The Soul Weaver

CHAPTER 12

With gestures and shouts, a horrified Vroon tried to shoo the ragtag mob back to their homes. “Begone, begone! The maintainers will see!” But the strange folk shook their heads and stood their ground, and when we started walking again they trailed after us.

“Punishment terrible do they risk for leaving their fastnesses,” said Vroon. “The Guardian did not give them allowing to do so.”

I certainly didn’t know what to do about them. If they had such rules, it was up to them to obey them or take the consequences. “Tell us about the towers,” I said. “These people live in them?”

The firestorm seemed to have left our three companions chastened and ready to answer at least a few of our questions. Each tower housed a single being - a Singlar, Vroon called them. The larger or more elaborate the tower, the longer and more successfully the Singlar had been real. Neither Vroon nor his friends could explain how the Singlars had come to be real, or what they were before they were real. If I understood him correctly - and that was never certain with Vroon - the towers were actually part of the land itself, shaped and nurtured by the thoughts and deeds as well as the hard labor of the residents. That is, they grew.

I looked at the towers differently after that. As we walked through the dark, wet, misshapen land, I wondered if I would observe them changing right in front of me. Of course I didn’t see any such thing. I supposed it was like a person’s growing. You never saw the change happening, not even in yourself. Only the result of it.

No Singlars had names, they told me. A name was the greatest gift one could receive, the culmination of the mysterious process of becoming bounded. But Singlars could not give each other names. I gathered that it would have been something like one loaf of baking bread telling another it was done.

The three admitted, reluctantly, that while traveling the world beyond the moon-door in search of the king, they had come across persons who looked like Singlars and acted like Singlars, and so they had brought them to the Bounded even though they had not been specifically commanded to do so. They promised to introduce me to some of these newcomers, once my business with the Guardian was done.

They didn’t want to talk about the other things they’d done in my world. Vroon said they would do so only at my “royal command.” As I had no intention of encouraging their foolish beliefs in the matter of royalty, I let the matter drop. “We’ll talk more of these things another time.”

“Quietness,” said Ob, nodding sagely and smiling at the other two as he lumbered alongside us.

Vroon smiled and poked Ob’s massive, humped shoulder in a brotherly way, and then leaned close to my shoulder. “Ob has always believed our king will be a quiet person, whose words are deep like his own. One person we found, a noisy, ever-talking one who claimed to be a king already, we took straight to the Guardian, lest perchance we be mistaken. But we always believed that the one we sought would be unmatched in wholeness. As you are.”

Eventually, our strange procession arrived at another cluster of hundreds of towers and wound our way through them to a wide open space paved with stones. A commard, we would call such a place in Leire, suitable for markets or ceremonies or celebrations of thousands of people. Rows of braziers, flame-filled bowls of stone that stood on slender pillars taller than a man, lined three sides of the commard. And on the fourth side, beyond a set of wide steps, stood the largest tower yet, an elongated spiral of pale blue, imposing in its height and sweep, though nowhere wider than five men standing shoulder to shoulder. The tower was the one I’d seen in my dreams.

Our three guides gestured excitedly toward the place. As we ascended the steps, the crowd behind me milled about, people settling themselves on the flagstone paving as if to watch a festival pageant.

“This is the place? The Guardian’s place?” I said, standing on the top step and gawking up at the soaring tower somewhat stupidly. I felt foolish that I couldn’t find a gate to walk through or a door to knock on in the smooth curved flank of the structure.

“No, Majesty, this is your place, formed by many Singlars working as the Source commanded us through the voice of the Guardian. Of course, yes, the Guardian lives here, keeping it for you.” Vroon stood on tiptoe and whispered in my ear. “He will expect your calling out to him.”

I whispered back. “How would I go about doing that properly? I’d like to understand more about the Guardian…” And the towers and this grotesque land and my dreams and a number of other things.

Vroon put a finger to his lips, and pondered the question for a moment. “Mmm. Quite… uh… unimpressed is he with your standing as the Bounded King. He doubts. Willfully, he doubts. Until the king is among us, only the Guardian speaks the Source. When the Bounded King rules, the Guardian’s ears will be closed, and his voice will be very small. But, of course, he dearly wants a name… not that giving it will friendly him completely… ”

“I think I understand,” I said. “Guardian!”

“Who calls?” The words echoed from the stone walls and steps as if the speaker were shouting from out of a barrel.

“A traveler,” I called out. Then, I bent down to Vroon and spoke quietly again. “So do you happen to know a name the Guardian likes?”

“Contemplating Mynoplas was he at my last hearing,” whispered the dwarf, grinning. “A noble name it would be for the Guardian.”

“What seek you here?” echoed the booming voice from the tower.

“Answers. Shelter if the rains come again. Nothing more.” The wind had picked up again and smelled ominously damp as it raced out of the muddy lanes and across the wide commard.‘ I ran my fingers over the blue stone. The surface felt warmer than you might expect and was threaded with tiny veins of purple and silver.

“There are no answers here for you, traveler.”

“But I understand that you have great knowledge, clear authority, high standing in this place. Surely many come to you for answers.”

“Not you.”

“Why not?”

“I await the One Who Makes Us Bounded. Go away.”

Vroon’s estimate of this fellow’s state of mind seemed quite accurate. Exasperating.

“How will you know him - your king?”

“You will not trick me into giving you answers.”

“Then I will take this noble name I carry in my head and spend it elsewhere. Good day, Guardian.”

A very long, straight, and well-proportioned nose poked itself through the curved blue walls, quickly followed by a prominent brow, a pair of wide lips, and a jaw with a sharp, square edge, grizzled with wiry black hair. One cheekbone bulged grotesquely from the otherwise ordinary face of a man of middle years. His eyes protruded from under the dark brows in a rather belligerent fashion.

“Humph! I knew it. You are but a youth. Bounded perhaps… yes, clearly so… but a mere youth, ignorant of important matters. No surprise that you seek answers. A frivolous person. A child.” His gaze skimmed over me from head to toe, then his protruding eyes settled on my own for a moment before looking quickly away. “Well… perhaps not a child. No. Perhaps not excessively frivolous. What name is it you carry?”

“The name Mynoplas dances on my tongue, but this good friend at my side could use such a sturdy name to good effect, so I might give it to him.” I gripped Paulo’s shoulder with one hand and gestured toward my Singlar companions with the other. I tried to act as if I saw heads protruding through stone walls every day. “Your messengers bear their new names nobly: Vroon, Zanore, and Ob. Come, friends, let’s go.”

“Wait! Singlars, has this traveler truly bestowed names?”

Vroon bowed to me first and then to the Guardian. “He is the One Who Makes Us Bounded, Guardian. I feel the wholeness of being Vroon. It is unmatched in glorious truthfulness that I tell you: I am Vroon. I am bounded.”

A rippling murmur swept through the air behind us, surged over us like a whispering tide, then faded into a long sigh.

“Who else…?” The Guardian poked a sinewy neck farther out of the tower and caught sight of the mass of beings sitting quiet and expectant on the commard, their oddness and deformities almost hidden in the shifting pools of light cast by the flaming braziers. “Confound you, disobedient Singlars! Why have you come here? You trespass the law!”

He is the One… the king… the One Who Makes Us Bounded. He ate the white fire in the old one’s cluster. He will save us from the storms. The flurry of words floated on top of the crowd.

I wanted to leave, but we needed shelter.

“No, he is not the king! He is but a boy. Return each to your fastness and wait as you have been commanded. Any who remain outside will be thrown from the Edge.”

I turned and started down the steps.

“Wait, traveler! I shouldn’t - You’re not - But if you’ve given names - Well, come in, then, and I’ll give you hearing. Then we’ll see. Maintainers, herd these unruly Singlars back to where they belong. Whip them if they do not obey.”

Two ranks of thuggish fellows, all wearing elaborately knotted rope belts about their tunics, emerged from the shadows and herded the rapidly dispersing crowd away from the commard. The Guardian popped back into the tower, leaving no clue as to how to follow him. An icy blast of wind curled around the towers and peppered us with sleet.

Vroon grinned up at me, his single purple eye twinkling. “Well done, Majesty.”

“Now, how do I get inside?” Even watching the Guardian’s movements closely, I had missed the door.

“Think of yourself in,” said Vroon. “More in than out. Enclosed, as to say.”

Think of myself in… This world was too odd. But I gave it a try. I considered what might lie on the other side of the curved wall. Then I ran my fingers across it - the smooth blue surface felt like stone - and imagined how it would feel to walk through it. I considered the thwop sound I’d heard for the past hours. No luck.

“In,” said Vroon, quite seriously. “Not through. Not beyond.”

I imagined the curved walls and turned them inside out so they were curved around me instead of away from me. At the same time I brought to mind all the ideas of “in-ness” I could: being under the blankets in my bed, closing a door behind me, walls, clothes, gloves… And then I was in.

No storm raged inside the tower, no wind blew. I saw no dim, gray light or black-and-purple sky or green stars, and certainly I found nothing I might have expected to be inside the narrow, twisting spire of smooth blue stone.

Here I was, gawking again. The chamber in which I stood was large and round, centered by a gracefully spiraling stair that reached toward a simple vaulted dome of pale yellow, almost impossible to see as it was so high. At every one of at least ten levels the tower was ringed by a gallery of sculpted stone. Though this soaring space seemed larger than the outer dimension of the tower could accommodate, I could have accepted that my eyes had been fooled in the uncertain light of the land. But this rotunda was not the whole of the tower’s interior.

Beyond a great open doorway to my left was a chamber that could have enclosed the great hall at Comigor with the ballroom thrown in for good measure, both of them strung together lengthwise and stretched into a chamber that was at least ten times longer than it was wide. To my right was a set of double doors of a size equal to the open doorway on my left, with no hint as to what might lie beyond them. Behind the stair, I glimpsed smaller doors, some open, some closed. The place was immense.

But I didn’t dally to peek into the other rooms, for the Guardian had hurried into the grand hall on my left. I gaped at the vast chamber as I stepped through the doorway.

The vaulted ceilings reached to at least half the height of the rotunda, and the walls, hung with simple rectangles of plain dark green and red fabric, bowed slightly outward. Near the ceiling, far out of casual reach, iron rings held hundreds of burning candles, casting a glow of burnished bronze about the space. The floor was dark green slate, huge, square plates of it, smoothed and set in simple rows.

The room was sparely furnished. On a raised dais at its farthest end stood a simple high-backed chair of smooth light wood, set in front of a heavy gold drapery. A few padded benches stood along the walls, and a long wooden table sat in one corner. Nothing in the way of variety or the gaudy decoration you might see in a Leiran palace marred the simple structures or disrupted the mellow light. But, considering what I’d seen so far of this strange land, it was very fine. Quite pleasing, in fact.

The Guardian hurried toward the far end of the hall and the dais with an irregular, awkward gait. A plain, close-fitting shirt and breeches and a sleeveless gray robe revealed that he was strongly built, thick-chested and wide in the shoulders. His limbs might have been twisted of coarse steel wire. But his joints appeared to be all knobs and knots like his malformed cheek, as if he had three joints everywhere ordinary men had only one. Perhaps that’s what made him so ungainly. Difficult to say how such deformity might affect a man’s fighting abilities.

As I surveyed the room from the doorway, Paulo popped into view beside me, his eyes squeezed shut and his arms thrown over his head. Vroon, Ob, and Zanore were supporting him. “Am I here yet?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You got here.”

“Cripes. This is the damnedest - I told ‘em I wasn’t no good at imagining. They said they weren’t allowed to come in uninvited, but I said that if they didn’t get me in, I’d unbound their hides and bounce them so hard their new names would fall right off again.” He lowered his arms and craned his neck about as I had done. “Demons, how’d they squeeze all this inside a pile of rock?”

“Come on. We need to talk to this fellow.”

By the time we crossed the length of the hall, the Guardian had taken his seat on the dais, not the simple, fine-looking chair, but a backless stool just beside it. Though his apparel seemed plain for such imposing surroundings, he had set a thin gold circlet on his unruly black hair, and a heavy gold chain hung about his neck. From the chain dangled a gold key, embedded with rubies.

“Who is this person?” said the Guardian, glaring at Paulo.

“My companion,” I said as we approached the dais. “And a defender of justice. He allows no one to harm those he cares for.” I failed to mention that I was no longer included in that number, but the Guardian had no way of knowing that.

“You have no need for protection here. He was not invited to come into my fastness.” The man surveyed Paulo with flared nostrils and a curling lip.

“I’ll judge my own needs, sir. And I understand that this fastness is not yours, but was built for this king you are expecting. Is that not the case?”

“I am the Guardian. I hold the King’s Fastness until he comes. You are not he.”

“I make no claims. All I seek is to understand this land and perhaps a place to stay while I hear the story.” And as this person seemed to be the only one with the answers, I needed to stay here. Besides, I’d seen no one else along the road who looked capable of providing much in the way of hospitality.

“About the name you carry… ”

“I couldn’t possibly discuss names until my business is done. Mynoplas is so pleasant on the tongue and sits on the mind so solidly. I’ll try not to forget it. My companion and I are very tired after our long journey.”

“I suppose you wish refreshment.” He didn’t exactly grind his teeth, but he was very close to it.

“That would be very gracious. We’ve traveled a long way with little sustenance. And my new friends, your messengers” - the three of them were still bunched up at the door from the rotunda - “I’d like them taken care of in whatever way they’d prefer. They’ve done good service.”

“If you were the king, you could command me, but you are not. I decide who shares the king’s bounty, and it is not Singlar messengers. They must return to their fastnesses like any other of their kind.”

I didn’t know exactly what prompted the Guardian’s cooperation. Perhaps the anticipation of the mysterious naming ritual, or possibly the secret fear that, despite his assertion and my own, I might truly be the awaited king. But for whatever reason, I was grudgingly accommodated. After commanding a serving man to bring food, he himself led me up the curved staircase to a modest bedchamber.

It might have been a small bedchamber at Comigor: a narrow box-bed piled with blankets, two small square tables and a slightly larger round one, one chair, and two backless stools. On one table stood a washing bowl, and under it a lidded urn that I took for a night jar. Several lamps hung high on the walls, but the room had no hearth. A single slot window opened to the cold and very wet wind, though you couldn’t see out of it worth anything. The wood floor underneath it was damp and puddled.

“This appears quite comfortable, Guardian. My thanks. Now where will my companion sleep?”

“This person is not welcome in the King’s Fastness. He must remain outside.”

“On the contrary, sir… ”

And we went through it all again. The Guardian argued that two guests were just too difficult to manage, that Paulo was dirty and clearly had no business in a king’s house, and was so very… crude. I finally prevailed by saying that Paulo would share my room and my plate if the king’s Guardian could provide no better, threatening to leave immediately if he didn’t agree.

“You ought to keep your eye on his nasty little thoughts,” Paulo said when we were finally left alone. He stuffed an extra blanket into the slot window, which left the room somewhat drier and warmer, while I pulled the chair and a stool close to the table. Two serving women in belted brown tunics and wide white ruffled collars had delivered a tureen of hot soup, a heaping basket of fragrant breads, and four flagons of wine. “I don’t trust that one no farther than my boot. If I could get into his head like you can, I’d do it in a spit, and see what’s filthy growin‘ in there.”

He knew well enough that I’d do no such thing. I sat on the stool and started eating.

“I still can’t figure out this place.” Paulo had dropped into the chair and wolfed down three bowls of soup, four hunks of bread, and most of a flagon of wine before I could blink. “If this is the Breach, then why didn’t we see all this when we got dragged through four years ago? Why don’t the Prince know anything of it?”

“Maybe he does,” I said, but not really believing it. “He told my mother that the Bridge was getting more difficult to cross. That was one reason he couldn’t come to Verdillon more often. He wouldn’t have lied to her. So, maybe this is a different part or a new part.”

“Do you think you’ll get a straight answer out of this fellow?”

I refilled my stoneware cup with the sweet wine. “Probably not. The Source - whatever it is - sounds more promising.”

“I’ll say this: They got good food.”

And so they did. By the time we’d emptied the dishes, I realized the wine was far more potent than I was accustomed to. I was about to roll off the backless stool.

“I should stand first watch,” I said, trying to force the words out past a tongue that seemed three times thicker than usual. “I slept last… this morning… whenever that was we arrived.”

“Looks to me like they got no morning here. And it looks like you got no head for strong spirits, being a nub as you are, so I’d recommend you take the bed and let a man as can keep two eyes open at once do the watching.”

I never liked it when Paulo reminded me he was full-grown and I wasn’t yet, but I was in no condition to argue. Somehow I made it to the bed, and I didn’t know anything else until a clearly exhausted Paulo dragged me out of a dreamless sleep. “Come on. Shake yourself up. I got to take a nap, so’s you’ve got to get up.”

“Don’t want to,” I mumbled. “Best night I’ve had in forever.”

“Look, I’ve caught the devil in here once already, hanging over your bed, and I showed him out with a good look at my knife. He gave me a, ‘Oh, pardon me. Just makin’ sure everything’s cozy,‘ and I’ve heard him outside the door three more times. But now I’m swiped. You got to get up.”

The room was dark, and the bed was comfortable, but Paulo’s words had me awake and alert instantly. “The Guardian was in here?”

“Like I said. The lamps went out all of themselves, right after you was asleep. Wasn’t an hour till he poked himself through the door real quiet. He about chewed his teeth when he found me awake. It’s been three… four hours.”

“Go on to sleep. I’m all right now. I’ll watch.”

He was already asleep as he curled up on the floor. He didn’t stir as I dragged him up onto the bed. He wouldn’t care one way or the other, but it made it less tempting for me to get back under the blankets. I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and sat on the floor. Only once did I hear soft footsteps beyond the door. I asked quietly who was there and got no answer.

A few hours later the lamps mysteriously lit themselves, and a polite serving man summoned us to breakfast.

The Guardian was drinking from a silver cup when we were taken to him. I told Paulo not to mention the midnight visits. We would be as closemouthed as our host was. Leave him guessing and on edge.

“Greetings, traveler,” he said to me, spreading his wide lips over yellowed teeth that spoiled his appearance far more than his bulging cheek. “I look forward to completing our business, so that you - and this other person - can be on your way to wherever you’re going.”

“I’m also looking forward to concluding our business,” I said. “But it may take several days.”

His smile withered from the inside out. “We’ll see about that.”

I bowed to him with my palms extended, as was the Dar’Nethi custom in greeting, but he averted his eyes and motioned a servant to seat us.

Our plates were already heaped with a selection of foods, and the cups were brimming with something so deliciously fragrant that it cleared your head to inhale the steam. His expression near ecstasy, Paulo speared a chunk of sausage with his knife, but I laid my hand on his arm and pushed the plate away. “We’ll choose our food for ourselves.”

Paulo’s disappointment was short-lived, for a dozen or more platters with a fine array of breads and meats and fruit sat in the middle of the table alongside several steaming silver pots. We served ourselves from the generous spread, and Paulo filled new cups.

I was dreadfully thirsty and gulped the hot liquid - wine or cider of some kind - much too fast. The pungent stuff shot straight through my head, so that I came near choking. Just when I was trying to be dignified.

Paulo grinned and was more careful. The Guardian didn’t seem to notice my discomfiture.

The man made no pretense of conversation. Every time I addressed him he began shouting orders at the servants, men and women of all manner of odd appearance who scurried about without speaking. I soon gave it up.

Before Paulo and I were half done, the Guardian popped out of his chair. “I have duties to attend,” he said. “My morning audience awaits. We will have to commence our talk afterward. Our king’s business cannot wait on a stranger’s idle curiosity.”

“If the king happened to be watching, I’d wager he’d be pleased to see his business being taken care of,” said Paulo to me in a whisper that was far too loud, while savoring the last bites of an anvil-sized slice of ham. “But then, too, he might think his Guardian was enjoying it bit too much.”

The Guardian hissed and worked his mouth until spit oozed out of it. As he swirled his robe and stomped away, he bumped into a small table, sending it topsy-turvy across the room, and he elbowed two unwary servants so that they juggled their stacks of dirty dishes like performers at a jongler fair. I tried to stay properly sober. But Paulo wheezed and burst out laughing, and I soon joined in. We laughed until we almost choked, and I had no doubt the Guardian could hear us, no matter where he’d gone.

A foolish lapse, to laugh at a man who felt precarious in his high position. I hoped we wouldn’t regret it.

When we’d eaten so much that we rolled our eyes at the sight of another sausage, we asked the servants to show us to the Guardian’s audience hall. They bowed silently and showed us to the long room we’d seen the day before. It was jammed with people of every possible shape and size. Through the middle of the crowd stretched a single long queue - petitioners, it seemed. The Guardian, arrayed in his gray robe and gold circlet, sat on his stool beside the chair in front of the gold hanging.

I almost felt sorry for having annoyed the Guardian so sorely, as he spent the entire morning snapping at everyone who appeared before him. The petitioners were asking the Guardian to intercede with the Source for help in re-creating towers destroyed in the firestorm, in resolving disputes regarding property or insults, or in redressing their grievances about services unperformed or agreements broken. The session could have been the duke’s assizes at Comigor but for the oddly shaped petitioners and the bizarre circumstances of their business.

A one-legged man spoke of a well of stone chips, drained dry by a neighboring fastness. A woman with three snakelike fingers on each hand complained that a newly arrived Singlar was harvesting more of something called tappa from her diggings than was his right. She wanted him to be starved for some span of time until the difference was made up.

People gasped and shrank backward when four men hauled in a monstrous hairy creature, tied with sturdy ropes and rags to muzzle it. The catlike beast’s matted hair and clawed hands were caked with blood, and it fought wildly to get free. I couldn’t understand why they had brought the animal indoors instead of caging it while they did their business.

“This creature has raged through the Gray Fastnesses for a manylight, Guardian,” said one of the four when the Guardian gave the group permission to begin. “It destroys weak fastnesses and rips up tappa, but does not eat or use it. Now matters have worsened. One Singlar was dead a twolight since, and another in the light just past. We found this beast… eating… the dead one. Our asking is to be allowed to slay the murdering creature before it eats us all.”

The beast growled and strained against its bonds.

“The Source has said Singlars must not kill creatures with minds,” said the Guardian, nodding. “But clearly a beast that eats a Singlar is mindless. Your petition is granted.”

Two Singlars held the writhing animal, while two of them forced back its grotesque head and bared its throat. But its struggles dislodged the binding across its mouth.

“I ate no Singlar!” cried the beast, snarling. “My den-mates will avenge this lie. And no Singlar in the Gray Fastnesses will live a tenlight more. They - ”

But the creature, whether monstrous man or intelligent beast, did not finish his threat. One of his captors plunged a sharpened stick into his throat. As they dragged the carcass out of the hall, the blood that streaked the slate floor appeared quite red and ordinary.

“This place is the damnedest… ” said Paulo.

“It’s part of the Breach,” I said. “All manner of strange creatures could exist here.”

The next petitioners were two Singlars together: one a dark-haired girl of perhaps my age, whose face on one side was fairly pretty, though the other side was horribly disfigured, and the other a man about Paulo’s age. The fellow looked very odd for this place in that he had no visible deformity. But when he began to speak, he could scarcely get out a whole word for his stuttering. He asked permission for the girl and himself to share a single fastness, a matter that didn’t seem too mysterious to me, but clearly shocked the Guardian and the crowd of other petitioners.

“We… we’ve feelings to… to be t… t… together,” said the young man. “But our headman says no Singlar has done so… ever… and w… w… we must make asking.”

“Feelings? Together?” The Guardian gaped like a particularly stupid fish and then exploded. “Inconceivable! Are we to throw out all our customs for Singlars’ feelings? How dare you propose such a thing? Maintainers! Take this villain and flog him ten. The female is to be taken to the Edge to see where she is headed if this insolence persists. Leave her there to make her own way back to her fastness. If these two speak even a single word to each other ever again, they are to be put over the Edge.”

Gasps rose from some observers. Others nodded their heads. The girl dropped her hands to her sides and wept silently as the youth was dragged away. But as he wrestled with the two thuggish maintainers who grabbed his arms, he cried out after her. “Denya!”

The crowd fell into stunned silence.

“Hog him fifty!” roared the Guardian, shooting out of his chair like a bird startled from its roost. “And bind him outside his fastness for a twelvelight. He must be an example. To throw him over the Edge would take his crime from our eyes. So is the judgment of the King’s Guardian.” He left the dais, sweeping through the gold fabric hanging behind it.

Two more of the maintainers, easily identified by the knotted rope belts about their tunics, led the sobbing girl away. The crowd broke up and straggled out of the room, murmuring in shock. A name! He’s named her! A portent… evil begets evil… inconceivable… should be thrown from the Edge… will unbound us all…

“Demons!” said Paulo as we walked toward the curtain. “Don’t leave me here. If a fancy for a lady gets you ten lashes and calling her by name fifty… ”

We stood unobtrusively in a corner, watching the crowd of Singlars file out of the audience hall and through the rotunda. I glanced at Paulo, wondering if his thoughts had wandered the same path as mine. Though most Leiran commoners were wed by eighteen, Paulo’s comments about the village girls near Verdillon had always concluded with an avowal that none of them could compare to some particular girl he had met in Avonar before he went to Zhev’Na. I guessed that a Dar’Nethi family wasn’t likely to welcome Paulo’s attention any more than the Guardian and his folk welcomed their two rebels.

When the hall was almost empty, I bade Paulo wait in the audience hall and grabbed the sleeve of one of the house servants who was hurrying past, licking his fingers and brushing crumbs and hair from his white ruffled collar. “Please take me to the Guardian. He agreed to meet with me when his audience session was over.”

Without a word, the servant bowed and led me, not through the gold curtain, but around through the passageway to a proper door - perhaps so I could see the two maintainers who stood beside the door holding quite normally efficient-looking swords and spears. The servant knocked, stepped inside at a growling summons, and, moments later, held the door open for me to enter.

The small room, furnished with a wide table, several chairs, and a shelf with cups and porcelain jars on it, was tucked away in an alcove behind the gold curtain. A retiring room, a Leiran noble would have called such a retreat adjacent to his audience hall. The Guardian sat behind the large table, hammering his fingers on the polished wood top, fuming. The morning’s events had clearly unsettled him.

When the servant closed the door behind me, the Guardian jerked his head toward one of the chairs, and then popped up and strode around the room, fingering the ruby-studded key about his neck. On every circuit his rapid pace billowed the heavy gold curtain that separated him from the audience hall. “Singlars… sharing a fastness… male and female… Disgusting! And names! I must report this to the Source… seek counsel to stop such perfidy. Fifty lashes were not enough. Should have been a hundred. Two hundred.”

“Your customs here are very different from those of other lands,” I said, folding my hands in my lap. The chair and its lumpy cushions were uncomfortable, but I tried not to shift or fidget.

“Question our customs, and I’ll show you and your insolent companion the same punishment as that wicked Singlar! We are satisfied with our ways, and you’ll not come here and muddle them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you can do, or what any empty-headed Singlar thinks you are. I make the rules for the Bounded!” His distress seemed to have lowered his guard on his tongue.

“Remember, Guardian, all I want is answers.” Well, I also wanted to meet this Source, whoever or whatever it was, but this didn’t seem the time to mention the fact.

Abruptly, he stopped his pacing, returned to his chair, and began our interview as if nothing had happened. I had come to this meeting alone, not wanting his antipathy for Paulo to make an accommodation impossible. Paulo should be just beyond the curtain, close enough to come if I called, though I wasn’t sure how well he could hear.

“What answers do you seek, traveler? I have many responsibilities. The dwarf and his companions have clearly disrupted your life with their mistaken opinions. They will be disciplined for it, but not too severely, due to your kind interest in their welfare.” He smiled, but he could have cracked nuts in his jaw. “I would send you on your way as soon as possible with our apologies and good wishes.”

I played it just as he did. Answers were the important thing. “I appreciate your time and patience, Guardian. So, tell me, what is this land? Where do you and the other people come from, and why do you seek your king in my dreams? That should do to start.”

He sat back in his chair, his spine straight, his shoulders rigid. “This land is, of course, the Bounded. We have lived here always, except for the few persons that our overeager seekers have brought us from other bounded worlds. The Source has said that our king would come from another bounded world and would discover us in his dreams, but that he might be lost upon his way. Therefore I was commanded to choose seekers to go to certain places and be visible to the dreamer, so perhaps to lure him here, and then I was to send the seekers through the moon-door to find him. And so I have done. I know nothing of their dealings with you. Many many persons dream of the Bounded, I am sure. Beyond that, we are as we are. It is satisfactory.”

“And the Unbounded… what is that?” If there was a Bounded, its opposite must also exist.

He shifted a bit, and a shadow touched his eyes and his face. “It is beyond the Edge. It is nothing. Terrible. Nothing.”

He was afraid. His fear, deep and profound, shaped his thoughts and deeds. To know more of that fear could be a useful thing. “Was the Bounded at one time the Unbounded?”

He pursed his thick lips and clasped his hands together tightly on his fine table, considering his answer as if my question were not rampant nonsense. “Some say it. I don’t hold with it. I say we are as we are. I certainly have no memory of such a time.”

“Why is your king to lead you to victory over all bounded worlds?”

At this, the Guardian drew himself up even tighter and glared at me. “The dwarf told you this?”

“I heard it said.”

“He should not have said it. The dwarf and those like him are too eager. You are not the king. You are not to know our business.”

“But now I do, so you may as well explain.”

He considered for so long a while that I was sure he would refuse. But after a time he rose and circled the room again, brushing invisible specks of dust from the plain tables and chairs set about the room. “You have seen a firestorm?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose they are quite common outside the Bounded.” The slightest hint of a question in this statement.

“No. Not common.”

“But you know of them. The Singlars claim you caused one to stop, so you must understand their nature.”

“That was only a coincidence. In fact, I was going to ask you about them. What are they? How often do they occur?”

“Humph. They come from the same place as you, so your question is clearly foolish and deceitful. The storms tell us that those outside the Bounded - maybe you and your uncivil companion - do not care about our survival. The Source prophesies that our king will not allow this destruction to continue, and that he will shape the destiny of all bounded worlds. We do not know how that is to occur. Because of the firestorms, some believe it will be a great violence, and thus our king will be victorious in this conflict.”

“And what do you think?”

He stopped behind his table, directly in front of me, and drew up to his full height. “I think only as the Source commands me. But I have not yet seen our king. So I encourage our people to nurture their fastnesses and wait.”

“Does the Source know the nature of the storms?”

“The Source knows all.”

“Can you take me to the Source?”

“Certainly not!” He ground his thick, knobbed fingers into the edge of the table. “Only the Guardian and the king may visit the Source. I think you’ve asked quite enough questions, traveler. I think you should take your leave of the Bounded.” He pointed to the door.

The Guardian’s fear washed over me like a heavy sea lapping at the sides of a boat. Frightened men were always more dangerous than they might appear, so I didn’t think it wise to push him further. I hadn’t forgotten the two beefy maintainers outside the door.

I stood up to go and bowed respectfully. “I am not your king, Guardian. I have no desire to be a king of anything. I just want to understand about my dreams, and about your world, and how they are related. Nothing more. And so I present you with this proposition. Allow me to stay here for a while. Tell the Source of me and see if it is willing to hear my questions. If not, I promise to go peacefully, leaving you my sincere thanks. And in either case - answers or none - I will grant you the name you desire.”

“You make no claim?” Incredulity dripped from his tongue.

“No claim. I don’t want to rule anyone. Ever. I’m not suited to it. And I have no wish to make my home in the Bounded.”

He dropped into his chair and drummed his fingers while he looked at me. When he made his decision, he leaned forward. “And if I tell you the Source refuses to answer… ”

“… I will present you the name Mynoplas, and then I’ll go. Do we have a bargain?”

“For now you may stay. Until I consult the Source.”

He dearly wanted a name, for he was still very much afraid of me.