Guardians Of The Keep

CHAPTER 5

Karon

Surely I am the sorriest of madmen. These hands… they are not the hands that lifted the wine goblet to my father on the day he became the Lord of Avonar, my Avonar of the mundane world, the Avonar that is no more. The shape is wrong. They’re too large; the palms too wide. The hair on the backs of them too fair. This face… I peer into this placid pond that mimes so truly the tree and the stone beside me and. the clouds that travel these azure skies, and the face I see is not the face that looks back at me from the ponds that exist in my memory. And my left arm… only four scars. Into what reality did the hundreds of them vanish, each one a painful ecstasy so clearly remembered, each one a reminder of the gift I know is still a part of me? It is a loss beside which the loss of the limb itself would be no matter at all. Where has the first of them gone, the long, ragged one made when I embraced my dying brother and a future that terrified me-the day I first knew I was a Healer? With this gift I have brought people back from the dead.

So. These are a stranger’s hands. Yet, I know their history, too. Know and feel and remember… They have been anointed with oil of silestia, that which consecrates the Heir of our ancient king, D’Arnath, to the service of his people. With them I raised the Preceptors of Gondai from their genuflections on the day I was made Prince of Avonar, this other Avonar that still lives. These hands wield a sword with the precision of a gem cutter and the speed of lightning. And they have taken life, a deed that fills my soul with revulsion.

How is it possible that I’ve killed and thought it right? And I’m good at it and proud of my prowess…

As I sat in Dassine’s garden, I pressed my hands-the stranger’s hands-to my face, digging the heels into my eye sockets so perhaps the world wouldn’t come apart on this bright, windy winter morning-or if it did, at least I wouldn’t see it. As always after a session with Dassine, my search for understanding had left me stranded on a mental precipice, facing… nothing. Absolutely nothing. If I stayed at the precipice too long, tried too hard to shape some coherent image in this gaping hole in my head, the universe would fall apart in front of me, not just in the mind’s realm, but the physical world, too. Jagged cracks of darkness would split whatever scene I looked on and break it into little fragments-a tree, a stone, a chair, my hand-and then, one by one, the fragments would fade and vanish into the abyss.

The effort of holding the world together always felt as if it were tearing my eyes right out of my skull. Even worse than the physical discomfort was the paralyzing, suffocating horror that always accompanied it. And I knew in my very bones that if ever I let the whole world disappear, I would never find my way back. If I was capable of speech, I would beg Dassine to make it stop, to wipe clean all he had returned, to excise that mote of cold reason that told me I would never be whole until I knew everything.

And what did my teacher, my companion, my keeper, answer when I begged his mercy? He would pat my throbbing head and remove my shaking hands from their desperate hold on his wrinkled robe, and say, “We’ve pushed a little too hard today. Take an extra hour’s rest before we begin again.” For, of course, my questioning, my feeble attempt to unravel the meaning of the person I was and the lives I had lived, was but the inevitable result of Dassine’s schooling.

In my life as a Healer in the mundane world, I had once come upon a remote village where the inhabitants had discovered a tree whose fruit, dried and powdered and mixed with wine, gave them terrifying visions that they believed came from their gods. Drinking this potion also caused them to forget to eat and to care for themselves. When I found these people, the corpses of their starved, neglected children lay all about their village. The few adults who yet breathed were wasted with starvation and disease. Though they knew well that their insatiable foolishness had led them to this piteous state, they could not refuse the call of their gods. I understood them now. Even when so weary I could neither eat nor lift a cup, even when I wept from exhaustion and madness, neither could I refuse another taste of Dassine’s gift. Dassine-my master, my subject, my jailer, my healer, my tormentor.

A cold gust caught the hood of my white robe, yanking it off my head and dumping the snow from a bare tree limb onto my neck. With leaden arms, I reached around and brushed off the snow, feeling a few icy droplets trickling down my back. Shivering, I drew my stranger’s hands into the folds of the wool robe. Who am I? What’s happened to me?

“Come on. Time to sleep.” I hadn’t heard Dassine open the door.

He had already disappeared back into the house, leaving the door open. He wouldn’t expect me to answer. Words were always an effort by this time. I rose and padded through the garden after him, shedding my flimsy sandals at the door. I needed the fresh air, even on such a cold day, to remind myself that a world existed beyond my broken mind. Our latest session had ended better than most. No panic. No raving. No begging.

Once I’d stepped inside the house and closed off the world again, Dassine pointed to a cup of tea sitting on the table. “You shouldn’t go out on days like this. I don’t like you getting so cold.”

I shook my head, refusing the tea and his worries in one efficient motion. In two heartbeats, I would be asleep and wouldn’t care.

My bedchamber was a small, unadorned room that adjoined Dassine’s workroom. Its walls and floor were bare, constructed of thick stone that eliminated all vagary of noise or climate that might disturb its utter monotony. Despite its construction, the chamber was neither cave nor prison cell, for it was clean and dry, and had a large, unbarred window of thick but exceptionally clear glass, a bed and a washing table, and no door at all, only an empty opening to the cluttered workroom. The bed was comfortable, though I was never allowed a full night to enjoy it.

Dassine would rouse me after only a few hours’ rest, day or night, and lead me stumbling into this chilly, untidy jumble of books and tables, pots and jars he called his lectorium. He would remove my robe and seat me, shivering and naked, within a circle of tall candlesticks. Always he would ask for my consent to go on, and like the skeletal villagers of Pernat, I would tell him I was ready to seek my visions once again. Then he would begin a low chanting-quiet, rhythmic, peaceful, seemingly benign-until the candle flames grew taller than my head and roared with the thunder of a hundred waterfalls. By that time I could encompass no sensation but the light. It forced its way into my eyes, my head, and my lungs. It seeped through the very pores of my skin until I thought my body must glow with it.

Very quickly, then, would come to birth another day that had been hidden from me. In Dassine’s light I saw again the face of my mother as she sang me to sleep, her intricate compositions of word and melody taking physical shape and weaving themselves into my childish dreams. In that light I heard once more the voice of my father whom I loved, watched him sit in his hall of justice, ruling with benevolence and honor those who would burn him alive if they knew what he was-a sorcerer of uncommon power. In that candlelight I learned again the art of healing from my mentor, Celine, and felt again the fiery kiss of my knife as I shared my life’s gift with the sick and the dying. There I heard the reports of the slaughter of my family and my people and the devastation of my home. There I reread the books that I loved and those that bored me. I suffered the indignities of childhood and the revelations of youth, and I rediscovered my love of archeology, reacquiring my knowledge of the culture and history and art of peoples that were not my people, but whom my ancestors had embraced as their own.

Hours and days and weeks I lived in the light of Dassine’s candles. And when the light died away at last and my mind limped back to his dim study, Dassine would tell me how long I had been away-four hours, perhaps, or five of present time.

After he had put the candles away and given me my robe, he would share food and drink that had been set on a tray in the middle of his scuffed pine table. The meal was wholesome and plentiful, but always plain. I’d eat what I could, and then I’d walk in Dassine’s garden to bask in the sun or the starlight and inhale the sweetness of the open air. Inevitably I would begin to ponder what I had learned… until my questions drove me to the edge of the precipice. Then Dassine would send me to sleep and, a few hours later, wake me to begin it all again.

I had no idea how long I had been with Dassine. Time had lost its pristine simplicity, and every sunrise signaled a further distortion. Somewhere in the months and weeks just past was a beginning… an eternity of stupefied confusion while Dassine laid a foundation in my head so that he could speak with me of D’Arnath’s Bridge between the worlds and what my actions to prevent its destruction had done to me. He spoke now only in the vaguest generalities, saying that the truth of my experiences must come from inside myself as I relived them.

On this very early morning-the bright, windy cold morning when the world had held itself together for once- the Healer watched from the doorway to the lectorium as I shed my robe and burrowed into the mound of rumpled pillows and blankets. My eyes were already closed when I felt a blanket drawn up over my bare shoulder and a hand laid on my hair. “Sleep well, my lord.”

“D’Natheil! Wake! You must be up. The hounds are baying, and we must ride with them a while.” Dassine shook me awake with unaccustomed vigor.

It was unusual for him to call me by that name-mine, yes, but not the one I had come to believe was closest to me. If I’d not been so groggy, I might have wondered more at his use of it, but it had been just after dawn when I had last collapsed on the bed. The light told me it was still early morning, and cramps and stiffness told me that I’d not even had time to change position.

“Have mercy, old man,” I groaned and buried my head in the bedclothes. “Can’t you give me an hour’s peace?”

“Not this morning. We have visitors, and you must see them.”

“Tell them to come back.” I could muster no enthusiasm, even for such a glorious variation in our regimen as a visitor.

As far as my own sight or hearing witnessed, no other beings existed in the universe, though I suspected that someone else shared the house with us. On the table in the lectorium I often found two glasses smelling of brandy that I’d not been allowed to taste. And I could not imagine the testy Healer making soup or filling my washing pitcher with tepid water.

“The Preceptors of Gondai have come to wait upon their Prince. I’ve put them off for more than three months, and if I don’t produce you, they’ll cause trouble. I can’t spare the energy to fight them, so you must get up and present yourself.”

“The Preceptors… Exeget, Ustele, the others?” The urgency of his words prodded me to function at some minimal level. I sat up, trying to stir some blood into my limbs.

“Yes, you blithering boy. They sit in my library at this very moment in all their varieties of self-importance and deception. I told them you were sleeping, but they said they would await Your Grace’s pleasure. So if you would like another hour’s sleep before we begin work again, rouse yourself, get to the library, and get rid of the bastards. We’ve no time to dally with them.”

“What will I say? I know nothing more than a twelve-year-old.” My faith in Dassine’s assurances that all I now remembered was truth took an ill turn. What if the memories he had instilled were only wild fictions and not the unmasked remnants of my own experiences? But a glance at the sagging flesh around his eyes reminded me that he slept no more than I. I couldn’t swear that his mysterious game was the only hope of the world as he insisted, but I believed that he did nothing from cruelty or indifference. I had to trust him.

“You will say as little as possible. They’re here to verify that I’m not grooming some impostor to supplant the line of D’Arnath.”

I couldn’t help but be skeptical. “And how am I to prove that? I doubt I can reassure them by telling the story of my life-lives.”

Dassine jabbed at my chest with his powerful fingers. “You are D’Natheil, the true Heir of D’Arnath. You can pass the Gate-wards, walk the Bridge, and control the chaos of the Breach between the worlds. The blood in your veins is that of our Princes for the last thousand years, and no one-no one-can deny or disprove it. It’s true that you’ve had experiences others cannot understand, and we cannot tell these fossils about them quite yet, but I swear to you by all that lives that you are the rightful Prince of Avonar.”

It was impossible to doubt Dassine.

“Then they’ll want to know what I’m doing here with you all these months, which, lest you’ve forgotten, you’ve never explained.”

“They have no right to question you. You are their sovereign.”

Ah, yes. It didn’t matter that in my life in the mundane world, my younger brother, Christophe, had inherited the gift of Command from my beloved father, the Baron Mandille. In my life here in the world of Gondai-in this Avonar of sorcery and magic-I, D’Natheil, the third son of Prince D’Marte, had been named Heir of D’Arnath when my father and two older brothers had been slain in quick succession. When my name had been called by the Preceptorate-the council of seven sorcerers who advised the Heir and controlled the succession-I could scarcely write the letters that comprised it, because no one had ever thought that a third son, so wild, and so much younger than the others, would ever be needed to rule my devastated land.

My memories of D’Natheil’s life ended abruptly on the day I turned twelve, the day my hands were anointed and I came into my inheritance. On that day these same Preceptors waiting for me now had decided that I must essay D’Arnath’s enchanted Bridge and attempt to repair the weakness caused by years of war and neglect and the corrupting chaos of the Breach between the worlds.

Gondai and the mundane world-the human world-had existed side by side since Vasrin gave shape to nothingness at the beginning of time. Dar’Nethi sorcery and human passion created a delicate balance in the universe that no one quite understood. At the time of the Catastrophe, when the Breach came into being and separated the two worlds, upsetting this balance, we Dar’Nethi found ourselves diminished, left without power enough to reclaim our devastated land. And so our king, D’Arnath, built his Bridge of enchantment to span the Breach, hoping to restore the balance. The long war with the Lords and the corruption of the Breach threatened to ruin the Bridge, and only by the power and labor of D’Arnath and his Heirs had it endured a thousand years.

But at twelve I had not known what to do to preserve the Bridge. Dassine told me that my attempt had damaged me so dreadfully that further memories of D’Natheil’s life were impossible. When these Preceptors had last spoken to me, I had been a crass, amoral youth, one whose life was consumed in a passion for war. They would not know me as I really was, Dassine said. It was my other life-Karon’s life-that had transformed me.

My head started to ache with the contradictions and convolutions, and I pressed my fist against my forehead to keep it from splitting.

“Stop!” said Dassine sharply. “This is not the time to think. The Preceptors are not your kindly grandparents. You must be clear-headed.”

“Empty-headed?”

“If that’s the only way. Prepare yourself. I’ll return for you shortly. I’ll bring saffria.”

I dragged myself back from the precipice without looking over it. “Make it strong, Dassine.”

He tugged at my hair. “You’ll do well.”

There was not much preparation to make. I wished I could fit my entire head into the small basin of water on the stand in my room, but splashing the grit from my eyes would have to do. And I had nothing to wear but my white robe. From my first days with him, Dassine had forbidden me to use sorcery to obtain anything beyond his meager provision. Neither of us could afford to squander power, he said, and in truth, I rarely had enough to conjure a candle flame. By the time I knew that I was the ruler of Avonar with the authority to command comforts to be brought to me, I was beyond caring.

Dassine reappeared almost immediately with saffria. I downed it in one long, hot gulp, hoping its pungent sweetness would find its way to those of my extremities that had still not come to the conclusion that they must function. With no more conversation-we had spent more words that morning than during an entire week of our usual business- he led me down a long hallway. Tantalizing telltales of early morning sneaked into the cool, shadowed passage through a series of open doorways: birdsong, dust motes dancing in beams of gold light, the scents of mint and damp earth. It would be so much more pleasant to follow them than to go where Dassine led.

I stood behind him as he pulled open a wide door. “You are greatly favored this morning,” he announced. “The Prince has agreed to a brief audience. My friends and colleagues, His Grace D’Natheil, Heir of the Royal House of D’Arnath, Prince of Avonar, sovereign and liege of Dar‘-Nethi and Dulcé. May Vasrin Shaper and Creator grant him wisdom as he walks the Way.”

Now for the test. I walked through the doorway, fighting that part of me which insisted I did not belong here, that words of royal homage did not apply to me. I tried to focus on this world and its customs and to convince myself I had a place in it. Conviction is everything in a ruler, the father I had loved once told me.

Seven people stood up as I entered the wide, airy room: four men, two women, and one-not a child, but a slight, dark-haired, olive-skinned man, who hovered in the background. A Dulcé. One of the strange race that cohabited this world, a people with an astonishing capacity for knowledge and astonishing limitations in its use.

The six that were not Dulcé arranged themselves in an expectant and diverse half-circle in the center of a scuffed wood floor. One of the six was shorter than average, another enormously fat, one cadaverous, two in the fine tunics and breeches of men of rank, the others in robes of the type worn by scholars, variously brightly colored, dull, shabby, or fine. They, with Dassine as their seventh, were the Dar’Nethi Preceptorate. Though I knew these six only with the unshaded colorations of a child’s mind, I knew what was required to greet them properly. The rituals of kingly politeness had been battered into me by the well-dressed man on the far left, a puffy, balding man with full lips and deep-set eyes. He looked soft but was not. My back ached with the memory of his beatings, and my spirit shriveled with the echo of his self-righteousness.

I had been an angry nine-year-old when courtiers dragged me away from the grimy comfort of a palace guard firepit and took me to the Precept House, the large, austere building that housed the meeting chamber of the Preceptorate and served as the residence of its head. On that night Master Exeget had announced that, as my father and brothers were all dead, I was to be raised up to be Heir, ignorant, filthy beast that I was, no better than a dog, fed on the scraps from the soldiers on the walls.

No one had told me that D’Seto, my last living brother, a dozen years older than me, and the most dashing, talented, and skillful of princes, had been slain by the Zhid. He was the only one of the family who had ever had a kind word for me, and all my awkward, childish striving, played out in alleyway throne rooms and stableyard sword fights, had been to be like him. Exeget did not grant me even the simple courtesy of believing that I might grieve for my brother. Instead he spent an hour telling me how unlike D’Seto I was. I hated Exeget from that moment, for he made me believe it. There was no justice in a universe that infused the blood of kings in such as me, he said, while condemning nobler spirits to lesser roles. Only strict discipline and rigorous training might improve me, and so I was not to return to the palace, but live with him in the Precept House. He had crammed his red face into mine and sworn that if his efforts failed and I was not made worthy of my inheritance, I would not live to disgrace it.

And so, on this morning as the Preceptors gathered to inspect me, I could not look at Exeget without loathing. I began my greetings at the other end of the line, hoping to find the right words to say by the time I got to him. Moving from one of the Preceptors to the next, I turned my palms upward as a symbol of humility and service. Each in turn laid his or her hands on mine, palms down, accepting what I offered, kneeling before me in honor of my office. As I raised them up, one by one, each greeted me in his or her own way.

The giant Gar’Dena, a powerful, prosperous worker of gems, wheezed and grinned, for I gave him more than a princely touch to help raise his bulk from his genuflection. I hoped no more sorcery would be needed, for the simple assistance had used up my small reserve of power. Once standing at his full height, dwarfing everyone in the room, Gar’Dena straightened his red silk tunic, blotted his massive forehead with a kerchief the size of a sail, and hooked his thumbs into an elaborately jeweled belt. “Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath!” All honor to you, Heir of D’Arnath. This traditional greeting, which he pronounced in an ear-shattering bellow, was deeply respectful. Cheered by his generous spirit, I moved down the row.

Ce’Aret, an ancient, wizened woman with the face and humor of a brick, poked at my cheek with a sharp finger and snorted, whether in disbelief or general disapproval I didn’t know. I gripped her finger and returned it to her firmly, which didn’t seem to please her at all. Ce’Aret had taken on herself the duty of ferreting out those who secretly aided our enemies. Everyone feared her.

Ustele was almost as old as Ce’Aret, but his quick and incisive probe of my thoughts belied any impression I might have had of diminished faculties. Touching my mind without consent was an unthinkable offense, an invasion of my privacy that would permit me to summarily dismiss him from the Preceptorate, if not banish him from Avonar… assuming I was accepted as the true Prince. No one in the room, save perhaps the Dulcé, would have failed to register it. If I wished to retain any semblance of respect from the others, I could not ignore such an attempt.

“This day’s grace I will give you, Ustele, because you were my grandfather’s mentor. But no more. Age grants you no privilege to violate your Prince, because age has clearly not dimmed your gifts. The Wastes await those who take such liberties. Be warned.” To my relief, my voice neither croaked nor wavered.

The old man curled his lip, but withdrew. Dassine’s satisfaction wafted through the air from behind me like scented smoke. In truth, my thoughts were in such confusion, no one could have learned anything from them.

Y’Dan, a thin, dry stick of a man, would not rise when I touched his shoulder. He shook his hairless brown skull vigorously, chewed on a bony knuckle, and refused to look me in the eye. “My lord”-he dropped his voice to a whisper so that I had to bend close to his mouth to hear- “listen, my lord. I beg you listen.” He wanted me to read his thoughts.

I nodded, uneasy, for this was an act I had not been capable of performing as D’Natheil, and that custom had been strictly forbidden in my other life. But the Preceptorate had been told that whatever I had done to restore the Bridge had changed me, so I left off worrying and opened my mind to him.

… murder… conspiracy… treachery… your forgiveness, my lord… we did not know you… our faith lost… the Zhid among us… we thought it was the only way… Searing, consuming guilt. Impossible to sort out the flood of incoherent confession that accompanied it. Who had been murdered? My father perhaps or my brothers? What was the conspiracy of which he spoke?

Confused and wary, I put my finger to his silent lips, telling him to stop. “Another time,” I said. “I’ll hear you in private.” Sometime when I knew what he was talking about.

Madyalar looked more like a fishwife than a Preceptor of Gondai. Rawboned and red-cheeked, her gray hair tangled, she stood almost as tall as I. The soft-hued stripes of her billowing robe kept subtly shifting their colors, confusing the eye. Madyalar had been an Examiner when I was a boy, one who supervised Dar’Nethi mentoring relationships such as mine with Exeget. Though I had counted no one as a friend in those days, she had fought a running battle with Exeget over my care. That lent her a bit of grace in my sight, though, in truth, the course she had espoused was no more dignified than Exeget’s, only less violent. She had declared that the only humane path was to teach me enough of duty, manners, and cleanliness that I could father a new Heir as soon as possible.

When she stood up after her genuflection, she probed me, not illicitly with her mind as Ustele had done, but with warm, rough hands that quickly and firmly traced every contour of my face.

“I hope I have exceeded your expectations, Mistress Madyalar,” I said to her. I started to add, “even though I’ve produced no son.” But in a moment’s unsettling clarity, I realized that I didn’t know whether I had fathered any children. I-Karon-was forty-two years old, so Dassine had told me. Twenty of those years were still missing. The thought was disconcerting, one I could ill afford in my present situation. I closed my eyes for a moment, afraid the world might disintegrate.

Madyalar drew me back. “You are no longer the boy I examined for so many years, my lord.”

My eyes flew open. She had a curious smile on her face.

“My bruises tell me that I am.”

She cast her eyes slightly to her right where Exeget was studiously gazing out of the window. “I don’t doubt that. Childhood bruises sting long after their discolor has faded. Though I would like to avoid contributing to Dassine’s inflated opinion of himself, you seem changed for the better. Whether it is the old devil’s skill in teaching or merely the fact that he saved your life until you matured on your own, the air is quiet about you now, whereas before it was a constant tumult. You bear many burdens that you did not when we saw you last, and you carry them with a strength that is different from that you displayed as a youth. And you have gray in your hair, Your Grace.”

“Years will do that.” No sooner had I said the words than I knew I’d made a mistake. The tension in the room drew tighter, and the dozen calculating eyes fixed on me widened.

“True,” said a puzzled Madyalar. “But you must tell us how a few months can work such an alteration.”

Although I remembered nothing of D’Natheil’s life since I was twelve, Dassine had told me that it had only been a few months since I-D’Natheil, a prince of some twenty-odd years of age-had been sent onto the Bridge a second time, crossing into the mundane world on a mission I could not remember. These people had witnessed my departure. But the details of that journey were embedded in the lost years of one life and buried under twenty missing years of another. Spirits of night… what had happened to me?

My tongue stumbled onward. “I’ve worked hard at improving myself and continue to do so.” Without further word, I moved on to Exeget.

Permit no questioning. Keep silent. Satisfy them. Get rid of them. These commands burst into my head as if I had thought them myself. Concentrate, fool. That command was my own.

“Our hopes and good wishes are with you, my lord Prince”-Madyalar spoke quietly to my back-“and, of course, the wisdom of Vasrin.”

I nodded, hoping I hadn’t offended her.

By an immense act of will I did not flinch when Exeget laid his perfectly manicured hands on mine. I knew he watched for it, hoped for a hint of cowering to demonstrate that he had power over me. For the greater part of the three years I’d spent in his custody, I had devoted my entire being to making sure he never received such a demonstration. I had never feared him, only despised him, but his hands had been heavy. Neither cold nor warm, neither soft nor hard, no roughness or other mark of age marring their smooth perfection. He took great pride in his hands, and had always required a servant to bathe and care for them after he beat me. In those vile years he had claimed that he could allow no one else to take on the onerous task of my discipline, as only a parent or mentor was permitted to chastise a child of my rank. But his apologetic disclaimers had not deceived me. He had enjoyed it immensely.

I confess I left him kneeling longer than the others, not so much to prove I could, but for the simple fact that I didn’t want to touch him again. Perhaps he felt the same. I had scarcely brushed his shoulder when he popped to his feet.

“We rejoice, my lord, in the happy outcome of your journey.” A nice sentiment, belied by his demeanor that expressed little of rejoicing and much of suspicion and arrogance.

I kept my mouth closed and my expression blank.

He spoke as much to the others as to me. “Master Dassine says that your ordeal in the mundane world has been a great strain, requiring a period of withdrawal from your duties, duties you’ve scarcely begun. Will you require ten more years in Dassine’s care before your people have the benefit of your service?”

“I’ll do whatever I think best, Master Exeget,” I said. To speak in calm generalities with a straight face is much easier when one is absolutely ignorant. An advantage in a confrontation such as this. It’s difficult for barbs and subtle insinuations to find their mark when the expected mark is missing.

“Whatever you think best? Please tell us, my lord Prince, what is it you think best? For more than three months we have sought your counsel and have been rudely put off by our brother, Dassine. For ten years before your journey, you failed to seek any counsel but that of this same man, and we were not allowed to speak with you unsupervised. You had no experience before you left us and have had no experience since your return. What assurance can you give us that your ideas of what is best have any foundation in reality? Why does Dassine keep you hidden?”

Ce’Aret and Ustele had not moved a step, yet I felt them close ranks, flanking Exeget like guardian spirits. “The Heir of D’Arnath is the servant of his people, yet he does not even know his people, nor do his people know him,” croaked Ce’Aret. “As Madyalar says, you are much changed. I wish to understand it.”

“Perhaps Dassine has hidden him all these years so we would not know him,” said Ustele. “Can any of us say that this is, in fact, D’Natheil?”

The room fell deadly silent. Expectant. I knew I should say something. What sovereign would permit such an accusation? But my head felt like porridge, leaving me unable to summon a single word of sense.

“Master Ustele, what slander do you speak?” To my astonishment it was Exeget who took up my cause, donning the very mantle of reason. “Who else would this be but our own Prince? True, his body has aged, and his manner is not so… limited… as it was. But he has fought a battle on the Bridge-done this healing that has preserved and strengthened the Bridge and given us hope. Such enchantments could surely change a man.”

“As a boy he was touched by the Lords. We all knew it,” snapped Ce’Aret. “Never did this prince demonstrate any gift of his family. He killed without mercy and did not care if the victim was Zhid or Dar’Nethi or Dulcé.”

“And where was it the beastly child finally found some affinity?” asked Ustele. “With our brother Dassine who had just returned from three years-three years!-in Zhev’Na. Dassine, the only Dar’Nethi ever to return from captivity. Dassine, who then proclaimed wild theories that contradicted all our beliefs, saying that our determination to fight the Lords and their minions was somehow misguided, that training our Prince in warfare was an ‘aberration.’ And when he could not convince us to follow his way of weakness, of surrender, he took the Heir and hid him away. What more perfect plot could there be than for the Lords of Zhev’Na to corrupt our Prince?”

The others talked and shouted all at once: denials, affirmations, and accusations of treason.

“Impossible!” shouted Exeget, silencing them all. “D’Natheil has done that for which we have prayed for eight hundred years! The Gates are open. He has walked the Bridge, healed the damage done by the Lords and the chaos of the Breach. We have felt life flow between the worlds. He has foiled the plots of the Lords that would have destroyed the Bridge. All we ask is to understand it. His duty is to lead us to the final defeat of the Lords of Zhev’Na and their demon Zhid. We only want to hear how and when that will come about.”

I couldn’t understand why Exeget was defending me. Their arguments had me half convinced.

“We’ve all heard the rumors of what passed in the other world,” said Ce’Aret. “That D’Natheil allowed three Zhid warriors to live, claiming to have returned their souls to them. That the only ones slain in that battle were the loyal Dulcé Baglos and a noble swordsman from the other world. Has anyone seen these Zhid who were healed? Was D’Natheil successful? Perhaps the victory at the Gate resulted from the sacrifice of another of the Exiles and not D’Natheil at all. Perhaps the Prince failed at his real task-his traitorous task-of destroying the Bridge.”

The accusation hung in the air like smoke on a windless day. Gar’Dena’s broad face was colorless, his eyes shocked. “Tell them these things are not true, my lord,” he said softly. Exeget spread his arms wide, waiting for my answer. Madyalar’s face was like stone. Even Y’Dan’s head popped up. They were all waiting…

Permit no questioning. Keep silent. Dassine stood just behind me. Though his fury beat upon my back like the summer sun, he held his tongue. No one spoke aloud. Yet from every one of the Preceptors came a similar pressure, the throbbing power that was so much more than spoken anger or demanding trust, the battering insistence that I speak, that I explain, that I condemn myself with truth or expose myself with lies or justify the faith some held in the blood that filled my veins. These seven were the most powerful of all Dar’Nethi sorcerers. I felt myself crumbling like the wall of a besieged citadel. I had to end it.

“Master Exeget, I’ll not explain myself to you…” I began, wrapping my arms about my chest as if they might keep me from flying apart.

“You see!” said Ce’Aret, shaking her finger at me. “Dassine has made us a tyrant!”

“… until I have completed my time of recovery with Master Dassine. Then I will appear before the Preceptorate to be examined. If you find that I am indeed who I claim to be, and you judge me worthy of my heritage, then I will serve you as I have sworn to do, following the Way of the Dar’Nethi as holy Vasrin has freed us to do. If you find me wanting in truth or honor or ability, then you may do with me as you will.”

Dassine exploded. “My lord, they have no right! You are the anointed Heir of D’Arnath!”

I turned on him, summoning my convictions as a flimsy shield against his wrath. “They have every right, Dassine. They-and you are one of them-are my people, and I will have only trust between us.”

I believed what I said, and though it might have been wise to press the point with Gar’Dena and Madyalar and even Y’Dan, I had no strength to argue. I had to get out of that room. “I cannot say how long until I am recovered fully. I ask you all to be patient with me and to tell… my people… to be of good heart. Now, I bid you good morning.” I turned my back on them and fled.

The Dulcé opened the door for me. I believed I saw a glint of humor in his almond-shaped eyes. Unable to shuffle my bare feet fast enough to suit me, I made my way along the route we had come. The stark simplicity of my little cell welcomed me-the barren stone that offered no variation to the eye, that kept the air quiet and stable and blocked out the clamoring questions that had followed me down the passage. My only evidence that I fell onto the bed before going to sleep was that I was in the bed that afternoon when Dassine roused me to begin our work again.