Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 11

Baglos was not happy at the idea of my returning to the inn before leaving Grenatte, and I myself had more than a few sharp words ready for Graeme Rowan and his self-righteous snooping. But if I failed to meet the sheriff, I had no doubt the man would be sitting on my doorstep with Aeren under arrest by the time I could walk back to Dunfarrie.

The fading moon was setting and the sky was gray with approaching dawn when I left Baglos and Paulo at the edge of town. The streets near the marketplace were already busy, and the smells of hot bread and sizzling bacon from Bartolome’s kitchen reminded me that I was ravenous. I was crossing the innyard, ready to wheedle an early breakfast from the good innkeeper, when I spied two men shaking hands close by the entrance to the stable—two men who should be in no wise so friendly. Dismayed, I slipped around the outside of the innyard into an alleyway separated from the stable only by a wooden wall. Though I could no longer see the two, I could hear very well.

“You’ll not forget our agreement,” said one. “We’re relying on your utmost discretion. It has come highly recommended.”

“I am a servant of the law and take my duties seriously. I was surprised to see you here. You told me yesterday that you knew where to find him.”

My eyes had not lied to me. One voice was Rowan’s, and the other belonged to Giano, the pale-eyed priest of Annadis.

Giano laughed. “We expect to have the business done within the day. You’ll be rewarded handsomely.”

“My reward will be in seeing a scoundrel brought to justice.”

“One item of information we yet require…” The voices faded away. The two men must have stepped inside the stables.

I was furious, more at myself than Rowan. Trusting one who wore Evard’s badge, giving credence, even for a moment, to his words of higher motives, justice, unclean murder—I should have known better. He’d been working with the priests all the time. Were these Zhid naught but sheriffs, wearing a holy disguise as they went about their despicable work? They must have had a good laugh at my performance, thought themselves quite clever. Well, I would provide no more entertainments.

My appetite soured, I sat in the common room brooding until a grim Rowan burst through the door. “There you are!”

Tempting to spit at the devil’s lackey. “Did you think I’d left Grenatte without you, Cousin?” I said.

“The thought occurred to me. I think we should take some air this morning. A walk would be ideal.” He took me firmly by the elbow and escorted me into the lane without so much as asking me if I was willing. He propelled me between a wagon load of squawking chickens and a knot of people gawking at a merchant beating his bondsman, and into a narrow alley well away from the door of the Green Lion. “And so, my lady, do you know where they are?”

I wrenched my arm away. “Do sheriffs not breakfast before interrogations? Bartolome can take rightful pride in his fare, and it is always such a pleasure to spend time with you.”

Though he didn’t touch me, the sheriff backed me into the soot-stained wall, propping one hand against the wall on either side of my head. “I ask you again. Do you know where they are?”

“They?”

“Either of them. The one you came here to find or the one that seems to have the whole countryside in pursuit of him—the weak-minded servant.”

“A servant? How could I know anything of servants? And why would I care? I despise weak-minded people… and devious ones.” I ducked under Rowan’s arm and proceeded down the alley at a brisk pace until I emerged in another busy street.

The sheriff was close at my shoulder. “What of the other one, the small, dark, odd-looking man? You remember, the one who’s looking for his prized horse, but can tell me nothing but that the horse is white; he’s also disappeared. But then you know that already. Bartolome says he was in his common room last night and rushed out shortly before I arrived, only moments before I met you hurrying out the same door. You told me it was the priests that frightened you. Did they frighten him also?”

“This has nothing to do with me.”

Rowan was forced to let a well-guarded flock of geese pass by and then shove his way through its trailing mob of anxious buyers to catch up with me again. “This has everything to do with you,” he said, anger snapping like sparks on a frosty night. I had never seen him display such intensity of feeling. “I learned also of the messenger that came here yesterday, asking after the man who sought his stolen horse. The messenger was a freckled boy who limped. I’m no idiot, madam, despite what you think, and I don’t forget that Jacopo would be the only person in Dunfarrie I told of the strange little man who didn’t fit his impersonation.”

I threaded my way through the crowd that was rapidly filling the streets, and stepped around a shapeless beggar who had crawled into the muck-filled ruts and had the lack of consideration to die there. “Coincidence,” I said. “If you must know, I’m here to see if the local dyeshops will buy some of my plants. Several of them grow only on Poacher’s Ridge.” A glimpse over my shoulder twisted a knot in my stomach; the dead beggar was a woman, her thin face an artwork of bruises and sores, sculpted by starvation and the brutal world. She might have been twenty or seventy. Wasted life. Useless death. I wrenched my attention back to my companion. “As you’ve so often noted, I’m accustomed to living better than I do at the moment.”

Rowan did not yield. He stepped in front of me and halted, forcing me to look him in the face. “In no measure would this be coincidence, and in no way do I believe a word of your story. I’ve learned enough in these ten years gone to know when you tell the truth. You’ve said yourself these priests are not what they claim. That I do believe. Who is this man they seek? It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”

He knew… curse the man forever, he knew that Aeren was a sorcerer. A fiery heat that had nothing to do with the growing sunlight coursed through my veins. “Why ever would I tell you? And how dare you judge my truth? I think you know very little of truth.”

“I will find out, you know—or someone will who’s even less to your liking. There have been other inquiries about this ‘groom.”“

“I’ve no need of your concern.”

Our voices had risen through the conversation, but Rowan’s next words were spoken quietly. Only their edges were hard. “Ah, but others might. Jacopo and Paulo have no noble relations to protect them from the consequences of their actions. If you have any feeling for them—if you are capable of feeling—you should consider your course carefully.”

As the threat hung in the air like smoke from summer grassfires, the sheriff took my arm again, and steered me down the road to a stable where his horse stood saddled and waiting. “Time to go home, ”Cousin,“ ” he said, gesturing me toward his horse. “No more foolish playacting and no more sneaking about Grenatte. You will take yourself and your young accomplice back to Dunfarrie, and you will remain there until I return.”

“You’re not planning to drag me back yourself? What if I, in my fiendish perversity, dare to disobey?”

“No, you go alone. I’ve business in Grenatte today. You’ll swear to me that you’ll do as I say, and I’ll believe you. But of course if I should find out you’ve disobeyed me, you’ll spend the rest of the week in the gaol.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“You’ve told me many times that your rank has made no difference in your punishment. I live by your words.” Rowan unslipped the reins from the tether rail and stuffed them in my hand. “Take Thunder. He’ll carry both you and Paulo. I’d rather not have to dig any more graves in During Forest tomorrow, and mounted travelers are at less risk. Tell Paulo to bring Thunder back to me first thing tomorrow morning and I might not whack him for tormenting his gram.”

I wanted to refuse any gift tainted by Rowan’s hand, but simple reason curbed my tongue. Amid all the confusion of the sheriff’s motives, one thing was certain. Aeren and his friend must be long gone before Rowan’s return. If riding the cursed sheriff’s horse helped that happen, then, by holy Annadis’s sword, I would ride.

We made good time on our return journey. Baglos had his own mount and rode skillfully. I was unable to question him along the route as I had planned, for he raced north along the dusty road as if the doom of the world were indeed riding with him.

When we turned onto the narrow track that led up to the meadow, we had to slow, for the track was all dry gouges and ruts, left from some long-ago year of harsh rains. “Is it much farther, woman?” asked Baglos, his voice reflecting my own anxiety.

“No. Just over that rise.”

“Is it a safe place? A large city, a village? This village I have visited before?”

“It’s only a cottage. Dunfarrie is an hour’s walk.”

“Are there trees, then?”

I thought the question curious. “A whole forest of them. Aeren—D’Natheil—sleeps under the trees. And when the light was so strange, he took us into the wood, but we never saw anyone.”

Baglos brightened considerably. “So he knows to go to the trees. Perhaps he’s not forgotten as much as you think.”

The drought-starved meadow was just as I had left it the previous day, an ocean of limp gray-green rippled by the hot breeze, cheered here and there by a clump of stareye or stately stalks of pink and silver lupine. The cottage sat squat and peaceful in the middle of it.

Paulo gave a whoop and let Thunder race the last distance across the meadow. Jacopo came out of the house to meet us and steadied me as I slipped from the saddle. “So Paulo has brought you home riding, eh? He’s quite a boy, wouldn’t you say?”

Paulo grinned and led the horses off toward the copse and the spring.

“Where’s Aeren?” I said.

“He’s been poking about the woodpile all morning. A strange one, he is. Never know whether he’s going to break your neck or shake your hand.” Jaco peered over my shoulder at my companion, who was straightening his tunic and straining his eyes about the meadow. “Looks like you’ve been successful in your business.”

“Yes, this is Baglos, a friend of Aeren’s. Baglos, this is my friend Jacopo…”

Aeren strolled around the corner of the cottage carrying a forearm-sized piece of wood. At the sight of us, he increased his pace straightaway. Giving Baglos not so much as a passing glance, he planted himself just in front of me and, with unpleasant grunts and most explicit gestures, expressed his displeasure at my long absence.

Before I could respond, Baglos crowded in between us. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the young man’s hand, and kissed it. Aeren growled and jerked his hand away, waving the kneeling Baglos aside. When a confused Baglos failed to move, Aeren snarled and raised the piece of wood over the man’s dark head.

“Ce’na davonet, Gire D’Arnath! Detan eto.” As he cried out, Baglos raised his arms to shield himself.

Aeren paused and dropped his hand, flicking his fingers toward his own ears and then toward the smaller man’s mouth, as if he’d heard something in the exclamation that interested him.

Baglos showered Aeren with words in a flowing musical language, most of them shaped as questions. Aeren understood the words, which seemed to soothe his dangerous irritation, but I saw no light of recognition in his eyes, and to none of Baglos’ questions did he answer other than in the negative.

After a goodly time of this, Aeren pointed to his mouth and then to his head with a most humorously eloquent gesture, telling Baglos that the two appendages were equally useless. Aeren’s changing humors were as spring on the northern moors, a continual race between sunlight and storm. Baglos bowed and backed away, gazing sorrowfully on the young man who sat down in the grass and turned his attention to his limb of birchwood, peeling off the bark as if he were expecting to find something underneath, but wasn’t quite sure what it might be.

“Ah, woman, I did not believe it possible that D’Natheil could have truly forgotten himself,” said Baglos, holding his clasped hands to his chest, the color of his complexion gone sallow. “But your surmise is entirely correct. He recognizes nothing I speak of. We are lost if he cannot remember. And I cannot guide if he has forgotten the words to command me.” He tugged at his disheveled tunic, straightened his shoulders resolutely, and bowed to me. “But this is not your burden. I will take him away now, and we will trouble you no more.”

“No!” I blurted out the word more forcefully than I intended. “You can’t take him away yet. We should eat something before you go. He’s been ill…”

“He does not belong in this place. He has duties. In the name of the Dar’Nethi Preceptorate, I thank you for your kindness.” The forlorn Baglos cast his eyes down and walked back to Aeren, bowing once again. “Ce’na, D’Natheil” — Aeren’s head popped up as he spoke—“ven’t‘sar —”

“Baglos, look,” I said. “He recognizes his name.”

Baglos had already noticed and dropped to his knees beside the young man, chattering rapidly. An exasperated Aeren soon clamped his hand over the smaller man’s mouth and toppled him over backwards.

“Give him time,” I said, helping Baglos sit up and brush the grass and dirt from his shirt. “Take it more slowly.”

But the little man waved off my help. “Foolish woman. There is no time. Everything is prepared… waiting… This was not part of the plan. The Zhid have done this—I felt their icy breath at the crossing—and I’ve not the skill to reverse it. Everything depends on me, but with this… I don’t know what to do.” Such profound distress surely had origins somewhere far beyond irritable masters and momentary confusion. Our last hope, he had said.

“He understands your language. Perhaps if you were to tell me more of him, then, between the two of us, we could make him remember what he needs to know.”

The little man sighed and rubbed his brow with his fist. “If only remembering were enough. Since the ruinous attempt to send him, he has not been capable—” Baglos glanced over at Aeren, dropping his voice though the young man was preoccupied with his wood-shaping. “He never regained even the small skills he had as a boy. You would not understand the importance of these skills, as they are not abilities your people possess.”

“Skills?” I approached with caution. “What kind of skills? He seems to be a talented warrior and very intelligent.”

“I speak of what a mundane would call magic. Sorcery.” Baglos spoke as casually as one might mention a gift for poetry or painting or baking.

I breathed a prayer that my instincts were correct. “He has done magic here.”

Baglos sat paralyzed, eyes stretched almost round. “How is that possible? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure if you knew he could. It’s not a thing to mention lightly. The law of the Four Realms… surely you know that.” I told him of the knife and the plants and the fire.

“What knife is this?” He sprang from the ground like a new-vented geyser.

“We found it on the hilltop and believed it had some connection to Aeren because of the symbol on it. It’s the one he uses even now.” Aeren had pulled out the dagger and was diligently scraping his piece of birch.

Baglos’s eyes now filled half his face. “You told me that he wore nothing and carried nothing, but this is the Heir’s dagger, D’Arnath’s dagger… our safety…” His olive skin paled even further to the color of milky tea. “The sword… he carried no sword, did he? Please tell me he did not.”

“I’ve seen no sword. He’s been looking for one.”

Baglos exhaled deeply and shook his head. “You say he does not recognize the knife, but he was able to penetrate the rock with it. This is astonishing! He was never able to do these things since his injuries when he was twelve. It is one reason we are so afraid. That he will never be capable”—he snapped his teeth together. “Yes, woman, we will stay for a while and learn more of you. The Preceptors are wise beyond the ways of the Dulcé. Perhaps this is not entirely the work of the Zhid, for if D’Natheil has done magic…”

I shrugged my shoulders at Jacopo—no hope of understanding everything at once—and sat down near Aeren, patting the turf beside me. “Please sit down, Baglos, and start at the beginning. Who are these Preceptors? Who is D’Natheil?” I motioned the younger man to pay attention.

Baglos began his tale, speaking first in his own language to Aeren, then in Leiran for Jacopo and me. Setting aside his occupation, Aeren listened carefully to the little man’s words, the afternoon breeze rippling his light hair.

“There are things of which I am permitted to speak and things of which I am not permitted to speak without D’Natheil’s command. And there are many things I do not know at present. Do you know anything of the Breach or D’Arnath’s Bridge?” began Baglos.

The young man shook his head, and I did the same.

“Well, I cannot tell you that part, because I don’t know it properly today, and truly it is a great mystery that is beyond my understanding, even if it was a time when I could tell you of it. D’Natheil could tell you if he could remember, or I could tell you if D’Natheil would command me, but I don’t know how we will teach him of it if we do not know it correctly.” Baglos was in despair again, here at the beginning.

Unable to construct anything sensible from this rambling, I tried to get him to start again. “Just tell us about Aeren and how you come to be here. You honor him as a lord, and I’ve seen enough of his manner to know it must be true. What is his family? Where do you come from? Has he truly grown up in a Vallorean temple school with those priests?”

“Certainly not! He has not lived with the Zhid. Zhid lie as easily as they breathe. They are no priests of any god I know, which is, of course, only Vasrin of the Two Faces: Vasrin Creator, who squeezed nothingness in his mind’s fist to create matter, and Vasrin Shaper, who formed matter into the shapes of her dreaming—earth and sea and those of us who walk here. D’Natheil is the Heir of the royal line of D’Arnath, a prince you would call him. The mark on the dagger—it is the shield of his family.”

“A prince. I knew it.”

“We have had no king since the mighty D’Arnath. His successors see their highest honor in being named his Heir. For a thousand years the Heirs of D’Arnath have held the safety of Avonar in their hands. They have walked the world Bridge through the darkest perils. They have led us in the war against the Lords of Zhev’Na and their warrior Zhid. They have ruled with strength and justice and honor, bearing the hope of our people—both Dar’Nethi and Dulcé—that the Breach would one day be healed and the Wastes restored. But since the Battle of Ghezir, when the Zhid stole D’Arnath’s sword and dagger and closed the Gates, our hope has waned, for the Bridge cannot be maintained while the Gates are closed. D’Natheil is the sixty-third Heir of D’Arnath. Since the Gates were closed, thirty-four Heirs lived and waited and died in vain, for we had become too weak to reopen them. We hoped against failing hope that the Exiles might open the way, to aid the Heir in his task as is their duty.”

I was at a loss already, grasping at bits that were comprehensible, even if they made no sense. “A thousand years! What family can be traced back a thousand years? Not even the Kerotean priest-kings claim such lineage.”

“Yes. His family is very old, but he is the last. All the others of his line are dead. That has been our great dilemma. When the Gates were opened against all expectation, D’Natheil had only just come of age and been anointed. There was a great dispute among the Preceptors that day—the Preceptors are our wisest and most powerful leaders, who advise the Heir in all matters of power and talent—matters of sorcery, as you would say. Some thought to send D’Natheil immediately to walk the Bridge for fear we would lose the chance to repair and strengthen it, but Master Dassine argued that the boy was untrained and, at only twelve years, too young to survive the attempt. The other Preceptors overruled Dassine, and D’Natheil and Baltar were led to the Gate, but when they attempted the passage, D’Natheil was thrown from it with terrible injury, and Baltar, my cousin, lay dead.

“In the chaos that resulted, Master Dassine cried out that those who were not traitors deserved defeat for their stupidity—a charge not fairly given, and he had no call to chastise the other Preceptors. But Dassine picked up the young prince in his arms, took him to his own house, and posted wards that would allow no one near D’Natheil without his leave for all these years. Though many disagreed with Master Dassine’s course of action, all could see that the premature attempt had harmed the boy in ways they could not understand. The hope has been that as D’Natheil grew older, he would learn the things needed to accomplish his purpose and develop the talents with which he was born.”

“Talents for sorcery?” I said, fighting to untangle the knot he was making of my head.

“He is not a bootmaker, woman. He is the Heir of D’Arnath.” Baglos’s indignation was worthy of a jilted bride.

I sighed. “Go on.”

“So we in Avonar have fought to retake D’Arnath’s sword from the Zhid and to defend the Bridge and the Gates until D’Natheil could reach maturity. But we have seen no further sign from the Exiles, and the Zhid have grown more powerful. Eight days ago even Master Dassine agreed the Bridge was in imminent peril. D’Natheil himself fought on the walls of Avonar that night—for the first time since his injury as a boy—and he slew fifty Zhid. We heard the terrible rumor that he lay near death after it, but clearly that wasn’t true. On the next morning Master Dassine announced that D’Natheil and his Guide must make the crossing before the Gates could be closed again.

“The rites were rushed and confused, for there was fighting in the city streets. Bendal was wounded”—Baglos’ narration faltered briefly—“and Master Exeget performed the madris so that I might serve the Prince as his Guide. But at last D’Natheil reached the palace and stepped through the Gate. The Zhid must have broken into the chamber just as Master Exeget pushed me after the Prince, for three of them followed right on my heels.”

Baglos took a deep breath, as if only now recovering from the terror of battle, and when he continued, he spoke with resolve and conviction. “The Zhid and their masters, the three Lords of Zhev’Na, will do anything to destroy the Bridge. Anything. They believe it will give them their victory, that it will complete the Catastrophe of their making. As the Heir, D’Natheil is sworn to defend the Bridge… to preserve our land… and so he must do. Now do you understand? Our people stand at the verge of annihilation, and he it is who must save us all.”

As Baglos repeated this last for Aeren, my mind was flooded with questions. And caught up in the words like flotsam on the tide were words and images that tweaked my memory, but would not explain themselves: the Breach, the world Bridge… I had tried so hard to erase the past, to get on with my useless life, forbidding the horror of my dreams from lingering into day. But one of Baglos’s bits and pieces had washed up on the shore and lay in plain view where I could not ignore it.

“Your land,” I said. “You call it Avonar?”

“Our land was once called Gondai and encompassed many realms, but now that only our royal city and the Vales of Eidolon are left outside the Wastes, that name gets little use. Avonar—the City of Light. I fear that I may never again gaze upon its beauties.”

My throat could hardly give voice to my question. My skin felt tremulous, cold and hot and numb all together, as if I’d had too little sleep. “Where is this Avonar, where such things as sorcery are the custom?”

“I cannot tell you where, except that it is in the mountains beyond the Wastes,” Baglos said. “At some other time perhaps or if D’Natheil could command me to do so, I could tell you of it.”

“There was a city in Valleor called Avonar, but it was destroyed almost twenty years ago.” The hair on my arms was standing on end. “Tell me, Baglos, who are these Exiles of whom you speak?”

“The Exiles were dispatched right after the creation of the Bridge, long before the Battle of Ghezir. Twenty Dar’Nethi were led across the Bridge by D’Arnath’s beloved brother. It is part of the story of the Bridge that I cannot remember today. To be sent so far from their home and abandoned with no hope of return seems a cruel punishment, but they are great heroes and not criminals. We never knew their fate, but our hopes that they would be able to open the Gates had long faded. When at last they accomplished it, our hearts were lifted.”

How impossible it was that I should be sitting in this meadow and talking with this odd stranger about such things, that of all the places in the Four Realms it should be Poacher’s Ridge where D’Natheil would appear out of nowhere. For who else but I, out of so many thousands, would be able to see the connections I saw amidst the incomprehensible strands of Baglos’s story? Even the symbol on the knife—at last that connection had resolved. Change the rampant lions to smooth curves, reduce the design to its elemental forms as a thousand years and imperfect memory are wont to do, and one could see the simple rectangle with the arced triangle inscribed, and the three stylized flowerets. The mark of a ruling family… just as it had been the mark of Karon’s father, the Lord of Avonar. How could this be?

“Do you know, Baglos, what was the name of the one who led your Exiles, the first one those hundreds of years ago?” I could not have said whether it was day or night, so intent was I on his answer. I would not have noticed a whirlwind had it settled in our midst or a storm of fire raging in the trees. The storm was within me.

“Everyone knows that. He holds honor next to D’Arnath himself. J’Ettanne was his name.”

The universe shifted underneath my feet. This was not coincidence. It couldn’t be. “Your people are called Dar’Nethi, then?”

“In our land we are of two peoples, Dar’Nethi and Dulcé. You can see clearly that my parentage differs from that of D’Natheil, for I am of the Dulcé. Dar’Nethi and Dulcé have lived in harmony since the beginning of time, for our gifts are very different.”

D’Natheil sat in the golden light of afternoon with his chin on his knees, his face expressionless. How much he understood, or whether any of the strange story had touched a familiar chord, it was impossible to tell.

My own difficulty was where to begin my questioning. Bridges seemed clear. Breaches—chasms—made sense. What were these gates of which Baglos spoke?

The Gates marked the two ends of D’Arnath’s Bridge, so Baglos told me as the sun settled westerly—the Heir’s Gate in Avonar, the Exiles’ Gate in this land. Found deep in a chamber accessible only to the Heir or those to whom he has given the magical key to unlock its wards, the Gates appear as a wall of fire through which one must pass to walk upon the Bridge. Baglos had been prepared for a journey of horror at the crossing, but in truth he must have fainted, for a great fracturing burst upon him just as he stepped through the wall of fire. The only remaining entry to the Heir’s Gate was located in the royal palace in Avonar, and that was where he and D’Natheil had begun their crossing. Baglos had no idea at all where any entries to the Exiles’ Gate could be found. “Not today at least,” he said. D’Natheil should have emerged at the principal entry to the Exiles’ Gate; such had been the expectation. And he, Baglos, should have been with the Prince, but this “fracturing” had separated them. He had awakened in the middle of a wheat field with a pounding head and had begun to search the countryside for D’Natheil. For three days he walked in circles, but he couldn’t find the Prince. Thus he had begun visiting towns and villages, used his silver to buy a horse, and revealed himself to strangers so as to inquire after his missing lord.

I tried to digest the idea of a “fracturing,”—an earthquake, perhaps?—but quickly decided to go on to more urgent matters. “Tell us of these Zhid, Baglos.”

Baglos wrinkled his face in disgust. “The Zhid. The Empty Ones. Servants of the three who are called the Lords of Zhev’Na. We are taught that the Zhid, and even the Lords themselves, were once Dar’Nethi or Dulcé like us, their souls lost when the Catastrophe laid waste all the lands beyond Avonar. But I believe they were a terrible mistake of Vasrin Shaper when she put form to the life Vasrin Creator had made. Zhid feed on fear and destruction and despair. And they are powerful warriors, though their Seeking is more to be feared than their swords.”

“This ‘Seeking” is something of sorcery, then?“

“It is their most terrible sorcery. It withers a man, binding him to the Lords in service, sometimes taking his name and leaving him empty or mad, sometimes making him like to the Zhid in all of their evil. A forest can shelter you from them, as can some dwellings, because a forest is of all places the one where life is thick and rich. And if the dwelling is a home where there have been births and deaths and people living there who care for each other, the Zhid can destroy the house itself, but their Seeking cannot penetrate it.”

I asked Baglos much more, but he seemed incapable of answering anything beyond what he had already told us. “On another day,” he kept saying. “Ask me again and I could tell you.” His knowledge was so spotty, his physical capabilities so unprepossessing, and his emotional state so volatile, that I doubted that he could keep D’Natheil alive, much less do anything in the way of guiding him. He obviously cared for his young lord and his people very deeply, but, aside from his remarkable fluency in my language, he demonstrated no power of intellect or intuition to support his duties, especially when one thought of the dangers D’Natheil faced from the law of Leire, as well as his own enemies.

“What must you do now, Baglos?” I asked. “What were you and D’Natheil to accomplish in Leire, if all had gone as you planned?”

Baglos looked at me like a child who has just heard from his parents that he must teach them to walk, instead of the other way around. “I do not know.”

“Surely there was some goal, some deed to perform?”

“I do not know.”

“You are called a Guide. To what place were you to lead him or in what activity? You speak of his duty to ”walk the Bridge.“ Is that it? What does it mean?”

“I know my own duties, woman, but as for D’Natheil’s course and his purpose and what he must do to further them, I cannot say.”

“Have you lost your memory, too?”

“I have not!” Baglos was indignant and turned away from me in a pout.

I exploded. “Then why in the name of all that lives were you sent? If you don’t know these things today, you’re not going to know them tomorrow. How wise can your Preceptors be to put someone who knows so little in this position? It’s madness!”

Baglos turned back to me with an expression of long suffering. “No, no, woman. You do not understand the Dulcé. Did I not tell you our gifts were different from the Dar’Nethi? It is not required to know all these things. If the Heir were to command me, then I would know what was necessary, and I could teach him or lead him as he desired.”

My head was splitting as I tried to understand. “It doesn’t make sense. How could you tell him anything you don’t know?”

“Such is the gift of the Dulcé: to make connections when commanded by our madrisson—one with whom we have been linked by the rite of the madris. If D’Natheil commanded me to lead him to some great city, even if I had never seen it, I could discover the best way to take him there. If he commanded me to teach him the lore of the stars as practiced in your land, then I could do so, but I could not tell you of it now. If the information is to be found, then I can acquire it. But he it was who knew his course and his purpose. It was not necessary for me to be told.” The Dulcé leaned close and his strange eyes hammered at me. “You must help me, woman. We must find a way to make him remember and to finish his preparation, for if we do not, D’Arnath’s Bridge will fall and the Lords of Zhev’Na will feast on the souls of your people as well as ours. We will see no beauty and no joy ever again.”

Though I believed he spoke truth, I wondered about the many things the Dulcé would not or could not tell us. His story was impossibly strange. And woven through it all were the magical names. J’Ettanne. Avonar. Just as they were woven through the life I had fought so hard to forget…