in their thousand-year war. Ziddari was-well, Darzid-and he would talk about everything else, from how to treat slaves to the names of our enemies and our friends.

Sometimes I didn’t hear any voice, but if I thought of a question about swordplay, Parven spoke up, or if I wondered how to use sorcery to make my bath hotter, Notole answered.

Over the next few days the Lords began to teach me about the origins of the war with Prince D’Natheil, of how everyone in their land could do sorcery, only some were better at it than others. Notole told me how D’Natheil’s ancestors, most particularly the ancient Dar’Nethi king called D’Amath, forbade those who were better at sorcery from trying new things, or from doing any magic that everyone in the land could not do just as well. It seemed like a terrible injustice, like saying that Papa could not fight with a sword, just because he was better than everyone else.

Exactly, said Notole, inside my head. D’Arnath was afraid of losing his power to those with more talent. And still we struggle with the results of his cowardice. We fight to be allowed to use our talents as we wish. The Prince has inherited immense powers from D’Arnath, but he uses them to keep us in bondage, fearful that we will outshine his own family.

And, of course, in all this learning that I was doing, I found out that there was more than one world. I was living in the world called Gondai, while Comigor, and all the people and places I had ever known, were in the other one-the mundane world, they called it.

That, of course, is why sorcery is such a great evil in your world, said Parven. It doesn’t belong there. D’Natheil and the followers of D’Arnath call our works evil, yet what could be a greater evil than introducing sorcery where it was not intended? Great injustices resulted from it; learn the history of the heir and Rebellion and you’ll understand.

At first I was sad and a little bit scared to think I wasn’t even in the same world where I had been born, but that feeling went away quickly. The Lords were teaching me so many new things, and besides, I almost couldn’t remember Comigor any more, or the faces of anyone I’d known there, except the dead ones-Papa and Lucy. Those I remembered very well.

The Lords answered any kind of question except one, and that was anything about themselves. I wondered about their masks and why they wore them. I wondered why Ziddari had lived in my world for so long, and why he served as Papa’s lieutenant, and why he had saved me, when he helped kill all the other evil sorcerers who lived there. When I asked those questions, I could feel the three of them with me, but no one answered. Just as well. My head was bulging with everything I was learning-and it was all so easy. I never forgot anything they taught me.

A week or so after my meeting with the Lords, Darzid came to my house. Well, of course he was Ziddari, but he looked like the ordinary Darzid again. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with you, my young Lord-one best talked about in person, I think, though you have adapted well to our new ‘arrangements.’ ” We were standing on the wide balcony outside my apartments. Like every window and door in the Gray House, the balcony looked out over the desert. “Our first skirmish with Prince D’Natheil is about to occur, and in order for you to play your part in it, you must learn one of those bits of hard truth of which I spoke.”

For just a moment, I glimpsed the light of rubies in his eyes. He was very excited, and that made me excited, too. I wanted to get on with the war, now I had committed myself to be a part of it. “Have you ever wondered how you happen to have the powers of a sorcerer?” he said.

“I thought it just happened when you were born.”

“Like green eyes or large stature or red hair?”

“Something like that.”

“Tell me, Gerick, how likely is it that a child has red hair and yet his mother has brown hair and his father black?”

“I don’t know. Not likely, I guess.”

“Then what if I were to tell you that it is far less likely that a boy is born with the powers you have to parents who have none, than it is for a black-haired child with dark brown skin to be born to parents that are blond and fair?”

My stomach tied itself into a knot, and my skin felt cold again, though it wasn’t even night. The red sun shone hot and bright on my skin. “Would it be true?”

“Yes.”

“Then that would mean that Papa or Mama was a sorcerer, too-”

“You know better than that.”

“-or that one of them, or both of them, were not my parents.”

Darzid leaned on the balcony rail and gazed out into the desert. “Tomas was far too powerful for your mother to amuse herself with other men. And I can tell you that while Tomas had women other than Philomena on occasion, none of them were Dar’Nethi.”

The knot pulled up everything so tight, I felt like there was a big hollow place in my stomach. “Then who am I?”

From the pocket of his black tunic, Darzid pulled a flat square of ivory. He put it in my hand. It had a looking glass set into it, and of course when I looked at it, my own face looked back at me. How could Papa not be my father? I could see him in my face. My chin was pointed like his. My hair was the same color, my eyes, too. And even darkened from the sun, my skin had the same red-gold cast. Nellia had said a thousand times how like Papa I was, and how no one but the children of Comigor had such coloring…

The mirror clattered to the floor, and I clasped my hands behind my back as if it had burned me. I wanted to be sick.

Darzid nodded. “You’ve guessed it then. A hard thing to discover that what you believed all your life was false.”

Seri. I was Seri’s child… and her sorcerer husband’s who had been burned alive.

“You and your cousin were born on the same day. Tomas’s son was born early, weak and sickly, like all Philomena’s children. There was no possibility he could survive. The serving sister who attended both mothers had overheard what was planned for the sorcerer’s child and tried to switch the two of you. I caught her at it and decided that it would be amusing to see what became of you. I made sure the nurse was sent to Comigor with you and would watch out for any sign that you had inherited your father’s… skills.”

“So the baby Papa killed…”

“… was his own son. He never knew it.”

“Was he cursed by Seri’s husband? Is that why he was born early?” Everything in the world was flipping upside down. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sun had started rising right back up from where it was setting.

“Perhaps.”

I didn’t know what to think. Seri. Seri was my mother. I hated her because her Prince had killed Papa, and she had brought him to kill me and Lucy. But surely that meant she didn’t know the truth either. I tried to remember things about Seri, but everything was all blurry and confused. And the baby Papa killed hadn’t been a sorcerer. That changed… something… Before I could clear any of it up, Darzid tapped me hard on the cheek, calling me to pay attention.

“There’s more. Worse than what you have already heard.”

“I can’t see how it could be worse.”

“You should know your father’s name, don’t you think?”

“He was evil, and he’s dead. I don’t see why it matters except that he made me evil like him. I didn’t belong there. I shouldn’t have been born in that other world at all. And Papa… Tomas… was my real father.”

“Don’t be sentimental, Gerick. You were so afraid of Tomas that you stopped talking to him. He would have slit your throat or had you burned if he had even suspected what you are. But the identity of your father has everything to do with who you are, and what you are, and what you will be in the future, for there has come about something so unusual-even for this world that is so strange to you- that it would take days even to speculate on how it was done.”

“I don’t understand.” My head was spinning with hot and cold and red sunlight glaring in my eyes and his words that just would not stop telling me awful things.

“It’s in the names. The names will tell you. You see, Serf’s husband, your father, went by the name of Karon.”

“Karon? But that was the other name they called-”

“-the Prince D’Natheil. Yes, indeed. It appears that your real father is not dead at all, but has been brought back to life. He is now one and the same as our enemy.”

“I don’t understand how it could be possible.” Two different people… yet the same. A dead person come to life again.

“It is indeed an immense enchantment, worked by the old man you saw talking with Seri-the last gasp of a once-talented people. We will teach you all about it and what it means for your place in the world. But for now, you must be ready to face him.”

“Face him? The Prince?” I could not call him my father. I pictured the tall man who had walked with Seri in Grandmama’s garden and could not imagine how the Lords thought I could fight him.

“Yes, this is the most magnificent part of the whole business. D’Natheil has made a great mistake, a mistake that could cost him his control of the universe, not to mention this perversion that he calls his life. You are the key. We didn’t know your test would come so soon, but it’s all to the good.”

Ziddari went on to tell me of how I would be taken into the heart of our enemies’ stronghold, and asked to stand in the presence of my father, the Prince, who also happened to be the man King Evard had burned to death shortly before I was born. “The two of you will be tested, to verify your relationship. The burden is on him, not on you. You have only to be present.”

“Why would he admit that I’m his son if it could lose the war for him?” I was confused.

“He will have no choice. The enchantments that caused him to live past his own proper death have unsettled his mind. In a vain attempt to retain his hold on his power, he has put himself in a vulnerable position. If we play our parts well, then, before another day dawns, you will be acknowledged his successor.”

“But his followers won’t acknowledge me if I’m allied with his enemies.” There was Darzid, thinking I was stupid again.

“Oh, they will acknowledge you. For a thousand years they’ve locked themselves into the stupidities of breeding and bloodlines. They’ll soon discover their mistake. You are no longer the Duke of Comigor, but by sunset tomorrow you will be the Prince of Avonar, sovereign of all Dar’Nethi and Dulcé. And on the day you come of age you will be anointed the Heir of the cursed D’Arnath. D’Arnath was the only one of the Dar’Nethi who ever understood the full depth and breadth and uses of power, and in his pride and selfish stupidity, he reserved it all to himself and his Heirs. In a little more than one turning of the year, on the day you complete your twelfth year of life, all of it will be yours.”