Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 44

The spinning ring vanished. The Lords took turns taking Gerick’s hands and kissing them, congratulating him and each other.

“Now one small matter, and then we can welcome our Dar’Nethi guests,” said Ziddari. “It’s not yet time for them to see you in your present aspect. You must make yourself an image of what they expect to find. If you need guidance…”

“I need nothing.” Gerick’s words were quiet and hard. To hear the familiar voice, so recently deepened with approaching manhood, coming from the face with the gold mask and diamond eyes was but another aspect of horror.

“Then we will leave you to your guests. Our allies will open a portal to bring them.”

“And what of my servants? Asleep as I said?”

“They are none of your concern, young Lord. They’re all dead.”

“Dead? But I said-”

“You said you might want to kill them,” said Ziddari. “We agreed with that. And so we have done.” The three Lords vanished, leaving an echo of purest hatred and lust.

Only one black throne remained occupied. He sat still and silent, his elbows resting on the square arms of the chair, his hands knotted into fists.

What did one say to one’s child who had been so grotesquely transformed? How did one counsel a youth who was on the verge of destroying what balance and hope remained in the world? Would he hear me now the others were gone? I had never thought to be allowed to speak with Gerick again, yet here was an opportunity, and I could not think how on earth to begin.

“What now?” It was all I could come up with.

His thoughts were clearly far away. “Did you say something?”

“What happens now?”

“You will be given to the Dar’Nethi as we promised. Nothing else concerns you.”

How small a spark is needed to ignite a holocaust. “Do not speak to me in Darzid’s words!”

The tips of his fingers tapped each other rapidly. “And whose words should I use but those of the Lords? I am one with them.”

“Use your own words. They didn’t take your mind from you. Think. Act. Take hold of your own life.”

“You know nothing.”

“Gerick, you must listen to-”

“I will not listen to you.” He sprang from his chair and circled behind it, gripping the thick black edge of its back. His restless hands began tapping their frantic rhythm on the stone. “You are filled with incessant noise, and all I want is for you to be silent. My name is Lord Dieste, and you will show me the proper respect or I’ll teach you how to do so; I’ll put you back where you were found.”

“And where was that? Do you even know?”

“In servitude proper to your meager abilities. You are nothing to me. Servants are nothing to me. It doesn’t matter if they’re all dead.”

Some struggle was going on inside him. I pressed hard, hoping to find some crack, some chink in the walls the Lords had built to imprison him. “But your masters have promised to give me to the Preceptors.”

“Only if I wish it. They do everything I wish.”

“And what is it you wish?”

He clasped his hands together and pressed them to his chin, as if to quiet their agitation. “I don’t know.”

“You made them promise to save my life. Can you even remember why?”

“A stupid and childish whim. I am no longer burdened with such.”

“Does it matter what I wish?”

“Not in the least.”

“But if it did matter, I’d wish to stay with you. I would care for you and be your companion. You are my-”

“I have no need of companions!” He circled the throne again and sank slowly into its stony embrace, pressing his clenched hands to his forehead. “I want to be left alone. And I have no further need of servants. All my servants have been disposed of. They can no longer interfere… or leave their thoughts cluttering up my head… dead men’s thoughts… slaves’ thoughts…” In that instant, he might have been transformed into the same stone as his chair. Agitation stilled, cold anger muted, imperious manner quenched, his words dwindled to a whisper. “Impossible. Impossible. How could he be here?”

The diamond eyes jerked up. A searing lance pierced my forehead. “You lied! What were the two of you doing? What was he doing here?”

My mouth worked soundlessly as the pressure in my head grew… only to be abruptly halted when the round blue glow in the floor began to pulse rapidly. Gerick jumped up, spread his hands, and pressed his palms outward, and in a stomach-wrenching explosion of enchantment, the vast, empty darkness of the Lords’ hall was transformed into a more ordinary sitting room.

Even as I blinked and gaped at soft couches, polished tables, well-stocked bookshelves, and bright lamps hung from a high, painted ceiling, the air in the center of the room shivered with the discontinuity that signified an open portal. Beyond the portal lay another room, somber gray stone, a long table and seven high-backed chairs, backing on a massive hearth. I could not fail to recognize the place-the Preceptors’ council chamber, where I had last seen my husband as he plunged a knife into his belly. The Preceptors stood waiting in the center of that chamber.

First to step through the portal were Madyalar and Exeget, followed by Y’Dan and the two old ones, Ustele and Ce’Aret. Last came Gar’Dena, and only in looking at the giant sorcerer did I regain a sense of the months that had passed. His massive flesh sagged, as if he had lost a great deal of weight, and with it, the joy and genial sweetness that had illuminated his presence. His broad face was grave and creased with care.

I expected jaws to drop in horror when the Preceptors beheld the fearsome aspect of their Heir-to-be. The Preceptors were secretive, imperious, single-minded in their intents, yes. But the corruption of a few-Exeget, certainly, and perhaps some ally or two-could not blind the rest. They would never anoint an Heir so clearly the tool of the Lords. But when I turned to the one who stood beside the crackling hearthfire to greet the Dar’Nethi, my heart sank. Gerick looked entirely himself, a tall, slender youth, skin darkened by the sun, dressed elegantly in purple and silver. His eyes were the brown that matched my own. Surely it was my imagination that I saw the icy brilliance of diamonds in their depths. An image, of course… as Darzid’s face had been… so the Preceptors could not see what had been done.

I jumped to my feet. “Gar’Dena, good Preceptors, don’t be deceived. This is the Lords’ house! They’ve changed my son… corrupted him…”

No one acknowledged me. All their attention was focused on Gerick. I hurried across the room, intending to grab their sleeves, to pluck their robes or hair, whatever it would take to get them to heed my warning, but my steps did not reduce the distance between us, and none of them seemed to see or hear me.

“Welcome to the house of my protectors, Preceptors,” said Gerick, bowing slightly, his earlier agitation as hidden as his true face.

Exeget stepped forward and bowed deeply. “We rejoice in your ascendance to majority, Your Grace, but we cannot but wonder at its venue. Your refusal to return to Avonar even for this glorious day has given rise to great disturbance among your people. The rumors rampant in this past year are multiplied a hundredfold, and though the Gate-fire yet burns white, you cannot fail to know that seven villages and innumerable households have been destroyed in the past months. The Zhid have grown bold, and your people worry about friends who do not reveal their names”-he waved his hand to encompass the room-“yet stand so high in their Prince’s regard.”

“My protectors have done me great service, Master. No Dulcé have been sent to poison me, as happened to Prince D’Natheil two years ago. No knife has appeared in my hand, and I suffer no madness to make me turn it upon myself as my late father did. I have lived in safety and comfort until my majority, and have put the time to good use developing my skills on many fronts. When I venture the Bridge, I will not be broken by it.”

“Indeed you have grown fairly, my lord,” said Madyalar, smiling. Ustele and Ce’Aret murmured their agreement.

Gerick acknowledged the compliment with a gracious nod. “Clearly I am not Zhid, and it is one hour past my coming of age. I am safe in the house of my friends, and my Preceptors are welcomed here. If the Lords wished to corrupt me, then they have made a great miscalculation, have they not?”

“Who are you?” growled Gar’Dena. “Show us your true face. Show us your friends and prove that they are the friends of Avonar.”

“What greater proof of loyalty is there than saving my life?” snapped Gerick. “My protectors did so when I was an infant, condemned to death in the mundane world, and then they brought me to this haven to shield me both from execution in the mundane world and the murderous traitors in Gondai. And they saved me yet again this year when they discovered a foul plot that invaded this, my sanctuary. Some thought to prevent my taking my place as the Heir, sneaking in here disguised as servants to steal me away.” His finger pointed at me.

All of the Preceptors looked startled when they saw me. But two of the astonished faces registered another emotion as well-distress, quickly suppressed. One of the two-Gar‘Dena’s-I expected, and the other… the other I most assuredly did not. I did not trust myself even to think the name, for if what I glimpsed was truth, then the implications were profound and dangerous.

“Oh, my lady-” began Gar’Dena.

“Master Gar-”

“Be silent in my presence, traitors!” spat Gerick. He whirled from me to the giant Dar’Nethi. “How dare you speak when you have so violated my trust? My first act as Heir of D’Arnath will be to remove you from this Preceptorate. I cannot trust anyone.” And then he glared at me in accusation. “No one… no one is who they seem. Everyone lies.”

Ustele, so bent and weathered that he looked like the ancient trees that clung to the windswept ridges of the Dorian Wall, glanced about the room anxiously. “Are you saying this woman has tried to harm you, Your Grace? With Gar’Dena’s connivance?”

“We know nothing of this,” said Ce’Aret, frowning. “We understood that your mother was caring for you all these months.”

Y’Dan nodded, puzzled.

“Once we’re done here today, you may take Preceptor Gar’Dena and his spy with you back to Avonar,” said Gerick. “I charge you particularly, Master Exeget. Question them and dispose of them as you wish.”

“But my lord, she is your mother,” said Ce’Aret. “What harm-?”

“She is nothing to me! If she wanted honorable concourse, she would have presented herself to me in an honorable manner… told me the truth…”

Exeget bowed. “This is shocking news, Your Grace. Was the woman acting alone?”

Gerick turned his back to them. “Her conspirators are dead. I had them killed. All discovered. All dead.”

Take me back to Avonar… conspirators… I didn’t know what to say. In an instant, everything was uncertain. But my eye was on the Preceptor I had noted before. There it was again. Sorrow… so brief. Devastation. He had waited for over a year and had brought with him whatever glimmer of hope he and Gar’Dena had been able to maintain. But they didn’t need to see the gold mask to know we had failed.

“My lord,” said Madyalar, soothing. “Let us proceed with our business so we may return to Avonar and give your people the glorious news of their new hope. We have been without an Heir for too long.” She urged her colleagues forward. “Come, you old fossils. The young Prince has come of age. He has been proved.”

Why didn’t they see? Why didn’t they stop? I needed to warn them, yet something-enchantment, uncertainty, caution?-kept me silent. Something else was happening here. I watched and waited.

Exeget motioned to the others to form a half-circle, and in his pale, manicured hand he held a small round box made of gold. He removed its lid and stared at its contents. “Silestia,” he said. “It grows in only one spot on the highest slopes of the Mountains of Light. The white flowers bloom only on Midsummer’s Day, and it is said their fragrance fills the air for a league in any direction. From each flower we can extract only a single drop of oil. So rare and precious is it that this tiny portion I carry is the product of twelve years of gathering, since the last was used for young D’Natheil. To think-”

“We agreed we would perform no elaborate ritual,” snapped Madyalar. “Since this is a private ceremony, there is no need.”

Exeget looked up. “Is that your wish, my lord?”

Gerick nodded, but seemed scarcely to be paying attention. He stood staring at me, his arms wrapped tight about his stomach as if he were going to be sick.

“So be it,” said Exeget. “The heart of the rite is, of course, quite brief. In the mundane world, the head of the ruler is anointed, and as the head rules the body, so does the king rule his subjects. But it is the hands of D’Arnath’s Heir that are anointed, for the hands serve the body, supply its sustenance, defend it, build up the works of beauty that its soul creates. So does the Heir serve his people, sustain them, defend them, and exemplify and encourage the beauty they create. We do not know you, young Prince, yet we must entrust you with this responsibility. Some among us say we should wait and judge your worthiness, to learn of your protectors and your schooling to be sure you are the Prince we believe. But I am the head of the Preceptorate, and I say we know enough.”

Exeget dipped his finger into the gold case. Madyalar, Ce’Aret, Ustele, and Y’Dan knelt before Gerick. Gar’Dena had turned his broad back, sheathed in red satin, to all of us, his shoulders quivering. I believed he was weeping. But tears would do no good. Gar’Dena should be crying out a warning. Madyalar and the others didn’t understand the truth. Why was he silent?

Exeget reached for Gerick’s extended hand. “Great Vasrin, Creator and Shaper of the universe, stand witness…”

I couldn’t believe he was going to go through with it. Exeget surely knew the identity of Gerick’s “protectors,” but I no longer believed he was a traitor. Exeget’s face had blanched along with Gar’Dena’s when he saw me revealed, and Exeget’s expression had shown defeat when he heard my allies were dead. He could not allow Gerick to become the anointed Heir. Madness and frustration boiled in my heart… until Exeget glanced at me… and I knew… Earth and sky! They were going to kill him.

“Exeget, do not!” As if my own voice had burst forth in an unaccustomed timbre, a shout rang out, echoing on stone walls and dark columns and glass floor hidden behind this seeming of a room. Deep and commanding, that voice pierced my cold heart like a lance of fire. “Neither anointing him nor assassinating him accomplishes any purpose whatsoever-not while I live free.”

A man appeared at one end of the room as if he had parted the plastered walls and stepped through. Tall and lean, his sun-darkened skin ridged with scars, he wore the collar, gray tunic, and cropped hair of a slave and the face of D’Natheil. One glance told me everything necessary. Recognition, completion, understanding… he was Karon my beloved. He was whole. I clasped his unspoken greeting as a starving child holds her bread.

Exeget lowered his hand and bowed to his prince, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in a half-smile, transforming… illuminating his proud face. “Never have I been so happy to see a failed pupil, my lord.”

Gar’Dena whirled about with speed and agility unexpected for one of his girth. “My good lord!”

“V’Saro,” whispered Gerick, staring at Karon. “They said my servants were dead. I commanded it… before I listened to you… before I knew…”

The remaining Preceptors looked from Exeget to Karon to Gerick, bewildered… except for Madyalar who stepped protectively toward Gerick. Now I saw the puzzle solving itself.

“What treachery is this?” boomed the voice of Ziddari from every direction at once, echoing through the light and shadows, causing the floor to shudder, the homely room to seem fragile and false, and joy, relief, and hope of no more durance than dew in the desert. “How comes this slave here?”

“The anointing must proceed,” said the voice of the woman, Notole. “Why do you pause in this most important duty? Continue.”

“Did you not hear, mighty Lords?” said Exeget, closing the lid of the gold case with a snap. “Anointing this boy accomplishes nothing. You may bathe him in the oil of silestia, but it will gain him no power. The anointed Heir of D’Arnath yet lives in Gondai, in full possession of his power, and before you can make an Heir of your own, you must deal with him.”

“D’Natheil is decaying in his grave,” shouted Parven. “No impostor will delay our triumph.” The air grew heavy with anger… with danger… The lamplight dimmed.

“I would recommend that you get back through the portal, good Preceptors,” said Karon, waving Y’Dan and the two old ones toward Gar’Dena and Exeget. He approached Gerick slowly, locking our son’s empty face in his gaze while he called over his shoulder. “Can you hold the way long enough to get all of us out, Master Exeget?”

“You will have to hurry, my lord. A moment’s earlier arrival and I would have been able to serve you better.” Exeget’s puffy face had crumpled into a gray ruin, as if time had leaped forward fifty years. But the Preceptor raised his clenched fists and closed his eyes. The rectangular doorway appeared in the shivering air. “Ce’Aret, Ustele, hurry,” he said, gasping. “Y’Dan, Gar’Dena my brother…”

Gar’Dena shoved the Preceptors through the portal one by one. “My lady!” he called, gesturing for me to come. But I could not go. Not yet.

Karon gazed down at Gerick. “You must come with us.”

“Why? So you can execute me?”

“To set you free. You don’t belong here.”

“You’re wrong.” And Gerick let his false image dissolve and with it the walls and the hearth and the trappings of ordinary life. He stood in the stark, black hall of the Lords, his truth revealed, his diamond eyes glittering in the darkness. “There is no going back, even if I wanted. This is exactly where I belong.”

Karon did not flinch or falter. “It doesn’t matter. Not even this. Nothing… nothing… is irrevocable. I, of all men, can bear witness to that. Come with us who care for you.”

“I’ve freed the woman,” said Gerick, folding his arms across his breast. “Take her away quickly or I’ll end up killing you both.” Then he turned his back on us and walked slowly toward the dais where the black thrones sat vacant.

From the opposite end of the hall where a tall, wide doorway broke the line of the colonnade, running footsteps entered the vast chamber. “My lord,” cried a familiar voice, echoing in the empty vastness. “Three Zhid warriors right behind me!” A youth wearing Drudge’s garb burst through the gaping door, his arms laden with belts and scabbards bristling with swords and knives. He sped across the black, mirrored floor into the light, shooting me a cheerful grin. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

Paulo dumped his bundle of armaments on the floor beside Karon. “I come by these from the guards’ stores. Thought you might have need.”

Karon wrenched his gaze from Gerick’s back and smiled at Paulo. “You are irreplaceable, my friend.” Dragging a sword and a knife from the tangle, he took up a position between the door Paulo had just entered and the portal where Gar’Dena was disappearing into the council chamber.

“Does the young master have a sword on him-or might he want this one?” Paulo called after Karon, pulling a blade from the pile and gesturing at Gerick’s back.

“I don’t think he needs one. You and Seri, get through the portal. I’ll wait for Gerick.” His gaze embraced me, and he waved his sword toward the enchanted doorway. “Go. I’ll bring him. I promise.”

But before I could convince myself to leave, a nauseating wave of dark power pulsed through the vast chamber. With a thunderous boom, the portal vanished. Exeget cried out and slumped to the floor. The little gold case of silestia fell out of his hand, clattering across the dark surface. At the same time, three Zhid warriors burst from the far end of the room, swords drawn and Karon stepped forward to meet them.

While Paulo, hands on his waist, looked uncertainly from Karon to Gerick and back again, I ran to the fallen sorcerer. “Can I help you, Preceptor?” I asked, searching for some wound or hurt to ease. Sitting with his head drooped between his knees, he was bleeding from his mouth and nose, and wheezing like unoiled bellows.

“Too late.” After carefully wiping his fingers on his robe, he held up his right hand. One of his fingers was black. “Unfortunate timing… for me, but fortunate for the Prince and the boy. At least the Lords will have nothing left of me to examine should they triumph in the end.”

“You were the one who told me to be silent and not to be afraid.”

Even in his mortal distress, the sorcerer managed a sly half-smile. “Dassine said you were the key to everything. May you find strength to finish it. We owe you”-he coughed and fought for breath, flailing his hand until he caught my own in an iron grip-“trust you… if all fails… you must finish… for the worlds…”

“Master, what do you want me to do?” I said. From behind me came shouts and the clash of steel.

Exeget’s head dropped again as he fought for every painful breath. He looked to be beyond hearing. When his cold hand slipped from mine, a small gold canister lay in my palm, identical to the canister that had fallen out of his hand when the portal collapsed-the one that still lay beside my foot.

Exeget began choking. I slipped the gold case he’d given me into my pocket and rolled him to his side. A stream of bloody spittle dribbled from his mouth… his lips black… and his fingernails… the one finger wholly black… The silestia had been poisoned, designed to slay Gerick before he could become the Destroyer. The case on the floor was the one he had used. Therefore the case in my pocket must contain the uncontaminated oil of silestia.

A shadow fell over me, and I looked up to see Madyalar staring down at the Exeget. The Preceptor vomited up blood and lay still.

“He needs help,” I said.

“I would as soon nurse a snake. The fool looks dead already. All I want from him is the silestia-” She wandered away, scuffing her foot on the floor, seeking the gold case.

“Plotting until the end,” I whispered to the pale, still face. “If you can hear me, know that I understand your sacrifice. Gods have mercy… I will see it done.” Quickly, carefully, making sure that Madyalar could not see, I switched the two, placing the case with the poisoned ointment in Exeget’s pocket and the case with the real oil on the floor as if it had rolled out of his hand. Then I backed away from him, not checking to see if he yet lived, not daring to think of what I had just done. Gerick could not be anointed. If we could not save him… if Karon died and Gerick chose to be a Lord and the anointed Heir…

Only moments later, Madyalar crowed in triumph as she found the two cases. The one that she found on the floor, she named as the poison that had killed Exeget and threw it, spinning and clattering, across the floor. The one that she found hidden in Exeget’s pocket-the poison-she dropped into her own. I had given little consideration to gods since the day Karon burned, but on this day I needed every aid the universe could provide. Good Vasrin, holy Annadis, mighty Jerrat, if you can hear the cries of an unbeliever, let Karon prevail…

One of the Zhid lay dead on the floor, but Karon’s battle with the other two was growing desperate. As one engaged him, the other circled and attacked from a different direction. Relentlessly. Their swords rang and blazed with sparks when they struck the floor or one of the black pillars as Karon dodged in and out of them seeking a bit of shelter. And, of course, the battle was being fought with more than swords. Karon’s every stroke split the advancing darkness, every parry pushed back the night as if it was yet a third enemy that pursued him. The air was so filled with enchantments that it crackled. My hair floated outward from my head, and my skin was flushed and tingling. Then, in an explosion of green fire, Karon’s blade snapped.

“We’ve got to help him, Paulo.” I had felt him come up behind me.

“There is no help for him.”

I jumped up and whirled about. Gerick, not Paulo, stood behind me, fists clenched at his side, watching the battle with his diamond eyes. Paulo had dragged another sword from the pile of weapons and was running toward Karon. “My lord!” he shouted, as Karon staggered backward, fending off two long blades with only a dagger and the broken sword hilt. “Here, my lord!”

Karon ducked, ran, and flattened his back to a pillar, dropping the broken weapon and snatching the new sword Paulo tossed him. Even from my distance I could see him bleeding… from his shoulder, his arms, from one leg. “Get away, boy!” he cried harshly, as another bolt of fire split the air beside him. Paulo threw himself flat to the floor, skidding twenty paces. When the two Zhid were engaged with Karon again, Paulo scrambled to his feet.

“It is Parven and Ziddari he fights,” said Gerick, softly, walking slowly toward the battle, mesmerized, as if he were walking in his sleep.

I followed him. “These are just images, then? They’ve chosen to appear in this form?”

“No. These are real warriors, but the Lords have possessed them, using the warriors’ bodies but their own skills. If these two fall, they will bring two more and fight again. Notole seeks another host even now. They won’t stop. They won’t die.”

“You were willing to help me, to let us go free. Can you help him now?”

“Even if I chose to do so, I cannot. You heard me swear never to raise a hand against the Lords. They have called on me to fulfill my oath. I’ve told them that I won’t fight him. But I cannot aid him either.” Gerick paused and looked down at Exeget who lay in the pool of blood. He bent down and touched the Preceptor’s neck for a moment, then straightened up and nudged the body with his foot. Stepping over Exeget, he moved yet closer to the battle. With silent apologies to Exeget, I stepped over the fallen Preceptor and followed Gerick.

Oppressive, soul-chilling dread filled the chamber, cold horror that rolled in like a black tide, shredding the spirit, proclaiming that all was hopeless, that the end was upon us.

There is no escape…

Do you feel it, vermin prince? Make a portal to Avonar and its passage will incinerate your flesh…

Prepare for your anointing, young Lord. In moments there will be no living Heir.

I believed they were right. “Gerick, he is your father. In the name of all that lives-”

Before I could finish my plea, Paulo barreled out of nowhere, grabbed my arm, and pressed a short sword into my hand. His own blade was much too long for him. “We’ve got to help- Blazing shit!” He stared at Gerick’s face. “You damned fool! You donkey’s ass! You went and did it! Jerrat’s balls, I thought you had a brain in you.”

“How dare you speak to me?” said Gerick, spinning to face him, stepping forward.

“How dare? It’s how dare you.” Paulo waved his sword wildly at Karon’s plight. “Do you see what’s happening?”

“I see everything.” Gerick stepped closer.

Suddenly Paulo threw the weapon to the floor, and with the flat of his hand on Gerick’s chest, he shoved Gerick backward. “You’re doing this, aren’t you?”

“Don’t touch me.” Gerick did not raise his hand, but his rage swelled, fury that made the air shiver.

“This is just what you said you’d do. It’s going to be killing and nothing but killing forever.”

“Try me, horse boy. Do you think you could possibly take me down?”

“For the Prince, I could. For the Lady Seri, I could.” With each phrase, Paulo shoved Gerick again and again, until Gerick stumbled, and Paulo threw himself on top of him. The two crashed to the floor.

“Paulo, don’t!” I yelled, frantically trying to pull him away before Gerick could turn his power on him.

“Mighty Lords!” Madyalar let out a ferocious cry. “The young Prince!”

A roar like a hurricane blasted the room. A torrent of darkness swirled about us, ripping the light, dancing, screaming, tearing at clothes and hair, flaying us with its power. The air itself vented its anger; the stones about us groaned with the whirling tumult.

Kill the insolent fool, Lord Dieste! bellowed Parven, almost splitting my skull. Blind him! Take his heart and eat it!

Burn his skin away for daring to touch you-then taste of his pain! said Notole. Use the power to destroy these vermin who would enslave you.

Dread and horror gnawed at my soul, clouding my senses, threatening to tear my heart from my breast. An unseen hand slammed me backward. I could scarcely see as the two boys rolled on the floor, grunting and gasping, clawing and twisting each other in a tangle of robes and arms and legs and tunics. One and then the other was on top, Paulo pummeling away wildly, Gerick snarling and cursing, twisting Paulo’s limbs until they must surely break. He’s going to be dead, I thought-dear, faithful Paulo. My very soul felt bruised. The fury raged without slack… without end… slashing… battering… until Gerick staggered to his feet at last, leaving Paulo in a crumpled heap.

Silence. Utter. Complete. The tempest ceased. Thunder vanished. No clash of swords. No heaving breath. No flashes of lurid light from under the colonnade.

Madyalar screeched and chortled, extending her finger toward the still forms sprawled on the shining floor. “Four lie dead! The mad Prince has fallen!”

Gerick’s turned his head this way and that, his diamond eyes glittering in the uncertain light, as Madyalar knelt before him, dipping her finger in the gold case she had taken from Exeget’s robes. “My Prince, give me your hands. Let me anoint them with the true oil of silestia.”

But, of course, it was not the true oil…

I could not allow it. Not even here at the end of everything. He was my son. “No!” I cried. “Gerick, don’t let her touch you!”

The very same moment another voice cried out. “Wait!” Karon stepped from behind a pillar just behind us, his sword shining a brilliant green. “Still no good, Madyalar. You’ve miscounted-forgetting your own colleague. Exeget has won the last round between you.”

The woman gaped.

“Now, quickly!” Karon threw down his sword, closed his eyes, and held out his hands, and with his deep and shaking breath, his whispered word, and a grinding rumble as if the earth had split open, a portal gaped before us. This shimmering doorway did not open into some gracious lamplit room, nor even into a cold stone council chamber, but into a pit of absolute blackness from which came sounds so fearful as to make the strongest heart blanch. This is why they had risked sending Karon to Zhev’Na. With all portals to Avonar shut down, only the Heir of D’Arnath could open another way. This way. Through the Breach itself.

Karon touched my hand. “We need to go now. Gerick, you must come with us. I’ll carry Paulo.”

My son’s arms were wrapped about his middle. His terrible eyes pierced the gloom. So fragile in his darkness. So young.

The Lords’ wrath spun and surged around us. Footsteps rang on the stone beyond the great doors. They were coming.

“Ah, holy gods…” Karon’s voice broke. “We will not leave you here. If you stay… I will fight them until the last day of the world to set you free. I swear it.”

“And I with him,” I said, shaping the story yet again in my mind and heart, willing him to hear me. You have been blessed and beloved from the day we first knew you…

“Take care of Paulo, Seri. Get him out of the way.” As Karon retrieved his sword, I stepped to the battered boy on the floor.

“Wait!” Gerick held out one hand in warning. The world paused in its turning… and then, with his other hand, he reached out to Paulo.

Paulo’s eyes blinked open. He grabbed Gerick’s hand, staggered to his feet, and leaned on my son’s shoulder, grinning through his swollen eyes and bloodied lips. “We’d best go then. Lead on, my lord. We’ll be right behind.”

The creases of worry and grief graven on Karon’s blood-streaked face softened. For one moment he took my hand, his own wide hand near crushing my fingers. “As you say. Stay close, all of you.”

And as the raging fury of the Lords erupted behind us, and Madyalar crumpled to the floor, howling as Exeget’s poison ate its way into her body, Karon led the three of us into the Breach between the worlds.