Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 25

The bed felt like plate armor, and I was tangled in a choking knot of clothes and blankets, yet I was not at all inclined to move. If I stayed very still, then perhaps these slight pricks of wakefulness would dull into oblivion, and I could sleep the day around. Across my mind flitted the anxious notion that Dassine would soon shake my shoulder, but even after I dismissed that fantasy, the whisper of his name in my half-sleep pulled me from the domain of dreams across the border to the land of waking. Dassine was a week dead. But someone was in the room with me. I could sense his breath, his pulse, the faint warmth and disturbance in the air that told me another living person was present.

“Come, come, D’Natheil, you’re too big to hide from me any more. You were never good at it.”

Was my lethargy a result of his enchantments?

“More likely the residue of the cennethar. You are free to move and speak as you wish. You will excuse me if I keep a slight watch on your thoughts, however. Your first impulse has always been to violence.” One might have thought he was biting down on a nettle.

I sat up. The puffy-faced man with thinning hair sat in the small, bare room’s only chair. He rested his chin on one of his perfectly manicured hands and smiled, an expression as void of mirth as the room was of comfort.

“Who would have thought we’d be back here together?” he said. “Yet, you’re not really the one I knew, the incorrigible little beast who spat upon the most glorious heritage in the history of all worlds. You are someone else entirely.”

“That child still lives in me, and I remember everything of his time in your charge.”

“How do you know that the memory Dassine returned to you is accurate? Perhaps he colored what he gave you with his view of the world and of me.”

“No, Preceptor. I lived every moment of those years twice over. I knew Dassine as I’ll never know any other man, and he didn’t hate you half so much as I do.”

“Yet hate is quite alien to your present nature. How do you reconcile it?”

Search as I would, I could find no answer to that.

“As I thought. A difficult portion Dassine has left you.” He tapped his fingertips together rapidly. “Well, look at it this way: You were a child, and there were-and are- many things you don’t understand. If you are to survive what is to come, you must put aside your childish view. You must accept that nothing-nothing-you believe is immutable.”

“And what is to come?”

“First I’ll let you eat and refresh yourself a bit”-he nodded to the boxlike table where sat a tray laden with food, drink, a pile of towels, and a green porcelain basin from which steam was rising-“and then I will restore the remainder of your lost life. Unfortunately events do not leave us the time Dassine had. We shall have to proceed a bit more brutally… and not because I will enjoy it.”

“And if I refuse?”

He leaned forward, his cheeks flushed ever so slightly, his narrow eyes alight. “I saw your struggle when we pushed you to the boundaries of your knowledge. However much you despise me, I cannot believe you would refuse, even if you knew you would die in the next moment.”

He was almost right. “I would do anything to retrieve what I’ve lost except take it from Dassine’s murderer.”

Exeget smiled scornfully and settled back in the hard little chair. “Have you unraveled nothing of this mystery? I’ll not attempt to resolve for you the bothersome inconsistencies in your view of Dassine’s death. But while I leave you to your refreshment, I want you to think about this: Dassine sent you to me. Not to Madyalar, not to any of the others. You know Dassine chose words carefully: Give yourself to the Preceptorate for examination. Defenseless. If your childish indignation had not been clouding your judgment, only one possible course would have presented itself-surrendering to the Head of the Preceptorate. To me.”

I dismissed his jibes as quickly as he left the room. But as I took full advantage of the hot water and the mound of bread and cheese and cold meat, I could not but be drawn back to the most illogical aspect of Dassine’s murder: Bareil knew nothing of the abducted child. Why would Exeget, intending to murder Dassine, have given his rival information of significance? Ever convinced of his own superiority, Exeget would not stoop to taunt a victim.

And, of course, his logic echoed my own uneasy thoughts, that I had interpreted Dassine’s command according to my own desires… because I was afraid…

Exeget returned an hour later, smirking at the broken crockery in the corner of my room. “So is it yea or nay? Remember, your sanity is in question, not mine.”

I could not force myself to answer.

“Ahhh…” he growled. “When we are done, I’ll put your own knife in your hand and bare my neck to you. Will that satisfy your bloodthirsty inclinations? Do we work at this or not?”

I jerked my head. He seemed to understand. “You’ll need this.” He tossed a white robe into my hands, his composure regained. “When you’re ready, come to the lectorium. I’m sure you remember the way.” Exeget, my despised enemy.

Yes, I remembered the way to the cold and barren workroom where he had tried so brutishly to shove the practices of sorcery into my nine-year-old head. Muttering oaths, I stripped, donned the soft wool robe, and padded barefoot down the stairs.

When I entered the low-ceilinged chamber, the circle of candles was already alight. The dark stone columns and walls, void of decoration, seemed to swallow the candlelight.

“How is it you know of all this?” I said, waving my hand to encompass the luminous circle. Dassine had always claimed that his work with me was unique, unknown to any other Dar’Nethi, that I must follow his strictures if I ever wanted to be whole. Though Exeget’s lectorium was cool, deep in the rock below Avonar, a drip of sweat trickled down my tailbone.

“This is not the time for questions. Take your place.” He held out his hand for my robe.

Self-conscious as I had never been with Dassine, I gave it over and sat myself naked on the bare stone inside the circle. Fool! Fool! screamed my untrusting self.

Exeget tossed my robe onto the floor behind him with a snort, whether at my modesty or my fear, I couldn’t tell. But as the light grew, insinuating itself into my head and my lungs and the pores of my flesh, he spoke softly in my mind, Do not be afraid. I’ll not allow you to drown.

And so did I take up my life where it had been interrupted five days-or fifteen years-before, and on that very night, in the room where Exeget had so often railed at me for being soft and stupid and unworthy of my name, did I travel once again to the gracious house called Windham and meet my darling Seri in the freshness of her wide-eyed young womanhood. Her awakening intelligence soared, and she argued and laughed and studied, revealing to my Dar’Nethi soul a universe of marvels. We walked in her cousin Martin’s gardens and played chess in his drawing rooms, and when the blazing hearth of Windham faded into Exeget’s circle of candlelight, I cried out, “No! Let me go back! For love of the Creator, let me go back.”

“A moment. Drink this; it will sustain you.” Someone poured some thick and sour liquid down my throat, and before the blaze in my eyes had dissipated enough that I could see whose hands held the cup, I was embracing the fire once again.

Every day a delight in her friendship, not daring to think of anything more. We all knew she was meant for Evard and swore that such a marriage would be like confining the lightning to a cage. Martin warned me that there could be no future for the affection and regard I tried so vigorously and so ineptly to hide, for he knew my secret and the dangers it entailed. I was a sorcerer, doomed to run, to hide, and almost certainly to burn.

How long did I journey that first time in Exeget’s room? Three more times was I drawn back to the circle of fire, where I blindly gulped the murky liquid as a drowning man gulps air; three more times was I sent back again to Leire, to the happiest days I had ever known. The fifth time I came back a voice protested behind the roaring of the flames. “Enough, Master. You’ll kill him.”

“We’ll all be dead or worse if we cannot finish in time. But I suppose you’re right. We daren’t push it farther at first. But things will get no easier as we go.”

Hands, two pairs of them, drew me to my feet and wrapped my robe about me. I could not yet see for the blinding glare that filled my eyes, but as the two half walked, half carried me to my room, my senses emerged from their muffling and began to record the world around me once again. A crashing thunder growing in my ears could be traced to the tapping of a breeze-shifted branch on the window, the searing colors that soon shredded my eyes were but the muted grays of Exeget’s halls, and the vicious claws that must surely be raking bloody gashes in my arms were four gentle hands as they laid me on my pallet.

“Quickly now, to sleep,” said the grating voice, and the hellish cacophony of my jangled senses was deadened by the blessed touch of his hand.

In an hour, no more than two, they roused me to begin it all again.

Dassine’s regimen had been nothing compared to that of Exeget. I knew no day or night, no hour or season, no word of comfort or argument, no words at all in that time. I did not eat, only drank the vile mess that kept me living and embraced the darkness when they pulled me from the circle of fire, blind and deaf and numb. I lived only as Karon, in the past, and, of course, it was not long until I understood what horror awaited me beyond my knowing.

Dead. Oh, gods, my dear friends… Martin, Tanager, Julia… I had left them to die because I would not compromise my gift to alter the paths of fate. And my wife and son abandoned. I had abdicated my responsibilities for some Dar’Nethi ideal and left Seri to face the horror all alone. The experience of my own death, the relived torment and despair and the ten years of disembodied darkness were as nothing beside my betrayal of my friends, my wife, and my child. And Dassine had brought me back because he believed I had some holy revelation that could save the world. What kind of coward was I?

The candlelight faded; darkness and silence enshrouded me. Was the restoration of three lost souls-those three pitiable Zhid I had healed after the fight with Seri’s brother at the Gate-worth everything that had happened? I could see no other return from all the pain and sorrow.

Oh, Seri, forgive me. How I understand your anger…

“You cannot hide forever, D’Natheil. Three days it’s been since we completed our work.”

The room was dark, though not as dark as my soul. He spoke softly, as if unsure of the state of my hearing. But I would not wake to Exeget. I burrowed back into emptiness.

The next time it was someone else. Hands rolled me to my back and stuffed pillows under my head. “My lord Prince, you must live. You are so much needed. Here, drink this.” He pressed a cup into my shaking hands and helped me lift it to my lips. Brandy, woody and old, the smoothest I had ever tasted, yet I thought it might burn a hole through my empty stomach. I coughed and gagged and heaved, and my invisible companion helped me to sit up straight. My skin was slick with sweat.

“Holy stars!” It seemed like half a month until I caught a breath.

“It is fine, is it not? My best vintage ever.”

“Bareil?”

“The same, my lord. May I make a light?”

“If it’s necessary.” With the glimmering candle flame came the intrusion of the world and all the burdens I had shed in my days of oblivion. “Oh, gods, Bareil…” I bent forward and dragged at my hair with my fingers, as if enough pain might make reality vanish again.

“I know, my lord. It is difficult. I wish it could have been slower, easier for you.”

“You were there? You were the other hands?”

“Yes, my lord. Master Dassine had given Master Exeget a directive with which to summon me and command my assistance. And when I saw what he was doing with you- completing Master Dassine’s work-I was happy to be of service. I hope it did not contradict your wishes.”

“No.” I pushed shaggy, damp hair from my brow and felt several weeks’ growth of beard bristling on my chin. “Thank you.”

“You must eat, even though you may not feel like it yet. I’ll bring something. I’ve scarcely managed to get anything down you in all these weeks. And, my lord, Master Exeget is desperate to speak with you. Though he asked me to wake you, he waits just outside.”

“Exeget…” What was I to think of him?

“It is astonishing, is it not? I was terrified when I saw you in his power. But my lord, I must tell you that never was Master Dassine so careful in his work. I have watched many of the Dar’Nethi masters work, and none other could have brought you through this as he did.”

“Give me an hour.”

Bareil bowed and left the room. Huddled in the corner of my pallet, I forced myself to consider the state of the world. At what I guessed to be the precise expiration of my hour, the door opened and my old enemy sat himself in the chair in the corner. He began examining his hands, turning them this way and that in the weak light, showing no sign of agitation at my delay. He would sit so all night before confessing his urgency.

“I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” I said, conceding the minor struggle in the hunger for understanding.

His hands came to rest in his lap, one laid calmly upon the other. “I did what was necessary. I don’t expect you to thank me. Upon full consideration, you will most likely decide this is only another crime to add to my account.”

“You never told me what was to come after.”

“It would have made no sense at the time and may not yet. It depends on whether you were able to analyze the present situation while you lived your life again or in these past days as you lay here in your self-made tomb.”

“While I journeyed, I was wholly in the past. While I lay here, I was trying to bury it all again. But in the hour just gone, I’ve put a few things together.”

“Do you understand about the child? Who he is?”

“Yes.” Seri’s son. My son.

“And you see that because of your… unique… circumstances-this thing Dassine has done to you-your son is the next Heir of D’Arnath?”

“I guessed it.”

Exeget’s dark eyes blazed far brighter than my candle. “Do you have any concept of what it means if the Heir comes of age in the hands of the Lords?”

“The Three will control the Bridge.”

“Not only the Bridge, but all the powers of D’Arnath. Only Dassine and I, of all Dar’Nethi, ever grasped their full extent. D’Arnath was able to create the Bridge because he could manipulate the forces of the Breach, forces which are the antithesis of order, the bits left over from the creation of worlds because they were defective, too odd or corrupt or broken to be included in the weaving of the universe. Before the Catastrophe, this corruption was dispersed, incohesive. But the workings of the Three, the immense increases in power they believed they created by their superior cleverness, were in fact drawing upon these broken bits and gathering them together, until, in their last disastrous working, the Breach was formed and the corruption trapped within it.

“Only D’Arnath’s anointed Heir inherits his control over the Breach. One of our race at a time. The universe cannot seem to support two with such power. And so, if the Lords corrupt the Heir and control him-become one with him as they are one with each other-then, on the day he comes of age, they will be able to command the legions of chaos. None will be able to stand against them.”

“The test of which you spoke with Madyalar-it is the test of parentage?”

“Yes. You are D’Natheil. Your blood and bone and spirit are indisputable witness to it. You are also the father of the child. Your wife knows it; now you know it. He is Dar’Nethi. There is no other possibility. He and this man Darzid were able to cross the Bridge. Do you understand what that requires? Yes, the way was left open, but only the boy’s bloodlines-your own deeds in the mundane world bear witness to unquestionably powerful bloodlines- and whatever gifts this Darzid brings to bear could enable them to cross so easily. The man knows the boy is your son. We must assume he also knows something of what has been done to you, for he has exposed his own abilities and sympathies in order to bring the child to the Lords. Which means the Lords know the boy’s heritage, as well. If you and the boy undergo the test of parentage before the Preceptorate, the boy will be proved the son of D’Arnath’s Heir and must therefore be acknowledged as your successor.”

I fought my way through the confusion. “Then why-if you are indeed what you wish me to believe-why, in the name of all that lives, did you return my memory? If you had left me the way I was, or driven me mad with it-not a long or difficult road as you saw-or if you had killed me, the test of parentage would fail.”

His shoulders relaxed a bit, and he sighed as will a teacher who has just heard the first rudimentary evidence of progress from a recalcitrant student. “If no Heir is competent to sit for the test of his child or to name a new successor, then the Preceptorate must decide whether there is some other living descendant of D’Arnath. The only way to test a person is to send him or her onto the Bridge and see what transpires. We cannot allow what happened to you when you were twelve to happen again. We have no Dassine to make us a new and better man from a broken child. So we must keep both you and your son whole if it is possible.”

How could this man be Exeget? Why had he not felt this way when I was a child?

Evidently he was still monitoring my thoughts. “I did not vote to send you onto the Bridge when you came of age. Rather, I tried my best to stop it. There was no possibility you could survive the attempt.”

Nothing you believe is immutable… “Perhaps if I’d received better teaching.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I had to discover what you were. Many in Avonar said you were touched by the Lords, destined, even at nine years of age, to be their tool. If you were, I had to know. If you were not, then you would survive and be the stronger for it. My purpose was not to make you love me.”

“And what was the truth?”

“I don’t know. You were sent to the Bridge at twelve, and it almost destroyed you. Your soul was twisted beyond repair. My surmise is that the Lords had indeed reached you.”

The room was so cold. My head throbbed, and my hands would not stop shaking. I gathered a blanket around my shoulders. “I don’t know what to believe. You sent my son and his abductor to Zhev’Na. How do you know so much about all this?”

I hadn’t thought Exeget could look any more disagreeable, but his smile could have wilted a dead lily. “I am the man you know. You just don’t know everything. Nor did Dassine until the days before he died. Nor do those who lurk in Zhev’Na, believing I am the most faithful of servants, who has sold his soul to preserve the remnants of his power, and who so diligently carries out their plans to destroy his world and his people.”

Logic and history forbade belief. “You violated the madris, commanded Baglos, your madrissé, to kill me.” Seri had prevented the foolish Dulcé from poisoning me when Dassine had sent me across the Bridge to prevent its destruction, and the other preceptors tried to trade my life for the safety of Avonar.

“That was an act of desperation. I didn’t trust Dassine after his sojourn in the Wastes, and I didn’t know what he’d done to you. The D’Natheil I knew could never have succeeded in the task that had to be done. As long as the Bridge exists, the world has hope. I believed you would destroy it. And so I believed you had to die. Thankfully, that was not necessary.”

“And Madyalar…”

“Madyalar has served the Lords since before you were born. Happily for us, she is stupid and the Lords know it.”

“You told her that the boy is my son.”

“She would have learned it from her mentors eventually. There’s no point in hiding what will be known anyway. It’s how I have survived. For that same reason I sent the boy and his captor on their way and have convinced the other Preceptors that he is safely tucked away with trustworthy friends of mine. Lacking sufficient power to prevent the Lords’ hold on the boy, I appear to aid them. Meanwhile, I bide my time.”

“So what are we to do?” Whether or not I could accept his honesty seemed superfluous. I wasn’t going to be able to help anyone. I couldn’t wrestle a bird. “I’m in no condition-”

“-to fight? On the contrary, your condition is perfect. It’s one reason we must move quickly. You are in shambles, yet quite competent to take part in the test of parentage. When the Preceptors examine you, they’ll see the truth.”

“No use putting off what will happen anyway.”

“Exactly. The boy will be proved. The Lords will think they’ve won.”

“My life will not be worth much after that.”

“Also true. But we will control the situation. As you said, no use putting off what will happen anyway. I’m sorry, my Prince…” And then he proceeded to tell me his plan, and how it was I would have to die.