The Soul Weaver

CHAPTER 21

Ven’Dar

Prince D’Natheil’s first meeting with the Leiran youth filled me with tremendous hopes. The Prince had such great love for the boy, and as he sat at the bedside through the long afternoon, I could sense his desire to unleash it. But the boy held back. Whether he had truly turned traitor, or whether he had seen the changes in the Prince and decided he couldn’t trust him, I didn’t know, but I grieved for them both. If the youth maintained his silence, the consequences could be severe, not so much for him as for D’Natheil.

On the next morning, Bareil told me how the Prince had let the youth escape, and I understood his plan. I contrived to be at his headquarters when the Heir returned from Nentao, hoping to hear that the boy had indeed been moved by the distressing sight of the Lady, but I received only a brief account of the Prince’s failure. With a troubled heart I saw him plunge into his war once again, and return late that night covered in blood, his warriors praising the glories of his killing. If this continued, a time would come very soon when I wouldn’t be able to reach him any more.

And so on that evening, unknown to the Prince or even my madrissé, I slipped through a portal to Avonar. Soon after midnight I let myself into the peaceful darkness of Nentao by a side door. I had no fear of reprisal. After all, it was my own house.

I hadn’t known the Lady Seriana before the distraught Prince summoned me in his darkest hour, begging me to save her life. The Healers called to repair her injury had felt her slipping away. She would not grasp the tethers they proffered, as if life was become too painful to embrace any longer.

“Ah, gods, Ven’Dar,” he had said, weeping at her bedside. “I’ve killed her and myself together. And she’ll be gone before I can repair what I’ve done.” Guilt can twist truth so terribly.

I had drawn together what I knew of her from four years of the Prince’s friendship, and what I knew of this man she had loved beyond death, and I had worked a winding for her.

One never knows what will be the exact result of a winding. You create with a sense of your desired outcome, in the Lady’s case the necessity for holding on to a life so beloved and so valued, and you weave it into the words and the knowledge and the power that has been given you, until you are so filled with the enchantment you think it must leak out of your skin. Only then can you spin it out, as the fisherman casts out his line, and hope that the sum of your efforts lands somewhere close to your intended mark.

She lived, and for a brief hour we thought she might awaken to herself. But as the days passed our hopes faded, and when her eyes opened at last, no life dwelt in them. It was as if her injury had healed, but her soul would not. It was then the Prince asked if he could bring her to Nentao. “She wasn’t ready to come to the palace,” he said, bitterly. “She always said it was D’Natheil’s place, not mine. Clearly, she was more right than she knew. I can’t leave her there. And I’ll have to be away so much… ”

The Leiran youth was locked in my root cellar, snoring heartily, his hands and feet secured to a drainage pipe that was embedded in the ceiling. The small window and the door were warded and his limbs restricted by various simple, easily detectable enchantments.

I sat down on a crate of turnips and stared at him until he woke. Almost an hour passed. But I’d always found touching a sleeping stranger a dreadfully rude way to wake him up. And sometimes dangerous.

“Trussed you up like a goose, have they?” I said, when the boy’s eyes popped open, and he bolted to a sitting position amidst an avalanche of vegetables, letting out an exclamation of a common barnyard variety when he got tangled in the ropes and whacked his head on the pipe.

“Aye.” He slumped against the carrot bin.

“My name is Ven’Dar. I am one of the Preceptors of Gondai. I understand you are familiar with us - both our better parts, and those we’d prefer not to let everyone make jest of?”

“Mmm.” He acknowledged the truth with a sour twist to his lips.

“I thought so. Now if I were to untie your hands and feet, and make any number of promises of my honor and goodwill, and any number of threats regarding any attempt on your part to get away, would you consider talking with me for a while?”

He shrugged, his expression uncommunicative. Clearly he had reservations.

I did the untying, but skipped the promises and threats.

“To start, I’ll tell you that I’m an advisor of Prince D’Natheil, and also his close friend. I can’t set you free. I wouldn’t want you to be mistaken about that.”

“I figured. Did he send you to steal what’s in my mind?”

“Do you think he plans to do that?”

“Before today I wouldn’t have thought it. You’ll have to ask him.”

“You’ve been missing for four months. Believed dead. Mourned. And now you reappear in the vicinity of Zhev’Na, and you don’t deny your loyalty to one we believe to be our deadliest enemy. You weren’t expecting to be questioned about it?”

“I wasn’t expecting the Lady to be like she is. I wasn’t expecting the Prince to… to be like he is.”

“You find the Prince changed?”

“Demonfire… changed! I don’t - Well, just say that if you’d have told me he’d gone and got himself switched around again, I’d be more believing it, than that he’s the Prince I knew. But then, every once in a while, there’s a word or a look in his eye… and I know it’s really him. That’s worse.”

A perceptive young man. And a heart that was exactly as I’d been told.

“You swore to the Prince that his son was not allied with the Lords of Zhev’Na. Have you any proof of that?”

“No. None but my word and his - the young master’s, I mean.”

“Is that why you were so anxious to speak to the Lady Seriana?”

The boy narrowed his eyes. “So you are here to read my head?”

“No. Not only did the Prince not send me here, I have a feeling that he’ll be very angry with me when he learns of it. That’s why it is so important that we come to some understanding. I know that you’ve loved and honored the Prince, as do I, and I need to know if such is still the case or if the young Lord has turned you against him.”

“I told the Prince yesterday as I’d give him my life or my legs or whatever he asked. I wasn’t lying. I shouldn’t have to say it again.”

If this boy was lying, then he was by far the most convincing prevaricator I’d ever encountered. Perhaps lying was a particular skill of those who lived in the mundane world, one that we Dar’Nethi never had perfected.

“That’s what I thought. So answer my question. Why is it so important that you speak to the Lady?”

“Because she’s the only one as I can give the message. The young master believes the Prince won’t listen - as has been shown true - so he needs the Lady to convince the Prince to do what needs done. If she was dead, I’d be able to tell the Prince direct, but since she’s alive I can’t, and I’ll be shiv’d if I know what in blazes I’m to do now!”

I sat for a moment trying to sort out what I’d just heard and had no luck at all. So I pulled a cloth pouch from the pocket of my robes. “Would you like something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Another clue that all was not as usual with the boy. The Prince had told me a great deal about Paulo. I took a handful of dried duskberries from the pouch and munched on them while I watched the boy watching me. I felt a question forcing its way out of him.

“So” - he scraped at a wayward carrot with his fingernail, concentrating on its pale skin - “does Radele know you’re here talking to me?”

“No, he does not. You can trust me, Paulo. I promise.” Of course, I had to hope he wasn’t fool enough to believe just any Dar’Nethi’s promise. Only mine. “I need you to trust me.”

“I don’t know you.”

“True. What if I were to share a terrible secret with you?”

“Why would you do that? Don’t you believe the young master is evil like everyone else does? And if he’s evil, then I’m probably evil, too.”

“I choose to believe in you, young Paulo, because if the young Lord is corrupt and you are corrupt, then there’s no saving the Prince. He might be able to save Avonar or he might not, but he - the man you know and honor as I do - will be irretrievably lost. I’ve left to the Prince the task of saving the worlds, but in the stupidly prideful way of Dar’Nethi Preceptors, I’ve taken on myself the task of saving him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know of his two lives, and I would guess you understand that your friend, the man you admire so deeply, is a person named Karon, a Dar’Nethi Healer snatched from death sixteen years ago.” Astonishing to think of what my audacious colleague Dassine had done, binding a dead man’s soul to a pyramid-shaped crystal the size of my hand, holding that soul prisoner for ten years, and then pouring it into the body of a dying prince.

“I know that.”

“And you know that, in some way, he is also the Prince D’Natheil, a magnificent warrior, but one who glories in violence, a man driven and controlled by his anger… ”

It is always a delight to see the dawn of understanding on a human visage. One of life’s greatest pleasures.

“You’re saying that he’s coming to be D’Natheil and not the other! He even said it - that the Prince I knew mightn’t exist any more.”

“He sees it happening, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. He’s fought it since he took up residence in Avonar, believing it was only a matter of his will to make sure D’Natheil stayed in his place. But will hasn’t been enough, for his own nature has conspired against him. Anger is the catalyst, you see, for anger was the core of D’Natheil’s life.”

Had Dassine miscalculated? Had the murdered Prince D’Natheil’s soul not completed its journey beyond the Verges before Dassine displaced it with his prisoner? We would likely never know. But the evidence was clear: More of D’Natheil remained than Dassine could ever have intended.

“When our Prince saw the results of the Zhid raids on a village, or remembered the horrors of Zhev’Na and the innocents who suffered from them, D’Natheil’s anger began to eat away at him. Slowly. So slowly he wasn’t sure of what was happening and told no one, not even his wife. But it was only after his counselor Jayereth’s murder, when he suspected his son had betrayed his trust, that he came to believe he was going to lose the battle. Before I could discover a way to help him, his trap was sprung, and our worst fears realized.”

Paulo nodded. “That’s when he come to kill the young master. I never saw him angry like that. Not in Zhev’Na when he was a slave. Not at the Gate when the Zhid made him fight.”

“Yes. And on that darkest of nights, when his beloved wife was at the point of death… Paulo, he could not heal her. He could not even begin.”

“Blazes.”

“He’s been able to work no healing since that day. The foundation of his life has been destroyed. He sees his soul as lost, and his wife lost, and his son, and he can do nothing at all about any of it.”

The Prince carried Dassine’s crystal with him everywhere now - his suspended death awaiting his touch. I feared for his life as well as his reason and his soul.

“Why are you telling me this? I’m a nobody horse trainer. You need a sorcerer to help him.”

“Because yesterday when he sat at your bedside, I saw the spark of his last hope. He desperately wants to believe you. He wants you to convince him that his son is not what he thinks. He knows that if he slays his own son, he will lose himself forever, but unless you give him a choice, he will have to do it.”

“But I’ve got no proof, only what I know to be true. And if I tell him what I know - even if I could - it would just show him where to find the young master so as to kill him. The Prince even said that’s what he intends.”

“So it appears we’re at an impasse. You need to speak to the Lady, in hopes she can sway the Prince to listen to his son. But the Lady cannot hear you, or if she hears, she can do nothing about it. The young Lord himself cannot appear before the Prince to state his arguments, because he would end up without his head. And please, explain to me once more, why is it you cannot plead his case before the Prince?”

The boy kicked at a crate of shallots. “Because the young master put an enchantment on me that I could only give the message to the Prince if the Lady was dead! We never figured on her being like this.”

“I was hoping that’s what you meant.”

The boy’s face twisted into such a perfect image of confusion that I burst into entirely inappropriate laughter, a habit I’ve never overcome since my far-distant youth.

“Tell me, good Paulo,” I said, when I had sobered enough to say it. “What do you know of this Radele?”

I had warned the Prince not to put his family at Men’Thor’s mercy, not in such a delicate matter as young Gerick. But full of self-condemnation at his indiscretion and mistrusting his own affection for the boy, he had chosen a bodyguard who would be impervious to such emotion, the son of Men’Thor and grandson of Ustele, the only Preceptorate member to suggest publicly that D’Natheil should be overthrown and another Heir named to lead Avonar to war with the Zhid. The Prince believed that Ustele’s and Men’Thor’s opposition was rooted in legitimate care for Avonar. I had no such conviction.

Paulo spoke grudgingly. “Radele is a good fighter. Helped run off the bandits from the merchant caravan we traveled with. And he’s a gentleman, I suppose. Educated. Manners and all that… ”

“But he disdains those who are not Dar’Nethi.”

“Every moment of every day he was looking down our necks, all the way down into our boots, thinking we were dirt. But what he hated most was the young master. The young master knew real quick that Radele wasn’t there to protect him. The Lady maybe, but not him. Radele was there to watch - ” The boy abruptly clamped his mouth shut and glanced up at me. “Why do you care? You’re Dar’Nethi, too.”

“Did you ever see Radele do anything but watch?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I felt him withdrawing. “I don’t know what you want.”

“As you said, Radele is an extremely skilled warrior. He is also a Dar’Nethi of more than moderate talents, as are his father and grandfather. Let me tell you a story from the long past, before old Ustele was named Preceptor. A woman called S’Patra, a Speaker of immense talent, was a candidate for Preceptor, as was Ustele. D’Natheil’s grandfather was torn between the two. Both were renowned for skill and loyalty. Both had fought the Zhid for years on the walls of Avonar. But S’Patra and Ustele had very different ideas on whether to concentrate our efforts on strengthening the Bridge or pursuing the war. Eventually, the Heir named S’Patra to the Preceptorate.”

Paulo was listening intently.

“In her term as Preceptor, S’Patra discovered how the Heir might cross the Bridge, even though it was designed to allow no passage. But indeed, in the ensuing months, the war went very badly. The Zhid captured much of the healthy land that remained outside the Vales, making it a part of the Wastes. But only a few months into her tenure, S’Patra fell victim to a wasting disease of the mind, a strange malady that left her in silence. Ustele, as you might imagine, was named to take her place. After the Prince called on me to help with the Lady, I searched through our archives and discovered this incident. A rare illness. Only a few similar cases occurred through the years. Another victim held a position of influence as a judge, a position Men’Thor took over when the man was stricken, thereby coming to great prominence in our community.

“So, you see, these stories make me wonder. I see no cause for the Lady Seriana’s condition. She is no frail creature to be confounded by adversity, but a strong woman, who has borne immense trials with fortitude. Ustele and his family have no use for the Prince as we know him, and perhaps they also know that if anything would transform the Prince in the way they desire, it would be harm to his wife at the hand of his son.”

It was when I mentioned the silencing that the boy remembered something. When I fell quiet, he sat thoughtfully, chewing on a knuckle. I let him be for a while, but the night was passing, and eventually, I spoke up. “Tell me what you remember, young Paulo. We are allies.”

He let out a slow breath. “There was something… a man Radele said was listening at our door in Montevial, and we were afraid he’d heard things to compromise the Lady and the young master… ”

Paulo told me the disturbing tale of Radele and his enchantment - surely the same silencing spell used on the Lady - and how the only way for the spell to be released was for the man to recite something in his head. “A list, you say, to undo the enchantment, but no hint of what list it might be?”

The boy shook his head. “None. Only that it was things the man had no means to know.”

A list could be anything - kings, flowers, stars - connected to Gondai, it seemed, if a man of the mundane world had no way to know it. Even so, I could not even begin to guess what it might be. I needed more information. “Paulo, I ask for your consent to read you. Something may be buried in your memories of Radele or of that particular event that can tell me what I need to know to unlock the Lady’s enchantment. I’ll swear on anything you wish that I’ll not probe beyond Radele. I’ll not pry into your secrets.”

“I give you no leave to do that!” His voice was steel, all his mistrust and wariness brought back instantly. “I won’t allow it.”

Swallowing my disappointment, I prayed that a night’s consideration would change the boy’s mind. I couldn’t blame him. He was in an unfortunate position.

“Then I’ll ask that you watch and listen carefully as you serve your Lady, especially when Radele is about.”

“I will,” he said. “I’d give most anything to help her.”

“I believe you.”

I had to leave the boy as I’d found him. Apologizing, I secured his wrists and ankles to the pipes again. Then I took myself through the dark and silent house to my rooms, thinking to steal a few hours’ sleep before returning to my post in the desert. If I was clever, no one need know I’d ever been away. But, of course, that was before I cast a word at the lamp that sat on the perennial stack of books by my bed. The white flame burst into life and revealed Radele lounging in my favorite chair. The sword and knife I had deposited on the bed upon my arrival were firmly in his hands.

“An interesting young man, is he not, Preceptor? Filled with secrets we would give our fortunes to know, yet he has no power, no talent, and cannot make sense of two words together if they happen to be written on a page. How far are the Dar’Nethi fallen when such a lump of ignorance is our Heir’s last spark of hope?”

“Or when a Dar’Nethi stoops to spy upon his Prince or his Preceptors?” What a fool I’d been not to take the simplest precautions. He must have heard everything.

“Spies are the tools of the enemy, Master Ven’Dar. The Prince has commanded me to watch and guard, and I do his will. You, on the other hand, have trespassed his express command that no one is to speak to the boy or attempt to learn what he has to tell.”

I wrestled with a balky latch and threw open the window, regretting my decision to choose a bedchamber on the second floor of the house. I was not decrepit, but my bones would not tolerate a two-story leap to the flagstone courtyard.

“We will not argue the definitions of spies or traitors, or even of enemies, Radele. I’ve come to my home to sleep for a while, so I respectfully request that you withdraw.”

“That is not possible, Master.” The young man stood and tossed my weapons on the floor, well out of my reach. Then he walked around me slowly, getting closer with each circuit, forcing me to turn if I wished to keep watch on him. Which I did. He shook his head as he eyed me. “We are at a dangerous pass. Your attempt to keep our Prince weak, encouraging his unhealthy attachment for people who are not our own, has become intolerable. It’s time for you - ”

“To be silenced?”

His expression did not change. “D’Arnath created the Bridge to maintain the balance of the universe, not to enslave our world to the other. I never appreciated it so fully until the Prince sent me there. We diminish ourselves by associating with the mundanes, Preceptor. You should see how they live - the noise and filth and ignorance, the violence they perform against each other. They do nothing but strengthen the Lords. Those who are so enraptured by them must be convinced to let go.”

“It must be marvelous to have so clear a vision.”

Radele quit his circling, opened the door, and motioned me into the passage. “Master, your meddling must cease. For now, I will escort you to safer quarters.”

“And if I insist on sleeping in my own bed?”

“That will not be possible.”

We Dar’Nethi were not accustomed to political dispute. Since the Catastrophe, our goals had been so singular and so formidable that we’d had little difference of opinion that could be translated into conspiracies or intrigues or struggles for power. The Preceptor Dassine changed all that, of course, with his belief that a dying young Healer named Karon, a descendent of our long-exiled brothers and sisters, held somewhere in his essence the secret of defeating the Lords and repairing the damage they’d done. Dassine had been stubborn, rash, not trusting his fellow Preceptors to believe a man born so far from our war and returned to life and power under such bizarre circumstances could untangle our predicaments. Yet time and circumstance now conspired against long debate, and our influential people were choosing up sides. I, who had spent my life in the study of those beliefs and practices that made the Dar’Nethi unique among the races of living beings, believed Dassine was right. I could not allow Ustele and his purists to destroy the prince Dassine had given us.

And so, as Radele raised his hand to work his silencing on me, I raised mine to cast a winding over him. My enchantment was formed of doubt, uncertainty, wavering… drawing the essence of the words to shape the spell. I overwhelmed him with questions and ambiguity, stuffed his belly with unnamed anxiety, bound his hand with indecision - a devastating fate for a young man so sure of himself.

Radele’s hand trembled and fell, and he watched uncertainly as I moved past him toward the door. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far. A tall, straight-backed man in red filled the doorway.

“Ah, Preceptor Ven’Dar, none of this… ” I felt the abrupt starved dizziness of a Word Winder whose cast has been snapped before completion, something like having one’s stomach and eyes excised at the same moment. It is a most distressing sensation, especially when one suspects something even more unpleasant is to follow.

Men’Thor was an imposing man. His padded doublet was elaborately embroidered and immaculately clean, his boots brushed. His gray hair and beard were trimmed and neat. His whole demeanor cried a reproach to my sand- and sweat-crusted skin and my rumpled shirt and breeches, though he, too, had come here from the battlefield.

I reeled in my cast, taking a breath and squeezing my eyes shut for a moment to convince my mind that my body was still attached. Of course, as I recovered, I considered whether to cast again. Men’Thor, whose expression never changed, whose voice was always calm and equitable, and whose mind could not be influenced once it was settled on an idea, was a very powerful sorcerer. I was likely stronger. But I was not interested in dueling with any Dar’Nethi, as long as the man prevented his son’s vicious foolery. Though Men’Thor and I disagreed on many matters, including strategy and ethics, we shared a common enemy - the Zhid and the Lords. So I held back.

The only unpleasantness I had to endure for the moment was Men’Thor herding me back toward Radele, appropriating my chair that his son had so recently vacated, and lecturing us both like schoolboys. “Master Ven’Dar would be well within his rights to have you exiled, boy! How shall a father represent his fool of a son to repair such injury? How shall a Dar’Nethi justify raising his hand to his Preceptor or a Preceptor to one of his own brother Dar’Nethi, while, at the very moment, the Vale of Seraph burns at the hand of the Lords of Zhev’Na?”

“Seraph!” I said. Seraph, the southernmost Vale of Eidolon, was a land of sparkling streams, green hillsides, and white cliffs hung with red-flowered vines. Its perennial springtime produced the sweetest airs in Gondai. The white stone towns and villages housed hardy folk who prided themselves on their abundant fields of grapes so near the edge of the Wastes.

But the significance of Men’Thor’s news stretched well beyond the tragedy of a bountiful land touched by war. Since the earliest years of our war with the Lords, when they ravaged Grithna, Erdris, and Pylathia, the Zhid had been barred from the Vales. We had thought the remaining Vales secure as long as Avonar stood.

“Our enemies have penetrated the southern wards and struck the towns of Tanis and Ephah, withdrawing before the Prince could respond,” said Men’Thor, shaking his head. “But the Lords’ true power is revealed. Tomorrow the Prince will walk the ruins of Ephah, knowing that the fate of the world hangs by the thinnest of threads. If the Zhid can take the Vales, untouched for a thousand years, Avonar can be surrounded. And that will be the end, as surely as if the Lords’ plot to destroy the Bridge had succeeded or the demon son been anointed Heir.”

“How was it possible?” I said. “The Watch… ”

“Someone has compromised the Vale Watch. Though only the Prince and the Preceptors knew the secret of the watch, such an event was hardly unexpected now the Destroyer has shown himself.”

“The Prince will be forced to listen to you now, Father,” said Radele. “Take down the Destroyer first, then Zhev’Na itself.”

“You assume it’s the Prince’s son who has caused this?” I said.

“The Prince believes it,” said Men’Thor. “He says it’s possible the Destroyer has read everything of Avonar’s defense from him. As soon as he is able, he will come here to extract the Destroyer’s plan from our prisoner. Then we’ll rid the world of the demon son.”

“I don’t grasp your logic, Men’Thor. We’ve had no luck flushing the Lords from Zhev’Na in all these years. If the boy has joined them in their stronghold, their position will be all but impregnable.”

“If such is the case, the Prince says he will lead the host of Avonar against Zhev’Na.” Doom and awe gave shape to Men’Thor’s words, leaching the color from the lamplight.

“At last!” cried Radele. “His eyes are opened!” He strode briskly to the window and gripped the sill as if his own eyes might witness the new battle already engaged.

My spirit recoiled at Radele’s glee. The host of Avonar against Zhev’Na… Our last resort. Every man, woman, and child to march on the desert fortress wielding sticks and swords and magic in a monstrous, mad crusade that would result in the annihilation of either the Lords or the Dar’Nethi. Ustele and his family had been championing such an impossible assault for generations. They had long proclaimed that it was only our hesitation - our doubt in our own power and our reluctance to commit ourselves - that had caused the war to last so long. But to buy our safety with slaughter… even in victory we would lose.

“This is madness, Men’Thor,” I said. “The Prince will never agree to such a plan. I know his true heart, and if I have to stand vigil and cast for a thousand nights, I will convince him to renounce this absurdity.”

“Let me tell you what is madness, Preceptor,” said Men’Thor. “A Prince who cannot tell you his name from one day to the next. A Prince whose loyalties are compromised to the verge of corruption, whose ‘true heart’ is fixed on a mundane woman and a boy who gave his eyes and his soul to become the Fourth Lord of Zhev’Na. An Heir of D’Arnath who can no longer offer the most rudimentary service of his healing gift.”

His voice flowed with the grave sincerity he used with equal skill to notify a mother of her warrior daughter’s death or to mediate a disagreement with his tailor. It was Men’Thor the Effector’s unflappable rationality that had convinced many Dar’Nethi that he was better equipped to lead us than our passionate Prince.

“For a thousand years, Ven’Dar, we have allowed the Lords to taunt us and feed on our weakness, to keep us prisoned behind our walls and hiding in our little valleys as if this were the life Dar’Nethi were born to. Now they are a hand’s-breadth from putting their nurtured spawn in D’Arnath’s chair, and you would not have our Prince fight them? You suggest that some mysterious conjunction of the planets has betrayed our safety, rather than the depraved child who swore undying loyalty to our enemies. And you dare call our course absurd!” Though neither volume nor timbre had changed, Men’Thor burst to his feet with the intensity of his speaking. “You are a good man, Ven’Dar, and Avonar will need your talent when her host ventures forth. But you serve us ill - to the point of treason - when you nurture the Prince’s madness.”

While I blustered like a fool, thinking that yet another round of argument might make some difference, Men’Thor sighed deeply and laid his arm on Radele’s shoulders. “I must go. My men hold the walls of Avonar tonight. I just thought I should share this news with you myself.”

“Thank you, Father. What do you suggest I do with the Preceptor? He was trying to pry information from the prisoner.”

Men’Thor gazed at me mournfully. “We will never convince Preceptor Ven’Dar of our position. The best we can do is prevent cowards of his ilk from influencing the Prince. Our duty is to keep D’Arnath’s Heir focused on his proper business - the survival of Avonar, of the Vales, of Gondai, of the Bridge - until holy Vasrin sees fit to give us a sovereign worthy of D’Arnath’s throne.”

Radele smiled broadly and embraced Men’Thor. “As you say, Father. The tide is turning.”

Radele stood in the doorway, watching his father descend the stairs. Then he turned back to face me. “My father is a wise man, Preceptor. Shall I demonstrate how we shall keep our mad Prince focused on his duty?” He was smiling.

Tired, distracted, envisioning our enemies tearing at our heart, I didn’t answer him. And so I failed to note the movement of his hand…

I was changed. Like a storm cloud suddenly bereft of rain and wind or a forest instantly deprived of trees, my life no longer had a purpose, and thus no meaning to be expressed in words. A hand took my arm and propelled me toward the doorway. My feet moved as they were directed.

“I’ll have to put you with the stable boy, Preceptor. I don’t like keeping the two of you together, but someone will need to feed and clean you. I’ll have to dismiss your servants. We can’t have them snooping about. And when the Prince interrogates the boy, I’ll just make sure he has no memory of his cellmate.”

The hand led me down two nights of stairs and through the cellar, unbolted a door, and shoved me into the dark. I tumbled onto a dirt floor as the door closed behind me. Even as I grasped to hold them close, my thoughts detached themselves from the world of order and logic and drifted away.

“Who’s there?” came a drowsy voice from the darkness. “I know someone’s there. May as well answer me… ”

So tired. I curled up on the cool dirt and weariness closed my eyes.