Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 4

I could not remember feeling so anxious in all my life, not when I was first presented at court, not on the day I was married. I knew so much of this man who was coming, all those things that had drawn me to him even when I believed him a stranger. Yet I was not foolish enough to think a man could die in agony, be held captive for ten years as a disembodied soul, and be brought back to life in another person’s body without being profoundly changed. So much less difficult had been my own lot, and I was not the same person I had been. He was my beloved, and he was alive beyond all hope, but I was very much afraid.

What would he be like? Though his soul was unquestionably my husband’s, Dassine had said that D’Natheil would always be a part of him as well. I had seen the conflict between Karon’s nature and the instincts and proclivities of the violent, amoral Prince of Avonar that remained in that body. How would the balance between the two have settled out after four months of Dassine’s care? Perhaps he would seem more like Aeren again, the half-mad stranger I’d found in the forest six months before who was somehow both of them.

First I had to decide where we would meet. Large as it was, Comigor Castle provided few places where I could receive visitors unobserved. Privacy was a rare commodity in a great house. I had only just persuaded Nellia not to come walking through my bedchamber door at any hour as she had when I was a little girl. But my bedchamber was hardly suitable. I wasn’t sure whether Karon would even remember me as yet. Dassine had said he would have to “take him back to the beginning” to restore his memories. It was all so strange!

I considered the battlements. No one went there but me, fair weather or foul, but despite the emerging stars’ promise of fair skies, the bitter wind still howled from the wild northlands as fiercely as the wolf packs of famine years. And the snow lay deep on the surrounding countryside, so I couldn’t ride out.

One other place came to mind. Located on the eastern flank of the keep, where morning sun could warm the stone, was a walled garden, wild, neglected, locked by my father on the day my mother succumbed to her long illness. Once the garden had been thick with flowers and herbs native to the far southeastern corner of Leire whence my mother had come at seventeen to wed the Duke of Comigor. The customs of Comigor, a strictly traditional warrior house, allowed a bride to bring only one of her father’s retainers to her new home, and my mother had chosen, not her personal maid or some other girlish companion, but a gardener. The poor man had spent eleven years fighting Comigor’s bitter winters and hot summers to reproduce the blooms and fragrances of his lady’s balmy homeland, only to be sent away when she died because my father could not bear the reminder of her.

For many years after her death, I had climbed over the wall to read and dream in the peaceful enclosure, watching the carefully nurtured plants grow wild and die away like a fading echo of my young girl’s grief. Now I held the keys to the house, and with them the key to my mother’s garden, a place deserted, secluded, and most importantly, invisible from any vantage point within the castle.

Unable to sleep for my anticipation, I wrapped myself in a cloak, let myself through the garden gate, and strolled among the bare trees and shrubs and the sagging latticework of the arbors. The Great Arch of the stars still lit the darkness like a reflection of D’Arnath’s enchanted Bridge.

I didn’t question that they would come. “At the sun’s next rising,” Dassine had said, “at whatever place you are.” If I’d told anyone in the world what it was that I anticipated so anxiously as I awaited dawn in my mother’s garden, that person would have thrown me in an asylum. I wrapped my hand tightly about the pink stone, allowing its heat to warm my freezing fingers.

The sun shot over the garden wall, causing me to blink just as a streak of white fire pierced the rosy brilliance. Squinting into the glare, I spied a short, muscular man, who leaned on a stick as he hobbled toward me along the gravel path. His white robe flapped in the breeze, revealing a rumpled shirt, knee breeches, and sagging hose. Dassine. Alone. Bitter disappointment welled up in my throat. But when the sorcerer raised his hand in greeting, I glimpsed another figure. That one remained at the far end of the path, almost lost in the fiery brightness. Tall, broad in back and shoulder, he too wore a white robe. A white hood hid his face.

“Good morning, my lady,” said Dassine, his breath curling from his mottled beard like smoke rings. Though tired lines surrounded them, his blue eyes sparkled. Gray-streaked brown hair and beard framed his ageless face like a striped corona. “Am I never to find you in a warm place? This weather makes my bones brittle. One snapped limb and you will never be rid of me!”

“There aren’t many private places here.”

He craned his neck to survey the pile of ancient rock that was my home. “Indeed. I am astounded to discover where you have settled yourself. Is that not your brother’s pennant?”

“It’s a long story.”

“And you’re not particularly interested in dwelling on such trivialities while my companion stands at the far end of the path alone. Am I correct?”

I was near bursting. “How is he? Does he remember-?”

“Patience! I told you it would take time. Do you remember my condition for bringing him?”

“That I must follow your instructions exactly.”

“And you still agree to it?”

“Whatever is best for him.”

“Precisely that. Sit down with me for a moment.” He plopped himself heavily on a stone bench. I sat beside him, but my eyes did not stray from the distant, still figure in white.

“You are not a prisoner here?” said Dassine.

“I’m here of my own will and have full freedom of the house.”

“Your brother’s house seems an odd place to welcome the very one who caused the black flag to fly over these battlements. Is it safe?”

“Safe enough. I’d never endanger either one of you. Only one old woman here causes me any discomfort, and I can deal with her. I’m only here because I came upon an opportunity to repay my brother for all that happened.”

“Just so. Well, then… we have made progress. Over the past four months I have given the Prince the memories of his youth-both of them. He remembers his life as D’Natheil up to his twelfth birthday, when he was sent to the Bridge the first time. I don’t think I can take him farther than that, for as I told you, the disaster on the Bridge left little soul in D’Natheil. It’s as well. Karon doesn’t need to know more of what D’Natheil became in those next ten years. Sufficient that he knows of D’Natheil’s family-his family-and Avonar, and most importantly, he knows of the Lords and the Zhid, the Bridge, and his duty as the Heir of D’Arnath. I think he will be able to pass examination if it comes.”

“Examination?” Gondai, the world that lay across the Bridge, was such a mystery. I knew only bits and pieces about the Catastrophe-a magical disaster that had destroyed nine-tenths of their world-and the ensuing centuries of war between the Dar’Nethi and the Lords of Zhev’Na.

“D’Natheil’s body has clearly aged more than these few months that have passed since he came to you last summer. If the Preceptors have doubts about the Prince’s identity, they will examine him to determine whether he is truly the son of D’Marte, and thus the rightful Heir of D’Arnath. His physical makeup will be examined, and his patterns of thought will be read and matched to those of his ancestors. The tests will question knowledge and conviction, flesh and spirit.”

“So he must believe he is D’Marte’s son.”

“Exactly. For him merely to accept that he was Prince D’Natheil at one time is not enough. He must live as D’Natheil, as well as Karon, now and forever.”

“And what of his other life?” His true life, as I thought of it: his childhood in Valleor, his education at the University, his years in hiding, his scholarly posts, our meeting, our marriage. And then the horror that had ended it all: arrest, torture, burning, death… until this man beside me had snatched his soul before it could cross the Verges into the afterlife and held it-him-captive for ten terrible years, believing Karon was the last hope of the Dar’Nethi and their world.

“We still have some years, some of the best and all of the worst, yet to travel. He remembers his youth as Karon, twenty-odd years of it, through the time of his return to the University after his years in hiding. But he remembers nothing of the twenty years since that time or why he has two lives when others have only one.”

“So he does not yet know he was dead?”

“No.”

“And he does not remember me or our son?”

“He has not ‘met’ you in his past as yet. Nor has he yet confronted the decision that caused his execution-the decision that abandoned your child and your friends to death and you to humiliation and exile. My aim is to restore the man that made that decision, not to change him into someone else whose choice might have suited you better. Can you leave aside your feelings about those events as you speak to him?”

His gaze was penetrating, and as unrelenting as his harsh words. When he had been arrested, Karon had chosen not to use his power to save himself or the rest of us, believing that use of sorcery to injure others-even his captors-was a fundamental violation of the healing gift he had been given, sacrilege. Anger and bitterness at his choice had blighted my life for ten years. “My feelings about his decision are unchanged, Dassine, but neither would I change the heart that made it. I’ll wait until he is whole again to resolve our disagreement.”

Though his eyes lingered on my face, the sorcerer jerked his head in satisfaction. “Understand that he also remembers nothing of the events of last summer or your journey together. They will need to be relived in their turn. He is, to put it mildly, in a state of confusion, a most delicate state which you must do nothing to upset. This is really not a good time to bring him. Not at all.” Clearly, this argument with himself was not a new dispute.

“Then why did you?”

Dassine sighed and leaned his chin on his white cane. “I know you think me cruel to have imprisoned Karon’s soul for so long, and wicked to have arranged D’Natheil’s mortal injury. And so I may be. What I do with him now is painful and exhausting as well. Every memory I give him must live again. Every sensation, every emotion, every sound, every smell… the experiences of days or months compressed into a few hours until his senses are raw. I press him hard, for though we have this interval that he won for us by his actions at the Gate, I don’t know how long it will last. ”

“Your war is not ended, then?”

“The assaults on Avonar have ceased-a blessing, of course. But our peace is uneasy and unaccustomed. No one knows quite what to do. The people of Avonar rejoice that the Heir of D’Arnath lives, and they know that he was somehow changed by his journey here in the summer and his victory at the Bridge, but they’ve not yet seen him. He has managed to put off the Preceptors with a brief audience, but their patience is wearing thin. And the Lords of Zhev’Na… our enemies, too, wait… and we do not know for what. I must use this time to bring back our Heir to lead us.” Dassine rapped his stick on the frozen ground as if some Zhid warrior were hiding under the snow. A rabbit scuttered out from under the bench and paused under a fallen trellis, twitching indignantly. “But I’ve no wish to kill him. He needs an hour’s respite… and someone other than his taskmaster to share it with.”

“What must I do?” I said.

“Follow my instructions precisely. Say nothing of your acquaintance and marriage. Nothing of your friends. Nothing-absolutely nothing-of his death. They are not his memories yet, and to mention them could do irreparable harm. If he speaks of himself-either self-then let him. As far as he knows, you are a friend of mine and know his history, but have met him only this year.”

“Then what can I say to him?”

“Be a friend to him. Ease him. You were his friend before you were his wife. Now go. He thinks I’m here to consult an old ally, but, in truth, I’m tired and plan to take a nap.”

Before I could ask even one of my hundred questions, Dassine leaned back, closed his eyes, and vanished. There was nothing to do but walk toward the end of the path.

He stood motionless, solitary, bathed in winter sunlight, facing a gnarled, bare-limbed tree that creaked in the cold. The white hood masked his profile, and his arms were folded into his white cloak, so that he might have been some strange snowdrift left in the garden by the passing storm, something only an enchanter could transform into human shape. I didn’t even know what name to call him. “Good morning, Your Grace,” I said, dipping my knee.

He bowed to me in answer to my greeting, but said nothing and did not raise his hood to reveal his face. He remained facing the tree.

“The tree is a lambina,” I said, “native to lands well east and south of here, lands less extreme in their climate. In spring it flowers, brilliant yellow blossoms as large as your hand, their scent very delicate, like lemon and ginger. When the flowers fade in early summer, they don’t fall, but float away on the first breeze like bits of yellow silk. Then the tree blooms again, almost immediately, small, white, feathery flowers with bright yellow centers, each in a cluster of waxy green leaves. It’s very beautiful.”

“I’ve seen it,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him. “The leaves turn dark red in autumn.”

“This one hasn’t bloomed in many years. I’m hoping it’s only dormant.”

With movements spare and graceful, he stepped across the snowy lawn to the tree and laid a hand on its gnarled trunk. “There is life in it.”

Beneath my warm cloak, the hairs on my arms prickled. “I’m glad to know that.”

“You’re Lady Seriana, Dassine’s friend.” So strange to hear the disembodied voice coming from the shapeless robe and drooping hood. I strained to hear some trace of the person I knew in the quiet words.

“He said you might like someone to talk to while he was about his business.”

“Please don’t feel obliged. It’s cold out here, and you’d be more comfortable inside. I’ll await my keeper as he commanded. He knows he needn’t set a guard on me.”

“I don’t consider it a burden to speak with you.”

“A curiosity, perhaps.”

“I’ll ask no questions.”

“And answer none? Dassine’s not very good at it- answering questions, that is. I can’t imagine he would permit someone else to answer things that he would not.”

I smiled at this wry disgruntlement, even as I blinked away an unwanted pricking in my eyes. “I’ll confess that he’s asked me to be circumspect.”

“Then you do know more than I.” His curiosity tugged at the conversation like a pup.

“About some things.”

“It sets quite a burden on an acquaintance when one knows more than the other.” The note I detected in his voice was not anger. Nor did it seem to be resentment that kept his countenance hidden under his hood. I felt the blood rush to his skin as if it were my own. Earth and sky, he was embarrassed.

I shook the crusted snow off a sprangling shrub, and the branches bounced up, showering me with ice crystals and almost hitting me in the face. “I think this could be considered an interesting variation of acquaintance,” I said, brushing the chilly dusting off my cloak. “And, as many things have happened since I met you last, we should start again anyway, don’t you think?”

“I certainly have no choice in the matter.” His tone demonstrated a most familiar irony and good humor. My heart soared.

“All right, then. We shall ignore all past acquaintance and begin right now. You may call me Seri. I am thirty-six years old, and I live in this hoary edifice you see before you. A temporary situation, though there was a time- Ah, I forget myself. No past. I am a poor relation to the lord who rules here, though circumstances have placed me in charge of the household-not an inconsiderable responsibility. I am well educated, though not as up-to-date in many areas as I’d like, and I have a secret ambition to teach history in our kingdom’s center of learning. Now tell me of yourself.”

“I believe you already know who I am.”

“No, sir. If I must begin again, then you must do the same.”

“It is required?” His voice was low.

I let go of my teasing for a moment. “Only if you wish it. I am not Dassine.”

With another bow, he turned to me and lifted the hood from his face. His eyes were cast down, and his cheeks were flushed as I had known they would be. “It seems I have several names. You must choose the one that suits.”

“Aeren,” I said without thinking. Tall. Fair hair grown long enough to tie back with a white ribbon. Wide, muscular shoulders. Square jaw and strong, narrow cheeks that might have been sculpted to match the fairest carvings of our warrior gods. Wide-set eyes of astonishing blue.

At the time of his death, Karon had been thirty-two, slight of build, dark-haired and boyishly handsome, with high cheekbones and a narrow jaw. The rough-hewn stranger who had dropped into my life on Midsummer’s Day looked nothing like Karon. I had called him Aeren, for he had no memory of himself except that he shared a name with the bird-a gray falcon-that screeched over Poacher’s Ridge. I had learned that his own language named him D’Natheil, but this man was not D’Natheil either. I felt no scarcely restrained menace from him, The threadwork of lines about his eyes, the strands of silver in his fair hair, the air of quiet dignity stated that the one who stood in my mother’s garden was older, wiser, more thoughtful than the violent twenty-two-year-old Prince of Avonar. But he was not my husband… or so I told myself.

“As you wish.” Even as he accepted my judgment, he glanced up at me.

My breath caught. In that brief moment, as had happened four months ago in an enchanted cavern, I glimpsed the truth that lived behind his blue eyes. This was no one but Karon.

I started to speak his true name, to see if those syllables on my lips might spark some deeper memory. But no light of recognition had crossed his face when his eyes met mine. Patience, Dassine had said. You were his friend before you were his wife. He looked very tired.

“Would you like to walk?” I said. “There’s not much to see in this garden, but walking would be warmer as we wait.”

“I’d like that very much. I can’t seem to get enough of walking outdoors.”

Inside, I danced and leaped and crowed with delight; Karon had never gotten enough of walking out of doors. Outwardly, I smiled and gestured toward the path.

My boots crunched quietly as we strolled through the frosty morning. Karon broke our companionable silence first. “Tell me more of yourself.”

“What kind of things?”

“Anything. It’s refreshing to hear of someone who isn’t me.”

I laughed and began to speak of things I enjoyed, of books and conversation, of puzzles and music, of meadows and gardens. He chuckled when I told him of my first awkward attempts at growing something other than flowers. “Jonah couldn’t understand why his plants produced no beans, until the day he found me diligently picking off the blooms. I told him that my gardener had once said that plants would grow larger if we didn’t let them flower. Poor Jonah laughed until tears came, telling me that until we could eat the leaves I had best leave the flowers be. I had ruined the entire planting, a good part of their winter sustenance. It was devastating for one so proud of her intellect as I, but it was only the first of many gaps in my experience I was to discover.”

“This Jonah sounds like a kind gentleman. He was not your family, though, for if his crop was a good part of his winter sustenance, he was not the lord of this manor.”

Careful, Seri. Careful. “Jonah and Anne were like parents to me. I was estranged from my own family at the time.”

“But now you are reconciled?”

“They’re all dead now, my mother and my father and my only brother. The lord of this house is my ten-year-old nephew, and the lady is his mother, a somewhat… self-absorbed… young widow.”

“We have something in common, then. I’ve gained and lost two families in these past months, one I loved and one I hardly knew. And now I’m left with only Dassine.”

“And does Dassine teach you to grow beans, or does he pout, whine, and tell you nasty gossip?”

His laugh was deep and rich, an expression of his soul’s joy that had nothing to do with memory. “He has taught me a great deal, and done his share of pouting and cajoling, but no interesting gossip and certainly nothing of beans. Beans must be beyond my own experience also.” They were. I knew they were. I laughed with him.

The path led us toward a sagging arbor, a musty passage so hopelessly entangled with dead, matted vines that the sun could not penetrate it. Without thinking I followed my longtime habit and looked for an alternate way. But to avoid traversing the arbor we would need to trample through a muddy snarl of shrubbery or retrace our steps.

“Is there a problem with the path?” Karon asked, as I hesitated.

“No,” I said, feeling foolish. “I just need to let my eyes adjust so I won’t trip over whatever may be inside. I must get a gardener out here to clear all this away.” I led him quickly into the leafy shadows. The air was close and smelled of rotting leaves, and our feet crunched on the matted vines.

“Why are you afraid?” His voice penetrated the darkness like the beam of a lantern.

“I’m not… not really. A silly thing from childhood.”

“There’s nothing to fear.” His presence enfolded me.

Less than fifty paces and we rounded the curve and emerged into the sunlight. “No,” I said, my voice trembling ever so slightly. “Nothing to fear. This was my mother’s garden.” I walked briskly, stopping only when I reached the lambina tree again. From the corner of my eye I could see Dassine hobbling slowly toward us. Not yet! Not even an hour had passed.

Suddenly a quivering trace of enchantment pierced the morning, and the lambina burst into full bloom, each great yellow blossom unfolding like a miniature sunrise, its pungent fragrance wafting through the sharp air. In a few moments of wonder, the huge blossoms floated away like enormous, silken butterflies, only to be replaced by the soft white blooms of summer, heavy with sweet and languid scent, each cradled in its nest of bright green. And then the glorious dying, the white blossoms fading into burnished gold and the waxy green leaves into deep russet, falling at last to leave a royal carpet on the frozen ground.

“Thank you,” I said, my breath taken away by the marvel. “That was lovely.”

“It’s too cold to wake it completely, and I know I must be wary in this world, but I thought perhaps it might ease your sadness.”

“And so it has.” I hadn’t meant for him to see my tears. Perhaps he would think they were for my mother. “You’ll come again to visit me?” Dassine was almost with us.

“If my keeper allows it. I’d like it very-” Both voice and smile died away as he stared at my face. Knitting his brow, he touched my tears with his finger, and his expression changed as if I had grown wings or was a dead woman that walked before him. “Seri… you’re…” Pain glanced across his face, and the color drained out of him. Rigid, trembling, he whispered, “I know you.” He raised his hands to the sides of his head. “A beacon in darkness… Oh gods, so dark…” Eyes closed, head bent, he groaned and stepped backward. I reached out.

“Do not!” commanded Dassine angrily, shoving me aside and grabbing Karon’s arm to steady him. “What have you done? What did you say?”

“Nothing. Nothing that was forbidden. We walked and talked of the garden. Nothing of the past. He made the tree bloom for me.”

Dassine laid his hands on Karon’s temples, murmuring words I couldn’t hear. Instantly, Karon’s face went slack. When his eyes flicked open again, they were fixed on the ground, and the light had gone out of them.

“What is it? What’s happened?” I whispered.

“As I said. It was not a good time to bring him. You are too strong an influence.” The old man took Karon’s arm. “Come, my son. Our time here is done. We’ve a hard journey home.” They started down the path toward the eastern wall.

“Dassine!” I called after them. “Will he be all right?”

“Yes, yes. He’ll be fine. It was my fault. It was too early, and I left him too long. A setback only.”

Before I could bid him farewell or ask when they might come again, the two white figures disappeared into a flickering fog.